Upheaval: Instructor

By Joe Gunnarson

In 24 hours they'll be
laying flowers
on my life, it's over tonight
I'm not messing no I
need your blessing
and your promise to live free
please do it for me -Jem, '24'

Whateley Range Two, Tuesday, November 14th

Erik Mahren scanned the range quietly, checking targets, and safety measures silently. Gunny Bardue was working with the rest of the Crisis Simulation team over at range five, while he got to corral the kids on the live fire rifle and pistol range. He took in a deep breath and let it out, looking at the clock. Five minutes until the students of Whately Academy's final period began trickling in from various parts of the campus. He took another deep breath and looked over at the most important sign in the range, the one that laid out the four most important rules of weapon safety. As far as Erik was concerned, these four rules were the voice of God himself and the students, by this time knew he had absolutely zero tolerance for violating any of them.

1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.
2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.
3. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
4. Keep the weapon on safe until you intend to fire.

Too many accidents had occurred because someone played fast and loose with those four rules the world over, resulting in injury, property damage, and death. All by accident. Erik sighed to himself as he looked at the fifth rule, added by himself with Gunny Bardue's approval.

5. All modified, customized, mystical, or prototype weapons are to be examined by Cpl. Erik Mahren before use on any range.

The last rule came because of not a few incidents where various devisers and gadgeteers around Whateley brought in some highly dangerous and experimental gear onto the range. Erik had seen one poor girl almost flash-fried because she underestimated the blast radius of bizarre, almost baroque-looking piece of hardware that fired a compressed plasma bolt in an unstable magnetic field that she had somehow managed to cobble together. The result, needless to say, had been impressive. Even so, Erik developed a reputation as a control-freak safety Nazi that none of the more flamboyant children wanted to deal with, much less endure his rather severe ass-chewing when they put themselves or other students in danger.

The first two students walked in, and Erik sighed to himself. It was Marie Schultz and Mandi Carter AKA Flashbang and Tinkertrain, or as Erik thought of them, "most likely to blow up the school before graduation." Every time he saw her Erik wondered if Mandi had ever heard Ozzy's song, or what the Ozzman would think of her moniker. But it had been approved so he kept his trap shut. Both held some pretty... interesting gear in their hands.

"Hiya Teach!" Marie practically radiated good cheer, even when he down checked her toys as inappropriate for all but the most controlled range fire situations.

"Hello Ladies" Erik eyed the gear suspiciously. He hadn't seen either of these two contraptions before. "What have you brought for me today?"

"Well..." Began Mandi, "We haven't exactly come up with names. We figured we might as well see if they work properly first before we come up with something like that.

"Good Call. Pass that thing over and lemme have a look at it." The heavy rifle-seeming contraption was very space-age looking, and had a cable running to a backpack that made him think of the ghostbuster proton packs. That was never a good sign.

Erik couldn't for the life of him, figure out how the hell he was always able to pick up a piece of gear and determine it's proper use within a minute or two, no matter WHO built it, but he could. When people commented, he just shrugged and chalked it up to probably having a really low-key mutant talent for Weapons and equipment. And as he pored over Mandi's monstrosity he checked the safety interlocks, and the power feeds, and a slow picture of what this futuristic popgun might do began forming in his head. He wasn't liking what he was seeing.

"I need to test-fire this thing Mandi, if you don't mind."

The girl looked slightly dejected, naturally wanting to be the first one to rip off a few blasts with her invention, but she caught the tone of worry in his voice and nodded as Erik strapped on the pack, stepped up to the range and powered it up. A powerful whine burst from the backpack and settled to a dull hum, again reminding him of the ghostbusters. Definitely not a good sign. He thumbed the safety and aimed at one of the targets downrange in a cluster.

The blast from the rifle could only be described as a cross between a lightning bolt and a particle beam, bright bluish-white and hot as hell. It lanced into the target center mass and then lanced out, hitting another, and another, until it had picked out every target within fifty meters in an insane, random, zig-zagging non-pattern as all eight targets simultaneously exploded. Not good. Two more shots showed the same thing. The blasts were like a bolt of chain lightning jumping along helter-skelter ripping through targets completely at random. It seemed that the only requirement was that the target only had to be within a few meters for the jump, which made him almost lose it when the beam finally hit a target ten meters in front of him and blew it's stack. A few closer and he'd be Crispy-fried grunt all over the walls.

Mandi was, of course, elated. "That was so cool!"

Miraculously, it was Marie who said it before Erik could. "Mandi, your gun almost killed Mr. Mahren"

Comprehension dawned as Mandi realized what might have happened had a target been a few feet closer, and HER wearing her shiny new bang-bang. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry!"

Erik let out a long breath and turned off the blaster and thumbed the thing back on safe. He set the apparatus on a table and went over to fill out a piece of paper and handed it to Mandi. "That Power Lance of yours is restricted use. Range Four only until you get the chaining effect under control. I recommend you reduce the beam's capacity for target jumping to a maximum of five. Go find Gunny Bardue and show this to him. "Do NOT ever fire that thing at a target any less than fifty meters downrange, or within fifty meters of anything you don't want barbecued, comprende?"

Marci nodded, and collected the paper and the her weapon and scampered off, looking absolutely mortified. Erik let her go, closed his eyes and took a VERY deep breath, and turned to Marie. "OK lemme see it."

Marie passed over the silvered rifle and Erik gave it a once over, carefully noting everything before passing it back.

"All right young lady, rip a few off." Erik settled back to watch.

"Really? SWEET!"

The girl bounded off to Land three and began firing the rifle. It released a distortion in the air that caused the line of fire to ripple a bit before slamming into a target and exploding in a shockwave. Erik looked at the monitors and gauged the force at enough to Knock out a grown man, possibly with broken bones. Then the last shot she took showed enough force to throw an armored personnel carrier on it's side.

