Part 1

Poe Cottage, Friday morning, Sept 9th, 2016

There are few sounds in the world as unwelcome and annoying as that of an alarm clock going off in the morning. However, this morning, I was actually thankful for the interruption of my less than restful sleep.

I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, and tried to shake the cobwebs from my thoughts. I couldn’t remember my dreams, nor could I escape the feeling that they’d been bad. Of course, that was no surprise since almost all of my dreams seemed to be bad anymore. Ever since… I winced as an image flashed through my memories, one with the bodies of my entire family spread out on the floor in front of me. And as much as I wished otherwise, that hadn’t just been a nightmare.

“Ugh,” I muttered with a deep grimace. “Stupid dreams…”

“Oh God, is it morning already?” my roommate grumbled as she sat up in bed. After a few seconds and a loud yawn, she looked at me. “Bad dreams?”

My roommate was Morgana, a beautiful but odd looking girl with mostly golden eyes, red hair and small horns, which made her look like some kind of devil girl. Of course, I wasn’t one to judge since I certainly didn’t look normal either. After all, my skin and hair were pure white…like freshly fallen snow. The truth was, I stuck out even more than she did.

I responded with a sigh, thinking of some of the odd noises and moans she sometimes made in the middle of the night. I could sympathize though, because both of us had more than enough reasons for bad dreams.

It was strange having a roommate, and not just because I’d never had one before. It was strange to be sharing a room with a hot looking girl, not to mention, one who could burst into flame at a moment’s notice. But again, it wasn’t like I could judge. Morgana probably thought it was weird sharing a room with me too.

After a minute of sitting on the edge of my bed, I finally got up and began to stretch. Neither Morgana or I said anything to each other as we staggered around, getting our things ready to start the day. It seemed that neither of us were morning people. I grabbed my white bathrobe, slippers, and shower caddy, then hurried down the hall to take my shower before the line got too big.

As soon as I stepped into the girl’s showers, I was greeted with, “Morning, Bianca.”

“Morning,” I responded to the blue skinned Laura, who was one of my new friends.

At the moment, Laura was completely naked, having just gotten out of the shower and being in the middle of drying herself off. She was doing so in front of several other girls, without any apparent shame or embarrassment. If anything, she might even have been showing off a bit. For a brief moment, I actually resented her for being so comfortable and happy in her own skin.

It had only been a month and a half since my grandmother had died and I’d unexpectedly inherited her power…and the form that came with it. In that time, I’d learned how to act feminine, how to put on a mask and play the part of a proper young lady. However, what I hadn’t learned, was how to feel comfortable with my new body…how to feel…normal. Sometimes, I doubted if I ever would.

As soon as the next shower stall opened up, I took my turn, trying my best to ignore the fact that I was in the girls shower room…and was surrounded by naked girls. Before my change, that had been something of a fantasy, though the reality was a bit less titillating. It was hard to get excited about girls who were shaving their legs, spraying deodorant under their arms, or who were checking for pimples. So far, I hadn’t seen a single naked towel fight, but I was holding out hope. After all, school had only just started.

Once I finished showering, I stepped out of the stall, fully aware of the fact that the girls…other girls could see me. I was extremely self-conscious about this fact, especially since I knew some of them would be checking me out, though I tried my best not to show it. I was getting good at putting on a mask and at least pretending that I didn’t care what other people thought.

“Hey, where did you get those tattoos?” Bailey blurted out, making me even more embarrassed.

My skin and hair were pure white, though I had a number of tattoos scattered about my body. More accurately, I had fifteen runes on my body, each one looking like some kind of shiny watermark on my skin, but instead of being tattoos, these were magical marks…each one representing a part of the magic that I was bound with. Some of the runes represented the specific spells that had been cast on the first White Lady, while others represented the spells that tied those ones to each other…and to me.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Bailey, though I kept my voice calm and steady as I answered, “The same place I got my skin color and figure…”

Though I was embarrassed to have anyone know about the fact that I used to be a boy, nearly everyone in Poe already knew that. There was a certain comfort and relief in being able to be honest, at least about that. There were definite limits as to just how honest I could be. They might know that I used to be a boy, but there were a lot of other things that they didn’t know, and which I could never let them find out.

“Well, they certainly look…unique,” Chessa commented appreciatively.

I smiled faintly at that, though it was a little forced. “They are rather unique,” I admitted.

With that, I mentally reached out to the five elemental spells that were a permanent part of my power, or at least, to one of them. Suddenly, all of the runes on my skin began to glow blue, as did my eyes. And at that moment, I could feel a cool tingling in my right palm, which told me that a sixteenth rune had just appeared there, one that only appeared when I activated my elemental powers. Without even having to look, I knew that the glowing blue rune was the one for ‘water’.

At that moment, I could suddenly feel all of the water near me. With only a little concentration, I was able to pull all the water out of my hair and off my skin, then I turned around and gestured towards the shower stall that I’d just left. All the water went splashing into the stall where it could go down the drain, while I was now completely dry. Normally, I reserved my elemental powers for when I really needed them, but long hair was really annoying when wet, not to mention an enormous pain to dry.

“Very nice trick,” Bailey said, looking amused. “Do you think you could dry me off too?”

“Sure,” I responded, feeling a little more confident now that I was showing off some of my power. I reached out to Bailey and pulled the water from her hair and skin the same way I had my own.

“Now me,” Chessa exclaimed excitedly.

I nodded and dried Chessa off the same way, but just as I was pulling it towards the shower, my elemental power abruptly cut out and the water all dropped to the floor in a splash. Chessa let out a squeal of surprise, then glared at me while Bailey laughed.

“Sorry,” I said with a wince. “My power ran out…”

“How long does it take you to recharge?” Bailey asked me curiously.

“An hour or two,” I admitted with a shrug.

I didn’t really like other people knowing so much about my powers, and I usually tried keeping my weaknesses quiet, but I’d gotten a bit carried away, much to my embarrassment. Still, most of the girls present seemed impressed, or at least, jealous that I could dry my hair so quickly and easily. After this, I quickly finished up my business and hurry back to my room.

When I got back to my room, I found it empty, which wasn’t a surprise. Morgana had probably been in the middle of taking her own shower at the same time I’d been showing off. But that meant, for the moment at least, I had the room to myself. I was happy about that since I could get dressed without having to feel self-conscious from having my roommate there.

Classes had yet to start, which meant that I could get away without having to wear a school uniform yet. However, I still chose to wear a nice pair of slacks and a long sleeved blouse that covered my arms, as had become my habit. Just because all the girls in the showers knew about my tattoos, that didn’t meant everyone in the school needed to. Once I was dressed, the only tattoo that wasn’t covered, was the one on the back of my right hand.

I had just finishing getting dressed and was beginning to brush my hair when Morgana returned to the room, her wet hair and bathroom caddy confirming my guess about where she’d been. As she began to get her own clothes out, she gave me a curious look and grinned.

“I heard you did a little demonstration in the showers,” she told me with a chuckle.

“A small one,” I admitted with a blush, which probably never reached my cheeks. My unusual skin coloring tended to hide things like that.

“I thought about using my power to dry my hair,” Morgana told me with a wry smile, “but I didn’t want to set off the fire system…”

I smiled faintly at that and told her, “Probably a good idea.”

While I continued to brush my hair, something which I alternately found annoying or relaxing, I slowly looked around the room. I’d already drawn a couple of protection runes in chalk, right on the wall beside the window and door, but I could definitely do more. I had some runes that would help protect against scrying and spying, and I definitely needed to add more of those. I frowned thoughtfully as I began to mentally list the extra protections that I’d need to put in place to make the place more secure.

“What in the world are you doing?” Morgana asked.

“What?” I asked, a little startled from the distraction.

“You were staring at the wall,” Morgana pointed out, giving me a look as if wondering whether or not I was crazy.

I gave her a wry smile before explaining, “I was just thinking about some protection spells I could put in here…”

“Go on,” Morgana encouraged me to explain.

“Well,” I mused with a grin, “I know one rune that can make things fireproof…and put out fires as soon as they start.”

Morgana looked a little self-conscious before admitting, “That might be useful…”

“And I know another one for soundproofing,” I joked. “Just what I need for your snoring…”

“I do not snore,” Morgana protested with a glare.

I didn’t bother to argue with her since she knew the truth, even if she didn’t admit it aloud. And with that, I looked around the room, considering the feasibility of my soundproofing spells.

I could draw some runes on the wall and door, which would keep us from hearing any noise from the hallway or neighbors, but that might also make it difficult to tell if someone was knocking on our door. I could also put some runes around the room so that I didn’t have to hear Morgana’s snoring or odd noises in the middle of the night, but that could make it difficult to have a conversation.

“Maybe if I put a single rune between our beds,” I mused aloud, “and charged it before bed, just long enough to last most of the night…”

“So,” Morgana asked. “What do you have scheduled for today?”

“Power testing,” I answered grimly, though I was definitely not happy about it.

“Ouch,” she responded with a visible wince, reminding me that she’d gone through that very same thing yesterday. She’d complained about it, in horrific detail, last night at dinner. “Sorry to hear it.”

“I don’t see the point,” I grumbled. “I already went through power testing back in Chicago…”

However, what I didn’t tell Morgana was that Marcus and Tessa had gone through a lot of trouble and expense to make sure that certain things were kept off my official record. The last thing I wanted was for one of my enemies to look at my MID and see how to beat me. Unfortunately, I doubted that the Whateley testers would care about my personal security that way.

“This is just going to be a waste of time,” I continued grumbling, silently adding that it would also be a waste of all the money that we’d already spent keeping the official results trimmed down to the bare basics.

“Just wait until they do the regeneration tests,” Morgana teased me. “They’ll cut off the tip of your finger and see if it regrows…”

I just gave her a flat look and wryly pointed out, “Then it’s a good thing that I already know I can regenerate…”

Morgana gave me an odd look, as if trying to decide whether or not I was teasing her back. However, she seemed to realize that I was actually worried, though I doubted that she had any idea as to why I was really worried about my testing.

"Hey, don't worry,” she tried to reassure me, “It's not as bad as all that. More embarrassing than anything. And it is necessary." She stopped talking for a moment as she put on a t-shirt. "At least you can control your powers, so you probably won't ruin more of their kit."

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Power Testing Lab, Friday afternoon, Sept 9th, 2016

I was tired, hungry, and more than a little irritable from having wasted most of my day on power testing. It would have been one thing if I’d really needed it, but I hadn’t. I’d already been through the testing in Chicago.

Of course, I had to reluctantly admit, that the testers here at Whateley were a lot more knowledgeable than the ones at the MCO testing office, and their tests were also more thorough. In fact, they were thorough enough to even catch my limited elemental abilities, and the one that let me read nearly any language.

What really concerned me, was that they knew I was not hosting a true spirit, like what other avatars had, but an artificially created one. And to make it even worse, they’d been excited about my family legacy, which they called an ‘anomalous spiritual being’ and a few other things I couldn’t remember. I had a bad feeling that this interest in my spirit meant that there would be even more testing in my future.

“But not for now,” I reminded myself, letting out a sigh of relief.

In spite of the fact that I wanted to run away from the testing facilities, I remembered my lessons in decorum and presenting the proper image. So instead of running, I neatened my clothes a little, then calmly walked away, trying to act as though I was confident and in control. I was getting pretty good at wearing that mask.

Now that I was done with testing, at least for today, I wanted to go get something to eat. Unfortunately, it was still a little too early for dinner, and even more importantly, I had another appointment that I had to get to shortly. I was supposed to meet up with my faculty advisor so I could get my class schedule.

With a sigh of annoyance, I started walking to Schuster Hall. It would have been easy to let my mind wander, because I certainly had more than enough things to think about. However, I couldn’t afford to do that, or at least, I couldn’t afford to get so distracted that I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings. Even as I thought about the testing that I’d just gone through, and the appointment that I was heading towards, I carefully watched my surroundings. As I’d learned the hard way, you never knew when someone might attack without warning.

There were a lot of students wandering around, many taking advantage of the fact that the real classes had yet to start. A lot of those kids looked perfectly normal, yet others were unbelievably attractive or disturbingly odd. A couple students gave me odd or curious looks, but no one stared too obviously, nor did anyone approach me…much to my relief. I saw one guy, who looked like some kind of anthropomorphic warthog, and realizing that compared to someone like him, I was barely worth noticing.

I felt a certainly degree of comfort and familiarity at being able to just disappear into the crowd like this, something that I hadn’t really been able to do since I manifested. In Chicago, I was the White Lady, which meant that I was the center of attention...for good or ill. As the figurehead for the Family, it seemed that everyone wanted to manipulate, protect, or kill me. And then, in New York, I’d been a freak to be stared at. But here…at Whateley…I blended in. Here, I wasn’t the White Lady…I was just Bianca…just one student among many.

Even as my eyes continued to sweep my surroundings in search of any threats, my thoughts drifted back to a time when I’d always been invisible and ignored...even by my own family. I thought of Mom and my sister Paige, then suddenly winced as I remembered their last moments and pictured their dead eyes staring at me.

I grimaced and let out a gasp, then closed my eyes for a few seconds, regardless of how dangerous it was to lower my guard like that. It was like my memories had touched on exposed nerves, giving me a sharp emotional pain. I quickly forced my thoughts in a new direction, a much less painful one, though tears had already started to form in my eyes. I quickly wiped them away, hoping that no one had seen.

When I arrived at Schuster Hall, I went to the room that was listed on my appointment sheet. The door was wide open, but I paused at the entrance to knock anyway, and called out, “Hello. I’m here for my appointment…”

A moment later, a woman’s voice called out, “Welcome. Enter freely and of your own will.” As a fan of the classics, I immediately recognized the line from Dracula. That didn’t do anything good for my nerves.

I was nervous as I stepped through the door, though I thought I did a good job of not showing it. I quickly looked over the small office, which had several paintings on the walls, though my eyes stopped on the woman behind the desk. She had dark hair, a pair of small black horns sticking out from her forehead, and tiny black scales that covered the top part of her face and almost made it look as though she was wearing a mask. She stared at me with a pair of slitted yellow eyes, which were just a little scary.

“Um…hi,” I said awkwardly, losing my cool façade.

I looked away from the strange looking woman so that she didn’t think I was staring at her. Instead, my eyes settled on the name plaque that sat on the front of her desk. It said ‘THE Imp’, with the ‘THE’ part of it actually being entirely capitalized.

“I’m Bianca St. Claire,” I continued. “I have an appointment…”

“Close the door and have a seat…” The strange woman said as she gestured to the chair across the desk from her.

“What do I call you?” I asked nervously, glancing to her name plaque, which was obviously some kind of joke.

“I am THE Imp,” she answered with a grin as she stood up and posed in a dramatic fashion. A moment later, she continued in a sort of sing-song voice, “I am the one and only, genuine, original, fabulous Imp…” Then, she gave a sweeping bow and smirked before taking her seat again. “But I’m not that particular about titles, so you can just call me Imp or Ms. Imp. I’m not picky.”

“Okay,” I responded a little awkwardly, a little confused about my faculty advisor’s behavior. “Ms. Imp…”

“Let’s see,” Imp mused, becoming more serious as she turned her attention to her computer monitor. “Bianca. St. Claire. Codenamed Glyph. Wiz, avatar and regen…a very useful ability to have. And it says that you’re from Chicago…”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed.

Imp stared at me for several long seconds before commenting, “You know…you have an uncanny resemblance to an old business associate of mine from Chicago.”

I suddenly froze, seeing the knowing look in her eyes. She knew who I was. I thought that when I came to Whateley, that no one would know I was the new White Lady…that I could escape some of the pressures that came with that title. However, my new faculty advisor had recognized me almost immediately, which made me worried that I wasn’t going to be nearly as anonymous as I’d hoped.

I straightened up in my seat and carefully pulled on the calm and confident mask of the White Lady. “You knew my grandmother.”

“The White Lady was a class act,” Imp said with a frown and a faint shake of her head. “I heard that she’d been killed…and that her replacement was both a teenage girl and a mutant. I can’t say that I expected to see you here at Whateley…”

“It…seemed like a good place to continue my education,” I said carefully. “How did you know my grandmother?”

“Before I began my career in education,” Imp answered with an amused look, “I used to be a specialist in...acquisitions. She was one of my clients.”

I blinked at that, suddenly having a lot more questions. “I see,” I started.

Before I could ask my next question, Imp cut me off by announcing, “But we aren’t here to talk about your grandma, or about me. We are here, Bianca, to set up your class schedule…”

I found myself nodding in agreement, as well as relief at the change of subject. “Okay…”

“Let’s see,” Imp mused. “I’m sure that you’re eager to pad your schedule with all sorts of fun electives, like sculpting, drawing or painting, but unfortunately, it isn’t going to be that simple…”

“It never is,” I responded wryly.

“As unusual and impressive as Whateley is,” Imp told me with a shrug, “it is still a high school. That means, there are certain requirements, and as you are a mutant, some of those requirements will be a bit more exotic than at other previous schools.”

“What kind of requirements?” I asked suspiciously.

“Along with the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic,” Imp explained, “there are certain power related classes that you’ll need to take, along with a few things that will help with your general survival. Trust me, when the dookie hits the fan, you’ll be happy you took those.” She gave me an apologetic look and added, “Most freshmen, especially ones in the magic or tech tracks, are so busy with their core classes that they don’t have a lot of time in their schedule for extra electives in the first year or two…though we’ll try to see what we can do.”

“As a magic user,” Imp said, looking at her computer monitor, “you’re going to need Magic 101, both theory and lab. That’s two class periods…”

“Two?” I blurted out in surprise.

Imp just shrugged. “I’m not a finger wiggler, but I can tell you that magic is complicated to learn. In addition, you’ll need Power Theory, which is pretty much mandatory for all students, but it will fill your science requirement.”

I stared at my faculty advisor as I protested, “That’s half my classes…”

Imp nodded at that. “The downside of having powers is that you need to learn how to use them. And that reminds me, there is one more mandatory class…” She looked at the monitor and added, “We STRONGLY recommend that all students take either martial arts or Survival, but there’s a note in your file that you’re to take BMA instead of Survival.”

I groaned as I remembered New York, and specifically, Mrs. Dennon. While chewing me out for my part in fighting with that supervillain, she’d told me that I was going to be taking a martial arts class. It seemed that she hadn’t just forgotten about it.

“I’ll tell you what,” Imp said, giving me a grin. “If you’d rather take Survival, I’ll sign you up for that class. Never underestimate the value of escape and avoidance when it comes to trouble.”

“Survival sounds interesting,” I admitted, having read the description of the class in one of the pamphlets that I’d been provided.

According to the pamphlet, Survival class was all about how to deal with dangerous situations, with as little direct confrontation as possible. Seeing signs of danger, running away, and how to escape when caught, were some of the things that had been listed. And though those would all be useful for me, I knew that I couldn’t earn the respect of the Family by running away…nor would I have been able to stop the Messenger.

I looked directly into Imp’s yellow eyes and stated, “I want to take martial arts. I want to learn how to fight.”

Imp didn’t question my decision. She just nodded and said, “Okay. This leaves us only two class periods for the normal school requirements…things like Math, History, and English…” She made an exaggerated roll of her eyes and added, “For some reason, the state insists that we teach boring things like that to balance out all the cool stuff.”

Imp showed me a list of the various ‘normal’ classes, and I let out a disappointed sigh. “There isn’t a lot to choose from…”

Of course, there were actually a lot of classes available, but as Imp had pointed out previously, I didn’t have room in my schedule for a lot of electives. Instead, I was stuck having to pick from a much shorter list of classes that I needed for my basic credit requirements.

“Once you get some of these power classes and prerequisites out of the way,” Imp told me with a sympathetic look, “you’ll have more room for other things, like art.”

“I was kind of hoping I could take this Costuming class,” I admitted.

Ever since Laura had shown me how to use makeup to hide my skin coloring, I’d been thinking about disguises and how I might be able to go out in public without drawing attention. From what I’d read in the pamphlet, Costuming class sounded like it would be useful for that, among other things. After all, one of the things the pamphlet noted, was that the class would teach how to control the kind of image you present, which was something Tessa was always talking about.

Imp gave me a knowing look and nodded her head. “Costuming would probably be quite useful for someone in your position…” She gave me a thoughtful look. “A lot of students who plan on going into the business…on either side…like the class, because they can design their own uniforms and learn how to make them practical as well as stylish…”

I didn’t bother to point out that I had no plans to go into ‘the business’, because I’d learned the hard way that the world had absolutely no concern for my plans. And unfortunately, as the White Lady, I was probably going to have to deal with both heroes and villains, in one fashion or another.

“There is a Costuming class scheduled for Saturday mornings,” Imp abruptly said, giving me a questioning look. “If you’re interested, I can sign you up for that one…”

For a moment, I just sat there, considering whether I really wanted that class. After all, that class would probably be useful, but it would be on Saturday, when I’d be much happier either sleeping in or doing something else. However, after reminding myself of why I’d come to Whateley in the first place, I made up my mind.

“I’ll take that one,” I said.

“There are other classes available after hours and on weekends,” Imp commented, “but you don’t want to overload your schedule. Trust me, you’ll have more than enough to do already…”

“Actually,” I pointed out awkwardly, “there is one other class I need to take…” At Imp’s curious look, I explained, “I brought a firearm that security is holding onto, and they said that I can’t use it until I take Firearm Safety…”

Imp nodded her understanding and looked at her computer again. “Let’s see,” she mused. “The afternoon class is already filled up. There is a Saturday class…but it looks like it overlaps Costuming…” After a few more seconds, she looked at me and said, “If you want Firearm Safety, your only options are to take it on Saturday instead of Costuming…or take the evening class.”

“I’ll take the evening class,” I said with a sigh.

A minute later, Imp finished signing me up for my classes, then printed out my schedule. I carefully looked it over, then nodded my acceptance. It wasn’t my ideal class schedule, but it wasn’t really bad either. After all, I had classes to learn magic, and that was a whole lot more interesting than some of the subjects I didn’t have room for.

“Once you are able to fit in some more electives,” Imp told me with a look of amusement, “you should consider taking some art classes. I have it on good authority that this school has the best art teacher anywhere…”

“Um…thank you,” I said, having noticed that she’d mentioned art classes several times. I glanced to the paintings on the wall and then my faculty advisor, suddenly having a pretty good idea of who the art teacher was. “Is there anything else?”

“I don’t have anything else for you,” Imp told me cheerfully. “So, unless you have any questions or something else you want to talk about, you’re free to go…”

“Thank you, Ms. Imp,” I told her again as I got up to leave.

As soon as I stepped out the door, I let out a sigh of relief, thankful to finally have my schedule in hand. I was also glad to get away from my faculty advisor. Imp wasn’t nearly as intimidating as she looked, though she still made me uncomfortable, for the simple fact that she’d immediately recognized who I was. Still, she hadn’t made a big deal out of it, so that was a good thing.

Just then, my stomach grumbled, reminding me of something that I’d been trying to ignore…the fact that I was hungry. After everything they’d put me through in power testing, I was hungry enough that I might even be able to match Morgana for how much I could eat, or at least, that was how I felt at the moment. I was pretty sure that when put to the test, I wouldn’t be able to actually keep up, no matter how hungry I felt. However, since it was finally time for dinner, I started towards Crystal Hall, determined to find out once and for all, which was larger…my eyes or my stomach.

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Bad Seeds Clubhouse, Friday morning, Sept 9th, 2016

Gideon Crawford, more commonly known within the walls of Whateley Academy by his codename of Esquire, had arrived late for the scheduled meeting. Of course, his late arrival was intentional, all part of his plan for a dramatic entrance.

Esquire was a slender young man with angular features and piercing dark gray eyes. His dark brown hair was neatly combed back, and he wore a well-tailored suit, which was his preferred fashion. As he walked into the clubhouse, the sound of his metal cane tapping against the floor, echoed ahead of him and announced his arrival.

The young mutant did not require the cane to help him walk, but in spite of what others assumed, the cane was less a matter of affectation and more an excuse to carry a weapon in plain sight. For a ferrokinetic like himself, the hollow metal cane and all of the ball bearings hidden within, were a virtual arsenal.

As Esquire expected, most of the other Bad Seeds were already present and sitting around the meeting table. He noted that several of the senior members were missing, probably because they were too busy to concern themselves with the current topic of interest.

“I have arrived,” Esquire announced in a tone that matched his arrogant expression.

“About damn time,” Hammer grumbled.

At the same time, Racoon commented, “Too bad. For a minute there, I thought we’d get something productive done.”

Esquire glared at his fellow Bad Seeds, though neither of them seemed intimidated. So with a dignified scowl, he held out his cane, which floated across the room and settled into the corner. Then, he carefully took his seat and looked around the table.

Racoon, whose real name was Tyler Voight, was leaning back in his chair and had the usual easygoing grin plastered on his face. His shaggy brown hair looked like it was in bad need of a cut, as usual, much to Esquire’s annoyance. He preferred things to be neat and tidy, while Racoon was anything but.

Unlike Racoon, Hammer had a deep scowl on his face and was giving Esquire a look of impatient annoyance. Of course, that was no surprise since this was the same expression that Hammer normally wore around him. Hammer had never given Esquire the respect that he knew he deserved, and reacted to his clever plans with contempt.

Hammer was a large boy, not so much in height, but in musculature. He radiated a certain sense of physical power, along with a willingness to use it. However, when Esquire looked at Hammer, there was one word that immediately came to mind. Thug. Hammer was a thug, who solved all of his problems with his fists, and was about as subtle as his name suggested.

Snake-eyes was leaning back in his chair, watching Esquire with a pair of pure black eyes and looking somewhat bored. Esquire took note of that since it wouldn’t be good to let him get too bored.

Sitting beside Snake-eyes was his partner, Revel. Regan Rouvier was quite attractive, which was to be expected from a high level exemplar. She had striking grey eyes and brown hair that was cut to her jawline, and of course, she wore her accustomed smirk.

Sister Secret, like Revel, was a Junior, and was tied for being the most senior Seed currently present. She had long black hair that was pulled back into a high ponytail, an olive complexion, and a pretty face that was adorned with a pair of round ‘John Lennon’ vanity glasses.

And then there was Dragonblade, AJ Blackstone, the son of the infamous Witch Queen and one of the two newest members of their club. AJ had only joined the Bad Seeds a couple days earlier, so he had yet to prove himself. They were still trying to get a feel for how he’d fit in.

Finally, Esquire turned his attention to the last person sitting at the table, who also happened to be the youngest of the Bad Seeds. Michelle Jarrowitz was twelve-years-old, and was the only junior high student among the Seeds, which meant that the others were quite protective of her. And though her codename was Tek Witch, nearly everyone called her by the shortened version, Twitch.

“Twitch,” Esquire greeted the girl, softening his voice a little.

The girl was currently focused on her violet witch hat, which was sitting on the table in front of her. She looked up and her blonde pigtails bounced from the sudden movement.

“Huh?” Twitch asked, giving him a blank look.

“This probably won’t be of much interest to you,” Esquire told the girl.

“You’ll probably have more fun hanging with one of your new friends,” Racoon added.

“Nah, I’m good,” Twitch responded, holding up the small circuit board that she’d been fiddling with and sticking it inside her hat, where she plugged it in. Once she was satisfied, she put her witch hat back on and grinned proudly. “I’m a Seed too, you know.”

“Let’s get on with this,” Hammer said impatiently.

“Now, for the reason why we are here,” Sister Secret began.

“We all know why we’re here,” Racoon commended with a roll of his eyes. “We’re here to talk about the incoming freshmen, or at least, the interesting ones…”

“Interesting ones?” Twitch asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Racoon answered with a broad grin. “You know, kids who might be problems for us…or allies…or maybe just possible marks.”

Esquire gave Racoon a look of annoyance, though he nodded agreement. Racoon was correct in that they’d scheduled this meeting to discuss some of the incoming freshmen.

“Then we should begin,” Esquire said, trying to establish his place in the meeting.

“About damn time,” Hammer said.

“We could have started sooner,” Snake-eyes pointed out wryly, if someone hadn’t been late.

“We have the usual mix,” Revel said, looking almost bored. “There are a couple kids who look to be interested in joining the Cape Squad or Secret Squirrels, so we’ll have to keep an eye on them. And my sources tell me that the Masterminds have their eyes on someone too…”

“I think we should begin with the students involved in the New York incident,” Esquire said.

“Which one?” Racoon asked wryly. “I mean, there were two different incidents…” He gave a knowing look at AJ, who’d been involved in one of the incidents.

“If you’re asking about Nick, ”AJ responded, though Esquire couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or amused. “He’s cool.”

“Is he that horsey guy you’re friends with?” Twitch asked with an excited grin. “Like, from that TV show…?”

“Yeah,” AJ answered with a grin of his own. “He’s an Animan, and his dad is head of Paradise Island Defense Force. But like I said, Nick is a friend, and I don’t want anyone messing with him.”

Esquire frowned slightly as he held out a folder and opened it, revealing some pictures that he’d had an acquaintance take. “I was speaking of the other group.”

“Well, go ahead then,” Revel said with a smirk, clearly suggesting that the older Seeds had given him plenty of rope, and now she wanted to see if he’d hang himself with it. “I assume you checked these kids out.”

“Of course,” Esquire answered stiffly. “Upon arrival at Whateley, they immediately registered as a training team…”

“But, they’re freshies,” Snake-eyes protested, looking a little more interested than he had earlier.

Esquire nodded, not needing to point out how unusual it was for freshmen, who’d only just arrived on campus, to form a training team. Even if they hadn’t been involved in fighting a supervillain in New York, this unusual behavior would have been enough to make them targets of interest.

“I haven’t been able to learn much about them YET,” Esquire continued, pointing to one picture, of a girl with rabbit ears. “With some exceptions. This one is actually somewhat famous…”

“She has BUNNY EARS,” Twitch exclaimed, her eyes going wide in delight. “That is so CUTE!”

“I know her,” Racoon said in surprise. “She was in the news… If I remember right, she used to be a guy until he cheated on his girlfriend. Too bad for him, she was a devisor and turned him into some kind of bunny girl.”

“Lucretia Del Bosque,” Esquire said, nodding in agreement. “Formerly Lucas Del Bosque. From what my sources indicate…”

“You mean the news,” Racoon pointed out.

Esquire continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “She’s merely an exemplar one, with GSD and no additional abilities…”

Hammer snorted at that. “So, he gets turned into some kind of rabbit chick and doesn’t even get any real powers. Sucks to be her…”

Twitch protested, “Well, I think she’s cute…”

Hammer pulled a picture out of the pile and held it up, showing an attractive girl blue skin. “Who’s the smurf?”

“My sources say that her name is Laura,” Esquire answered, “and that she might be using the codename Cerulea. They also say that she is a devisor, and is assigned to Poe.”

“A head case then,” Racoon said with a look of amusement.

“So far,” Revel said, giving Esquire a flat look. “It looks like you’ve gathered some rumors and hearsay, without much serious intel.”

“I’m afraid that the intelligence gathering is still in progress,” Esquire admitted before continuing.

Unfortunately, he had to admit that Revel was correct, and that most of what he’d learned so far had been from rumors around campus. However, if they determined that these freshmen were worth the effort, he could have his people dig a little deeper. Of course, if they were worth the effort, the other Bad Seeds would direct their efforts to learning more about them as well.

After a few minutes, Esquire held up a photo of a girl with white skin and hair. “This is Bianca St. Claire,” he told the others. “Also known as Glyph. I don’t know much about her as of yet, other than that she is apparently a magic user, and one of my contacts overheard her saying that she’s from Chicago.”

“Hey, Hammer,” Racoon announced, grinning to the other boy. “That’s your neighborhood…”

“Yeah,” Hammer responded, taking the photo with a faint sneer so he could take a closer look at it. “So what…?” Then he paused, his eyes widening and the sneer being replaced with a look of surprise. “No way… That can’t be her…”

“Do you know her?” AJ asked curiously.

“No,” Hammer started, only to scowl. “Maybe…”

“Okay, tough guy,” Racoon urged him. “What’s up?”

Hammer was silent for several long seconds as he merely scowled at the picture. Finally, he said, “You know who my old man is…”

“Your father is Anvil, Esquire said, raising an eyebrow and giving Hammer a curious look. “An enforcer for the Outfit in Chicago…”

“Yeah,” Hammer agreed, still looking just a little startled, though he quickly covered it up and scowled. “My old man told me about someone, and I think this girl might be her…” He paused for a moment before asking, “You guys ever hear of the White Lady?”

“The name sounds familiar,” Racoon admitted.

“The White Lady runs the Family,” AJ supplied. “They’re based out of Chicago and control most of the magic smuggling and protection rackets in the Midwest.” He shrugged at that. “My mom does some business with her occasionally, and took me along once when I was a kid.”

“A tough broad,” Hammer grudgingly admitted. “Hell, the heroes have been trying to nail her for decades, but they couldn’t lay a finger on her. But a couple months ago, someone put a hit on her. Took out her…and a bunch of her family…” He scowled with a look of strong disapproval.

AJ had a look of surprise. “I hadn’t heard…”

“Anyway,” Hammer continued, “my old man told me that the new White Lady is her granddaughter or something… Apparently, she’s about our age…and also happens to be a mutant.”

“I see,” Esquire mused as he gave the photo a thoughtful look. “I am not a large believer in coincidences…”

“Nor am I,” Sister Secret mused.

Hammer nodded at that. “I’ve seen pictures of the old White Lady…and this girl looks just like her.”

Twitch had been staring into what looked like a small crystal ball, but she looked up and asked, “What does that mean?”

“What it means,” Esquire answered with a hungry smile, “is that Glyph is the granddaughter of a supervillain, has connections to an influential organization, and she belongs with us…”

“In other words,” Racoon announced with a grin, “we may have just found a new Bad Seed.”

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Saturday morning, September 10th, 2016

I was in the cottage dayroom, spread out on a couch, with a good book in my hands. I could have read in my room, which would have been more private, but it wasn’t as cozy and comfortable as Sanctuary had been. Since I couldn’t have Sanctuary, I made due with a comfortable couch instead.

My current book was the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, written in the original Scandinavian. One of the advantages of my power was that I could read in any language, even if I couldn’t write or speak it. That small ability might not seem impressive compared to some of the other things that I could do, but it really opened up my options as far as reading material went.

Just as I was really getting engrossed in the book, a girl asked, “What are you reading?”

I looked up at the girl and saw that she looked about a year or so older than me, and that she had dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She was very pretty, though she wore a pair of thick glasses and was dressed even more conservatively than I was. In fact, this girl almost screamed out ‘librarian’ or something of the type.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoos,” I answered, holding up the book so she could see the cover. Then I gave her a self-conscious smile before saying, “Hi… I’m Bianca…or Glyph.”

“Jessica,” she responded with a shy smile of her own. “But everyone just calls me Façade.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said pleasantly.

Façade gave me a curious look, then adjusted her glasses before asking, “You’re one of the new changelings, aren’t you…?”

I froze for a brief moment at that simple comment, even though I knew it was stupid. After all, I was in Poe, where everyone already knew about my gender change, or at least, where it wasn’t considered any kind of a secret. “Um…yeah,” I admitted awkwardly. “Are you…?”

“No,” Façade said with a bright blush. “I’ve always been a girl…” Then she gave me a faint smile. “I wish I had time to stay and talk to you about that book, but I have to get going…” She adjusted her glasses and said, “I’m supposed to meet someone in the library. Maybe I’ll pick up a copy of that book when I’m there…”

Once Façade left, another girl commented, “I see that Façade is going for the frumpy look today…”

“Huh?” I responded, giving her a curious look.

The girl had long blonde hair and looked vaguely familiar. It took me a moment to remember that I’d been briefly introduced to her the other day, though I couldn’t really remember much about her. What I did remember was that she was a Junior named Decibelle…or Deci for short, and she had some kind of sound based power.

“Façade,” Deci said, nodding in the direction the other girl had gone. “I wonder how long she’ll keep this look…”

I was a little curious about the comment. “Well,” I said awkwardly, “she seems nice…”

“Seems is the right word,” Deci responded with a chuckle. “I guess it depends on her mood…”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“With Façade,” Deci answered with a shrug, “nearly everything about her is only skin deep.” At my blank look, she gave me a wry smile. “You’ll see…”

I nodded at that, though I really didn’t understand at all. Then again, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get caught up in a bunch of cottage gossip. Gossiping about other people was the kind of thing that my mom liked to do…and my sister Paige. Of course, mom would just call it ‘gathering information’ or something else along those lines, but spreading rumors about other people behind their backs never struck me as being very polite.

After a minute, I put my book away and decided to go out for a while. I wasn’t sure what my friends were up to at the moment, and decided that this would be a good time to take a walk and explore the campus on my own. Unlike back in Chicago, I could actually do that kind of thing here without having to worry about bodyguards and security.

I had no specific destination in mind as I began walking around, however, it didn’t take me long before I remembered that there was supposed to be some kind of small lake on campus. With that in mind, I went in search of it and soon found what would more accurately be described as a pond. It wasn’t nearly as nice as where I used to go fishing, though I did wonder if it was stocked, as well as whether fishing was allowed.

“I wonder if there’s a fishing club,” I mused, feeling excited for a moment, until I remembered that I couldn’t go fishing. Or at least, I might be able to go fishing, but I shouldn’t. It didn’t fit with the image I was trying to present.

I let out a deep sigh at that, feeling the weight of everything I’d lost pressing down on me, threatening to crush me. As horrific as the loss of my family was, the loss of my own identity was nearly as bad. I didn’t look like the old me anymore, could no longer use that name, and I couldn’t even do the things that I liked. Or at least, I couldn’t do some of them.

“At least I can still read,” I said, thankful that I could still enjoy one of my passions. In fact, the nature of my powers actually encouraged me to read even more now. “But no one knows who I am,” I whispered to myself. “No one would know if the White Lady did a little fishing…”

However, I silently reminded myself that there was one person on campus who did know I was the White Lady. That was my faculty advisor, the Imp. So far, she hadn’t made a big deal out of it, and I had the feeling that she wouldn’t go telling everyone, but she still knew. I’d still have one person watching me...judging me by what the White Lady was supposed to be.

I stared out at the water for a few more minutes, then with a disappointed sigh, I turned and walked away. I wasn’t sure why I was so disappointed about not being able to go fishing. It wasn’t like I’d ever been an especially passionate fisherman, but it had been something that I’d enjoyed. It had been something that had been my own, and time that I’d been able to spend away from the pressures and stresses of my family.

“I wish they were still here,” I whispered with tears coming to my eyes.

Mom had always been overbearing, and to be honest, she’d been a bit of a bitch. Just like Paige had been a spoiled brat. However, I missed them both, just like I missed Aunt Clarice, my cousin Nicolette, and my grandmother.

“And Bryan,” I quietly added. “I miss him too…”

As I walked away from the pond, I wiped away the tears and did my best to think of other things, to take my mind off these depressing thoughts. I began to mentally go over every rune that I’d already memorized, knowing that I still had a lot more to learn. Fortunately, Whateley seemed to be the place for that. I just hoped that the magic classes were as good as I’d heard.

A short time later, I found myself arriving at the Quad. The Quad was a large open courtyard, which was marked by having large concrete flagstones on ground, along with numerous benches and table. From what I understood, it was a pretty popular place for students to gather and hang-out…as long as you liked sitting out in the open. Since this was New Hampshire, I suspected that in just a month or two, once the weather turned cold and wet, this entire area would be empty.

I slowly looked over the Quad, silently taking in nearly every detail, looking for anything or anyone who might be a threat to me. So far, everything looked good. Then again, security at Whateley was supposed to be really good, and almost nobody knew I was here, which meant that I probably didn’t have to worry about being attacked by another of Scorn’s assassins. Probably.

Once I had looked over the Quad, I turned my attention back to the one thing that caught my attention. A girl. This specific girl didn’t look like anything special. In fact, she was short, maybe 5 foot 1, with a slender build. She was cute but not gorgeous, with brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. However, it wasn’t the girl herself who caught my attention, but what she was doing.

The girl was in the middle of setting up a chain of dominos. A very long and complicated one, with multiple paths that went off in different directions and appeared to have been set up to create spirals and patterns. Some of these paths went up small steps and obstacles that she’d placed, and the whole thing had obviously taken a lot of time and effort to set up. However, the dominos weren’t the only things that she’d set up.

There some kind of frame set up near the beginning of the chain, with all sort of rails, ladders, and other things I couldn’t quite make out. It took me a moment to realize that this was some kind of Rube Goldberg device, which when triggered, appeared to set off a chain reaction, that ended with the first domino being knocked over. From what I could see, it looked like it started with a simple marble.

I quickly realized that I wasn’t the only person who was interested in the girl and this whole thing she’d set up. Two boys approached her, though they seemed much less impressed by her work than I was.

The first boy was short, about 5 foot 2 at most. He was a ginger, with unkempt and messy reddish orange hair, along with a heavy splattering of freckles on his face. If he’d been wearing green, I probably would have said that he looked like a demented leprechaun.

Beside the leprechaun, there was a skinny black kid, who not only wore a pair of thick looking glasses, but he also had a set of goggles on his forehead. He wore some kind of lab coat, but it was open so I could see that he was wearing several harnesses and belts beneath, which looked a bit high tech. Both boys had the kind of look that cried out ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’, but not in the complimentary way.

“What is this?” the leprechaun demanded, kicking some of the dominos and sending them sliding across the concrete.

“Hey,” the girl protested, glaring at the leprechaun. “I was working on that…”

“If you were a real inventor,” the leprechaun responded in an arrogant tone, “you’d be in the labs, making a real invention…like my multi-gun…”

There was a clear note of pride in the leprechaun’s voice as he held up a strange looking weapon, which looked like it might be some kind of energy blaster. I’ve seen energy blasters before, but not one that looked quite like that.

“Elliot,” the boy with the goggles addressed the leprechaun, “you’re starting to get redundant. If you’re not careful, people might start assuming that you’re a dumb jock…”

“I told you to call me the Weaponeer,” the leprechaun…Elliot told goggles with a look of annoyance. “How many times have I told you that, Marty?”

Goggles…Marty gave Elliot a look of disdain. “Well, if you’re going to insist on using codenames, then you know quite well that mine is Photech.”

While the two boys were having their exchange, the girl ran to get the dominos that had been kicked away. However, the movement seemed to draw Elliot’s attention, because he suddenly snapped around and fired his gun…sending a blast of flames into the middle of the domino chain. Then he giggled.

“From your demonstrations so far,” Marty said, “we are not impressed. Your gadgeteering skills are clearly lacking, and I would hate for you to waste our valuable lab resources with these…toys.”

“Leave my stuff alone,” the girl demanded, giving a worried look at her melted dominos and the ruined chain that she’d obviously spent a lot of time working on.

“We don’t need your kind of fake gadget girls in our labs,” Elliot told her. “You understand that Tinker…” He placed a lot of condescension into the word ‘Tinker’. “Everyone will be a lot happier if you drop the lab classes from your schedule…” Then he pointed his weapon at the Rube Goldberg machine.

“NO,” the girl…Tinker exclaimed in horror as she began to sparkle and floated a foot or so into the air.

I was tired of watching those two boys bully Tinker, and the look of anger, fear, and frustration on her face made me want to do something to help. Then, it suddenly dawned on me that I actually could do something to help.

Elliot pulled the trigger on his gun and flames started to come out, though they immediately vanished. He stared at the weapon in surprise, clearly wondering what had just happened.

“I don’t think so,” I announced, coming closer. I knew that with the way my eyes and tattoos were glowing reddish orange, that I had to look pretty intimidating at that moment. “You’re being quite rude, so I think you two need to leave…”

“And who might you be?” Marty asked.

Elliot glared at me, and I saw a flash of fear in his eyes, right before he pointed his weapon at me and fired. This time, instead of making the flames go away, I used my elemental power to pull the flames towards me, and gather them all into a single ball of fire which just hovered there. Elliot’s mouth dropped open.

“I’m called Glyph,” I announced, keeping the full White Lady mask up so that I looked calm and in control. The truth was, I was scared, but I knew better than to let them see that. “You’re just lucky my roommate isn’t here, because she’s even better with fire than I am.”

“Well, how do you like ice?” Elliot demanded, firing his gun again.

This time, instead of flames, some kind of frost blast shot out. The ground in front of me was suddenly coated with ice crystals, and the demented leprechaun was smirking as he raised the gun and brought the ice closer to me, obviously intending to make me back off and run away. However, I flung the ball of flames into the frost blast instead, and suddenly there was an explosion of steam.

While this was happening, Marty jumped back and threw something onto the ground. Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light that blinded me for a moment, and when it cleared, I suddenly found myself facing a giant troll…with green skin. He was HUGE, at least 8 feet tall and bulging with massive muscles. My immediate reaction was to use every last bit of fire magic that I had left, and unleash it into a single burst of flames…which hit the troll but did absolutely nothing.

I gulped, wanting to say something snarky and clever, but nothing came to mind. Actually, what I really wanted to do was turn and run in fear, but I couldn’t do that. I wished that I could have said that it was courage, but the truth was, I was just too stunned by the massive green monster in front of me.

Suddenly, I noticed a couple important details, which I’d been too shocked to consider a moment earlier. For one, Elliot and Marty were both standing there with smirks on their faces. For another, the big green troll was wearing shredded purple pants. I might not be a comic book fan, but even I recognized the Hulk when I saw him…at least after a few seconds. And right in front of me, that was exactly what I saw…the Hulk…as impossible as that was.

“Photech,” I whispered as I remembered Marty’s codename. Now it made sense. This was some kind of illusion.

I clenched my fists, now feeling embarrassed and angry instead of afraid. A moment later, I mentally reached out for my elemental powers, activating the one that was normally the least useful. As soon as I did that, my eyes and tattoos began to glow with a golden light. Without having to look at my palm, I knew that the new rune which had just appeared there, would translate as ‘light’. However, the meaning of this symbol was deeper than just the light that you saw with your eyes. It also meant a spiritual light. The light of truth. The light of revelation. And at the moment, that was exactly what I needed.

I held my hand out and released a radiant light in all directions. Previously, the only other time I’d unleashed this particular element, had been to test it in a dark room. This time, the effects were a little different. Any normal light could chase away the darkness, but elemental light could also chase away any illusions. Almost instantly, the Hulk vanished. Instead, there was a metal cube on the ground, which was obviously the source of that illusion.

“My hologram,” Marty blurted out in surprise.

“Let’s get out of here,” Elliot said, giving me a worried look before he backed away.

“I’m not abandoning my emitter,” Marty protested, before he quickly grabbed the metal cube and hurried after Elliot.

I let out a sigh of relief and released my light power. If Marty had tried to use another illusion…hologram on me, I wouldn’t have fallen for it again. However, if Elliot had used that gun again… I shuddered at the thought, because my fire was all used up, and there wasn’t much I could have done. Somehow, I doubted that he would have given me the time to draw a fire protection spell around me. I was definitely going to have to figure out a better way to handle situations like this, because I couldn’t keep relying on my elemental powers.

“That was amazing,” a voice exclaimed from above me. I looked up and saw Tinker, floating about ten feet above the ground. Then, as I watched, the slowly lowered herself back down, until her feet touched and she stopped sparkling.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Tinker responded, looking at her dominos and wincing. All that work she’d done had been ruined, and a lot of the dominos had been melted by the flames. I could see the hurt and disappointment in her eyes, especially as she was clearly fighting back tears.

“I’m sorry about your stuff,” I told her awkwardly. “It looked like it would have been real cool to see go off…”

“Thanks,” Tinker responded, giving me a self-conscious smile. “But you stopped them from ruining the rest of it, and I really appreciate that… No one has ever saved me before.” She giggled at that. “Now, I feel like I’m some kind of damsel in distress…”

I chuckled at that, feeling a little self-conscious myself since I wasn’t used to playing the role of her. In fact, I still didn’t feel like a hero, not for that. “It was no problem…”

“I’m Janine,” she said with smile. “Janine Belle…but my codename is Tinker.”

“Bianca St. Claire,” I told her. “Glyph.”

“Well, thank you again, Bianca,” Janine said, staring at me for a moment and then quickly looking away and blushing. After a few seconds, she turned her attention to picking up some of the dominos, commenting, “At least they didn’t ruin all of them…thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do anything that a fire extinguisher couldn’t,” I responded awkwardly. I wasn’t really used to people thanking me and showing gratitude. For most of my life. Mom just ordered me to do something, and expected it to be done without hesitation. “So, what was up with those guys anyway?”

“They’re just a couple jerks,” Janine said with a snort.

With a knowing nod of agreement, I wryly replied, “I gathered as much.”

Janine chuckled at that. We shared a faint smile, then I bent down and began helping her pick up her dominos. She had a large box that she carefully put the good ones into. The ones that had been ruined, she set into a pile on the side to throw away.

“A couple days ago, some of us freshmen gadgeteers and devisors got a big tour of the labs. Those two jerks are sophomores, and they were there setting up some of their equipment…” She shook her head and said. “At first, they just sort of badmouthed girl inventors…saying that we didn’t belong in the labs because we’d just distract the REAL inventors…” She rolled her eyes at the word ‘REAL’.