Erik noted that the other students were trickling in one by one, each quietly going through the routine of checking, loading and firing at the targets. Erik wandered back and forth, helping students correct posture, giving tips and generally trying to help them improve their aim. The class went so smooth he almost was surprised when it was over. As the students filed out he called out.

"Hey Flashbang! get over here. Lemme see that rifle."

"Uhhh, OK?" Marie walked over and handed it over, and almost cried when Erik surreptitiously removed the power cell and the magnetic accelerator from it and handed it back.

"You can have these back once you install a safety selector on the thing. It's nonlethal. I like that. But it needs to be able to not be fired by accident. Capiche?"

"Oh. Okay. I thought I was in trouble. Yeah I'll get that done." Marie darted off, and Erik slumped into a chair.

He rubbed his temples against the stress headache that was forming. It was always the same. The panic and stress never kicked in until AFTER the crisis was over and he was alone. Memories of a running firefight through the campus trying to get to the students on Halloween raced through him. Memories of more than a few near-misses on the range, or seeing kids get severely injured in fights on campus raged through him.

"Here, take these" He felt something pressed into his hands and took the aspirin and water gratefully.

He looked up to see Gunny Bardue standing over him. "You OK kid?"

"Yeah Boss. Just had another near-miss today with an overenthusiastic Gadgeteer."

"I heard. She was almost in tears when she told me what happened. Damn kids always wanna make guns that make things explode loud and pretty, but never really think about what will happen if they actually get used on someone."

"You're in a weird mood, Gunny."

"So are you for the last few days, Mahren. You been a bit off ever since Halloween. I been wondering when you were going to talk to someone."

Erik sat up, and looked at the glass in his hand, half-empty. "I know it ain't our fault, but I can't shake the feeling that we let the kids down Halloween night. If that crazy Kimba crew and the other kids hadn't been so on the ball we'd have had a fucking tragedy instead of just a nightmare."

"Don't beat yourself up too hard Erik. You and Cat kept enough of those fuckers tied up so that the students and the rest of the staff could drive them back."

"We ever gonna tell the kids why Cat's not gonna be back on the range? They have a right to know, and more than a few of them have some things figured out. I think that Jade kid from Poe's figured out that she died. They have a right to know what she did for them."

Bardue pulled up another chair and sat down. "Yeah, we will. Carson's already given the go-ahead for a memorial service, and we were going to ask you if you'd speak for her. We all know you two were close. Now if we can get Hartass to fucking work the schedule we can get going, but she's being her usual, control-freak bitch self again."

"Maybe I should have a talk with our dearly beloved computer genius..." Erik almost snarled.

"No. Dammit Erik you stay well away from that woman. After the last incident you're already in hot water. The ONLY reason Carson didn't fire you was because you didn't do anything stupid, and she provoked the hell out of you. As much as I'd love to turn you loose on her, no. Cat deserves a better Eulogy than 'she died defending the students and her best friend got fired because of her."

"Fine. I'll avoid her, per usual. But I don't have to like it."

Bardue chuckled mildly. "No you don't, but on another note, I want you to go get tested by the docs. You have way too much talent with oddball gear to simply be chalked up to "natural talent." And no damned arguing. You are good, but this was one near miss too many for you. We need to find out if you are a mutant like you are so fond of joking about, and if so, what your limits are."

Erik sat silently, trying to chew on that last bit.

"Look Erik, you're the best range hand I got, and a damned good Marine. You know that, otherwise I'd have never offered you the job. But I don't want to lose any more people than I already have. I like you a lot, and the rest of the Crisis Team, and the monkeys down in security are getting worried. So. Tomorrow, you're going to take the day off, and then you are going to go see the doc on Thursday. Full battery of tests, so try not to kill the docs."

Erik nodded once. "I'll right, fine, boss, you win. But I draw the line at spandex and cheesy one-liners."

"I expect nothing less. Now go home." Bardue chuckled as the younger man walked out.

* * *

Thursday Morning, November 16th

Erik woke up in his apartment with a ripper of a headache, on his couch, with a too-loud television blaring somewhere at the edge of his consciousness. As he pushed himself up groggily he looked at the clock. 5:37 AM. He groggily pulled himself up and looked around. The apartment looked like a tornado had torn through it, weeks of clutter and random crap, never mind the case worth of beer cans from last night stacked in odd formations on the coffee table. He really needed to stop this drinking alone thing, but ever since Cat...

He cut off that line of thought and stumbled into the bathroom and looked at his dishevelled face in the mirror. He looked like a high school band had done a full concert while on the march, using him for the road. Couldn't go to work looking like a drunk bum with a hangover, never mind the example it would set for the students. A fast shower followed by breakfast were in order.

When he came out of the bathroom in pure bachelor style, in his boxers, he wandered over to the kitchen, started the coffee machine and pulled two pop tarts and a couple burritos, tossing the lot into the microwave for two minutes. Then he reached over, picked up his ever-present gallon jug of water and popped two aspirin. People were always saying one bullshit thing or another about how to cure a hangover. In his experience, getting water in the system was the only real way to do it. The doctors would have agreed, even if they wouldn't have approved.

Clothes came on and he looked himself over. He wasn't going in to collect a paycheck, just to get checked so his standard-issue military fatigues were left in the closet and he opted for faded jeans, hiking boots and a black T-shirt that read "God's busy, Can I help you?" It had a leering red devil face in the middle. A leather jacket later and he looked at himself in the mirror again. Short, military cut blonde hair, both blue eyes thankfully intact, and a non-drunk and disorderly expression. Great. He looked human again.

He wandered over, picked his breakfast out of the microwave and poured himself a cup of coffee in a hastily cleaned mug and sat down on the couch to eat. The TV was still on, and he switched to CNN, watching for anything interesting, or at least not depressing in the newscast. No such luck. Another cup of coffee and a belly full of wholesome, week-old, reheated burrito and he was out the door, turning off the tube and wandering to his truck.