“Yeah,” I commented with a shake of my head. “Definitely jerks.”

Janine nodded as she continued. “Then, Elliot…the one with the red hair…started hitting on me. I mean, one minute he was insulting me, and then the next, he asked me out.” She gave a visible shudder at that and then stuck her tongue out with a look of disgust. “No thanks.”

“Not exactly Don Juan material,” I commented, earning a giggle from Janine. “And let me guess. He took it personal.”

Janine nodded again. “It doesn’t help that I’m such a weak gadgeteer,” she admitted after a few seconds, looking embarrassed as she did so. “I mean, I’m really good at troubleshooting and fixing machines, but not so good at making my own.” She gave me a self-conscious smile as she gestured to the Rube Goldberg machine that was still set up. “I am really good with mechanical sequences though, so this is the kind of thing I usually make… Not real impressive, I know…”

“It’s a lot better than anything I could do,” I assured her. “And the whole domino thing looked pretty cool.” I scowled again, wishing that I could have seen it completed, and going off the way she’d intended it to. “I mean, this whole setup would have been awesome to watch…”

Janine beamed at that, obviously pleased by the compliment. “I used to do this kind of stuff back home in Boise, all the time.” Then she looked a little depressed as she muttered, “I just wish I had room to set this up in my dorm. I mean, those jerks never would have been able to mess with me in Dickenson.”

“You said that you were a gadgeteer,” I commented, handing another stack of dominos to Janine. “So, what was that floating thing you were doing…”

“I’m a PK too,” Janine answered with a grin, though it quickly faded. “But not a real strong one. All I can do is levitate…and fly real slow.”

“Well, flying sounds impressive to me,” I assured her, trying to cheer her up.

Janine grinned at that, then pointed out, “But you did that thing with Elliot’s fire gun…and Marty’s hologram… That was so cool.” She stared at me with a strange look of amazement. “Are you an energizer?”

“Magic user,” I answered, which only made Janine’s eyes go wider.

“I’ve never seen real magic before,” she blurted out excitedly. “What else can you do?”

“Well,” I started with a faint smile as I reached into my pocket for the piece of chalk I always carried with me. “I might be able to show you something else…” But just then, I suddenly noticed three people in Whateley security uniforms walking straight towards us. With a groan, I muttered, “Or maybe not.”

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Sunday Sept 11th, 2016

“Come on,“ Morgana grinned. “Everyone is doing it…”

“Forget it,” Laura responded with an obvious roll of her eyes. “I’m not going to pick a fight with someone, just because you and Tanya got into fights already…”

I looked at my roommate and shook my head. On Thursday, Tanya got into a fight with another girl, and then yesterday, Morgana got into it with Stahlfaust. And unfortunately, that little incident with Elliot and Marty, put me onto the same list.

“Even Bianca got into a fight,” Morgana continued, giving me an even wider grin.

“Leave me out of this,” I said with a sigh.

At the moment, Morgana, Laura, and I had just left Poe Cottage, and the three of us were on our way to Crystal Hall for lunch. Hopefully, we’d be able to meet up with everyone else at our table, but if we didn’t, we could always catch up at dinner. I also hoped that Morgana would be done with this topic by the time we arrived.

“Besides,” I added with as much dignity as I could. “It wasn’t even a real fight…”

Morgana just looked innocent at that, as though I’d offered the perfect opening. “You mean those guys were that easy to beat?” She looked to Laura and added, “Bianca here fought with two guys at once...and the Incredible Hulk.”

I let out an exasperated sigh, wishing that my roommate would let this go. “All I really did was put out a fire and make an illusion vanish. Even security agreed that it wasn’t a real fight…” I was grateful for that, because I got off with just a warning. If I’d actually used my powers against Elliot or Marty directly, then it would have been a different story.

“Well, someone in our group needs to stay out of trouble,” Laura pointed out with a faint smirk.

“Party pooper,” Morgana teased.

We had nearly reached the Crystal Hall when someone called out, “BIANCA! Wait up…”

I looked over and was surprised to see Janine running towards me. However, she wasn’t alone. There was another girl with Janine, though she was walking at a leisurely pace and was quickly being left behind. That girl had short blonde hair, striking blue eyes, and a perky nose that made her look quite cute. She was also watching Janine with a look of amusement.

“Hello,” I greeted Janine, and as she came to a stop, I looked over to Morgana and Laura. “This is Janine…the girl I met yesterday.”

“Um…hi,” Janine said to them, suddenly shrinking down and looking a little self-conscious. She gave Morgana a wary look, probably due to her horns. “I’m Janine…or Tinker.”

“Nice to meet you,” Morgana responded, giving her a curious look. “I’m Morgana.”

“Laura,” Laura said politely.

Janine still looked a bit nervous, but she gave me a smile and gestured to the other girl, who’d finally caught up. “This is my friend Giggles…”

“Giggles?” I asked in surprise.

“Don’t ask,” the blonde girl said with a wry smile. Then she slowly looked me over and her smile broadened. “So, you’re the one who helped Tinker out yesterday. Thanks for looking after her…”

“Hey,” Janine protested, giving Giggles a glare. “It’s not like a need a babysitter or anything…”

I chuckled at that while Giggles just shrugged. Then she looked over at Laura and asked, “You’re a gadget girl too, aren’t you?”

“Gadget girl?” Laura asked, looking a little confused.

“You know,” Giggles responded with a cheerful grin. “Gadgeteer. Devisor. General lab geek or inventor of the female gender.”

“Yeah,” Laura responded before proudly adding, “Gadgeteer AND devisor.”

“Wow,” Janine said, looking impressed.

Giggles just nodded. “Cool. I thought I saw you checking out the labs… It looks like we’ll probably be having some classes together then…” She gestured to Janine, who nodded agreement. “I’m strictly a gadgeteer…well…gadgeteer and energizer.”

With that, Giggles took off her jacket and flipped it inside out, then revealed some wires and high tech components that were hidden in the liner. Laura immediately bent over to examine the components, making little ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ sounds as she did so. I wasn’t sure if she was impressed or not, though it clearly caught her interest.

“I’m working on a built in protection field,” Giggles explained. “So far, it’s a work in progress…”

“I don’t see a power source,” Laura pointed out curiously.

Giggles just grinned. “I’m the power source.” She held up her hand and sparks jumped between her finger and thumb. “Energizer.”

As they continued to discuss Giggles’ jacket, in increasingly technical terms, Morgana smiled at me and asked, “Do you understand what they’re saying? I may be a nerd, but their technobabble left the building a few sentences ago.”

“Not a word,” I replied. “My background is more magical than technical.”

“About that,” Janine said, reminding me that she was there. She’d been so quiet since Giggles began showing off her jacket, that I’d almost forgotten she was there. “What other kinds of magic stuff can you do?”

“I have a few other tricks,” I admitted, though I was reluctant to show off and reveal everything that I could do. However, I quickly realized that there were a few simple runes I could show her, which might satisfy her curiosity without giving away too much. “Maybe I can show you something after lunch…if you show me more of what you can do. I never got to see your contraption go off…”

Janine’s eyes lit at the mention of showing her some of my magic, and even more so when I asked her to show me what she could do. However, she quickly seemed to deflate and was almost apologetic as she said, “My stuff isn’t very impressive.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so instead, I gestured towards Giggles and asked, “So, have those guys from yesterday been bothering her too…?”

If those two geeks liked to harass any girls in the labs, then I was afraid that they might mess with Laura too. If that was the case, then I wanted to give my blue friend a little heads up.

Janine shook her head. “Not really. Her stuff is a bit more impressive than mine, and to be honest, I think they’re afraid she might drick out on them or something…”

“Drick out?” I asked, giving Giggles a wary look.

“Enough with the chit chat,” Morgana exclaimed, perhaps annoyed at being ignored. “I’m hungry, so let’s go…”

Morgana’s call to lunch was enough to make Laura and Giggles break off their technical talk, and the five of us continued into Crystal Hall together. Food at Whateley, was much better than at my old school. Not only was there a much bigger selection, but the food was of a higher quality, and you could even get as much as you wanted. That was absolutely great for people with appetites like my roommate, though I still preferred a more modest approach.

I looked over the selection of pizza that they had set out today, making a silent note that it didn’t look nearly as good as what I could get back home at Mama Carlotti’s. But as Marcus had once told me, ‘Even bad pizza is still pretty damn good,’ so I put two slices onto my plate.

Once we all had food in hand, I started to follow Morgana and Laura to our regular table, while Janine and Giggles began to head in a different direction. But then, Janine hesitantly asked, “Bianca…?” When she had my attention, she nervously continued, “Do you want to eat lunch with us today?” She gave me a hopeful look, which reminded me of ‘puppy dog eyes’.

“Go on,” Morgana told me with a grin. “Eat lunch with your fan club…”

“Funny,” Giggles responded with a wry smile. “I don’t remember joining any fan club…but you’re more than welcome to eat with us anyway…”

Before I could even answer that, Janine had grabbed my arm and said, “This way…”

We found a table pretty quickly, and soon we were in the middle of eating. However, it didn’t take long for Janine to bring up the subject of my magic again. “It was really cool,” she told Giggles. “Bianca took Elliot’s fire blast and threw it right back at him… You should have seen the look on his face…”

“That would have been nice to see,” Giggles agreed with a grin. “I mean, what a sexist and patronizing jerk…”

I nodded at that and then glanced to Janine. A few seconds later, I let out a sigh and reached into my pocket for the piece of chalk. I had promised Janine a demonstration, but I wasn’t about to unleash any of my elements here in the cafeteria, at least not unless I had no choice. After the incident yesterday, I was reminded of how important it was to keep something in reserve, just in case of an emergency. For now, I should be able to get away with something a little less flashy.

As soon as I began to draw a rune on the table, Giggles asked, “What are you doing?”

“I do rune magic,” I explained, giving a self-conscious smile. “Writing.”

And with that, I finished the rune and charged it with essence. Suddenly, it began to glow with the brightness of a small light bulb. It wasn’t a very impressive display of power, but it wouldn’t get me in trouble, and it wouldn’t give away too much about my capabilities.

“Cool,” Janine gasped, staring at the glowing symbol, which slowly began to fade as the essence was used up. She looked impressed at that small display, so I couldn’t resist showing off a little more.

“Here,” I said, quickly drawing another rune on the table. I hadn’t practiced this one quite as much, so I had to go a little slower to make sure I had it right. Once I was sure it was perfect, I charged it with essence. It didn’t look any different, and unless you were sensitive to magic, you never would have known that it was charged and ready to go.

“So,” Giggles asked, giving the rune a skeptical look. “I guess that one was a bust. What was it supposed to do?”

I just smiled at that, then I reached over for the apple on Giggles’ plate, and set it right down in the middle of the rune, which activated the magic. “There.”

“Hey,” Giggles protested.

“Go ahead,” I urged her. “Take it back.”

Giggles gave me a suspicious look, then reached over for the apple. However, it didn’t come up from the table. She had a look of surprise and blurted out, “It’s stuck…” She stood up and tried pick the apple back up, but still couldn’t.

“Think of it as magical glue,” I told her a little smugly. “That apple is going to be stuck there for about a minute…”

“Awesome,” Janine blurted out with a look of awe. However, the look in her eyes quickly turned to a thoughtful one, and she pulled out a notepad and began drawing something. “If I used a fulcrum here, moved by the right amount of force…”

“Janine?” I asked, just a little confused.

Janine paused and blinked. “Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly. “I was thinking about how to move the apple, and I guess I kind of got carried away…”

I looked at her notepad, and after that explanation, I realized that she was drawing plans for some kind of Rube Goldberg machine. It didn’t look like she’d gotten very far into it before I distracted her.

“Well, it shouldn’t be necessary anyways,” I said, picking up the apple and handing it back to Giggles. “My spell doesn’t last very long.” Or at least, that particular version wouldn’t, not with that amount of essence.

“Interesting,” Giggles agreed with a smile. “But I bet I could invent a pair of gloves that could stick to things just as well…” She had a thoughtful and somewhat distant look in her eyes, similar to what Janine had just shown. “In fact, I should be able to make an outfit that lets me climb walls like a spider…”

The rest of lunch was interesting, because Giggles had taken Janine’s notepad and continued making notes about this new invention idea that she had in mind. Janine appeared to have dropped the idea of that Rube Goldberg machine, so the two of us chatted while Giggles made notes, muttered to herself, and absently ate.

As soon as we were all done eating, Giggles excused herself and then rushed off, probably to continue working on her latest project. Janine, however, came along with me, though I wasn’t sure if she intended to follow me back to Poe or what. Before I could bring that up, I suddenly realized that there were three people who were not only walking straight towards me, but that their attention seemed to be fixed on me as well. Well, they could have been interested in Janine, but with my luck, I was betting otherwise.

The first one was a boy, who stood about 5 foot 9. He had messy brown hair, tanned skin, and a slightly large nose, and from his features, I guessed that he was partially Asian. And though he had a look of amusement on his face, there was nothing especially hostile about the way he was looking at me. That might have made me relax my guard a little, if it wasn’t for the boy beside him.

Walking beside the first boy, was one who stood about the same height as the first, maybe an inch taller. He wore an expensive looking suit, had his dark hair that was slicked back, and he carried a polished chrome stick cane. Between the suit, the cane, and the arrogant expression on his face, he reminded me of the Messenger. And whether it was fair or not, I immediately disliked this boy on sight.

I clenched my fists and braced myself for a fight, even preparing to reach for one of my permanent spells. A nice burst of fire might be useful, or a powerful blast of wind to knock them back. However, it was the third person in this group that made me take a deep breath and relax, at least a little.

The girl looked like she was eleven or twelve, and was probably one of the junior high kids. She had dark blonde hair that was pulled back into a pair of pigtails, and she was currently wearing a violet witch hat. But even though she didn’t really look dangerous, I knew that looks could be deceptive, especially when mutants were concerned.

“Glyph,” the boy with the messy hair greeted me with an easygoing smile.

Then, the boy with the cane looked me over and smiled faintly as well, though his was somehow more forced and less friendly. “Or would you prefer White Lady?”

I instantly froze at that, feeling a cold chill of dread spread down my spine, while a surge of panic stabbed me through the heart. How did they know? Did the Imp tell them? Were they here to attack me? I quickly scrambled to put on my mask, to act calm and in control, just so that they didn’t see how I really felt.

“Don’t call her names,” Janine blurted out in my defense, looking defiant for a moment, until the boy with the cane glared at her. Then she stepped back, becoming much more nervous. “You shouldn’t make fun of people’s skin color…”

“Who are you?” I demanded, keeping my voice calm and even. “What do you want?”

“We’re not here to mess with you, if that’s what you’re thinking?” the boy with the messy hair said, holding out his hands to show he was unarmed. “We just wanted to talk. I’m Tyler…but I go by the handle of Racoon.” He gestured to the other two and added. “This is Esquire and Twitch.”

“Hi,” the girl exclaimed with a grin, giving me a brief wave.

“We represent a school club,” the boy with the cane…Esquire announced. “We, and several other members of our club, would like to speak with you…” He glanced over to Janine and added, “In private.”

“We just want to talk,” Tyler quickly assured me. “We might be able to help you.”

I hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between the three of them. If it hadn’t been for the girl…for Twitch, I might have just turned around and walked away. However, she at least, seemed pretty harmless. And then, there was also the fact, that I wanted to know how they knew who I was…and what they intended.

“All right,” I carefully answered. “I’ll talk with you…” Since they knew who I was, and I didn’t want word to spread, I turned to Janine and told her, “I’ll see you later…”

“Okay,” Janine responded a little hesitantly. She gave Esquire and Tyler suspicious looks before grudgingly saying, “I’ll see you later…”

“This way,” Esquire announced, pointing towards the Quad with his cane. “Some of the others are waiting.”

I quickly looked around, both hoping to see some of my friends so that I’d have some backup in case things went bad, and afraid that I would. They knew me as Bianca…not the White Lady, and I wanted to keep it that way. After a few seconds, I followed Tyler, Esquire, and Twitch the short distance to the Quad, and to a table where three other people were already sitting.

One of the people at the table was a girl, who was a couple years older than me, and who I assumed was either a junior or senior. She was attractive, with dark skin, black hair, and what I took to be Hispanic heritage. Since she seemed to be the oldest one there, and radiated a certain confidence, I took her to be the leader of this little group.

The second person at the table was a boy with short hair, who looked pretty muscular, and was watching me with a grim expression that made me nervous. I’d seen that same look from some of the men in the Family, usually on guards and those who were most likely to use physical violence.

And then, there was the last person in the group, a boy about my own age. He had a lean and wiry build, with close cropped hair, and a narrow face. And though his body language and expression were calm and relaxed, his eyes were carefully watching me, as though he was taking in every detail and memorizing it.

“Hello, Glyph,” the girl at the table said, giving me a somewhat friendly smile. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Or would you prefer to be called the White Lady?”

“Who are you?” I demanded, keeping my voice calm and steady. I looked around at all six of these people. “And how do you know who I am?”

“We are called the Bad Seeds,” Esquire answered, looking rather smug. My eyes darted to his cane, and I half expected him to pull a sword blade out of it. “Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”

I nodded carefully at that, feeling like my heart was coming up into my throat. “I’ve heard of you,” I admitted. “Your parents are supervillains…”

“As was your grandmother,” the girl at the table responded with a faint smile of amusement. “And as are you. We wanted to talk to you, because you are in a very similar situation to the rest of us.”

“Our club was formed for mutual protection,” Tyler told me with a shrug. “We all face certain social…issues because of who our parents are, so we look out for each other…watch each other’s backs.”

I looked around the group, suddenly realizing why they wanted to talk to me. “You’re trying to recruit me,” I blurted out in surprise, though I quickly tried to regain control of myself.

“That is our intention,” Esquire agreed.

He looked like he was about to say more, but I held up my hand to silence him. I was shaking at this news, as well as what it meant. They knew who I was. I’d come to Whateley to get away from being the White Lady, and now this whole group somehow knew about me.

Though I was more than a little shaken, I was still clear headed enough to consider what I had to do. I reached into my pocket for the piece of chalk, then began to draw something on the table. It wasn’t a single rune, which is what I normally drew, but several runes that were all tied into each other. This was the most complicated spell that I’d memorized so far, and Tessa had made me practice it to perfection before I’d left for Whateley. Once I was done, I charged it with essence. There was no visible change, but I had no doubt that it was working.

“What was that?” Esquire demanded.

The boy who’d been watching me in silent scrutiny, answered, “A spell…”

“That’s magic?” Twitch asked excitedly.

“Protection from eavesdropping,” I answered carefully.

It wasn’t the most powerful of spells, and could be overcome by other mages with enough raw power or skill, but that kind of thing would take time and effort. From what Tessa had told me, it would normally be sufficient for conversations of this type.

“A smart precaution,” the girl at the table said, nodding in approval. “We’ve already taken similar precautions.”

“I’m jamming any bugs,” Twitch announced proudly, reaching up to touch her hat.

“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves,” the girl at the table said, giving me a faint smile. “I am Milena Tarkisian, but my codename is Sister Secret. I am both an RA and a fixer in Dickenson, and my father is Mister Secret.”

Tyler announced, “My mom is Madame Midnight…” Then he paused with a smirk before adding, “And my dad is a ninja…”

“You don’t know who your father is,” Esquire responded, giving Tyler a flat look before he turned his attention back to me. “My mother is the Iron Belle.”

“Tek Knight is my dad,” Twitch proudly exclaimed. “He’s awesome…”

“I’m Hammer,” the muscular boy stated. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like he was silently adding, “And I could kick your butt if I wanted.” However, a couple seconds later, he actually did add, “My old man is Anvil…”

“You may have heard of his father,” Sister Secret pointed out. “He works for the Outfit in Chicago.” That suddenly got my attention since the Outfit was a rival organization to the Family, and I stared at the boy, who now looked somewhat smug. “Hammer is the one who recognized who you are…”

Esquire immediately followed that up, adding, “And we verified that you really are the White Lady, before we approached you.”

I scowled, wincing slightly every time that they called me the White Lady. “I’d prefer to be called Glyph,” I pointed out.

“Keeping a low profile,” Tyler said, nodding his understanding.

Sister Secret gestured to the last person, the boy with the watchful eyes and casual body language. “AJ…codenamed Dragonblade…has just joined us last week…”

“Hello,” AJ greeted me politely. Then, because it was obviously expected, he said, “My mother is the Witch Queen.”

“The Witch Queen?” I repeated in surprise.

I’d met the Witch Queen once before, or at least, I’d seen her from across the room. Back when I’d been a kid, the Witch Queen had come to Chicago to do business with my grandmother, and she’d even been invited to one of my grandmother’s parties. That had been a long time ago, and I remembered the Witch Queen mostly because she’d come with her son Lex. Lex and I had spent most of the party together, hanging out and avoiding the adults.

I stared at AJ for a moment, then blurted out in surprise, “Lex?”

AJ’s eyes suddenly went wide, right before narrowing suspiciously. “Do I know you?”

“We met once before,” I answered, trying to cover up my surprise, as well as my mistake in revealing my recognition. “When we were children, you came to one of my grandmother’s parties. We were briefly introduced.”

“I’m afraid that I don’t remember you,” AJ responded, still watching me carefully.

I gave a wry smile and pointed out, “I had more pigmentation back then.”

AJ smiled faintly at that. “I see.”

“Now, as we were saying,” Sister Secret said, “due to who our parents are, we face certain…challenges.”

“Like meanies, and bullies, and jerks,” Twitch blurted out with a look of annoyance.

Tyler just grinned at that. “I’d phrase it differently, but yeah. There are some guys…and girls…who have grudges against our parents and want to take it out on us…”

“And then,” Esquire added with a sneer, “there are the fools who think that they are the next generation of hero, and who are determined to interfere in our business…”

“The Bad Seeds,” Sister Secret said, gesturing to everyone around the table. “Those here, and the rest of our club, look out for each other, and provide something of an alliance for mutual assistance and protection.”

“And it gives us people to hang out with,” Tyler added, “who have similar backgrounds and issues.” He shook his head and added, “Trust me, most people in this place could never understand the things we have to worry about.”

Hammer nodded at that, though he was still scowling. “It’s always good to have people watching your back.”

“And we would like you to join us,” Sister Secret said with a smile. “If you were a Bad Seed, we’d watch your back and we’d expect you to do the same for everyone else.”

For a moment, I just stood there, staring at Sister Secret, and then looking around at everyone else. They were watching me with expectant expressions, though there were variations. Twitch looked excited, as though she was about to start jumping up and down in celebration of my answer. Hammer had a faintly sour look on his face, which I could understand. If he was associated with the Outfit, then he might see my joining their club as a potential conflict of interest. Tyler had an easygoing grin on his face, and Esquire an almost hungry expression, while AJ and Sister Secret were both hard to read.

“Thank you for the invitation,” I finally answered, making sure my metaphorical mask was firmly in place. I kept my voice and expression calm and even, though I was still shaking inside. “But I am afraid that I have to decline.”

“What?” Tyler asked in surprise. “Why?”

“As you noticed earlier,” I responded carefully, “I am trying to keep a low profile. If I joined your club, then I would effectively be announcing to everyone who my grandmother was…and who I am.”

“A reasonable concern,” Sister Secret admitted.

“You belong with us,” Esquire snapped, suddenly looking angry.

“Chill,” Tyler told him. “If she says no, then that’s her choice.”

“Indeed,” Sister Secret agreed. She stared at me for a moment, and if she was disappointed in my decision, she didn’t really show it. “If you should change your mind, the invitation remains open.”

“Thank you,” I told her politely, deciding that it would be a bad idea to antagonize them by being rude.

As I turned to walk away, I heard Hammer saying, “We didn’t need her anyway…”

Once I was far enough away, I let out a sigh of relief that the meeting was over, and that we had ended it on good terms. However, I was definitely not happy about the fact that they knew who I was, especially not after I’d come to Whateley, just to avoid that kind of recognition.

For a moment, I wondered if I’d made the right decision in turning them down. After all, it might be nice being able to talk with people who knew about the Family, and who understood what it was like to have that kind of criminal background. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure if I could trust them.

“Besides,” I mused to myself as I started back to Poe, “I already have some friends to watch my back.”

Whateley Academy, Monday morning, Sept 12th, 2016

Today was the first day of school. Technically, I’ve been at Whateley Academy for a week, but until now, it had all been tours, power testing, physical exams, paperwork, and all the other little things that needed to be done. Today was the actual first day of classes.