The sight of the old beater pickup made him wonder exactly why he lived in a fairly crappy apartment by himself with a banged up twelve-year-old truck. He didn't need a lot. Whateley paid very well for a teaching job, but most of it just kept piling up in his bank account. Food, gas and a computer with his GEO account seemed more or less all he needed to keep going contentedly. And beer of late.

He needed to stop drinking. Gunny Bardue would light his ass up like a Christmas tree if he found out just how much Erik was on the sauce since Halloween night. But the memories hurt. The panic as he'd realized that the school was under attack, the running fire fight trying to get to Hawthorne, Cat charging the... No, best not to think about it or else he'd be tempted to go and just drown his sorrows away in more beer. The last thing he needed was to become a complete alcoholic. He'd be useless to everyone at that point.

The drive to Whately always took a half hour or so, and as always, was uneventful. Only a few students were up and about this early before classes started, although the cafeteria rush would begin soon. He did a walk around the campus, watching for signs of unusual activity as had become his habit since Halloween, nodding to the teachers and students who actually were up and moving this early in the morning. He passed three girls having a quiet moment, recognizing that they were performing Tai Chi, and were remarkably adept and graceful for children in their formative years. His miserable mood didn't stop him from noticing the red haired girl, big time.

Fey. Yeah the magic kid from poe, one of the students who had been in that debacle at the ball and had done very well in staying alive. That would make the Chinese girl with the sword Chou, another of the oft-maligned and so far very effective Team Kimba. The third girl was one he'd seen, but didn't know by name. Or by file that was mandatory reading due to a severe proclivity for getting deep into the biggest trouble thus far this year. He left the girls to their exercise and walked towards the Doc's office. He'd already hit the better part of campus.

He noted the various groups as they began trickling out towards the cafeteria, the Wild Pack, the Masterminds, and, of course, the Alphas. Now THERE was a batch of kids who set his teeth on edge. They acted the worst stereotypes of rich little snots. They had a air of entitlement about them, as if they were owed something by all the lesser worms of the world. For someone with his upbringing and background, it always set his teeth on edge to watch them. It didn't help that they were some of his worst problems in the crisis unit and on the various ranges, paying bare lip service to safety rules and looking at him with sneering contempt. They were well aware that should they so desire it they could turn him into a messy stain on the concrete at range two, or worse. He was content to allow them to continue believing this. No point in borrowing trouble.

He stopped when he saw the Ultraviolents. Now that was a pack that were probably the only exception to Erik's personal rules about protecting children. He could smell it, feel it, see it with every twitch of body language. They were killers. He knew that as soon as they left Whateley there would be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among the populace until they were safely locked up or killed. And he knew, sooner or later he'd be on the receiving end of their fury. He always got that bad feeling whenever he saw them. He just hoped he could hold out long enough to get help when it happened.

Doctor bellows was waiting for him as soon as he entered the building. The Doc had a resigned expression on his face as he saw the large range technician walk up to him, but he put on a cheerful face.

"Hello Mr. Mahren. I know that you don't like being in hospital areas so I'll do my best to make this as fast an painless as possible for you."

"Thanks Doc, sorry I'm such a lousy patient. But eh. What can we do? So about these tests. I think I know what the problem is. I seem to be developing a deeper voice and have started to notice girls." Erik kept a straight face until the good doctor started snickering.

"And here I was thinking you weren't going to take this whole thing seriously."

Erik grinned. "C'mon Doc, what's the fun of being a lab rat if I don't get to run my own experiments on the staff? Wouldn't want them to think I LIKED them or something ya know. Reputation and all that."

"Oh yes, I do understand. This way please."

They passed the main medical area and went into a room. A nurse came in, drew blood and got his blood pressure, the whole nine yards. For a minute he thought he was back in the marines, getting all the yearly shots and blood tests, feeling like a pincushion. The Dr. Bellows walked back in. Erik simply turned his head to the right and coughed.

"Well, that takes care of the physical. let's get to the testing."

"Very funny Erik. Full physical. Let's get to it."

"Dammit why is it only the doctors who wanna feel me up?"

"Must be your charming personality."

The morning went fast, and the tests popped up pretty much as Erik expected them to. Boring, annoying and more or less a pain in the ass. He got through them, then the Xavier test, the endurance tests, the strength tests, the reflex tests, and all the others. The psychic test was a hoot. the Doc kept trying to get him to tell him what was on the face of a card via telepathy. That went nowhere, so Erik tried to read the doc's mind. Nothing doing so he made it up as he went along. Bellows was simultaneously amused and mortified by some of his more bawdy comments.

"You don't talk to the children like that do you?"

"What doc, and let 'em come out as screwy as me? No. Although I do play Barbara Streisand's greatest hits at full volume on the radio while they try to concentrate. You wouldn't believe how much they whine some days."

Bellows smirked. "How could you do such a thing to their impressionable young minds?"

"Easy. I have earplugs and an iPod."

"Ahhh, a closet sadist I see. So tell me. What is on this card?"

"Star."

"And the testing ends and you are Zero for fifty."

"There goes my future as a phone psychic."

The most interesting part of the training was when Erik was sat down with a LOT of equipment, both assembled and disassembled. Dr. Bellows asked him to assemble, disassemble, and operate as many of the devices as he possibly could. Each device turned out to be anything from a handgun to a heavy machine gun in weaponry from around the world. There were bits of electronics, body armor, and other odds and ends, as well as a computer of a design that he'd never seen before. The computer was by far the most difficult, but he got it assembled and operating in about ten minutes after examining the parts for a minute and a half on the first try. He then went through the system and checked the software, the files and got it connected to the Whateley net, which was a bitch because he had to sift through a tub of odd wires for a few minutes to find one that looked right. Most of the mundane weapons and equipment he had completely figured out inside of seconds.