Appropriately enough, my first real class at Whateley had been Power Theory, which was all about the different types of powers and how they worked. It looked like it was going to be an interesting class, or at least, the subject matter was. I was still amazed that not only did this school have a class like that, but that I was actually getting science credit for taking it. And to make it even better, some of my friends were in the same class, so I wasn’t alone.

As interesting as Power Theory was, my second period class, Magic Theory, was even more relevant to my personal situation and powers. Between Tessa and the book that I’d inherited from my grandmother, I was pretty sure that I had a good understanding of the basics, but I was eager to learn more. I had a long way to go before I came close to reaching my grandmother’s level, but this seemed to be a good place to start.

Of course, the fact that my roommate Morgana was in Magic Theory with me, made it even more interesting…especially this morning. Somehow, on the very first day of class, Morgana managed to make a couple more enemies, with a pair of ‘mean girls’ named Antionette and Estelle…or La Mage Blanche and Hermione. After what had happened with Stahlfaust, I shouldn’t be surprised, especially since these two were a couple of stuck up little bitches.

However, I didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment. I was currently in the locker room, getting ready for Basic Martial Arts. It was strange to be sharing a locker room with a bunch of half-dressed girls, especially ones outside of Poe, who didn’t know about me. I kept expecting them to look at me and cry out that I was some kind of imposter who’d snuck into the girl’s locker room, but no one did that.

I was doing my best to ignore the other girls as I got dressed in my white martial arts outfit. A couple people had told me that it was called a gi, but I didn’t really care what it was called. As far as I was concerned, it was just an odd set of pants and a shirt.

Just then, I heard one girl say, “I can’t believe they’d let a freak like her in here…”

I froze at that and snapped around, just in time to see the door close as whomever had spoken left the room. Then I noticed Laura, who was looking at the door with a scowl on her face, which probably matched the one on mine. The two of us shared a glance, then a faint nod of mutual understanding. Neither of us was sure which the comment had been directed at, but neither of us liked it.

“Are you ready?” Laura asked me a minute later.

“As much as I’ll ever be,” I admitted with a shrug. I tugged on the odd clothes and gave a wry smile. “I’ve never done this martial arts stuff before, so I hope the teacher takes it easy on me.”

A minute later, I was in the main room…the dojo, looking around and seeing that a lot of kids were sitting down on some mats. I went and joined them, feeling self-conscious and nervous since I didn’t know what to expect.

In the Family, self-defense meant either using magic or firearms, and occasionally being able to punch someone hard enough to break their nose. Of course, there was one guard who was into savate and kickboxing, but I didn’t know him very well. This whole martial arts thing was rather new to me, and I found that to be both scary and appealing. After all, anything that would give me a better chance of surviving the next assassination attempt, was something worth learning.

Laura sat on one side of me, and as I looked around, I saw a few other kids I knew. Tanya was there, sitting next to Vic, while AJ was a short distance away. Erica, Jimmy, and Cally were scattered about. I just hoped that I didn’t have to fight any of them, because if I had to go up against someone as strong as Tanya, then I was probably done for. My powers wouldn’t do much good in a straight up fight with someone like her.

And then, while I was still worrying about having to go up against Tanya, Morgana came of the locker room and walked straight over to where I was sitting. If there was anyone I wanted to fight even less than Tanya, it was my roommate. She could get downright scary, especially when she transformed. And at the moment, she was smirking at me.

“What?” I asked her.

“With your coloring,” Morgana told me with a grin, “you kind of blend in with your gi…”

I rolled my eyes at that. “And if I stand against one of the white painted walls, I’ll be completely camouflaged…”

When Morgana looked to Laura, the blue-skinned girl quickly warned her, “Don’t even think it.”

“Think what?” Morgana asked with a look of mock innocence.

Laura gave her a flat look. “You were going to say I looked like Karate Smurf, or something like that.”

Morgana grinned in response, pointing out, “You said it, not me.”

Laura looked like she was about to say something back, but then she paused, making me realize that class was just starting. Two people stood in front of the class, a short old Asian man, and a tall black woman, who was wearing some kind of tight black outfit that resembled spandex. Both of them practically radiated the same kind of confidence that I saw from most of the Loyal back home. It was the way they carried themselves, as though they were absolutely certain that they could handle anyone present.

“Hello class,” the black woman greeted us. “I am Amanda Tolman, and you will all address me either as Sensei or Sensei Tolman.” She gestured to the old man and continued, “This is Ito Sensei, who is an instructor emeritus.” She smiled faintly at that. “That means, he has retired after serving many years as a martial arts instructor here at Whateley. Even though Ito Sensei is mostly retired, he still serves as an advisor for the Martial Arts Department, and he will sometimes observe this class and share the benefit of his great experience.” Then she paused again and slowly looked around the room with a firm gaze. “You WILL treat Ito Sensei with the respect he has earned.”

After this introduction, Tolman introduced her assistants and began going over all the rules of the class, along with some of the customs and traditions we would be expected to follow. I paid attention, though I could see that some of the other students didn’t. Somehow, I had a feeling that this lack of courtesy would come back to bite them in the butt. This wasn’t any kind of precognitive ability on my part, simply experience with my grandmother and how she’d dealt with rudeness.

When the lecture on safety and expectations was over, Tolman looked around the room and asked, “Who here believes that they can defeat me in a match?”

Several hands went up, while several other students looked at the owners of those hands, as if they were stupid. I just kept my hand down, my mouth shut, and my eyes open. Somehow, I didn’t think that I wanted her to notice me at the moment.

“You,” Tolman announced, pointing to one of the boys who had raised his hand. I quickly recognized him as one of the people who had clearly not been paying attention during the briefing.

As the boy stood up, I gulped, suddenly feeling worried for Tolman. He was big, strong looking, and looked like an anthropomorphic warthog with bristly brown fur over his body. His tusks came up from his lower lip making him look even more intimidating.

“What is your name?” Tolman calmly asked the warthog boy, not looking the least bit intimidated by him.

“Bacon, ma’am,” he responded with what appeared to be a grin, though it was a little difficult to tell from his features. When several students started to laugh at that, he chuckled. “Hey, when you look like I do, you might as well have fun with it. And besides, everyone loves Bacon.”

“Well, Bacon,” Tolman told him, gesturing to a circle in the middle of the room. “We will spar, according to the rules that I just finished describing. I will not use any powers, but you may.”

Bacon gave a broad grin at that, one that looked a bit scary with his tusks. He was obviously confident in his chances, but I wasn’t quite so sure. As soon as Ito called out for the match to begin, Bacon went straight for Tolman, clearly expecting an easy victory. However, in mere seconds, his face was planted on the floor and she had his arm pulled back, held in what looked like a very uncomfortable angle.

“How the hell did you do that?” Bacon gasped in obvious surprise. “I’m a brick…”

“With the proper application of skill and experience,” Tolman told the class as she released Bacon, “you can usually defeat a more powerful opponent.”

Then Tolman repeated the demonstration with Bacon in a second match, quickly proving that her victory wasn’t just a fluke. I looked around and saw that I wasn’t the only one who’d absorbed the lesson. Skill was more important than size or strength. Unfortunately for me, I had neither the skill nor the physical strength, but that was why I was in the class.

Once Tolman was finished with the demonstration, a very chagrinned Bacon returned to his seat. A couple of the other boys snickered at his defeat, but he just grinned and announced, “There’s worse things than getting your butt kicked by a hot chick…”

“How many of you have had previous martial arts training?” Tolman asked from the front of the class. A few hands went up into the air, including Laura’s. “We will begin evaluating the skill levels of everyone here, so that we can see where to begin your instruction. Those who have had previous training, come up front.”

Tolman and Ito spent about fifteen minutes questioning the students who went up front, and even had them do some quick demonstrations. At this point, my mind began to wander and I started looking around the room, wondering what powers everyone had. Would they match us up against people with the same kind of powers? That would be the fair thing to do. However, I didn’t have to wonder for long.

“Rapunzel and Mouse,” Tolman called out.

Two girls stood up as their names were called, and they nervously went to the front. One of them had long light-blue hair, that was pulled into a ponytail, which hung past her butt. The other girl was short, just under five feet tall, with tanned skin and shoulder length reddish-brown hair. It didn’t take much effort to guess which was Rapunzel and which was Mouse.

“Charger and Crysis,” Ito called out.

My eyes went wide as I saw the massive horse man stand up and move towards Ito. I gulped, thankful that I wasn’t the one who had to spar against him, and I immediately felt pity for the lean black-haired boy who was stuck with that task.

Just half a minute later, two sparring matches started, with one of them being watched by Ito and the other by Tolman. These matches were supposed to be without powers, but I was pretty sure that Charger didn’t need any power to stampede right over Crysis.

Rapunzel and Mouse were both pretty awkward in their sparring, and it was obvious that neither had much training. However, Tolman watched them carefully with an unreadable expression.

After their hesitant punching, Mouse grabbed hold of Rapunzel’s hair. Suddenly, Rapunzel’s hair came loose from the ponytail and began to wrap around Mouse’s arm. A moment later, Rapunzel was using her hair to throw the shorter girl to the ground.

“I don’t think so,” Mouse exclaimed, right before she suddenly shrank down to the size of a doll, slipping free of Rapunzel’s hair and then growing back to her previous size.

“Enough,” Tolman called out, ending their match.

Next, Tolman called up Miss Omega, a short and nerdy looking girl, and Morgana. It was an interesting match to watch, and of course, I silently cheered for my roommate.

As soon as that match was over, Tolman called out, “Glyph.” I stood up and gulped, hoping that she didn’t put me against someone like Tanya. Then she called out, “Ms. Samuels,” and I let out a sigh of relief.

“I can deal with Laura,” I muttered to myself. Neither of us had much in the way of physical powers, with the exception of my limited elemental spells, so I figured this would be a pretty even match.

Laura gave me a wry smile but didn’t actually say anything. However, she positioned herself to get ready, doing so in a way that made me a little wary.

“Hajime,” Tolman announced to begin the match.

Laura suddenly came at me, and before I even realized what was happening, I’d been knocked on my butt. I looked up at Laura, who gave me an almost apologetic smile. It wasn’t until that moment, that I remembered that she had previous experience.

“Sorry about that,” Laura said as she held out a hand to help me to my feet.

Laura and I got back in position, then Tolman called “Hajime,” again.

This time, when Laura came at me, she did so a little more slowly, probably because she felt sorry for me and wanted me to have a chance. She threw a couple punches and kicks at me, and this time, I realized what was happening when I fell flat on my butt.

“Well, that was pretty damn useless,” I muttered to myself before returning to my feet with as much dignity as I could muster.

Fortunately for me, my brief but pathetic showing had been enough to tell Tolman what she needed to know…that I was a complete and total beginner. I was incredibly self-conscious as I returned to my seat, and more than a little depressed. If I couldn’t even defend myself against Laura without using my powers, what chance did I have against the next assassin?

“Don’t worry,” Laura told me. “You’ll get better.”

“I certainly hope so,” I responded with a weak smile. “I’d hate to take this class for nothing.”

By the time class was over for the day, I was eager to jump into the shower and soak in the hot water. I didn’t even care that some girls I didn’t know would see me naked, or get a look at my tattoos. I just wanted to get cleaned up, go to lunch, and try to forget that this class was even on my schedule.

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Monday afternoon, Sept 12th, 2016

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and started towards my last class of the day with a faint smile on my face. Magic Lab. After taking Algebra and English after lunch, I was happy to get back to one of the more unique and interesting classes.

When I reached the classroom, I came to an abrupt halt, not wanting to bump into the zombie that was standing in between me and the doorway. He was hideous, with rotted clothes, desiccated skin, and even a few bones sticking out. He looked like something straight out of a movie, and he was right in my way.

My eyes went to the girl who was standing right beside the zombie, Penny Dreadful. Penny was a goth, with shoulder length black hair, pale skin, dark eyeshadow and black lipstick. I’d seen her around campus a couple times over the last week, and on those occasions, she’d been wearing mostly black, usually in some kind of traditional goth or gothic lolilta style. Today, like myself, she was wearing a school uniform, which dulled her goth image, but certainly didn’t remove it.

I wasn’t sure what to say to my creepy classmate, and found myself asking, “Is that a real zombie?”

Penny gave me a flat look, and in a deadpan voice, answered, “This is my ex-boyfriend James.”

The zombie didn’t react to that statement and just stood there with a lifeless expression. After a moment, Penny gestured towards him and he suddenly collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. As I watched, the whole thing melted and faded away, until seconds later, there was no sign that the zombie had ever been there. Without a word, Penny continued into the classroom.

“Creepy,” a voice announced from behind me.

I turned to see Morgana. “What?” I asked my roommate wryly. “Keeping her ex-boyfriend around as an undead slave?”

Morgana snorted at that. “Actually,” she told me, “I heard that she’s really a manifestor, and that she just makes things that LOOK like zombies…”

“That is a little less creepy,” I admitted. The idea of sharing a class with someone who made real zombies, had been just a little unnerving.

“And less chance of the zombie apocalypse,” Morgana added cheerfully. Then, before I could think of a comeback, she flashed me a grin and added, “You know, with your skin coloring, I bet you could really pull off the goth look…”

“I don’t think so,” I responded emphatically, which only seemed to encourage my roommate.

“Come on,” Morgana teased. “You’d look totally awesome done up in goth lolita…”

“And you could carry around a pitchfork,” I pointed out, wanting to change the subject. I’ve already dealt with Tessa treating me like some kind of living doll to play dress up with, and there was no way I was going to let my roommate do that to me too. Then, to make sure she got the point about that particular conversation being over, I turned and hurried into the classroom.

A minute later, Morgana and I had found our seats, right next to each other. Earlier this morning, during the theory part of the class, Mrs. Grimes had assigned lab partners, in teams of three. And since we were just starting the lab part of the class, we were expected to sit with those lab partners. Morgana was one of my lab partners, which was convenient for both of us. However, our other lab partner was AJ, which added an awkward complication.

In spite of having met as children, I didn’t know AJ very well, and was a bit wary of him. I didn’t really care that his mother was a supervillain, and it would have been pretty hypocritical of me if I did. I was more concerned about the fact that he knew I was the new White Lady, and that he could out me to the entire campus with just a couple words.

Fortunately, AJ hadn’t said a word about my meeting with the Bad Seeds yesterday, or about the invitation they’d offered me. Maybe he was just respecting my desire to keep a low profile, and not to let anyone know who I was. I hoped so. As it was, he was polite and even friendly, but I noticed him giving me a couple sidelong glances, and was pretty sure that he was just as wary of me as I was of him.

While waiting for class to begin, I pulled out the notebook where I’d written my notes this morning, and absently began to doodle in the borders. However, instead of the usual mindless doodles, I began to practice some of my runes.

“What are you drawing?” Morgana asked, giving me a curious look.

“Just practicing a few runes,” I explained, showing her some of the other doodles that I’d made in previous classes. I opened up to one page, where a large rune filled most of the sheet. I’d done that one in English, and a few more while keeping myself occupied in Algebra. “Just making sure I don’t forget them.”

“So,” Morgana teased me, “even when you’re wasting time in class, you’re still practicing…”

“Practice is never a waste of time,” AJ commented, glancing to my notebook and then looking at me with a thoughtful expression.

It was at this point that Grimes began the class with the announcement, “Today, I will teach you some basic exercises, which will help you develop the focus and control necessary to properly manage essence…”

This morning, during the theory part of the class, Grimes had given a lecture on the very basics of magic, which focused mostly on essence…the energy that spells were powered by. It made sense that our practical class would start with the basic exercises to control it. After all, Tessa had begun my lessons with some of these simple exercises as well.

“But what if we can already control our essence?” a girl called out.

I looked at the speaker, a beautiful blonde girl named Chained Melody. She radiated a ‘spoiled rich girl’ attitude, and the fact that she was an exemplar, with the looks that went with it, only made it worse.

“I can already perform magic,” Melody announced in a rather smug tone. “Why should I have to do the same exercises as the beginners?”

Grimes fixed Melody with a cold look, which I was suddenly thankful, was not directed at me. “Chained Melody,” Grimes said in a frosty tone. “Just because you are blessed with the ability to gather essence more easily than some of your classmates, that does not excuse you from having to master the basic fundamentals. In the long term, these exercises will help you build the control necessary for holding the essence you have gathered, and in the short term…they will determine whether or not you pass this class.”

Melody sunk down in her seat, clearly chagrinned from the lecture. However, when Grimes turned around, Melody glared defiantly at her back.

After this, Grimes began teaching the class the first exercise. This one had nothing to do with actually using essence, only in building the kind of self-control and focus that we needed, so that we could hold onto essence without it all leaking away. This was the first exercise that Tessa had taught me, and one that I still practiced nearly every night.

Grimes went around the room, checking on all the students, and seemingly having a sense of who had done this kind of exercise before, and who hadn’t. She gave a faint nod of approval to both AJ and myself, along with a couple others. And to my surprise, Chained Melody was one of them. For those of us who were doing well enough, Grimes began trying to challenge…or just distract us…by asking questions about things that we hadn’t covered yet in class.

“What are three ways of acquiring essence?” Grimes asked AJ.

“Well, you can gather it directly,” AJ answered, not looking the least bit uncomfortable at being called on this way. In fact, he almost acted bored. Then again, since his mother was the Witch Queen, she’d probably taught him all about magic, just like my mom had been doing to Paige. “You can receive it as a loan or bequest from someone else, and there are certain rituals that can be used to build essence.”

“Good,” Grimes responded with a faint nod of approval. “Chained Melody. What does the wizard rating on your MID represent?”

Melody looked a little smug as she answered, “How powerful a spell I can cast…”

Grimes shook her head. “That is incorrect.” Several students began to snicker while Melody turned bright red. Grimes looked around the room, then called out my name. “Glyph?”

I scowled in annoyance since I was trying to do the exercise she’d assigned us, and these questions kept distracted me from that. I took a deep breath, then tried to look calm and confident as I answered. “It represents how much essence you can gather, not what you can do with it.” I hesitated for a moment, thinking about Tessa and the other Hands before adding, “A baseline mage can cast spells just as powerful as any mutant, just as long as they have enough essence for it.”

“Good answer,” Morgana whispered to me.

Melody glared at me, and I heard her mutter, “Know it all freak,” to the girl beside her.

“Correct,” Grimes said from a short distance in front of my desk. She’d moved closer to me while I’d been answering the question. Then, just as she was turning to leave, her eyes settled on my notebook, the corner of which had several harmless runes doodled on it. She paused for a moment, before abruptly asking “Glyph. What is the law of precedent?”

I gulped at being called on like that, since I wasn’t nearly as comfortable with the attention as AJ seemed to be. Then, still trying to act calm and confident, I answered, “That is the law of magic that says, the more times a spell has been cast, the easier it is to cast it again.”

I glanced to my notebook, staring at the runes I’d drawn, and knowing that they were the reason she’d asked me that question. After all, the law of precedent was one of the main reasons that my runes worked as well as they did. They were ancient spells, that had been cast countless time over the centuries.

“Correct,” Grimes told me before she moved on to the next student.

Morgana elbowed me in the side and whispered, “I think someone is mad at you…”

I looked over and saw that Melody was still glaring at me, as if it was somehow my fault that she had answered her question wrong. However, I didn’t show any reaction and casually looked away, returning to the mental exercise that we’d been assigned.

Just a few minutes after this, a girl came into the class and handed Grimes a note, before she quickly left again. Grimes read the note, scowling deeply as she did so. “Class,” she abruptly announced. “I have to leave for a few minutes. Continue practicing the exercise.”

As soon as Grimes was gone, Morgana mused, “I wonder what that was about…”

“No idea,” I responded with a shrug. Since our teacher was gone for the moment, and I’d had enough of this exercise for the time being, I flipped my notebook open to a blank page and began to practice another of my runes.

“Hey,” Morgana said, elbowing me in the side again. I glared at her, but she just nodded towards Chained Melody, who was standing up from her desk and watching me with a smug expression. “I think you have incoming…”

“Listen, you pasty freak,” Chained Melody said with a sneer. “You’d better learn your place…”

AJ leaned back in his chair and watched with a look of faint amusement. “This should be interesting…”

Melody was clearly trying to intimidate me with her ‘better than thou’ attitude, though I wasn’t the least bit impressed. For one thing, I’d grown up around women with the same kind of attitude, and some of them had the power to really back it up. Compared to someone like my grandmother, or even my mother, Melody was more annoying than threatening.

“And you should probably study more,” I answered in an even tone that really seemed to piss her off.

Melody’s eyes seemed to flash with rage, then she paused and gave me a smug look. “Then I’ll simply have to teach you your place,” she announced with a smirk.

With that, Melody began to sing a strange and melodic tune, which surprised me since I hadn’t expected a musical number to break out in magic class. But from the way everyone nearby was staring at her in rapt attention, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if other people started to join in at any moment.

“This is Magic Lab,” I snapped at Melody in annoyance, “not Choir. If you want to practice your weird singing, you should do it somewhere else…”

“What?” Melody gasped, staring at me with a look of stunned disbelief. Then she snarled and ordered, “Bark like a dog…”

“Why in the world would I do that?” I responded in surprise. “You know, I think you have some serious issues…”

Most of the students who had been staring so intently at Melody a few seconds earlier, snapped out of it and began laughing at her instead. She turned bright red, which seemed to be from a combination of anger and embarrassment.

“You…you pale-skinned freak,” Melody snarled at me.

Suddenly, Antionette, and Estelle, the two girls who’d been giving Morgana such a problem this morning, jumped up and began yelling, “We don’t need you freaks in here…”

Morgana jumped to her feet, glaring at the other girls and looking rather pissed herself. Her more demonic features were starting to emerge, which showed how close she was to losing her temper.

“They aren’t worth it,” I cautioned my roommate. Getting into a fight was one thing, but doing it in the middle of the classroom... If she did that, the school wouldn’t be nearly as understanding as they’d been the first time.

For several seconds, there was a thick tension, but then Grimes stepped back into the classroom and it all evaporated in an instant. Morgana and the two bitch girls sat back down and tried to look innocent, while Melody hurried back to her seat.

“What the hell did that bitch do to us?” Morgana whispered to me.

“What?” I blinked in confusion. “She sang…”

“It was spell singing,” AJ answered. “A type of bardic magic.”

I blinked again. “Spell singing?”

“My mom told me about it once,” AJ responded with a casual shrug. “Basically, she channeled essence into her singing, and used it like a spell.”

“That explains it,” Morgana said with a nod. Then she gave me a curious look. “But how’d you break out of it?”

“Break out of what?” I asked in annoyance. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Morgana stared at me for a moment, while I wondered why she was making such a big deal out of it. Sure, AJ said that Melody had been doing some kind of magical singing, but I hadn’t noticed anything magical about it.

Suddenly, it dawned on me. When I’d inherited the mantle of the White Lady from my grandmother, I’d gained a few ‘gifts’, along with a few ‘curses’. From what I’d been told, one of those curses was that I was deaf and mute to magic, though I hadn’t really understood what the deaf part meant until just now.

I glanced to Chained Melody, who was sitting in her chair again, though she was glaring intently at me. I fought back the urge to stick my tongue out at her, knowing that it would be both petty and useless. Instead, I turned my attention to Grimes, who looked like she was about to address the class again.

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Monday evening, Sept 12th, 2016

It was late in the evening, at the time when the sky was darkened and most students were just settling in for bed. Esquire stood alone outside, not yet ready to return to his room in Emerson. Instead, he was savoring this chance to think in peace, without his thoughts being drowned out by noise from other students.

At the moment, Esquire was silently watching a firing range, or at least, the group of students from the evening Firearm Safety class, which had just been released and were quickly heading back to their respective cottages. His eyes were firmly locked on just a single one of those students, the girl with the chalk white hair and skin. The teenage White Lady.

Esquire considered what it meant, that a magic user like her was taking Firearm Safety. Was she trying to learn about what weapons might be used against her, or did she intend to carry a weapon of her own?

Just then, Esquire saw something from the corner of his eye and he snapped around, releasing the catch on his cane in the process. Steel ball bearings flew out of his cane and began to orbit in a circle around him, ready to be flung out as lethal projectiles with just a thought. A moment later, he saw the small furry animal that was looking up at him through its bandit mask.

“Oh,” Esquire said in annoyance. All the steel ball bearings flew back into his cane, which he snapped shut. He scowled, not happy at having been caught by surprise that way, or in the way he’d shown his hand without needing to. “It’s only you.”

The raccoon shimmered and was suddenly replaced with a boy, who gave Esquire an easygoing grin. “Why so jumpy, Gideon?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Esquire reminded the other boy.

Racoon just shrugged, then looked out to the girl that Esquire had been watching. “You’re still watching Glyph.”

“She belongs with the Seeds,” Esquire stated.