The odd bits were a talisman, a dagger and a piece of rune worked Iron. After a minute examining each he made a gesture or spoke a few words that sounded RIGHT after correctly identifying each one's function to activate them. The assistant for this test seemed rather astonished and brought out a gnarled, blackened staff inlaid with eldritch runes Erik held it for a minute, and fought down the rising feeling of horror before he filled a sink with water, spoke some words that made no sense even to him, then dipped the staff in the water at both ends and struck it against the floor. the staff shattered, disintegrating as it exploded all the way up the haft in a startling display of eldritch green fire. The lab assistant ran screaming. He wasn't aware of any of it. Just the fact that his world was reeling and spinning and it took all of his conscious effort to stay upright.

The response was almost immediate. Two teachers, and several students, including Sir Westmount, Ophelia, Fey, and that Goth girl, Sara looking like the proverbial angel and demon twins, as well as Chou burst into the area, all of them practically radiating energy and looking ready for a fight of epic proportions.

Sara simply looked at Erik and pointed. "Him."

Erik, slightly dazed felt himself stiffen and rise into the air, unable to move as the elderly man shouted something and Fey added to the mix. He was still dazed, and that shriek of psychic energy had hit him like a thunderclap. He shook his head and suddenly crashed to the ground, freed from his bonds only to find himself pinned by a very angry looking Chinese girl with that jade-bladed sword pressed to his neck. He did the most sane thing someone in that position with a migraine and severe disorientation would do. He stayed still.

"How the hell did the holding spells break?"

"I don't..."

"...ing on here?"

The voices were jumbled, incoherent and loud. The more people yammered and talked the more queasy he got.

Suddenly the blade was gone and he found himself roughly hauled to his feet by Sir Westmount, who seemed to be screaming in his face, but he couldn't understand any of it. The voice was just noise and thunder, and it only exacerbated the growing nausea growing in the pit of his stomach. He did the only natural thing at that point. He puked on the man's fancy tweed jacket.

Then security piled through the door, their boots making loud claps as they hit the tiles. The argument began, but by that point, but Erik was too far gone to make out any of it as his consciousness slipped away and he hit the floor.

Four hours later, after he woke up, Erik sat in Dr. Bellows' office and the man set down a folder.

"Well do you want the bad news or the really bad news first?"

"Bad news, of course, I need fuel for my cynical side."

"The bad news is that you won't be giving blood at the local red cross any time soon. You have high concentrations of Iron, cobalt and tungsten, believe it or not, in your veins. Enough to be dangerous to a normal person."

"Sweet I was right, and I can mine in my own ass for precious metals now."

"Indeed." The doc smirked. "The worse news is there is some hubbub in administration over what to do with you. You are currently going to be suspended from your teaching duties until we figure out exactly what happened."

"Spit it out Doc, you got that nervous "I shouldn't tell him something" look in your eye."

"That staff. What was it?"

"What, you don't know?" Erik looked skeptical.

"No, We didn't know what that runed hunk of iron was either until you broke open it's secrets. The staff was brought in to see if you could puzzle it out as well."

"Oh. I dunno what those things are called, but lemme go down the list. The talisman is a simple charm that lights up if you activate it. I got the feeling that it was a testing tool, nothing more. The knife was a nice little number that seems to be able to slice through damned near anything except skin. Wonderful letter opener. The runes in the iron are a part of something else. What I don't know. I'd need the pieces to figure it out. But it makes some wicked electrical arcing effect when ya trigger it"

Dr. Bellows nodded and continued taking notes. "And the staff? People have been poring over that item for years, and nothing seemed capable of being able to damage it, including a plasma cutter and some more esoteric methods. Nor has anyone been able to figure out what it's purpose is."

Bellows hit a remote, and a TV came down and began playing, showing him holding the staff, and the look of horror that crossed his images' face matched what he felt. The faucet seemed innocuous until he howled guttural words in a language he didn't know, dipped the staff at both ends and shattered it. The disintegration happened but what Erik hadn't seen was the sickly green flash of a nauseating sigil erupting around him along the ground. then the camera went static.

"The Sigil of the Gateway." Erik breathed, feeling sick.

"You know of it"

"Just now. Just what it is. What it does.. Jesus H. Christ doc, where the fuck did you people find that thing?"

"I don't know Erik, all I know is you just sent Every single mystic student into a screaming fit all at once as soon as that thing shattered. They were all screaming, like someone walked on their grave. I was hoping you could tell me what it was."

"A key. Put it to the ground, right place, right time, you open a gateway to... something. I don't know what. All I know is once it starts it's impossible to stop until it consumes the life of everything from horizon to horizon, leaving nothing but living death in it's wake. It's a mystical tacnuke Doc, and the fallout would be things that weren't alive, not dead, wholly mad, and hungry for flesh and blood and life."

"Are there any more?"

"Jesus Doc I don't know! I didn't even know what that was until you people put it in my hands!"

"How did you destroy it so completely? What you are describing tells me there should have been... Something, Some kind of backlash."

"There was doc. The kids started screaming. I think what I did forced the energy inward, back to the plane it originates from. Or something. I don't bloody well know. All I knew was that it was a horror that needed to be destroyed, so I figured out how to destroy it without vaporizing the area."

"And how did you do that?"

"I don't know. It was like working on instinct. I started out wanting to know what it was, and how to use it, but when I figured that out I just wanted to destroy it, and as I kept looking at me a way sort of popped into my mind and I did it by reflex."

"Sweet Jesus."

"Don't start lecturing on how dangerous it was doc, I know how dangerous it was. I also knew that if you did it a certain way almost all of it's energies would self-annihilate without killing everyone in the process. So I did it a certain way."

"What else do you know about it?"