“It isn’t like you to care about some freshman who turned us down,” Racoon pointed out, giving Esquire a curious look. “We asked. She said no. Now, she isn’t our concern.”

Esquire gave Racoon a flat look. “That is where you are wrong. The White Lady is very much our concern. She represents an opportunity that we simply can’t ignore.”

Racoon let out an exasperated sign, then asked, “Why do I feel another one of your schemes coming on?”

“Glyph, may just be a freshman,” Esquire explained in his usual arrogant tone. “But the White Lady is the head of the Family. She has access to wealth, resources, and connections, and if she was a member of the Seeds, then we would have a certain degree of indirect access as well.”

“Do you really think,” Racoon asked with a snort, “that if she joined the Seeds, that she’d just give us access to her bank account?”

“Of course not,” Esquire responded dismissively. “But she would have a certain obligation to the rest of us. And as a fellow Seed, she would also be in a position where we could influence her…” He smirked as he considered how easy it would be to manipulate a naive freshman, such as her. “If we build the right connections to the White Lady and the Family now, then those connections would become even more valuable once we leave Whateley.”

Racoon shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh. “I think you’re forgetting one small detail. We can’t MAKE her join. You remember what Nightsnake told us about the last time the Seeds tried to strong-arm someone into joining. It was a total disaster.”

“Of course we won’t force her,” Esquire responded dismissively. He looked in the direction of Poe Cottage, where he’d seen the young White Lady heading. “We merely need to convince her that she needs our protection.”

For a moment, Racoon just stared at Esquire with an unreadable expression before he shook his head again and let out another sigh. “You know, you aren’t nearly as brilliant as you think you are.” Then he flashed Esquire a grin, admitting, “But if nothing else, it should be interesting to see how this plays out.”

“You underestimate me,” Esquire announced, turning away from Racoon for just a moment. When he looked back, the other boy was gone. That didn’t surprise Esquire though, as he was used to Racoon pulling those little tricks. Then with a smirk, Esquire mused to himself, “It is simply a matter of applying the appropriate pressure.”

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Wednesday morning, Sept 14th, 2016

Mornings at Whateley were a strange affair, with a calm peaceful feel that was due in no small part to the fact that most of the students were still asleep...mentally if not physically, interspersed with bursts of chaotic energy. It wasn’t until after breakfast that the student body began to really wake up, myself included.

I let out a loud yawn as I made the walk between Crystal Hall and my first period class, which triggered a chain reaction of several more yawns from my friends. Morgana, Tanya, Bailey, Vic, and Tia all trudged to class beside me in various stages of wakefulness.

Since we all had Power Theory together, we were getting into the habit of walking there together after breakfast. Some of my other friends had the same class too, but were probably making their own way there this morning.

“I need coffee,” Morgana grumbled, seeming to ignore the fact that she’d already had a couple cups.

“You need an IV drip,” I pointed out, wondering how many cups would fit into one of those plastic bags.

Morgana gave me a grin, responding, “Not a bad idea…”

In spite of the fact that I was still pretty tired, I kept my eyes open and watched my surroundings. There was no telling when someone might make another move on me, and if they did, I wanted to see it coming. The presence of my friends made me comfortable enough that I relaxed my guard a little, but not completely.

Like me, Tia was looking around, though she had a visibly nervous expression. I could certainly understand why, because the girl who’d transformed her and had ruined her life, was not only here at Whateley, but had sworn to ‘get even’ for imagined wrongs. If I knew for a fact that Scorn or the Messenger was at Whateley, I’d probably be pissing my panties, so I definitely felt for Tia. I just wished that I could do something to help her.

Even though I was paying attention to my surroundings and where I was going, I suddenly tripped over something and sprawled face first onto the ground. “Ouch,” I cried out as my hand hit concrete, scraping enough skin off so that I was bleeding. I grimaced at that and muttered, “Damn…”

“Are you okay?” Tia asked me in concern.

“Just peachy,” I grumbled, more embarrassed than hurt. Thanks to my regenerative abilities, the scrape was already healed, and the remaining bruises would probably be gone in just a few minutes.

Morgana held out her hand and helped me up, though she had a mischievious grin on her face and asked, “New feet?”

“Something like that,” I responded, embarrassed because there was a certain element in truth to that. However, I’d been a girl long enough to get used to my new center of balance, at least enough so that I wasn’t tripping over myself like that. “My foot hit something.” However, when I looked, there was nothing there but smooth ground, not even a small rock to have gotten in my way.

“Like your feet,” Morgana teased me.

“As long as you aren’t hurt,“ Tanya said, giving me a smile. “Now, let’s hurry before we’re late.”

Just half a minute later, we reached the classroom door, though the way inside was partially blocked by Janine and Giggles, who were in the middle of a conversation. Janine had Power Theory with us, but I knew that Giggles didn’t. I was pretty sure that she was in the class next door, since she’d arrived with Janine yesterday morning too.

“Bianca,” Janine announced with a smile as soon as she saw me.

“Hello,” I greeted her and Giggles.

Before I could say another word, Janine gasped out, “Your hand…”

I looked at my hand, and the drops of crimson that stuck out quite visibly against my white skin. When I’d hurt myself a minute ago, my scrape had healed in seconds, but that didn’t mean my hand had miraculously cleaned itself in the process. Now, a few drops of smeared blood remained.

“I’m fine,” I assured Janine, looking for something I could wipe the blood off on. “I just tripped a minute ago…”

“Yep,” Morgana added with a cheerful smile. “She tripped right over her own feet…”

“There was something there,” I responded defensively, giving my roommate a flat look. “It felt like I kicked something…”

“Well, I certainly didn’t see anything,” Morgana teased.

Janine’s eyes went wide and she gasped, “Maybe it was one of those invisible bunnies…”

I blinked at that. “Invisible bunnies?”

Janine nodded empathically, then looked around at my friends before seeming to realize that she had an audience. In a quieter tone, she explained, “A couple girls in my cottage told me that some devisor made a couple rabbits invisible, and that they accidentally got loose…”

“They were just messing with you,” Giggles told Janine with a roll of her eyes. “You know…messing with gullible freshman.” Then she looked to me and shrugged. “The invisible bunny thing is Whateley’s version of an urban legend.”

“Like alligators in the sewer,” I said, nodding my understanding.

“Actually,” Tanya pointed out, “I heard there really are things in the sewers here…”

“Well, don’t worry about your invisible bunnies,” Morgana told Janine with a grin. “I mean, this is Whateley, so I’m sure we can find a holy hand grenade around here somewhere…”

“Just be careful about which bunny you try to blow up,” Bailey offered, smirking at Tia.

“Ha ha,” Tia responded with a roll of her eyes. “Real funny.”

Giggles stared at Tia for a moment and began to giggle. But instead of just giving a quick giggle and being done with it, she continued giggling, growing more manic in the process. I took a step back and gave her a worried look.

“Are you all right?” I asked Giggles, who was still giggling.

“It’s her Diedricks,” Janine explained as she put her hand on Giggles’ arm and gave her a worried look.

“Diedricks?” Tia blurted out, going pale and taking a step back.

Janine nodded. “She goes into uncontrollable giggle fits…”

Giggles nodded agreement, though she was still giggling and looking mortified at the same time. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes and she was starting to turn away from everyone. If I was giggling uncontrollably like that, I probably wouldn’t want everyone to stare at me either.

“I…I’ve got to go,” Tia blurted out, quickly rushing into the classroom.

Janine gave Tia a confused and perhaps even hurt look, so I quickly explained, “Tia has a phobia of devisors with Diedricks.”

“But she’s a gadgeteer,“ Janine protested.

I nodded at that, wondering if Janine knew about Tia and her…situation. Tia had been outed on international news, but I still didn’t feel like it was my place to share her story.

“Is she going to be okay?” Laura asked, giving Giggles a worried look.

Giggles and Janine both nodded. “I’m…fine,” Giggles said as her giggles finally came to a stop. Her face was red and she had teary eyes, but she was no longer giggling. “It…happens every couple days.” Then she gave a faint and very self-conscious smile as she added, “This one wasn’t too bad…”

After this, Giggles hurried off to her classroom, while the rest of us went into ours. I quickly found my seat, with Janine quickly taking the seat beside me. Morgana took one look at Janine, then smirked.

“It looks like you found a sidekick,” Morgana whispered to me, low enough so that Janine wouldn’t hear.

I just squirmed a little at that, not sure how to respond. So instead of saying anything, I just opened my notebook and readied myself for class. However, as I looked around the classroom at the other students, I noticed Chained Melody sitting on the other side, silently glaring at me. She quickly looked away, but not before I’d noticed the look of hostility on her face. I guess some people really didn’t know how to let things go.

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Whateley Firing Range, Wednesday evening, Sept 14th, 2016

I was standing at the firing range, fully aware of just how solid the gun felt in my hand. There was a certain sense of security that came with being armed, as well as a nervousness. After all, this very gun had once saved my life, but in the process, I’d learned exactly what it could do to a person. Death…even a well-deserved one…was not pretty.

After taking a deep breath in order to mentally steady myself, I shifted into a weaver stance, just as Marcus had taught me, and took aim. I felt the recoil as I fired the trigger, and immediately corrected my aim and fired again. Several rounds later, I lowered my gun. Nobody would say that I was an expert shot, but I was good enough to get a consistently decent grouping.

“Nice grouping,” the instructor said from behind me.

Sgt. Miguel Rivas, a short and stocky Puerto Rican veteran, was our instructor for the Firearm Safety course, and he obviously took his job very seriously. I was aware of the fact that he was still behind me, watching my every move. I was tempted to turn to look at him, but instead, I carefully cleared my weapon, making sure to keep it pointed down and towards the range. Once I had done that and set my weapon on the small counter, barrel pointed down range, I finally turned to look at Rivas, who nodded in approval.

“You’ve done some shooting before,” Rivas said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” I answered, trying to keep my voice calm, even though I had a momentary flash of the Messenger’s face as I shot him. “A friend of the family used to take me shooting.”

Rivas nodded at that, then continued walking down the line, keeping a close eye on all the students who were currently shooting. Of course, only about half the students in our class were shooting today, so he wasn’t quite as busy as he might have been otherwise.

On Monday, the entire class had been dedicated to watching safety videos, and going over all the rules of the shooting range and firearms in general, especially the safety rules. Rivas had repeatedly emphasized just how important those rules were.

Yesterday, Rivas had gone over the rules again, and we ended the class with a test on those very rules. We had to get a perfect score on the test in order to actually move on to the shooting part of the class tonight. For those who didn’t get a perfect score, they were spending the night getting a refresher course, and repeating the test until they passed.

I wasn’t the only one of my friends taking this class. Laura, Jimmy, and even that stuck up Hikaru were in it as well, though I didn’t pay much attention to them. Instead, I kept my focus firmly on what I was doing, and on not making any stupid or carless mistakes that might get me thrown out of the class.

Once everyone was done shooting and the range was clear, we were able to retrieve our target papers and compare our groupings. It was pretty clear that some of the kids in class had never fired a gun before in their lives, much less in a real world situation. Lucky them.

“That’s pretty good,” Laura told me as she looked over my paper.

“Yours…isn’t bad,” I tried to reassure Laura, who appeared to have hit the paper only twice, and neither time actually on the target.

“I suck,” Laura responded with a shrug. “But you’re pretty good…”

I smiled faintly at that. “I’ve had some practice.”

Laura chuckled, then gave me an amused look. “Now I know how you feel in BMA.”

“At least you have BMA,” Jimmy announced as he came over. He held up his own paper, which was a little better than Laura’s, but not by too much. “I get my butt kicked there, and THEN I can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

Jimmy’s constant companion, the VI ferret named Tavi, teased, “Big barn!” At the moment, Tavi wore a ten gallon hat and was twirling a pair of six shooters, though earlier today in BMA, I’d glimpsed him wearing some kind of ninja outfit instead.

“You’ll get better,” I assured them both, before smirking. “And if you don’t…just use a shotgun.”

“Or maybe I’ll just make something that aims for me,” Laura said with a faint smirk.

“And at least in BMA,” I told Jimmy, “you have that PK shell. I don’t even have that…”

Jimmy nodded in sympathy and pointed out, "And worst case, I can always throw Tavi at them."

The ferret immediately agreed, “Tavi aims!"

After this, Rivas went around and once again verified that all the weapons were still unloaded, even though he’d made sure that each of us properly cleared them after we were done shooting. Still, I could understand his caution, because I wouldn’t put it past a few of my classmates to play around with the weapon and load it again afterwards.

“Now,” Rivas announced, looking around at all of us. “You have to clean your weapons before putting them away. A clean weapon is a happy weapon…”

There were groans from some of the students, with one boy whining, “But it isn’t even dirty…”

I rolled my eyes at the complaints, since Rivas had made it perfectly clear that any weapon we used, would need to be properly cleaned and oiled. Taking proper care of the guns we used was included in the firing range rules. Hell, that was even one of the questions in the test we all had to pass.

“Once you’re finished cleaning to my satisfaction,” Rivas said, “your weapon will be returned to the armory, and you will be free to leave for the day.”

Several of the other students had previous experience shooting, but when it came to cleaning their weapons afterwards, it was clear that they were less experienced there. Fortunately for me, Marcus had been a stickler for the details, so I was the first one finished.

In spite of being done, I hung around and waited for Laura to finish up as well. After all, it was getting late and dark, and I didn’t think that either of us wanted to walk back across campus to Poe alone.

Hikaru was the second one finished, and from the methodical way she cleaned her weapon, it was clear that this wasn’t her first time doing so. We said a polite goodbye to each other as she departed for Melville.

I didn’t have to wait too long for Laura, and once she was finished, the two of us started back to Poe together. Neither of us said much at first, though when we were about halfway back, she broke the silence.

“So, you’ve done a lot of shooting before,” Laura started.

“Yeah,” I responded. After hesitating a moment, I continued, “A family friend used to take me…”

“Used to?” Laura asked, giving me a worried look. “Did something happen?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh.

Laura gave me a sympathetic look, obviously expecting the worst. Maybe she thought he’d been killed along with my family. Maybe she thought he didn’t know about my changes. Or perhaps, she suspected that he’d turned on me after I manifested.

“I came to Whateley,” I told her with a wry smile before adding, “Marcus is…my legal guardian now, but things are…chaotic. I don’t know if we’ll have time to do something like that again, even after I go home.”

Laura gave a sad nod at that before admitting, “My dad used to take my brothers shooting. Me…not so much.”

“Why not?” I asked, then immediately wished that I’d kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t comfortable with people asking about my family, so it wasn’t right to be asking her about hers, especially when I knew there were issues.

For several seconds, Laura remained silent, then she let out a pained sigh and answered, “My dad… He thought I was a scrawny runt, and wasn’t worth doing that kind of thing with.”

“Ouch,” I responded with a wince of sympathy.

“My mom,” I started, almost before I realized it. “My mom was the same way.” Tears started to form, though I tried to hold them back. “She pretty much doted on my sister. Me…not so much.”

Laura didn’t say a word, though she gave me a sympathetic look and then a hug. It felt a little awkward at first, but oddly comforting at the same time. When we were done with the hug, we continued to Poe in companionable silence.

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Thursday morning, Sept 15th, 2016

I let out a loud yawn as I slung my backpack over my shoulder, feeling less than enthusiastic about going to classes for today. Of course, I got to have breakfast before classes, but even in a school full of mutants, most classes tended to get boring quickly.

Well, BMA wasn’t boring, but that didn’t make it a class that I enjoyed going to. In fact, it was the most exciting class on my schedule, and the one I enjoyed the least. At least in magic theory, thanks to Tessa’s tutoring, I was actually ahead of the curve. In BMA…not so much. If it wasn’t for my regeneration, I’d have bruises over my entire body.

“Come on, slowpokes,” Morgana called out, giving a loud yawn of her own. “Let’s go girls. I need my coffee.”

“You were the one who took forever to get showered,” Laura pointed out.

“And I’m still ready to go before you,” Morgana responded with a grin, that was broken by another yawn.

“Who cares who the last one to get ready is?” I grumbled as I started towards the stairs, while my friends in the changeling girls wing followed behind me. Then as I reached the steps, I smiled faintly and pointed out, “Besides, I was the first one, and that is all that matters…”

Just as I was about to leave through Poe’s main entrance, a girl exclaimed from behind me, “Move it freshie.”

A moment later, a gorgeous girl with golden blonde hair and big breasts pushed past me and hurried towards Crystal Hall. She was hot enough that she was almost definitely an exemplar, but I had absolutely no idea who she was. After living in Poe for nearly two weeks, this was the first time that I’d seen her.

“Who was that?” I asked aloud.

“That was Façade,” Krystal answered as she came up behind me as well.

“Façade?” I repeated in surprise as well as confusion. “But I met Façade the other day and…”

Krystal just grinned. “And she didn’t look or act like that?”

“No she didn’t,” I agreed, thinking of the ‘librarian’ looking girl that I’d met before. Then I considered her name and blurted out, “She’s a shifter…”

Krystal hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. “Sort of. Not really.” At my confused look, she asked, “You remember those old movies and cartoons, where people wear completely realistic skin masks, and no one can tell that they’re fake until they tear off the masks in a big reveal…”

I blinked at that. “And you’re saying that she’s wearing a skin mask?” I gave Krystal a skeptical look, because both girls had looked completely real, and not like someone wearing a mask.

“Pretty much,” Krystal responded with a chuckle. “Façade is a manifestor and creates these shells around herself, that look completely and totally real. I mean, she can even make clothes.”

“Impressive,” Laura said from beside me. “She certainly didn’t look like she was wearing any kind of mask.”

Krystal nodded at that, then in an almost conspiratorial voice, she said, “And get this… Façade has some kind of social anxiety disorder, where she can’t deal with other people very well, so she creates these new personas to hide behind. One day she might look and act like some kind of goth, and the next,” she gestured in the direction that Façade had gone, “you get this.”

“That…sounds a little confusing,” I admitted.

“It sounds like the girl has a few issues,” Morgana added. “Like a newsstand full.”

“Something like that,” Krystal responded with a grin. “Between Façade and Skizm, they do a great job of reinforcing Poe’s cover as the nuthouse.”

“As interesting as it is to gossip about our cottagemates behind their backs,” Bailey pointed out with a roll of her eyes. “I want to get to breakfast sometime before lunch.”

“Seconded,” Morgana quickly added.

“Well, see you later then,” Krystal said as she hurried off, joining up with a couple other sophomore girls.

A few seconds later, my friends and I were on our way to Crystal Hall as well. As soon as we arrived, Morgana dove into the buffet line with her usual abandon. She was still filling her plate by the time I reached our usual table.

However, as I sat down, I noticed one boy at another table, who was staring straight at me. Normally, a blue skinned girl, a white skinned girl, and one with horns might be worth a second look, but by Whateley standards, we were pretty tame. Then, as I carefully pretended not to notice the boy, he said something to one of his friends, while pointing towards me. For some reason, I had a bad feeling about that.

--------------------

BMA, Thursday late morning, Sept 15th, 2016

It was only my fourth day of taking classes at Whateley, and I could already say without hesitation, that BMA was my least favorite. Practicing the forms, like we’d done for the first half of the class, wasn’t really that bad. The part that I didn’t like, was the sparring. Or more specifically, I hated having to spar with powers, when mine were clearly not meant for that kind of confrontation.

At the moment, I was standing in the sparring circle, facing off against Cindy Hoffstetter, a short and skinny girl with thick glasses, who seemed to fit nearly every stereotype of a nerd. Unfortunately, Cindy…AKA Miss Omega, was a perfect example of why you should never judge by appearances. In spite of her harmless appearance, Cindy was a PK supergirl…and a fairly high one at that.

Our first match, which had been without using powers, had been fairly even. However, the second match, had been unquestionably one sided. As soon as Tolman had called ‘Hajime’, Cindy had simply given me a ‘gentle’ push, which sent me flying out of the circle. Now, we were preparing for our third and final match, which I didn’t expect to be any different than the last.

Cindy casually adjusted her glasses, giving me a rather smug look that showed just how confident she was. A moment later, Tolman said, “Hajime.”

I grimaced, having already decided that even though I was going to lose, that this time I would go down fighting. I quickly flipped the mental switch to activate one of my elemental spells, and then unleashed the stored magic. Suddenly, my eyes and tattoos began to glow a silvery color, which startled Cindy, but not long enough. She swung her fist at me, only to connect with an invisible wall of air that I’d formed between us.

“What…?” Cindy gasped in surprise, since I hadn’t used this trick before in BMA.

I switched gears and switched all of the remaining energy I had stored for my air spell, into creating a concentrated burst of wind. Cindy was suddenly thrown back right to the edge of the circle, where she caught herself. She floated in mid-air for several seconds, fighting against my wind, then she came straight at me, and once again, I was throwing from the circle.

“I didn’t know you had a force field,” Cindy said, adjusting her glasses again and giving me a curious look. “I wonder what other tricks you have…”

“As do I,” Tolman commented, gesturing for Cindy and I to both return to our seats.

“That was a nice trick,” Laura told me.

“But not nice enough,” Morgana added.

Jimmy, who was also sitting close to us today, gave me a sympathetic look. “It was a good try though…”

“But not good enough,” Morgana repeated with a grin.

I glared at my roommate, then at Jimmy. He’d gone up against Cindy yesterday, and had done much better than I had. Since both were PK, and of comparable power levels, they had been pretty evenly matched. It had only been Cindy’s ability to fly that gave her any advantage over him.

As I watched the next couple fights, I considered how I would fight those opponents, but I had a hard time imagining how I could possibly win. No opponent would stand still and let me draw some runes on the floor, which meant that I’d have to rely entirely on my elemental spells. Unfortunately, I only had five of those, and most of them were useless in this kind of situation. After all, unless I was facing someone like Vic, being able to control water wouldn’t do me any good, and if I destroyed the floor with an earthquake, Tolman would probably kill me.

Then, after I’d psyched myself down to an even greater depression, Tolman called out, “Glyph and Crysis.”

“Good luck,” Jimmy said.

“Kick his ass,” Morgana immediately added.

Laura gave me a thumbs up and warned me, “He likes to start with a strong right punch.”

A few seconds later, I was standing up front in the sparring circle again, facing Crysis. Crysis was a lean boy with black hair and dark eyes, that were currently glaring at me as though I’d kicked his dog. This was the first time I’d sparred with Crysis, so I could only imagine that the glare was due to being put up against such an easy opponent. After seeing his powers in action, I knew that I had even less chance of beating him than I did Miss Omega.

“No powers for the first match,” Tolman stated, repeating the pattern that she’d been using for all the matches today. “Hajime.”

Crysis and I began to circle each other, neither of us making a move. He continued to glare at me with a faint sneer. Then, he suddenly lunged forward, swinging his right fist, just like Laura had warned me. Because of Laura’s warning, I had the presence of mind to actually block the punch, the way Tolman had shown me yesterday, then I punched him back, though it wasn’t nearly hard enough.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Crysis demanded.

Crysis came right at me, and though he wasn’t as skilled as Laura, he was still better than me. He attacked me with a series of punches, with one of them smashing right into my nose. I felt an explosion of pain and dropped to the floor, where I grabbed at my face and felt my hands fill with blood.

“BIANCA!” Morgana yelled, jumping to her feet. She was snarling in rage and beginning to transform.

“Stay back,” Tolman ordered my roommate, while Laura grabbed her arm and stopped her from doing anything stupid.

I grimaced in pain but managed to get to my knees. My hands were full of blood, and the entire front of my gi was soaked with crimson. However, the bleeding was already stopping.

“Do you need to go to Doyle?” Tolman asked me. She knew that I had regeneration, so she didn’t look worried, in spite of all the blood. Or at least, I hoped that was why she wasn’t concerned.

“No,” I answered, wincing at the pain and spitting out blood.

I got back to my feet, feeling shaky from the pain and loss of blood. I could leave and go to Doyle but Tolman would know that I didn’t really have to. My friends would know that I didn’t really have to. And even more importantly, I would know. If I ran away every time things got painful, than I’d never get strong enough to face Scorn. With that, I carefully pulled on my metaphoric mask and tried to act calm and confident. I wasn’t sure how well I succeeded, with my busted nose.

Tolman nodded and gave me a faint look of approval. “Very well then,” she said. “This time, you may use powers… Hajime.”

Crysis had a look of smug satisfaction on his face, and it pissed me off. Before he had a chance to use his powers, I decided to make my move. I unleashed another of my elemental spells, and suddenly the air around me exploded in flames. Crysis yelped and jumped back to avoid the expanding flames, far enough that he went outside the circle.

“Glyph wins this match,” Tolman announced, which brought a faint smile to my face.