"It was made of the heart of a dead tree that died by fire when the forest died of some kind of disease. It was etched with Moonsilver, amber and reeked of the blood of a lot of innocent people that formed it's essence. It was dipped in the blood of something that I'm pretty fucking sure doesn't exist in reality, and about the only thing I don't know is how to put the fucking thing together again. Which I wouldn't even if I could tell you how and I'd kill anyone who could give you step-by-step instructions."

Bellows nodded quietly. "I'm going to ask that you see Sir Westmount tomorrow. He would like to have a long talk with you about what you did and how."

"Will it help get me un-suspended?"

"I can't promise you that Erik. But it would go a long way."

"Fine, I'll go see him. We done?"

The doctor sighed. "For now Erik, for now."

The big man got up and walked out without another word.

* * *

Friday morning, November 17th

Erik walked into the training area, this time in a much better state than he'd walked into Bellows' office. Somehow he'd managed to stave off the urge to get hammered last night, but it had been a fight. He'd ended the evening by pouring the beer down the toilet, can by can, while wondering how he was going to stave off the nightmares. He'd spent the majority of the night fighting memories that burned in the back of his skull, then two hours of screaming nightmares of blood, death and carnage. Every time it was the same scene. Running toward Hawthorne, finding dead children who had not gone to the ball for one reason or another but hadn't actually died, fighting maniacal laughing figures that were only half-seen, and finally watching Cat die over and over and over again. So at the appointed time he'd thrown on his fatigues, combat boots and cover and driven to Whateley.

The small gym had three occupants. There was Westmount at one side of the room, talking to that Fey kid, Nikki. He had vague images swimming in his mind of them screaming bloody murder at him over... something. To the side was a dignified woman in a Gi, standing easily against a wall. All three looked up at him at once, and he saw a flash of fury pass through the face of the elfin girl as she began to stand. Westmount said something he couldn't hear and she settled, eyeing him darkly as the two prattled on with their lesson.

Oddly enough it was the woman in the Gi who walked over to speak to him first. Oh yes, Susannah Hagarty, one of the combat tutors they hired to mentor the girl. As she approached he nodded politely.

"Hello, Erik, is it?" Her voice and expression spoke of polite conversation in that British accent, but her posture and body language screamed to him that she thought he might be a threat. "We weren't expecting you here so early. You look awful."

"Trouble sleeping. Plus I'm trying to give up a crutch." Erik was tired, He could feel the bags under his eyes.

"Ah, well since these two are going to be at it for a while, care to talk over here?"

"Sure. Sorry about what my attitude's probably going to be like in advance, Miss Hagarty, but like I said, trouble sleeping, I feel like a damned lab rat and you are half-expecting me to sprout fangs, claws and trying to eat you."

"No I'm..."

"First rule please. No bullshit. Your face and tone are friendly but your posture and body language are anything but. And I'm really good at picking out people's state of mind by watching them move."

"Ah, mutant talent?"

"No, just lots of practice with siblings and parents. And a few others who thought everyone around them were threats. So please, don't try to fuck with me and tell me you're all happy to see me because I know that Mister Knightly over there wants to know just how the hell I managed to blast every mystic in the school with visions of a Cthulian nightmare."

Susannah nodded once and settled back. "So Doctor Bellows thinks it wasn't deliberate. You were reacting instinctively to something, and what he described was none too pleasant."

"Yeah, let's just say I'm a firm believer that some things should not exist. Period."

"I think I can respect that." She looked over at the two who seemed to be chatting. The girl seemed to be concentrating on something, and Westmount was watching her very closely. "You're a blunt young man, you know that right?"

"Yeah, you should see me when I'm in a good mood. But polite and chipper and watching what one says stacks a lot of crap on top of what needs to be said. It may be blunt, rude, or whatever you want to call it, but it cuts out the B.S. and gets to the heart of the situation fast. It hurts more to be lied to in the long run anyway."

She nodded, and the two settled back and watched the lesson quietly. Westmount and Nikki didn't really seem to be DOING anything. Erik began fidgeting, and looked annoyed, then shucked the camo shirt and began stretching. It beat sitting around on his ass. He began doing a warmup routine that he'd learned in the Corps, then stood, feeling a bit more awake and began pacing.

"You know, if you're just going to wear a hole in the floor, I could spar with you a bit. You're tense, angry, and confused, and you're definitely feeling a bit more than aggressive."

Erik raised an eyebrow at her.

"Body language, as you said, Mr. Mahren."

Erik chuckled and shrugged and moved to a ready position on the mat, after shucking his boots and socks. He and Susannah bowed once to one another and stood at the ready, her in some martial arts stance he didn't recognize and him with his hands loosely to the sides, hands wide open. He sized up the woman in front of him, noting her posture, stance and how she moved as she did the same with him. He waited for a few moments, and she made the first move. He reacted like a coiling spring, shifting down to a wrestling stance faster than most opponents could react, catching the punch and twisting, only to take a elbow to the jaw as she spun with the move.

Three seconds later Erik was on the mat, pinned to the floor and unable to move. He'd been right in his first appraisal. Hagarty was good. Better than him, in fact, with little to no wasted motion in her maneuvers. He spent a few moments gauging her strength and grip trying to break her loose, then tapped the mat.

Oblivious to the fact that two sets of eyes were now watching them, both rather smugly at watching the big man get tooled by the older woman. This time, Erik went on the attack, and deliberately overreached, promptly getting thrown across the mat, rolling and coming up on his feet. He charged again, this time being redirected into a wall. It really didn't hurt at all. She was obviously keeping to the spirit of a sparring match and he turned around and growled even though he didn't feel it.

"So are you going to actually do something Mister Mahren?"

"Yup."

Erik walked back over to the center of the mat and nodded. Susannah immediately launched herself forward, then perfectly executed a kick to the chest. It was the opening Erik had been waiting for, catching her leg and twisting it around in such a way that she'd have to turn to keep it from snapping then drove a palm into her back, propelling her across the mat, with seemingly more power than he'd actually put into it. She immediately rolled and popped back to her feet and circled him, both oblivious to the outraged gasp from the girl being taught at the "cheap shot."

After that it was on, it was vicious, it was fast, and it would have been brutal had either combatant failed to keep their strength in check or their sparring technique perfect. In the end it was Erik that was slammed to the mat, wind knocked out of him, and gasping for air. It had all been in the skill Miss Hagarty had shown. She was graceful, fast, strong and she knew what she, and he, was doing. By contrast Erik's fighting style was fast, heavy and extremely vicious, the kind Gunny Bardue would have been proud of, and he'd given the Englishwoman a royally rough time of it. But it all came down to skill. He was bigger, stronger, and a helluva lot tougher than she was, but she was simply better.

Sir Westmount and Susannah both came over when they heard the odd noises coming from the man, and were concerned until both realized he was laughing, and trying to gulp in air at the same time. When he finally rolled to his feet he grinned. "Well that was fun."

"Not bad Mister Mahren, but you could definitely use some work. I might suggest Aikido. You seem built for it."

"I'll keep that in mind. I haven't had that much fun since me and the Gunny went rounds on range two."

Erik looked around and saw Miss Hagarty smiling a bit, and both of the mystics in the room seemed torn between smiling and really hurting him. He hoped for the former.

"Now that I have your attention, I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here today," Erik said with a bow to Westmount and Fey.

Westmount's response was completely deadpanned. "Ah another comedian. This place seems to attract them like flies. Dear, get the bug spray if you would."

"Ah yes Miss Hagarty the Extra-strength Raid if you would, the regular stuff just clears my sinuses." Erik deadpanned back.

"Well, now that you're in a good mood, and you've completely broken our attention from the lesson, perhaps we could get you to tell us what happened last night." Sir Westmount didn't seem sure whether I was friend or foe at this point.

"Seen the video yet?"

"No I can't say that I have. I wasn't aware there was one."

Nikki looked like she didn't know whether to talk or keep her mouth shut. Or she was arguing with herself. Erik wasn't sure.

"All right cats and kittens, I'll be right back. I need to go get my Greatest hits DVD from Dr. Bellows." Erik walked out for a bit.

Nikki looked at her teachers. "Can I stay? Aunghadhail is rather... insistent that we observe this."

Westmount looked at her and nodded. "I have my suspicions, but you may. I worry for your safety though."

"Oh I don't think he'll be a danger," Susannah said in an almost cheerful way. "He seems a good sort."

"How can you tell?" Nikki asked. "He seemed to be rather... vicious with you on the mat, and really surly when he walked in. No, he was angry and confused, and sad. Right now he's bottling it all up and only letting his humor show but he's feeling very bitter and used right now."

"I know, Nikki, but I think I can guess the reasons for his mood," She smiled "And he was a perfect gentleman on the mat. Never used an ounce of force more than he needed to get the point across that he got me, and managed to avoid striking me in any place that a gentleman would consider off-limits when in close contact with a lady in public. He'll have to be cured of that of course, sooner or later working here, but he was more concerned with not hurting me than he was with not getting hurt."

"I don't get it. So if he wasn't holding back he would have beaten you?" Nikki looked skeptical.

"No. He's got power, drive and ferocity, but even were we trying to kill one another I would have won. He is not as skilled. Now granted, if that situation were to occur and I made even a slight error the results would be bad for someone like me. But as I said, he was a perfect gentleman, and the one time he thought he might have hurt me, he faltered, and he wound up on the mat trying to breathe."

"He doesn't like hurting people. I felt that for a brief second."

Westmount interjected, "But he will if he thinks it is necessary, without hesitation or remorse. Make no mistake, the man is a killer. He proved it Halloween night trying to get to the children in the ball on Halloween. But he is the right kind of killer. Trained, aware, and very considerate of the consequences. The only time he spared the lives of some of the attackers was when he thought a student would die by the act."

"Is that why he's so... Angry and depressed?"

Susannah sighed. "No child, it's because of something else that happened that night. He had to witness a few things that will haunt him for a long time. And he cannot talk about such things in the open just yet. That's the part that sticks in his craw the worst, the feeling that he's not allowed to mourn, or try to move on."

"Quite frankly that's why we are worried. If what happened last night was because he's having a suicidal or homicidal rage, steps will need to be taken." Sir Westmount looked thoughtful.

Erik chose that moment to walk back into the little gym. He was carrying a laptop and a few CD's. He set up the laptop at the table Westmount and Fey had been using for a study area and began flipping through the CD's looking bored.

"Porn, porn, porn, Jane Fonda? How the hell did that get in there?" He continued on while the adults suppressed chuckles. "Ah, here it is. How to scare the straights in four easy steps."

The DVD started out with him in the lab Westmount and Fey had found him in the night before, rapidly moving from one device to another, then to the weapons, disassembling, assembling and operating. He plowed through a dizzying array of gear within a half hour then moved on to the three seemingly innocuous pieces. At that point Erik began talking, explaining the talisman, the knife and the piece of runic iron as the scene went on. Then the bombshell came, and all four watched Erik puzzling over the staff, the look of dawning horror, the sink, the howling of words that three of the watchers didn't recognize, and the shattering disintegration of the staff. Then a flash of the sickening green sigil. Then the camera feed died. The room was silent for a few moments Erik took the silence as an opportunity to back away from the little redhead, feeling the power build up in her.

Nikki was the first to fully react, spinning and fixing Erik with a look that could pierce a steel wall. "By the Gods, do you have any idea what you could have unleashed? What you could have done?"