Unfortunately, since that match was over, I had to release my magic, not that I had a lot of energy left in that spell. I was annoyed at having to end it early, because I wouldn’t be able to use it again until well after BMA was over for the day.

“Again,” Tolman told us. “You may use your powers.” Once we both got into position, she said, “Hajime.”

Crysis glared at me with even more hostility than before, which made me gulp nervously, though I tried not to show it. An idea suddenly occurred to me and I realized that I might be able to use my light power to bluff him. However, before I could activate that spell, Crysis made his move.

Before I even realized what was happening, I suddenly flew straight up in the air, courtesy of Crysis’ telekinesis. After leaving me hanging for a couple seconds, he brought me down again with a telekinetic body slam, where I landed right outside the circle. I let out a loud gasp as the impact knocked the wind out of me, and probably bruised most of my body.

“Crysis wins the match,” Tolman announced.

I was still dazed from the impact and trying to catch my breath when Crysis came over and bent down. With sneer, he quietly hissed out, “I don’t know how someone like YOU managed to kill the Messenger…”

If I’d had the air for it, I would have let out a gasp of shock. Instead, all I could do was stare at Crysis in stunned horror as he turned and walked away. He knew… How could he know? How could he possibly know?

“Bianca,” Laura said as she crouched down beside me. “Are you okay?”

I coughed and managed to sit up, wincing from the bruises all over my body…and Crysis’ words. I looked towards the boy, but he’d already taken his seat was carefully looking away from me. With a nod, I managed to gasp out, “I’m fine…” Laura and Morgana helped me back to my spot on the mat, where I sat back down with a wince.

“That one looked pretty nasty,” Jimmy told me with a sympathetic look.

“You can say that again,” Laura responded.

Morgana gave a wicked grin as she said, “That one looked pretty nasty.”

“Hey,” Jimmy protested. “That was my line…”

“His line. His line,” the VI ferret exclaimed from above Jimmy’s shoulder.

I nodded absently as my friends tried to comfort me, but my attention was focused on Crysis. There was a cold knot of dread in my gut as I remembered his words, and as I considered what they meant.

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Thursday afternoon, Sept 15th, 2016

They were watching me. Nearly everyone in class was watching me, staring at me when they didn’t think I could see them. They were whispering behind my back…and pointing. I wasn’t just being paranoid, in spite of what Morgana had suggested when I’d pointed it out during lunch.

I was currently sitting in English, and I was alone, without any of my friends to watch my back. Well, Janine was in the class, but she had been forced to sit on the other side of the room due to the limited availability of open seats, but I couldn’t count on her to do much.

My eyes quickly swept the room as I tried to take in every detail, not allowing myself to relax since I knew something was up. I didn’t know what it was, and that worried me.

For most of the day, people had been giving me strange looks and staring at me when they didn’t think I was watching. It had been getting worse and worse as the day progressed, which made me nervous as hell.

There, someone was doing it again. I didn’t know the girl’s name, but there she was on the other side of the room. She gave me an odd look, nudged the girl beside her, and then leaned over to whisper in her ear. She was talking about me. I just knew it.

I remained tense and on edge for the entire class, barely hearing what the teacher was saying. Instead, I kept my attention on the other students, waiting for someone to make a move.

While I did this, Crysis’ words echoed through my head. He knew that I was the one who killed the Messenger. That meant, he knew that I was the White Lady. HOW? How could Crysis know? Was he planning to jump me for some reason? Was he part of something larger? These questions kept coming, putting me further and further on edge.

Then, English finally ended and I let out a sigh of relief, though I didn’t lower my guard. Instead, I remained where I was, watching as the other students poured out of the classroom, feeling my fears recede just a little more every time there was one less potential threat.

“Hey, Bianca,” Janine said as she came over to me. She looked just a little nervous, which made me worry about why. Was she involved with whatever was going on? I certainly hoped not.

“Janine,” I greeted her warily.

Janine hesitated a moment, then held out her notebook. It took me a few seconds to realize that the random doodling all over the pages, was actually some sort of diagram, for what appeared to be another Rube Goldberg machine, though I had absolutely no idea what this one was for.

“I came up with a great idea,” Janine told me, looking both nervous and excited at the same time. It took me a moment more to realize that she was nervous about showing ME…about what I thought.

I blinked at that. “It looks interesting,” I said carefully, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

But just then, I noticed one of my other classmates coming towards me. Kopy was a stocky boy, with shaggy dark hair and few extra pounds on him, though he was more in the line of slightly chubby than straight-out fat. He was also a fairly high level power mimic, hence the name. I knew this because I’d heard him bragging about it several times in class.

“So,” Kopy said with a smirk. “I hear that you’re the new White Lady.”

I nearly choked at that, and then I spent several seconds frozen in shock and terror. I finally regained control of myself enough to pull on my metaphorical mask, and to at least try acting calm and confident, though I wasn’t sure how good a job I was doing at the moment.

“Where did you hear that?” I demanded in a cold tone, which hopefully covered my desperation.

“It’s all over the school,” Kopy answered with a smug look. “Word is, your grandmother was the previous White Lady, and that you’ve taken over…”

“What does that mean?” Janine asked, looking a little confused.

“What it means,” Penny Dreadful answered in a flat tone, just as she had been about to leave the room, “is that your friend is a supervillain.” She gave me a look of vague curiosity, which was a change from the expression of bored disinterest that she normally seemed to wear. “You’re not quite the goody goody that I thought…”

“What?” Janine blurted out, staring at me in stunned disbelief. “You’re a villain?”

I stood there for a moment, gulping and trying to gather my thoughts. Penny gave me a curious look, then gestured to the side, where a desiccated female zombie formed. Without a word, she handed her book bag to the zombie, then continued walking out the door while the zombie staggered after.

“Bianca…?” Janine started, sounding almost as if she was begging.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kopy told me with a grin. “I mean, I understand completely. Mimeo is my dad.”

I didn’t know what to say to Kopy…or to Janine, who was still staring at me with a confused expression. So, instead of speaking, I took a deep breath, tried to keep myself from screaming, and hurried out the classroom door.

“Hey, maybe we can join the Seeds together,” Kopy said from behind me, though I did my best to ignore him. “If you vouch for me…”

“Oh God,” I gasped, on the verge of hyperventilating.

My heart had to be racing at least a hundred miles a second, or at least that was what it felt like. My heart was definitely going fast, and I was shaking with dread. They knew. Everybody knew.

Suddenly, I understood the odd stares and whispers that I’d been receiving all morning, and my heart jumped up right into my throat. I had to get out of here. I had to get away from all those eyes that were watching me…judging me.

I started for Poe, not knowing where else to go for safety. However, I had barely started for the cottage when I heard my name being called out. I immediately snapped around, bracing for an attack. However, a moment later, I saw Morgana coming towards me.

“Bianca,” Morgana called again.

“Morgana,” I responded carefully, gulping at the realization that she was giving me the same kind of look that I’d seen from so many other students today. Still, I tried playing it cool in the hope that I was wrong. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Morgana demanded as she came up and stopped in front of me. “Oh, nothing much. Only the fact that someone just told me that my roommate is a supervillain with her own cult.”

I saw the look of anger, betrayal, and suspicion in Morgana’s eyes and took a nervous step back. It was just like I feared…that if my friends knew who I really was, they wouldn’t be my friends anymore. After finally making friend outside the Family, for the first time in my life, the idea of losing them hurt.

“I’m not a supervillain,” I responded quietly, trying not to burst into tears. “And I don’t have any cult…”

“Bianca,” Morgana started, giving me a look that seemed to be part relief and part skepticism. She paused for a moment, giving me a calculating look. “Damn near everyone is saying that your grandmother was some supervillain named the White Lady…and that you’ve taken over for her.”

She stared at me, as though silently begging me to deny the accusations. I wanted to deny the accusations, to tell her and everyone else that someone had made this up, but I couldn’t.

“My grandmother was the fifth White Lady,” I quietly admitted, unable to look my roommate in the eyes. “When she died, I inherited her powers and became the sixth…”

“What are you saying?” Morgana asked with a visible gulp.

“Yes,” I blurted out in frustration. “I am the White Lady.”

This time, it was Morgana who took a step back, staring at me with worried look. Her eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t tell if they were filled with fear, anger, or some mixture of both.

“So, you ARE a villain,” she exclaimed.

“No, I’m not,” I protested, growing more flustered by the moment.

I quickly looked around, but there were few people close to us. However, I did see Tanya, quickly walking away from us. Had she been close enough to hear what we were saying? Had she heard those rumors too? However, Morgana was standing right in front of me, so I shifted my full attention back to her.

“My grandmother USED TO BE a villain,” I nearly snarled at Morgana, “but that was back in the forties. She hadn’t been a supervillain in decades…” I glared at my roommate, angered by her suspicious gaze and accusations, which felt like a betrayal. “Sure, she ran the Family…and they might not always do thing legally…but they sure as hell aren’t a cult.”

“But what about...?” Morgana started, though I didn’t give her a chance to accuse me of anything else.

“I’m NOT a supervillain,” I insisted. “I inherited my grandmother’s power…and her title, but it’s not like I’ve put on some kind of stupid costume and went out robbing banks. If anything, I’ve helped stop a couple villains.”

“A couple?” Morgana asked, giving me a curious look. Then she looked a little chagrined, perhaps out of embarrassment over the way she’d confronted me over the rumors. “And what about the whole cult thing?”

“The Family is not a cult,” I told her with a sigh, closing my eyes for a moment and trying to keep from completely freaking out. “It’s the family business… My ancestors have been running the Family for centuries, but they…we aren’t a cult. We don’t worship anything. We just look out for each other and try to make a living…”

Morgana stared at me for several long seconds, and I couldn’t really read her expression. “So you’re not a villain?” I shook my head. “And you’re absolutely not part of a cult?”

“No,” I assured her with a tired sigh. For some reason, she seemed more obsessed with the whole cult idea than with anything else.

“But this Family,” she started, giving me another curious look. “You said that it isn’t legal…” Then her eyes widened. “You’re with the mob…like in the Godfather?” I winced at that, while she blurted out, “You’re a mafia princess!”

I winced again and responded, “Not exactly…” I squirmed, deciding that it wouldn’t be a good idea to point out that it would have been more accurate to call me a mafia queen. At least in theory.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Morgana asked. “I mean, why didn’t you tell me…?”

“Tell you what?” I asked grimly. “That my grandmother used to be a supervillain? That I’m part of a criminal organization? That the asshole who murdered my family has a price on MY head too?”

Morgana’s eyes went wide at that revelation, then she shook her head. “Damn.”

“I came to Whateley so I could get away from being the White Lady,” I told her with a scowl. “I came here so I could just be Bianca…and figure out who she is…” Then I shook my head sadly, “And now it’s all over… Everyone knows…”

“It’s okay,” Morgana assured me, putting a gentle arm around my shoulder. “Trust me, I know what it’s like having a bunch of shit in the rearview mirror that you don’t like talking about. But I’m your roomie… Your friend… Come on, you can tell me more on the way to class…”

Then, whether I really wanted to go to class or not, Morgana gently pulled me in that direction. After a few seconds, I let out a sigh and began to follow her on my own.

When we arrived at Magic Lab, I immediately noticed the same odd looks and whispers that had been occurring throughout the day, but this time, I knew exactly what they were for. I wanted to turn and leave the class, but I couldn’t do that now. Instead, I braced myself and slipped into my
White Lady persona, trying to act calm and in control.

“Are you okay?” Morgana asked, giving me a worried look.

“I’m fine,” I answered in an even tone. From the look on her face, she didn’t believe me, but probably didn’t want to make a big deal of it right there in class.

I slowly looked around the classroom, carefully noting all the students who were giving me odd looks. Of course, Melody was glaring at me, as were the two other bitches Antionette and Estelle. From the way Melody began to smirk, I was pretty sure that she’d heard the rumors. There was no way I’d show any weakness in front of these bitches, so I locked the White Lady mask even more firmly in place.

AJ was already in his seat, looking calm and relaxed, though he was watching me carefully. “I’m sorry to hear you got outed,” he told me. “I know you were trying to keep a low profile.”

“Thank you,” I answered politely.

Morgana stared at him in surprise, then turned to me, “Wait… He already knew?” She gave me a hurt look, obviously assuming that I’d told AJ before telling her.

“The Bad Seeds figured out who I was and asked me to join,” I explained to Morgana, keeping my voice low and even. “I turned them down.”

However, it wasn’t until then that I suddenly realized an important question that I should already have asked. How did everyone know that I was the White Lady? Who started these rumors? The only ones who knew, or who I was aware of knowing, were the Imp and the Bad Seeds, and somehow, I couldn’t see my odd faculty advisor spreading that information.

“Someone did this,” I whispered to myself as I narrowed my eyes and looked over my classmates. Was one of them involved?

Morgana looked like she was about to ask me another question, but Grimes stood up from her desk and began the class. Unfortunately, I was a little too distracted to pay much attention, and I spent the entire class looking around the room, watching the other students and looking for any sign of an attack. Admittedly, I was getting just a little paranoid, but I didn’t care, because people really were out to get me.

As soon as class was over, I stood up and started to leave the classroom as quickly as I could while still maintaining my dignity. However, Melody warned one of the other students, “I’d get out of the white freak’s way if I were you, or she might make you go swimming with concrete shoes on…” Then, she burst out in mocking laugher, along with several other students.

“Watch it, blondie,” Morgana snarled, giving Melody and her friends a warning look. I just did my best to ignore the whole thing and get out of the classroom as quickly as I could. Morgana looked like she was going to follow, but something distracted her and I made my escape.

Once I was out of the classroom, I started straight to Poe as quickly as I could without actually running. My heart was racing and my eyes were darting everywhere, looking for the attack that was sure to come. I had to get away from these stares and whispers. I had to get somewhere safe.

The moment I arrived at Poe, I saw Decibelle in the doorway, talking to another girl I didn’t know. As soon as Deci saw me, she said, “Hey Bianca, I heard…” However, I rushed past her without responding.

I made it to my room and locked the door behind me with a sigh of relief. I was safe. But then, as I looked around the small dorm room, I realized that I wasn’t safe. I knew that there were some kind of magical protections around Poe Cottage, but I was sure that they weren’t enough. And even if they were, they wouldn’t protect against dangers from within Poe. I needed to fix that. I needed to make my room more secure.

I grabbed a piece of chalk and began to draw wards and protection runes on the wall, starting with around the door and then moving to the window. Admittedly, the number of spells I currently had available to me was rather limited, but I did have some good ones to protect from various forms of spying. And of course, I also had the large book that my grandmother had left to me, which included some protection spells that I hadn’t memorized yet. Those would be very useful.

“But this isn’t enough,” I exclaimed as I frantically looked around the room and the runes I’d already drawn. “They need to be stronger…more powerful. How…?”

I stood there for several long seconds, looking around and desperately trying to think of what I could do to make my spells stronger and more effective. Then it came to me. I knew the answer to that. A moment later, I grabbed a ceramic mug and the small dagger that I’d been carrying with me ever since my fight with the Messenger.

“I hope this works,” I whispered, hesitating only a couple seconds before I sliced open my own forearm. Crimson appeared against my stark white skin, and I quickly positioned the mug so that I could catch every single drop before the wound closed. “That should be enough for now…”

Just then, I heard my bedroom door being unlocked, right before it flew open and Morgana stepped inside. My roommate froze, stared at me with a look of surprised, and demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”

It took a moment for me to realize what it must look like, for her to see me standing there with a bloody knife against my arm. “I need the blood for my spells,” I quickly explained, wiping the blood from my forearm to show that it was no longer bleeding. “I need it to make the protection spells stronger…”

Morgana’s eyes widened as she looked around the room and saw the new runes that I’d drawn on the walls. Then, she turned to stare at me again, this time with a worried look.

“Bianca,” my roommate said in the kind of gentle and patronizing tone that was usually reserved for children, animals, and the mentally disturbed. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay,” I exclaimed, holding up the cup of blood. I was practically shaking as I tried to explain, “They’re going to come for me…”

“Who is?” Morgana asked, slowly stepping closer to me.

“The assassins,” I answered, dipping my finger into the mug of blood and then looking at the wall to decide where I should put the next rune.

Morgana took the mug out of my hand and gave it a look of distaste before setting it down on top of my dresser. “Better your blood than mine,” she muttered, right before giving me a forced grin. “You are NOT using your blood to doodle all over the walls of MY bedroom…”

“You don’t understand,” I snarled, reaching for the mug, but Morgana stopped me.

“You really think that assassins are coming for you?” Morgana asked, giving me a worried look. “Here…at Whateley? I think you’re being a little paranoid…”

“PARANOID?” I demanded, staring at my roommate in stunned disbelief. Did she think I was making this up? I wished to God I was. “Assassins murdered my family, right in front of me,” I snarled, perhaps getting just a little manic. “They came to my grandmother’s birthday party and killed my mom and dad…” Tears we were starting to pour down my cheeks as remembered the scene. As I remembered being froze in terror while the Messenger and his daughter killed everyone… “THEY SHOT MY SISTER IN THE BACK!”

“Bianca,” Morgana gasped, looking horrified.

It hurt to talk about this…to even think about this. Tears continued to pour out. “They killed my aunt and cousin,” I said in a quieter voice, which trembled and cracked. My grandmother…and a lot of others… All I could do was stand there and watch.”

I’d told Morgana about this before, at least in part, when I’d first arrived at Whateley. However, I hadn’t told her or anyone else the full story. I hadn’t told them what it really meant when my grandmother and all of her heirs had been murdered. I hadn’t told them what else it meant for me.

“After I changed,” I whispered. “After I became the White Lady…the Messenger came after me too…and so did Overstrike.”

“How did you get away?” Morgana asked, but I was too caught up in my own thoughts to answer.

“I came to Whateley to hide from the assassins,” I quietly admitted. “But now, everyone knows who I am, so it’s only a matter of time before Scorn finds out I’m here. It’s only a matter of time before he sends more assassins after me…” Then I shuddered as I added, “For all I know, he might already know I’m here. For all I know, he was the one who outed me…”

I sat down on the edge of my bed, feeling too shaken to even stand. Morgana sat beside me, looking worried but uncertain about what to do.

“Whateley has great security,” Morgana tried to assure me. “There is no way an assassin could get you here. You’re safe here. WE are safe here.”

“This time, I don’t have any bodyguards,” I said. “This time, I don’t have any Loyal to help…”

“You have something even better than any bodyguards,” Morgana insisted, giving me a determined look. “You have me watching your back. You have friends, and even if some assassin did manage to find you here, there is no way we’d let them get you.”

Then, Morgana surprised me by throwing her arms around me in a hug. I didn’t think she was much of a hugger, but I hadn’t considered myself one either and I found myself holding her tightly as I cried.

Poe Cottage, Friday morning, Sept 16th, 2016

Monday mornings were a bane to all mankind, along the same level as pestilence, politics, and speedos on really fat guys. And unfortunately, I was beginning to think that Friday mornings were nearly as bad.

It was extremely difficult to climb out of bed this morning, especially since I’d had almost no sleep last night. After everything that had happened yesterday, my nightmares had been stirred to new heights of terror.

Whenever I closed my eyes, I could picture my family, lying dead on the ground before me. I could hear them crying out and demanding, “Why did you survive when I didn’t?” And of course, I saw the faceless horde of assassins that Scorn might send after me.

Morgana staggered out of bed at the same time and gave me a vaguely worried look, though she didn’t say anything, at least not to me. She did, however, mutter something about coffee, that was too unintelligible for me to make out.

After several minutes of mindlessly staggering around my room, like a zombie who’d just risen from the grave, I managed to get my robe on and my shower caddy. I paused at the door, hesitating to leave the relative safety of my room. I hadn’t left this room since I’d locked myself inside yesterday, except for one brief run to the bathroom. I hadn’t gone to dinner, or even my Firearm Safety class.

I did feel a little bad about missing Firearm Safety, because now, I needed that class even more than before. I was in danger, and I had no idea when or where the attack would come from. I only knew that sooner or later, it would come, and that I had to be prepared.

“Hurry it up, slowpoke,” Morgana grumbled from behind me, letting out a loud yawn. “I need to go take a pee…”

“And you need to brush your teeth,” I teased her with a forced smile. “You really have dragon breath in the morning.”

Morgana just grinned at that. “At least I don’t spend half the night farting in my sleep…”

I just smiled faintly in response, thankful for the less than witty banter. For the moment at least, I could pretend that things were normal, or at least, as normal as they seemed to get at Whateley.

Just a minute later, I stepped into the she showers, where Chessa stared at me for a moment with a faintly nervous expression, then quickly averted her eyes and pretended that she hadn’t seen me. I scowled at that, feeling hurt by her reaction.

Laura stepped out of one of the stalls and began drying herself off, though when she noticed me, she gave a smile that seemed only a little uncertain. “Morning Bianca. Morgana.”

“Morning,” I responded evenly, refusing to call it ‘good’.

Morgana gave Laura a faint nod, which I caught in the mirror since I wasn’t supposed to see it. I realized that Morgana had probably talked to her and the others about me last night during dinner, which made me tense up slightly. I didn’t know how much Morgana had told them, but I was fairly sure that she wouldn’t give away too many details.

“How are you holding up?” Laura asked me, looking just a little awkward.

“Fine,” I lied, giving a forced smile.

Laura hesitated a moment, then cautiously asked, “Are you sure? I know it can’t be easy having everyone spreading rumors behind your back.”

“Rumors can’t hurt me,” I said, silently adding, “but an assassin can.”

Laura gave me a skeptical look, but before she could ask me any more questions, I slipped into the open shower stall and ended the conversation. After my shower, I performed my usual morning trick of using magic to dry myself off, then I hurried back to the safety of my room, at least long enough to get dressed.

When it came time to leave Poe, I suddenly found myself surrounded by Morgana, Laura, and Bailey, almost as if they were my bodyguards. I was a little startled by this, as well as confused, until I noticed Morgana’s smirk. She’d arranged this with the other girls, probably to make me feel more secure. I had to admit, it was working.

“I told you that I had your back,” Morgana told me with a grin.

“Thank you,” I responded, fighting back the tears that wanted to come.

We reached Crystal Hall a short time later, and I tensed up, noticing the looks that some of the other students were giving me. There weren’t quite as many as I’d feared, but still enough to put me on edge. I braced myself for some kind of attack or confrontation, but the presence of my friends seemed to deter anyone from getting too close.

However, as I stood in line, putting waffles on my plate, I overheard one girl asking, “Are you sure? I’ve never even heard of the White Lady…” A minute later, I caught a piece of another conversation, with a boy saying, “...some kind of mob boss in Chicago…”

All this attention made me more than a little uncomfortable, but that was nothing compared to the knot that formed in my stomach when I went to the table and saw Jimmy, Vic, and Tia were already present. Almost as one, they turned to stare at me.

“Come on,” Morgana urged, gesturing for me to sit down. She took her own seat and immediately picked up the cup of coffee from her tray. After taking a deep sniff, she exclaimed, “Ahhhh. Nirvana.”

I hesitated a moment, waiting to see if any of them would tell me to sit somewhere else. Tia looked nervous, Jimmy was watching me with a somewhat suspicious expression, and Vic was a little more difficult to read. When none of them actually said anything, I cautiously sat down.

The conversation was very light, and no one said a word about the elephant in the room, though they obviously wanted to. Perhaps no one wanted to be the one to bring up the subject, or perhaps they wanted to wait until everyone else was present as well.

I was curious about why Tanya hadn’t joined us yet, because I caught a glimpse of her while I’d been making my way to the table. But so far, she had yet to arrive. However, Taka arrived a short time later, and that seemed to signal the others that it was time.

“Are you really with the mob?” Laura asked,

I gulped, not surprised by the question since I knew that my friends would be asking them. I just wasn’t sure that they really were still my friends now. Still, Laura seemed more concerned and curious than accusatory, which let me relax just a little.

“What is mob?” Taka asked, looking a little confused.

Tavi hovered above Jimmy’s shoulder, now looking like he was wearing some kind of old-time gangster costume. He even had a tiny tommygun in his ferret paws. However, I was too distracted by my own thoughts to pay attention to what he was saying.

“The mob is…,” Bailey started, pausing for a moment as she tried to figure out how to answer.

“Sort of like the yakuza,” Jimmy answered, the disapproval clear in his voice and expression.

“You are yakuza?” Taka asked, giving me a look of surprise.

“The Family isn’t really the mob,” I answered slowly. Then I reluctantly admitted, “But there are some similarities.”

I paused at that and looked around, realizing that it probably wasn’t a very good idea to talk about this stuff in the middle of the school cafeteria. Who knew how many people might be listening in on us.