Every instinct screamed at him to drop to one knee and beg forgiveness to the little elfin girl who suddenly radiated a power and presence he was not prepared for. He wanted to swear his service to her... To be her servant. Then Erik's mind roared back to the front smashing through those thoughts and urges like a hurricane. He would not be cowed, nor possessed, nor sworn to service of anyone.

It took every ounce of willpower he had to look her in the eye and grind the words out. "Yes, Miss Reilly... I knew EXACTLY what that... thing... could have unleashed on the world. And if I had it in my hands again I would destroy it again. And I would kill any who tried to stop me from doing so."

"Aunghadhail!" It was Sir Westmount who spoke sharply. "Rein in your temper. If what we just saw was any indication, he just did the world a service. Now calm down!"

The girl's eyes flashed to her teacher, and her fury abated. A little. When she turned her head back to Erik he realized this was far from done. "How did you know how to destroy the staff, and Where did you learn that language?"

Erik simmered and let his anger buffer him from the raging little woman.

"Well? Answer me!" The imperious command was backed by... something. It gripped him and then faded almost immediately, and his Marine instincts kicked to the fore.

Erik stalked right up to the girl and spoke in a level, and deceptively calm tone. "Miss Reilly I don't know who you think you are and I do not care. You will not speak to me in that tone again. I may be here to provide answers but I will not, and I mean this in no uncertain terms little girl, NOT tolerate disrespect from a student, no matter how powerful. Now sit down and be quiet!"

The little faerie girl's eyes screwed up in fury. "How dare you..."

Erik felt something try to strike, grasp and strangle him, and each time it sloughed off of him like a cast off skin. But with each probe he felt something building, began hearing a low hum in the background and began seeing ripples at the edge of his vision, like heat distortion.

"Aunghadhail that is ENOUGH!" Westmount was up and looking angry. "I agreed to be the instructor for Miss Reilly and to help her fully master her power, but if you cannot contain yourself our partnership is at an end."

The girl snapped her eyes back and looked at Westmount, who has a look of cold fury in his expression. And there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he would carry through this threat, no promise.

"I will have your decision, now."

"Very well, but I demand answers." The girl managed to seem imperious even when giving ground.

"And you shall have them, through Nikki. Now leave us to our work. I still have a lesson and she needs to learn it."

Very abruptly the girl's expression changed, as did her posture, and she looked apologetically at the stony face of her instructor. She looked mortified and when she turned to look at Erik she winced. Intentional or not, his expression was purely controlled anger, and he looked mean, to the tune of near-violent rage, and she could feel the cold fury pouring off him like a wave.

"I'm so sorry!" She squeaked, and tried to bolt from the room.

Erik blocked her. "I believe your instructor is not finished with you yet, Miss Reilly." His voice was very carefully regulated and controlled.

Nikki turned and walked carefully towards Sir Westmount and sat down. She gave nervous looks at both men then at Susannah, who seemed to be expecting violence to erupt at any second. Erik watched her go and his boiling emotions started to calm as he forced his rage back into the deep, dark hole he kept it in.

Sir Westmount walked over to Erik, "A word, sir?"

Erik nodded and led the way into the hallway. "What the fuck was that Westmount?"

The British man took a deep breath and let it go slowly. "First, don't judge her too harshly. She is... sharing her mind with a being that is very old, and very used to having things her way. I believe you will find Miss Reilly to be an exceptional girl once you get to know her."

"Thank God, I was hoping that wasn't her personality. I won't hold it against her, but I'm not taking shit off of Ungabunga or whatever the hell you call her."

"Quite. Ungabunga, as you put it is called Aunghadhail, a very old and powerful Sidhe queen. One of the faeries."

Erik processed that for a few moments. "OK. That explains the urge to bow and pledge my everlasting service. Not like I'm going to allow that to happen any time soon."

"I see you two are going to get along rather like nitroglycerine and electricity." Wallace looked at him. "How did you shrug off her spells? She threw a lot of power at you, with the intent of humiliating you and making you beg forgiveness."

"I dunno, honestly. Part of it being I'm a stubborn prick, and while I'll follow orders from people with that right, as defined by me... "

"You will never bend knee."

"Bingo."

"But I must say, in all my time here I never expected to see Aunghadhail told to stand down in such a tone. It is rather refreshing."

"What can I say? Some guys got it..."

Erik left the comment unfinished as he poked his head in just in time to hear Nikki talking to Susannah.

"Now I know why Jade says Mr. Mahren can be scary at times."

Nikki nearly jumped out of her skin when the door slammed open and Erik walked in with a loud voice that carried. "Who speaks my name without fear in her voice?"

Susannah looked at Erik, Annoyed. "Mister Mahren, fun is fun but you did scare the girl."

Erik nodded, not seeing his errant conversation partner's dry smirk. He walked over to Nikki, who unconsciously cringed. "Miss Reilly I'm not angry at you, and you don't need to think I'm going to hold this against you. Just please, try to keep a lid on Aunghadhail around me. I don't take well to folks thinking they have some mystic right to bark orders at me."

The girl nodded and Erik looked at Susannah. "All right. Crisis is over. Let's get back to brass tacks so I can go back to working the cannon range please."

"I couldn't agree more. For now, Mister Mahren if you would, I'd like you to have a look at these three books I brought."

"Call me Erik. At this point I'm not on the staff, and I'm the interruption here."

"Very well, Erik. The books are in the satchel under the table."

"I think I'm going to go get something to eat at this time." Susannah said smoothly as she walked out. "Nikki, dear, try not to start the apocalypse. And Erik, Try not to provoke the apocalypse."

"Well there goes my weekend plans." Erik mock-groused as Nikki giggled.

He picked up the satchel, and looked at it. Black leather, brass lock. Big enough to carry all his books from High School. He thumbed the lock and jumped up, with the sound of a hissing ZAP!.