With that, I pulled out a piece of chalk and went to work drawing some runes on the table. My friends all watched in surprise, and perhaps even confusion as they wondered what I was up to. Once I was done, I charged the runes with essence and activated the spells.

“Eavesdropping protection,” I explained grimly. That should protect against eavesdropping, as well as most bugs and scrying spells, or at least, any that my fellow students were likely to have available at the moment.

I took a deep breath as I prepared to talk about something that I really didn’t want to, that I had hoped to avoid completely at Whateley. However, if I was to have any chance of keeping my friends, I had to be honest.

“The rumors are right,” I finally said, keeping my voice low and even. “I am the sixth White Lady.”

“The sixth?” Tia blurted out in surprise.

“The White Lady is a title that is passed down through the women in my family,” I explained. “Along with certain powers. My grandmother was the White Lady before me, and yes, at one time she’d been a supervillain.”

I paused at that, feeling the tears starting to form, though I held them back as hard as I could, forcing myself to appear calm and in control. There was no way I could show that kind of weakness here, in the middle of the school cafeteria. Crying in front of everyone would be like bleeding in the water. It would only draw the sharks.

Several people at the table began to talk at once, which made it difficult to make out what they were saying. I focused on Laura, who asked, “What about this Family you mentioned? You said they’re similar to the mob…”

I nodded at that while I tried to think about how to answer. “Originally,” I finally said, “one of my ancestors, the third White Lady, created the Family as a legitimate business…and as a mutual protection thing for her friends and family.”

“Originally?” Morgana asked.

“Her great niece was ambitious,” I continued, staring at the runes on the table instead of the people who were watching me so carefully. “She murdered the third White Lady and became the fourth. Under her control, the Family changed into something else. Then, during the first World War, the fourth White Lady was killed, along with most of the Family. The fifth White Lady…my grandmother rebuilt the Family. And then…” I paused, choking and unable to continue.

“Your grandmother was killed,” Morgana said quietly.

I couldn’t bring myself to speak just yet, so I merely nodded. After taking a deep breath, I managed to say, “And I inherited her title, her powers, and her position as the head of the Family.”

“But you’re my age,” Jimmy blurted out. “How can you be a mafia boss?”

I wanted to tell them that it wasn’t my choice, that I hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Family. However, I’d opened up more than I was comfortable with at the moment, and couldn’t bring myself to reveal any more, especially not something that would be seen as a weakness.

“I won’t take over until I’m eighteen,” I said instead. “Until then, I’m just a figurehead.”

Jimmy stared at me with an odd look, one that was almost hurt, as though I’d somehow betrayed him. He scowled, but didn’t say anything more. The look of disapproval on his face spoke more than enough.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Tia asked, looking a little worried, perhaps even a little afraid of me. That definitely hurt.

“Why don’t you think?” Morgana responded. “I mean, would you tell everyone?” Laura and Bailey nodded, as they also knew that there were some secrets you just didn’t want to share with everyone.

“I came to Whateley so I didn’t have to be the White Lady,” I said, getting tired of having to explain this. “I just wanted to be Bianca…” I scowled, trying hard to keep my voice and expression under control, though it wasn’t easy. “It’s…dangerous having people know. Very dangerous…”

“Apparently,” Morgana agreed, giving me a sympathetic look, “Bianca had some people who are after her, and she was hiding out at Whateley…”

“I…have a price on my head,” I admitted reluctantly, earning several looks of surprise.

“What did you do?” Tia gasped.

I gave her a flat look, barely holding back the anger that wanted to erupt. “I inherited my grandmother’s power. Scorn… He ordered a hit on my family, and now he’s after me.”

“Why after you?” Taka asked, looking just a little lost. Since English wasn’t his natural language, I wondered just how much of the conversation he was following. “Is from rival clan?”

I blinked at Taka’s second question, since it seemed that he understood a little better than I’d expected. “Yes,” I answered with a sigh. “Scorn wants to take over our…territory and business. In order to do that, he has to take out the Family…and its figurehead. Me.”

“Damn,” Vic exclaimed.

Just then, one of the spells I’d cast, suddenly popped. I stared at the rune I’d drawn on the table, but it was no longer charged with essence or active. Normally, my spells fade out when they use up all the essence, but this was something different. I’d never had this happen to me before, but I realized what it had to be. Someone had broken my anti-eavesdropping spell. Considering that Whateley was full of magic users, both students and faculty, and that a lot of them were probably curious about me, that shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Vic started to say something, but I held up a hand to stop him. “We aren’t safe to talk anymore,” I said, scowling at the runes in annoyance. I was definitely going to have to work on making my spells stronger if I wanted any kind of privacy from now on.

The others all looked at each other, then there were some nods of understanding. I could have put another spell in place so that we could continue the conversation for a little longer, but I didn’t bother to do so. This gave me the excuse I needed to end the questions for the moment. After this, we spent the rest of breakfast in near silence.

--------------------

BMA, Friday late morning, Sept 16th, 2016

I stood in the middle of the sparring circle, carefully watching my opponent. At first glance, Mouse looked like she’d be easy to beat, even for someone as unskilled as myself. Between her stature, codename, and general mousey demeanor, that would be an easy mistake to make.

If you looked more closely at Mouse, you’d see that her body, while fairly short, was also lean and very solid. She was an athlete. Specifically, she was a gymnast, and from what I’d heard, a very good one. She’d even been competing for a spot on the US Olympics team, before she manifested and suddenly became ineligible.

I sympathized with Mouse, because I knew exactly what it felt like to have your life and dreams taken away and shattered, by something you had no control over. However, it was obvious that Mouse had no sympathy for me, and she kept looking at me like I was some kind of poisonous snake…even before we’d been told to spar with each other.

Mouse suddenly came at me, moving faster than I could. She was shorter than me, but in much better shape. And years of intense gymnastics training proved that she also had the will, determination, and competitive spirit to win.

As we traded punches, I grimaced and silently cursed. Every time I thought I had Mouse, she’d suddenly shrink, making it very hard to either hit or grab her. That was frustrating, but not as much as the fact that I didn’t have any tricks that I could pull in return. I’d already used my fire and air spells during a previous sparring match, so I had nothing left to use against her, or at least, nothing that would be very useful at the moment.

Mouse and I sparred for our third match, with neither of us actually ‘winning.’ However, it was obvious to anyone watching, that even though she didn’t knock me outside the ring, or get me pinned, that she was still doing a lot better than I was. When Tolman called out for us to stop, I let out a sigh of relief. It was bad enough getting my butt handed to me by someone like Bacon, but even worse to have it done by someone like Mouse.

“Class is over for today,” Tolman announced. “I will see you all again on Monday.”

“You’re getting better,” Laura told me, more to be encouraging than anything else.

“Mouse is hard to hit,” Morgana agreed.

I nodded at that, then looked around the room. Most of the students were heading towards the showers to get cleaned up. I saw Tanya doing that very thing, but she didn’t spare a glance back in my direction. Of course, she’d been ignoring me all morning, refusing to look at me or even acknowledge my existence. That hurt, though I refused to let it show.

When we went into the locker room a minute later, Laura called out, “Hey, Tanya…”

“Good match, today,” Tanya called back to Laura. “If I didn’t have my power, you would have nailed me…” Then Tanya hurried into the shower, still not even looking at me.

“How are you holding up?” Laura asked me with a worried look.

“I’m fine,” I assured her with a forced smile.

Then, as if the universe wanted to mess with me, one girl exclaimed, “Why are those girls even hanging around her? I mean, she’s supposed to be some kind of supervillain…”

“They’re all poesies,” another girl responded, with a hint of contempt in her voice.

Morgana’s eyes flashed and she turned to glare at the other girls. However, I put my hand on her arm. “They aren’t worth it.”

“Yeah,” Laura added with a faint smirk. “Save it up for the next time you have to spar with them…”

Morgana grinned. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

I went into the showers to wash off, trying hard not to think about the fact that I was surrounded by naked girls…some of whom were even hot exemplars. At the moment, I was almost thankful that Little Bryan was no longer there to give away what I was thinking. Almost.

As I stepped out of the shower, I mentally reached for my permanent spells and activated the one for water. My eyes and tattoos all began to glow blue, which drew more attention to me from around the locker room. I pulled all the water from my hair and skin, and held it hovering in a ball.

“I haven’t seen her do THAT in class,” Rapunzel whispered to Mouse, though I still heard it.

With a faint smile, I casually tossed the ball of water back into the showers, and towards the drain. It hit the floor and splashed the legs of the girl who’d been insulting towards poesies, with only a little nudge from me. I acted as though I hadn’t even noticed that small bit of petty revenge, and let what was left of my power fade.

I received a couple of worried looks from girls who realized that I hadn’t shown all my tricks in class, but others were less impressed since they’d seen me do this trick before. The downside of drying myself off this way, every time I showered, was that I tended to give away my ability to control water to those who paid attention. Still, it was nice being able to impress someone new. Now, if I could only figure out how to do that in the actual class.

“You know,” Laura told me, “I’m jealous of you being able to dry off so fast…”

“Not me,” Morgana responded with a broad grin, since she was just as dry as I was, courtesy of her fire power.

“At least I don’t have to worry about setting off the fire alarm,” I commented wryly.

Morgana just grinned a little more broadly at that. “And at least I don’t have to worry about what would happen if someone splashed me right now…after I’d already used up my power.”

“Touche,” I replied.

Once we were all ready, Morgana, Laura, and I all started for lunch together. Tanya hadn’t waited for us today, probably because she was avoiding me. I scowled at that, then tried not to think about it. What had I expected? I’d known my friends would probably avoid me after it came out that I was the White Lady. I was just lucky that not all of them were reacting like that.

As we walked to Crystal Hall, I wondered if Tanya would even bother sitting at our usual table, or if she’d skip out like she had at breakfast. Jimmy clearly didn’t approve of my criminal connections, and Tia now seemed a little nervous around me, but neither of them was actively avoiding me the way Tanya was.

“Thanks, both of you,” I said. At Morgana and Laura’s curious looks, I explained, For sticking with me…even though everyone seems to think I’m a supervillain.”

“I don’t think you’re a supervillain,” Laura assured me.

Morgana had an odd expression for a moment, then said, “Laura, can you go on ahead and give us a minute? We’ll catch up with you.”

“Okay,” Laura responded, giving Morgana and me a curious look before continuing ahead.

“I’m sorry for making things so difficult,” I told my roommate, with a sigh, blushing as I remembered crying in her arms yesterday.

“There’s no need to be,” Morgana responded. “Really. Trust me. I know.”

I stared at Morgana for a moment, feeling a little confused. There was a strange tone in her voice, and she was giving me a considering look, followed by a deep sigh.

“Whateley is a lot safer than you think,” Morgana told me. “At least from outside interference, or I wouldn’t be here myself.” She had an odd expression, as if she was bracing herself for something. “I never told you exactly what happened before I came here, did I? Just the sanitized version…”

“I don’t think so,” I responded carefully, wondering what she was getting at.

“It’s probably time I told you,” Morgana said with a sigh. “Then maybe you’ll feel a bit less isolated. And you'll hopefully understand why I was so worried you might be the leader of a cult."

After this, Morgana told me about what had happened to her, about the kidnapping, experimentation, and escape…along with what she’d done in the process. It took awhile, and wasn’t a very nice story, but in the end, I had a much better understanding of her and what she’d been through.

“So, you see,” Morgana continued, giving me a half grin. “They might be calling you a supervillain, but personally, I don’t believe it. For a start, you don’t have the right laugh for it.” Then she paused to shrug, adding, “My whole dragon thing is a bluff, and if everyone realized I should be calling myself Demonsfyre, well…”

I gulped faintly. “But you aren’t really…are you?”

Morgana shook her head. "Nah, I just got some of the physical stuff. They checked in London…I'm human, just with an altered body."

I let out a deep breath I hadn't realized I was holding. She must have noticed since the corner of her mouth twitched. "See,” she said, “there are worse things than people thinking of you as a villain. Which I don't."

“Thank you,” I told her, surprised to find that we had even more in common than I’d already known. Maybe, I should tell her about the Messenger…and what I’d done to him. After her story, I was pretty sure she’d understand.

However, before I could say anything else, Morgana exclaimed, “Come on, I’m hungry, and lunch isn’t going to eat itself,” and began marching towards Crystal Hall again.

When we reached Crystal Hall, I was startled to see Janine there, waiting at the entrance. She was hard to miss since she was floating ten feet in the air and sparkling.

“Bianca,” Janine said, right before lowering herself back to the ground. She gulped, suddenly looking extremely nervous. “Can…can we talk?”

Morgana was giving Janine a wary look, but I smiled wryly. “I don’t think I need a bodyguard at the moment. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“Okay,” Morgana responded before hurrying inside. I suspected that she might have resisted a little more, if it wasn’t for her appetite.

“You…you left this in English yesterday,” Janine said awkwardly as she held out my notebook. I’d been in such a hurry to get away after Kopy revealed that I’d been outed, that I must have left it behind.

“Thank you,” I said as I took the notebook.

I expected Janine to immediately hurry away from me after that, but instead, she remained where she was, blushing and looking self-conscious. She stared down at her own feet, looking like she wanted to say something, but remaining silent for several long seconds.

“Giggles doesn’t think I should talk to you anymore,” Janine finally said in a near whisper. “She says… Everyone says…”

“That I’m some kind of supervillain?” I asked in a flat and even tone.

“I don’t believe it,” Janine blurted out, looking me in the eyes. “You aren’t a bad person…”

“I don’t think I am,” I responded with a wry smile.

“But all those rumors,” Janine started with a pleading tone in her voice.

I hesitated, not sure what to tell her, or even if I should. “I don’t even know what all the rumors are,” I finally admitted. “People aren’t exactly telling me them to my face, or asking how accurate they are.”

“Are they true?” Janine asked me quietly. “I don’t believe you’re a villain…”

“Most of them probably have a grain of truth,” I reluctantly admitted. “Yes, my grandmother was the White Lady. Yes, she was a supervillain back in the forties, and you would probably call her a mob boss.” I scowled at that. “The Family isn’t quite what people think, and not nearly as bad.”

“The Family,” Janine whispered, her eyes going wide.

“When my grandmother died, I inherited her title and position,” I told her, already tired of repeating this. “I didn’t ask for either. I don’t want either. I wasn’t given any choice. When I turn eighteen, I become the head of the Family…whether I want it or not. Until then, I’m just a figurehead with a target on my back.”

“Oh my God,” Janine gasped, staring at me with an expression of sympathy.

I wasn’t sure why I’d just told all that to Janine. I hadn’t even told all of that to my usual group of friends, not even the ones who knew that I used to be Bryan.

Janine continued staring at me for several more seconds before her expression turned to one of determination, as though she’d made a decision. “My dad always says that instead of listening to gossip, that you should listen to your gut, and my gut says you’re a good person. You helped me with those jerks when you didn’t have to.”

“Thank you,” I told her, touched by her words and not sure what else I could say.

“I still want to be your friend,” Janine said awkwardly. “If you still want me…”

I blinked at that. “Of course, I still want you as my friend.” I gave her a self-conscious smile. I could use all the friends I could get, especially now.

Janine smiled at me, looking delighted. “You know,” she said excitedly. “Since you’re a bigshot mob boss and all, you probably need a personal assistant…”

“A what?” I asked in surprise, wondering where that came from.

“A personal assistant,” Janine exclaimed excitedly, grabbing my arm and announcing, “I’m your new personal assistant…”

--------------------

Devisor Labs, Friday late afternoon, Sept 16th, 2016

Elliot Conner looked over his work table and all the components that were carefully spread out before him. His fingers itched to put the rest of them together, and to finish assembling his latest weapon.

As a devisor, Elliot specialized in multi-function weapons, and he was sure that this one was going to be his best yet. It would be even better than the multi-gun he usually carried with him, and much more powerful.

Elliot scowled as he remembered how useless his prized multi-gun had been last Saturday, and he was determined not to let something like that happen again. It was with the still chafing frustration that he continued work on his latest devise, determined to finish it as soon as possible.

“This is going to be my best weapon yet,” Elliot announced proudly. “I bet I’ll rule the weapons fair this year…”

“Perhaps,” Marty responded from the next work station over. “But I intend to sell some of my hologram emitters, and I believe they will sell quite well.”

Elliot looked over at Marty Prescot, who was his best friend and lab partner. At the moment, Marty was working on a portable hard light generator, motivated by the same incident that was currently driving Elliot.

Just then, Elliot heard someone singing, though he and Marty were currently the only ones there, so he didn’t know where it was coming from. Still, it was a pleasant tune, so he listened to it and even began to hum along.

A minute later, Elliot suddenly realized that someone was standing at the door of the lab, watching them as she sang. Normally, Elliot didn’t like having girls in the labs since they were such a distraction, but at the moment, he didn’t care.

This girl was absolutely gorgeous, with high cheekbones, arched eyebrows over sapphire blue eyes, and long platinum blonde hair. Her entire body was magnificent, with a narrow waist, long legs, and breasts that were both large and firm. In fact, she had the looks of a Playboy model, not a sophomore high school student. It was no wonder that she was a member of Venus Inc.

Elliot knew exactly who this girl was. Melody Sheridon, AKA Chained Melody, was a sophomore, just like Marty and himself. However, unlike them, she’d spent the last year taking only electives and easy classes, and as a result, was stuck having to take some of the basics and prerequisites this year.

Though Elliot knew that there was something else important about Melody, he couldn’t quite think of what it was at the moment. Instead, he could only admire her beauty and grace. Marty, who was even worse around girls than he was due to his Asperger’s Syndrome, was equally entranced.

“Hello, boys,” Melody said in a suggestive purr. “I was just passing by when I noticed you working…”

For some reason, Elliot knew that he should be suspicious of Chained Melody, even more suspicious than of other girls, but he couldn’t quite remember why. And at that moment, he didn’t really care. He was just happy that she was paying attention to him.

“Welcome to our lab,” Elliot said with a smile.

“We have some very impressive technology we can show you,” Marty added a moment later.

“I’m sure you do,” Melody responded. “But that isn’t really why I’m here…”

“Why are you here?” Elliot asked, once again struck by the sense that something was wrong with that.

Melody smiled at that, though it was a faint and almost predatory smile. “I heard of the trouble you had with that white-skinned bitch last week, and I wanted to make sure you two were doing all right…”

“Glyph,” Elliot spat out the name. He and Marty had just been having a little fun when that bitch had stuck her nose in their business and began pushing them around. “She’s just like every other bully…”

“Of course she is,” Melody said pleasantly. “I’ve even heard that she’s with the mob…”

“I too have heard those rumors,” Marty said with a deep scowl.

“She’s some kind of rich bitch supervillain,” Elliot blurted out in anger. “She thinks she can get away with pushing us around…”

“Oh, you can’t have that,” Melody said in mock sympathy. “I think someone needs to teach her a lesson in humility.”

“Oh yeah,” Elliot agreed, looking over to Marty. “We’re just the ones to do it too. We’ll teach her that she can’t keep messing with us lab kids. It’s time we had some real revenge of the nerds…”

Melody smiled triumphantly as she said, “Good luck.”

A moment later, Melody turned and left the lab with a smirk, pleased that these two pawns had fallen right in line with her plans. Of course, that was no surprise. For some reason, Glyph seemed immune to her magical influence, but these two weren’t. She didn’t even need to control them directly, just make them a little more suggestible, then nudge them into doing what they already wanted to do.

“You’re going to pay, you white-skinned freak,” Melody mused to herself. “No one gets away with humiliating me. No one.”

--------------------

Whateley Academy, Saturday morning, Sept 17th, 2016

In my old school, Home Ec taught such things as how to bake cookies, do your own laundry, and even how to sew simple pillows. At Whateley, Home Ec consists of such things as how to design and make your own superhero…or supervillain…costume.

Costuming class teaches much more than the art of spandex. From what both our teacher and the brochure said, we’d be learning about how colors and styles can be used to influence how people see you, as well as how to make your clothing more practical by integrating various types of protection and hidden pockets. This sounded MUCH more interesting than learning how to patch holes in my socks.

It was Saturday morning, which seemed a completely unnatural time for a class, so I had to remind myself that I’d actually asked for this class. Being here was entirely of my choice, which made it a bit easier to drag myself out of bed and across campus, but not by much.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one in class. In fact, several of my friends, including my roommate, were here along with me. Morgana sat beside me, and on the other side of her was Tanya. Taka was also sitting close by.

This morning, Tanya wasn’t completely ignoring me like she’d done yesterday. She’d given me a polite “Good morning,” but was still pretty distant. Apparently, after hearing all the rumors, she now believed the worst of me. Since I’d thought she was my friend, that really hurt.

“You should have seen it,” Morgana was telling Tanya. “Last night, Tinker shows up at Poe and asks if she can do Bianca’s laundry…” Then, she turned to me and grinned. “We haven’t even been here for two weeks, and you’ve already got your own minion…”

“She is NOT my minion,” I responded, giving my roommate a glare. “For some reason, Janine thinks I need a personal assistant. I’ve told her I don’t need one, but I don’t think she was listening…”

“Likely story,” Morgana teased me, knowing how embarrassed I was about Janine’s offer. “I’ll tell you what… Tell her to be MY personal assistant instead, and to bring me coffee in the morning, and then everyone will be happy.”

I just rolled my eyes, wanting to respond, but also wanting to avoid getting in trouble for talking in class. I settled for ignoring Morgana, and paying attention to the teacher for the rest of class. Admittedly, I did practice a few more runes in my notebook during the lecture.

When Costuming class finally ended, Tanya and Taka both took off for their dorms, while Morgana and I started towards Poe. “You have to admit, it’s kind of funny,” Morgana said, continuing the conversation from class.

“No, it isn’t,” I argued.

“As soon as everyone thinks that you’re a supervillain or mob boss,” Morgana told me, “you suddenly have your own minion.”

“Janine isn’t my minion,” I pointed out, for what had to be the tenth time.

“I know that,” Morgana admitted with a faint smirk. “And you know that. But does SHE know that?”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Janine and I are just friends…”

Morgana gave me a somewhat skeptical look. “Maybe she thinks that you did her a favor…so now she owes you. Isn’t that the way things are supposed to work with the mob?”

I let out an exasperated sigh, not sure how to get Morgana to drop the subject, or how to get Janine to see that I neither wanted nor needed a personal assistant. I knew that she was just trying to be helpful, but if other students found out about this, it would only make my situation worse. The last thing I needed were rumors about me recruiting minions and henchmen.

We were about halfway back to Poe when there was a sudden blinding light ahead of us, as though the sun was reflecting off a mirror and directly into my eyes. I immediately put a hand over my eyes, though I was already dazed and blinded from the light. This immediately triggered my fears of an attack, so as much as the light hurt my eyes, I tore my hand away. To my relief, the bright light was gone, and I was relieved to see that nobody was coming at me. In fact, no one was even near me…not even Morgana.

I blinked several times to help clear my eyes, then I saw Morgana running away. “Morgana,” I called out, but she didn’t answer or even look back.

It was obvious that something was going on, because someone must have caused that flash of light, and Morgana wouldn’t just run off like that without any reason. Since I didn’t see any threats near me, that meant she was probably the one in trouble. With a grimace of determination, I adjusted my grip on my backpack and followed after Morgana in case she needed help. To my surprise, she ran straight to the nearest entrance to the tunnels, then vanished inside. I hesitated only a moment before following.

--------------------

Clive Franks, more commonly known by his codename of Beatdown, stood back and watched his target from a distance. Glyph had just left her costuming class, right when he’d been told she would, and now appeared to be heading back to her cottage. Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone. Her roommate, Dragonfyre was with her. Beatdown scowled at that, because he’d been hired to deal with Glyph, not the other girl.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and the next thing Beatdown knew, Glyph was running off towards the tunnels, chasing after Dragonfyre. But at the same time, he could also see Dragonfyre running towards Poe…and chasing after Glyph.

“There are two of them,” Beatdown said in surprise and confusion. There were two Glyphs and two Dragonfyres.

For a moment, Beatdown remained where he was, wondering what was going on. Then, he suddenly remembered that earlier, he’d seen that geek Photech setting up some equipment in the area. At the time, Beatdown hadn’t paid much attention to the other boy, and now he regretted it.

“What the hell are you up to?” Beatdown muttered.

However, the truth was, he didn’t really care. What he did care about, was that Photech appeared to have separated Glyph from her roommate, which made his job easier. With that, Beatdown cracked his knuckles, then started towards the tunnels. It was time to get to work.

--------------------

“Morgana,” I called out as I stepped down into the tunnels.

I saw a flash of my roommate up ahead so ran after her. After turning the corner, I saw her just standing there…looking expressionless and vaguely transparent. I immediately tensed up, realizing that this was a trap and that I’d walked right into it.

“Well, well, well,” a voice echoed through the tunnel. “If it isn’t the big bad supervillain…”

I turned around and saw the familiar face of Elliot, as he stepped out of where he’d been hiding. The demented leprechaun had a sneer on his face, and he was holding a large weapon that resembled the new Giztech Pulse Rifle that Dominic had been showing off a couple days before I’d come to Whateley. However, Elliot’s weapon was a little bulkier and less stylish.

From the hologram of Morgana, which had lured me down into the tunnels, I knew that Elliot’s buddy Marty had to be involved as well. Because of that, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when Marty stepped into view a few seconds later.

Marty had something strapped to his back, which resembled a proton pack from the Ghostbusters movies. A cable came from the pack and went to the base of what looked like a large flashlight, which he was holding firmly. Another cable extended to a large bulky wrist band on his other arm.

“We have unfinished business,” Marty announced as he reached up to pull the goggles on his forehead, down over his eyes. “And this seemed like an opportune time to conclude it.”

“We’re here to teach you a lesson,” Elliot told me. “I don’t give a damn who you think you are, you aren’t going to get away with picking on us techies…”

I blinked at that. “I think we remember the Quad very differently…”

Marty took a step forward, and the flashlight he was holding, suddenly began to glow. Golden energy emerged from the tip, and a moment later, he was holding what looked like a broadsword, with a blade made of energy.

“Awesome lightsaber,” Elliot said appreciatively.

“This is not a lightsaber,” Marty corrected him, sounding faintly offended. “This is a hard light construct, not a plasma projection…”

“Now I can field test my new multi-cannon,” Elliot said with a twisted grin. He held up the unwieldy weapon, which took both his hands to hold.

For a moment, I just stood there, staring at Elliot and Marty, and then I began to laugh. After expecting professional assassins to attack me, it was almost a relief to be jumped by these two.

My laughing seemed to offend my ambushers, because Elliot’s expression immediately turned to one of anger. He pulled the trigger on his weapon and there was a quick flash from the barrel, right before a hole appeared in the concrete wall a few feet away from me. A small piece of metal spike stuck out from the hole, like a nail that had been driven only halfway in.

“The rail gun mode works,” Elliot exclaimed with glee.

I stopped laughing and felt a chill of fear as I realized that these two were serious. It was stupid to just stand there like that, because if they had been assassins, then I probably would have already been dead.

A moment later, I flipped the mental switch to unleash one of my elemental spells, and then held out my hand and sent a wave of flames rushing down the tunnel towards them. I expected my ambushers to jump back and scatter, but instead, Marty just held up his arm and a glowing golden disk appeared from the wrist band that was connected to his pack. Marty used this energy shield to block the flames.

“My hard light shield is holding stable,” Marty said with obvious relief in his voice.

I continued pushing flames towards them as I backed away, knowing that my elemental power wouldn’t last for long, and that I had to make use of it while I could. At the moment, that meant using it as a distraction to keep them busy, while I turned and ran away as fast as I could.

“Come back here,” Elliot yelled. I heard some smashing sounds as he fired several more shots from his weapon, and punched more holes in the wall.

“Oh shit,” I gasped, turning another corner. They couldn’t see me at the moment, but they weren’t very far behind me. I needed to do something, but what?

“We’ve got the bully on the run,” Elliot laughed from the next hall over.

I snarled in frustration, knowing that I couldn’t let myself get beat by them. For one thing, it would ruin my reputation as the White Lady if I got taken down by those two geeks, and for another, I was tired of having people come after me…of being afraid of people coming after me.

“I beat the Messenger,” I grimly reminded myself. “I can beat them…”

As BMA had shown me, I wasn’t very good at close up fighting, and I especially didn’t want to risk it against two armed opponents. However, there was something else I was good at. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stop and draw any spells. I remembered just how frustrating it had been to try, back when I’d been helping against the Squid in New York.

Suddenly, I had an idea. I tore open my backpack and pulled out my notebook. With trembling hands, I opened it up to a page that had one of my runes drawn right in the middle of it. I didn’t need to stop and draw my runes, because I already had some. This rune was drawn in ordinary ink, on plain lined notebook paper. The spell would work, but it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful or refined as it could be.

With that, in mind, I tore out the sheet of paper and then charged the rune. As soon as I did that, I dropped it onto the ground in front of me and looked at another page. My Algebra notes had nearly a dozen small runes drawn in the margins, I tore out that page and charged those runes as well.

“Bye bye math notes,” I muttered with a wince, turning to a similar page from English.

I was already backing away, and was just about to turn another corner, when Elliot and Marty came into view. “Do not expect security to come to your assistance,” Marty said. “We have already ensured that the cameras will show nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Once we take down this villain,” Elliot told Marty, “we’re gonna be heroes… Hell, the Cape Squad will probably beg us to join…”

Elliot laughed as he fired another shot at me, missing by several feet. He fired two more shots while I dove around the corner to avoid being hit. I was just thankful that his aim was so bad.

A moment later, Elliot suddenly screamed and began yelling, “Fire! Fire!”

I peeked around the corner and saw Elliot’s foot was on fire, and he was scrambling to put it out. My eyes darted to the charred spot on the floor, where I’d left my very first piece of notebook paper. It seemed that my little landmine had actually worked.

“I think we have it out,” Marty said, only to step on another page. This one contained my Algebra notes, as well as all the small runes in the margin. They each went off in small explosions, almost like firecrackers. Marty jumped, screaming like a girl and swinging his glowing blade in the process. He sliced a nice gouge into the concrete wall.

“It’s working,” I exclaimed with a grin, tearing out more pages from my notebook and charging the runes before dropping them behind me. I winced as I lost my class notes, but it was for a good cause. I even threw a few blank pages on the ground as well, just to provide more of a distraction.

As I ran down the tunnels, I heard more shrieks and yells from my pursuers, as they discovered the magical landmines I’d left behind. It wouldn’t take long for them to realize that as long as they avoided the sheets of paper, they’d be safe. However, the presence of those spells would continue to slow them down, giving me time to do something a little more aggressive.

I pulled out a piece of chalk and went to work, drawing a complicated rune on the concrete wall. I tried to go as fast as I could while still making the rune perfect. I was nervous and my hand wanted to shake, but I refused to make a mistake. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake this time. I managed to get the rune right, then dropped to my knees and began drawing a second rune on the floor.

Once I was finished with those runes, I charged them with essence and then began to leave. However, I hadn’t gone far when Elliot and Marty stepped into view, coming from a side tunnel so that they were now between me and the runes I’d just drawn. I took a nervous step back, watching Marty’s glowing blade and the large multi-cannon that Elliot wielded.

“We’ve got you now,” Elliot exclaimed, firing another shot. I ducked, though I probably didn’t need to as his shot was over my head and actually hit the ceiling. Elliot cursed, then spat out, “And I’m out of spikes too. I guess I’ll just have to shift to mode two…”

With that, Elliot fired the weapon again, and there was a burst if blue light, which went right past me. Suddenly, the ceiling lights behind me went out, leaving a large patch of darkness at my back.

“I believe your EMP blast is better suited for power armored opponents,” Marty commented.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Elliot responded, flipping another switch and then firing again. This time, a bolt of electricity shot out and hit the wall, leaving char marks in its wake. “The range for shock mode isn’t nearly as good as my rail gun mode, but it should do the job nicely…”

“You don’t have to do this,” I warned the boys, trying to look calm and confident. At the moment, it was hard to maintain my metaphorical mask, but I wasn’t about to let them see how nervous I was. “You can still walk away from this.”

“It figures,” Elliot exclaimed with a laugh. “As soon as you push back against a bully, they beg for mercy…”

“I wasn’t begging,” I responded in a cold tone. “I was giving you one last chance.”

With that, I flipped the mental switch and unleashed my elemental air power. My eyes and tattoos began to glow with a silvery light, and I let the wind whip around me, blowing my hair and clothes around in a dramatic fashion. Then, I held my hand out and released all of my stored air power in a single burst of wind. Elliot and Marty were both thrown back, right into my waiting runes.

As soon as my wind faded away, along with the glow from my eyes and tattoos, I stared at Elliot and Marty, both of whom were sprawled out on the ground, right in the middle of the large rune I’d drawn. I walked towards them, keeping my mask in place.

“I’m stuck,” Elliot blurted out in surprise as he tried to sit up. “I’m stuck…”

“I am as well,” Marty added fearfully. He was struggling to left his arm, which wouldn’t come up from the ground, where it was affixed by magic.

The spell I’d drawn on the ground was the same one that I’d once demonstrated to Janine and Giggles, when I’d glued the apple to a table. However, this was a much larger version, and contained a lot more essence. The spell wouldn’t last for more than a couple minutes, but until then, they were caught like flies on flypaper.

“Don’t hurt us,” Elliot pleaded. “We weren’t really trying to hurt you…”

“We were only attempting to frighten you,” Marty quickly added.

“I wasn’t even aiming at you,” Elliot blurted out in desperation.

“I don’t care,” I responded in a cold and even tone. “You came after me, and that was enough.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Elliot demanded, the fear clear in his voice. The smell of urine filled the air, though I couldn’t tell which of the boys it had come from.

“Nothing,” I responded coldly, before giving them a faint smile. “This time.”

I pointed to the other rune, the one that I’d drawn on the wall. It glowed with an eerie silver light as it burned through the charged essence. The effects of that particular rune were powerful, but it required time to work. By trapping Elliot and Marty in place, I’d made sure that the rune had the time it needed. I smiled faintly at the rune, which could be translated to ‘rust’ or ‘corrosion’.

“My multi-cannon,” Elliot suddenly blurted out as he realized the entire thing was covered with rust.

At that very moment, Marty’s energy sword flickered and vanished. The hilt, along with the bulky pack on his back, were also covered with rust. In fact, every bit of metal that the two boys had on them, was currently corroding and rusting away.

“NO,” Elliot cried out in horror as the weapon literally crumbled away in his hands. “My masterpiece…”

“My equipment,” Marty exclaimed in realization. “It’s all ruined… Do you know how much time and resources went into creating this…?”

“Next time,” I said, still staying in character. “I might destroy more than just your equipment.”

With that, I turned and walked away, knowing that those two were no longer a threat to me, at least not at the moment. And hopefully, I’d gotten the message across clear enough that they didn’t try something like this again.

I had only taken a few steps and was just letting out a sigh of relief, when another boy stepped around the corner and into view. He had a large stocky build, which reminded me of a linebacker, as well as a wide jaw, and slightly hooked nose which contributed to an overall ‘thuggish’ appearance.

“Beatdown,” Elliot gasped.

The large boy, Beatdown glanced over to Elliot and Marty and smirked. “So, you took down those dweebs.”

“It looks that way,” I responded in an even voice, which hid just how wary I was.

“The name is Beatdown,” he stated, “on account of that’s what I give people…” Then he made a show of cracking his knuckles before taking several steps towards me. “In fact, that’s what I’m about to give you…”

“I never thought I’d say this,” Elliot gasped, “but I’m cheering for Beatdown…”

Beatdown punched the concrete wall beside him, smashing his fist into it and leaving a small hole. For a moment, I just stood there with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Then, I ran down the tunnels, back the way I’d come. Beatdown followed after me.

“What is it with these people?” I demanded in frustration, sparing a glance back. Beatdown didn’t seem to be very fast, so I might be able to outrun him…especially if I had something to slow him down.

I reached the area where I’d scattered my magical landmines, and let out a faint sigh of relief. About half the pages were still intact since Elliot and Marty had learned not to step on them. Hopefully, they’d slow Beatdown long enough for me to get away.

Beatdown ran right into the mine field and his foot landed on one of the notebook pages. I had no idea which page that was, or what rune or runes I might have drawn on it, though a moment later, I saw the small explosion and knew. Beatdown didn’t flinch at the small explosion, though he did stop to give me a smug look.

“I’m a force field brick,” Beatdown bragged. “That ain’t even going to slow me down…”

I muttered a silent curse, not only at the way Beatdown had just brushed off my trap, but at the fact that I’d been stupid enough to stop and watch. I’d just wasted time that I could have spent getting further away.

Beatdown charged at me, and I jumped out of the way, just in time to see his fist connect with the wall. He left a nice indentation in the concrete wall, and I had a feeling that he might have done that intentionally, just to show off…and maybe even play with his prey. I stared at him with a mixture of fear, anger, and frustration. I was tired of people coming after me…and tired of being afraid they would.

I carefully controlled my expression, not wanting to give Beatdown the satisfaction of seeing how shaken I was. I watched him carefully, knowing that my chances of escaping were better than of beating him, but I was tired of running.

Whether I liked it or not, I was the White Lady. I had an image to maintain…and a reputation. I couldn’t afford a reputation for running away, nor could the Family. That would only be a sign of weakness and encourage more attacks. Somehow, I had to figure out how to beat Beatdown.

“I beat Elliot and Marty,” I reminded myself. Then, I took a deep breath and added, “And the Messenger.” I glared at Beatdown and snarled, “Compared to the Messenger, you are nothing…”

In BMA, I’d learned that I wasn’t very good at hand to hand fighting, especially not against a brick. However, a faint smile formed on my lips as I realized that I still had a few tricks that I hadn’t tried in BMA. I might not be able to use one of them in class, but at the moment, it was the perfect option.

I flipped the mental switch to unleash another of my elemental spells, and a moment later, my eyes and tattoos began glow green. A glowing green rune formed on the palm of my right hand, and without looking at it, I knew it translated to ‘earth’. Without hesitation, I bent down and put my hand against the ground, where the same glowing green glyph appeared on the concrete.

“That ain’t gonna do you any good,” Beatdown started to say, but a moment later, his eyes went wide and he blurted out, “What the hell…?”

Beatdown was sinking into the concrete floor as though it was quicksand, and though he tried to struggle, it did little good. Controlling stone took more energy than fire or air, so I couldn’t afford to play around with him. I pulled him down, till only his head and shoulders remained above the floor, then I hardened it. He might be strong and tough, but he was trapped in concrete, and in a position where he didn’t have the right leverage to make good use of his strength.

“Let me go,” Breakdown demanded, angry but with a hint of fear in his voice.

“I can pull you all the way down,” I pointed out, once again putting my White Lady mask on. “I can drown you in concrete… I can make it so that you’ll never be found…”

This was just a bluff, because there was no way I’d do that to another person…in spite of what I’d done to the Messenger. However, I was sick and tired of people coming after me, and as with the other two, I wanted to make a point. I wanted to make sure Beatdown didn’t try this again.

“You wouldn’t,” he started, then took one look at my face and gulped.

“Why did you come after me?” I asked in an even tone. When Beatdown gave me a defiant look but remained silent, I said, “Deeper it is…”

“NO,” he blurted out frantically. “I was paid to…”

“By who?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes and glaring at him.

I took a deep breath and braced myself for the answer that I was sure to come. But instead of saying Scorn, he answered, “Esquire. It was Esquire.”

“Esquire,” I repeated, remembering the boy with the cane, who’d reminded me a little too much of the Messenger. “Why?”

“He told me to rough you up a little,” Beatdown quickly answered. “And he said, it would make you go to the Bad Seeds for protection…”

I scowled at that, trembling with anger. “The Bad Seeds sent you after me?”

I clenched my fists and bit back a snarl, feeling betrayed, though I knew I had no reason to feel that way. I wasn’t friends with the Bad Seeds, and I certainly wasn’t a member. However, until now, I’d thought that they might be kindred spirits…and now that I was outed…I’d even begun to reconsider their offer.

“They were the ones who outed me,” I hissed in realization. They’d done all that, just to force me to join.

“I don’t know nothing about that,” Beatdown exclaimed. “Now let me go…”

For a moment, I just stood where I was, staring down at Beatdown. I’d already used up all of my ‘earth’ power, so I couldn’t release him even if I wanted. However, I wasn’t too concerned about that, because someone would find him before very long.

Without saying a word to Beatdown, I began to pick up the few remaining pieces of notebook paper, hoping that I might be able to salvage at least a page or two of my notes. Once I was done, I pointedly ignored Beatdown and made my way out of the tunnels to look for Morgana.

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Sunday evening, Sept 18th, 2016

I was sitting in the Poe dayroom, along with a few other girls, and even a couple boys. Some romantic comedy movie was playing on the TV, though I wasn’t paying any attention, and was in fact, the only person not actually watching it.

Façade was sitting beside me, and currently looked like a hot redhead with lots of tattoos, and a somewhat wild persona. It was hard to believe that she was the same ‘mousey librarian’ I’d first met, especially when she kept blurting out inappropriate things.

“I’d fuck her,” Façade exclaimed, pointing to some woman on the TV screen.

“You can have her,” one of the boys responded dismissively, while a couple girls nodded their agreement with Façade. “I’d rather have that delicious piece of man meat next to her…”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to what I’d been doing, doodling in my notebook. This was a new notebook, one that had unlined paper, and was actually more of an artist’s sketchbook than one for taking class notes in. And the ‘doodles’ that I was working on, were all various runes.

Yesterday, I’d learned the value of having runes that were already drawn out ahead of time, so I’d bought a new notebook for that very purpose. The next time that someone attacked me, I wanted to be ready, with a virtual arsenal that merely needed to be charged with essence.

I smiled faintly as I considered how useful these sheets of paper would be in BMA. For the first time, I was actually looking forward to that class, just so I could try out some of my spells. It would be nice to have some tricks besides my elemental spells.

“Hey, Bianca,” Laura said from a couple seats away. When I looked at her, she teased, “Why don’t you call that henchwoman of yours and have her bring us some popcorn…”

“Janine is NOT my henchwoman,” I snapped.

“Okay,” Laura responded with a chuckle. “Your minion?”

“You’re just as bad as Morgana,” I muttered in annoyance. “She isn’t my henchwoman, my minion, or even my personal assistant…”

“That’s not what she says,” Bailey pointed out with a smirk of her own.

I just groaned at that. “I have got to have another talk with Janine…”

Suddenly, Façade jumped to her feet, crying out, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about… Now shove those heels right up his ass…” Her attention was still locked on the TV.

I shook my head, deciding that maybe it was time to get out of here. With that, I carefully finished the rune that I’d been working on, then closed my notebook.

“Where you going, Bia?” Façade asked me with a grin. “This is just getting good…”

“No thanks,” I responded with a polite smile. “Not my kind of movie.”

“Suit yourself,” Façade told me with a shrug, immediately turning back to the movie and yelling, “Oh yeah… Kick that bitch’s ass…”

For a moment, I just stood there, watching Façade and wondering what she was really like, when she wasn’t disguising herself and playing up some kind of role. So far, I had yet to see what she really looked like, and I wondered if I ever would.

“Later,” I said, nodding to Laura and Bailey before I started back to my room.

When I reached my room, I was relieved to see that Morgana wasn’t there. I liked Morgana, both as a friend and a roommate, but there were times when I needed a little privacy. Now was one of them.

After locking my door and ensuring my anti-eavesdropping runes were charged, I pulled out my cell phone and made a call. “Hello, Marcus,” I greeted my bodyguard, regent, and most importantly…friend. “I’ve got a problem. Someone figured out I’m the White Lady and outed me.”

There was a long pause before Marcus responded, “I’ll send a couple Loyal to get you. We’ll pull you out and get you back to Chicago where we can guard you…”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, even though he couldn’t see it over the phone. “I want to stay. I…need to stay.”

“If everyone knows you’re the White Lady,” Marcus argued, “then you’re in danger.”

“I know,” I admitted with a sigh. I decided not to tell him that a couple other students had already attacked me. After all, he’d been worried enough after that incident in New York. “But one of the reasons I came here was to get stronger…to learn more about magic. Well, I’ve already learned a few new tricks, and I know I can learn a lot more…”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Marcus said, sounding surprisingly gentle for anyone who didn’t know him.

“I know,” I repeated with a faint smile. I hesitated a moment, then told him, “But I have friends here now.” I didn’t need to point out that I’d never really had friends before, or at least, not ones my own age. Marcus knew that quite well since he’d one of my few friends. “They’ll help watch my back.”

We talked for a few more minutes, then said goodbye. I immediately called Tessa, filling her in on the same things I’d told Marcus. However, I hadn’t called her just to tell her what was going on.

“I need to make my spells stronger,” I told Tessa, thinking about some of the things I’d read in my grandmother’s book. “I’m going to start making my own inks and chalks, so I’m going to need a few supplies…”

Once I finished discussing this with Tessa, and she’d promised to mail the supplies I needed, I hung up and let out a sigh. It had been nice talking to Marcus and Tessa, but I couldn’t really tell them about everything that was happening. They wanted the best for me, and for the Family, but they didn’t understand Whateley or the opportunity this was for me. It wasn’t just an opportunity to become a stronger White Lady, but also one to become a better Bianca.

“Unfortunately,” I muttered to myself, “I can’t escape being the White Lady. Not now.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking of the Bad Seeds and what they’d done to me. First, they’d outed me, ending my anonymity and putting me in danger. Then, they’d actually sent people after me in the tunnels, all so they could manipulate me into joining them.

“I don’t think so,” I said with an angry snarl. The Bad Seeds had declared war on me, without any reason, and I wasn’t about to forget that.

Until now, I’d thought of AJ as a kindred spirit and even a possible friend. But now… Now, he might very well be my enemy. Was he involved in this? Did he know what his friends had done? I didn’t know, and that bothered me. This was going to make things pretty awkward in class.

I had no idea of what I was going to do about the Bad Seeds. They’d made the first move against me, and that couldn’t be ignored, but it would be stupid to go up against all of them. For now, I would just have to watch and wait, learning whatever I could about them until I figured out my options.

With that, I sat down on the edge of my bed, opened my grandmother’s book, and began reading. There were still a lot of things in here for me to learn, and more runes to memorize. I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to be strong enough to survive the next attack.

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Emerson Cottage, Sunday evening, Sept 18th, 2016

“Eight,” Crysis called out as he pushed the weighted bar up, finishing his repetition before counting the next. “Nine. Ten.”

After finishing his fourth set on the bench press, Crysis finally racked the bar and sat up, rotating his arms in order to stretch his chest muscles. It had been a good workout, even if he couldn’t lift nearly as much as many of his classmates. Unlike a lot of other students, he wasn’t an exemplar, nor did he have any powers that augmented his physical strength. He had to make due with old fashioned exercise.

Crysis found it somewhat ironic, that had been struggling to lift that weight, when he could easily have lifted it with little more than a thought. As a TK 4, his telekinetic powers were pretty strong, but they did little to strengthen his body. If anything, being a telekinetic made it easier for him to avoid physical exercise. That was why he was currently in the small gym, located in the basement of his cottage.

“Maybe I’ll build some real muscle by the time I see Dad again,” Crysis told himself with a grin.

He was looking forward to that, to impressing his dad, who respected hard work and dedication more than he did mutant powers. At least, he hoped that he could impress his dad, since his dad was a busy man, and was notoriously hard to impress. Still, Crysis was determined to make his dad proud of him, one way or another.

Once Crysis graduated from Whateley, he planned on following his dad’s footsteps, and go into the same business as his dad. And since his dad was in the upper-management of his particular organization, Crysis knew that he wouldn’t have much difficulty getting in. But first, he would have to prove to his dad that he could handle it…and that he had what it took.

Crysis used a towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then cleaned up before leaving the gym. He made his way back upstairs to his room, where his roommate, Cole Sheppard, was doing homework.

“Hey, Bobby,” Cole greeted Crysis.

Crysis scowled faintly in annoyance. Very few people at Whateley knew him as Robert ‘Bobby’ Grace, but Cole was one of them. Crysis preferred to go by his codename, since it let him get away from his dad’s reputation and gave him a chance to build his own. Though he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps, he still wanted to do it as his own man.

“Good workout?” Cole asked.

“Not bad,” Crysis responded with a shrug. “Hey, do you mind leaving the room for a few minutes?”

“Expecting a girl over?” Cole teased.

Crysis just snorted at that. “No. I just need to make a phone call, and I want a little privacy…”

“What’s her name?” Cole asked with a faint smirk.

“I need to call my dad,” Crysis responded in annoyance. “Now get lost…”

As Crysis gestured to the door, he used his powers to open it wide. Cole got the hint and left. Once Cole was gone, Crysis pulled out his cell phone and made the call. He let out a sigh of relief when his dad actually answered this time.

“Hey, Dad,” Crysis started. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last few days…” He scowled at his dad’s response. “No, Sir. I know you’re very busy…but this is important.” After another long pause from his end, Crysis finally said, “You can tell your boss, Mister Scorn, that I know where the White Lady is…”

The End