"Mother f..." Erik cut off the rest of the curses that were going to come loose in the presence of the girl and snarled. He looked at the other instructor, who was trying to look innocent. "Cute, Wallace, real cute." The British Gentleman merely smirked.

He looked at the lock, at the satchel for a solid minute, then began searching around for something. Then he grinned. "Sir Wallace, please come here and touch your ring to the lock before I start making Monty python jokes... Badly."

"Can't you open it yourself?"

"Bag's enchanted. Won't open without the key and I can't cut it. You sure you want me to open this thing myself?"

"Humor me."

Erik walked outside, bag in tow, and went straight to a tree outside the building, followed by a curious Nikki and Sir Westmount. He stopped at a tree and set the bag on a branch, then looked around for a sharp rock, which he used to cut his palm.

"EWWWWWWW!" Nikki was watching.

He rubbed his blood all over his palm and slapped it on the bag, leaving a red hand print that seemed to reflect light like a mirror. "By blood, be undone."

Both Nikki and Sir Westmount recoiled as if slapped when he spoke those words. He picked the bag up, walked inside, and opened the satchel while the two mages stood by, horrified and slack-jawed. Three large books fell out, as well as a series of odd trinkets, one of which was a khukri knife. As he set the items aside and opened the first book, he realized that each page had a series of symbols that looked identical covering the page. No, not identical, each one had minor variations, and as he scanned the first page he picked out the real symbol. He picked up a pencil from the bag's contents and lightly traced a circle around the symbol. He did the same with the next twenty pages, never spending more than a minute on each one, usually only a few seconds on each page before moving on.

The two mages burst in. "What did you do... Why?" Wallace was aghast.

Erik looked up at him. "I told you to use your ring to unlock it. I checked it, figured out what it's for, figured out how to use it. When you said to open it myself I figured out how to disable it. Permanently."

"Do you have any clue how hard and expensive it is to make something like that satchel?"

"About five thousand dollars and three weeks of bullshit ritual. Oh and a precise mix of gold and mercury in the sigil that is nearly impossible to see in the anodized brass of the lock."

Wallace and Nikki looked stunned. "And how exactly would you re-enchant the item?"

Erik pushed the book he was looking at aside. "Fucked if I know."

The older man shook his head and looked at the book, then flipped through the pages. "How did you spot these sigils?"

"Eh instinct. I look at them and I recognize them for what they are. Some are harder than others. But they have a certain feel to them."

"Well you found all the correct ones."

Nikki, meanwhile stood transfixed, staring at a piece of quartz crystal that had come from the satchel. Erik looked up, saw her, saw the crystal, puzzled over it for a moment, then looked at the enraptured face and reacted just before her hand could reach it, grabbing the slight girl by the wrist and propelling her across the room. Wallace cried out and reached for him only to wind up propelled the same way as Erik picked up the crystal and slammed it to the table, muttering something. He picked up the Kukhri and drove the blade through the glass like thing and deep into the table.

The crystal exploded with a soul-shattering shriek and a silhouette of a ghostly, elfin woman tore from the facets. It was her that was shrieking. Erik felt the power of the inhuman voice threatening to tear the life from his body when the apparition faded. He slumped to the ground, gasping for breath like a boned fish, the heat ripples at the edge of his vision creeping in ever more.

For a few moments, silence reigned. Sir Westmount was the first to recover, taking in the scene, noting Nikki was twitching and Erik was gasping for air like he was suffocating. Nikki recovered shakily and looked up.

"Banshee Crystal." She gasped. Westmount looked over at the shattered remains of the innocuous-looking crystal he'd brought along and paled.

"Dear God in heaven."

Nikki looked over at the fallen man on the floor and saw the Ley lines warping and twisting around him like snakes on the attack, the magics he'd unleashed thrashing about his body seeking egress, until finally, mercifully they subsided, pulled into him as all the magics Aunghadhail had unleashed upon him had. She'd seen the glow about him before but had shrugged it off as an after effect of eldritch energy of the staff clinging to him. Now she saw that it was him! Looking closer she felt the presence of Aunghadhail in the back of her mind guiding her perception. Impudent upstart or not, he had saved both of them, and he was building up a charge of mystic energy that was unmistakable and worrying. She could see that there was a definite limit to how much he could hold.

Studying him she realized that he was holding a LOT of power inside, and he was reaching his utter limit, accelerated by the staff, her spells, and the shattering of the crystal. "He's an energizer! And he's just about full up! If he takes any more I don't know what will happen to him!"

Westmount looked at the prone, unconscious form, and made a snap decision. He ran over to Erik and checked his life signs, and proceeded to mystically scan Erik himself. As he watched he realized that the man was holding too much energy, more than could be accounted for in the last two days' time. Even the staff could not have forced that much raw magic into his body.

"Nichole, Call medical! Get Doctor Bellows and a team here NOW and block any magic from entering this room! If he's exposed he might go into burnout!" The girl nodded and darted off. "If you're not already burning out you poor bastard."

* * *

The hammer struck the metal with a loud clang and the shower of sparks. Again it struck, in perfect rhythm, forging the blade. She paused once when it was safe to do so in her work, and quenched the heated metal in the blood of the Dragon Carathwyn, who had been felled by the Knights of the realm. After a break, she went back to work, hammering the blade again, and again in perfect rhythm. The work had to carry on through the day and on through the week. Any interruption would mean disaster and the precious Mithril being forged into the steel would be ruined and useless. She pounded at the blade, for days, nonstop, never slowing. Her queen's sword had to be ready by the eve of the solstice. So little time.

She Finally finished the blade, tired and worn, a week in the forges could weary even her. Her Lady's vassals watched as she emerged from the forge, keeping their distance as she walked directly to the center of the castle and struck the blade tip firmly into the ground. The Ice would temper the fire and the point in the hard earth would draw strength from the world and the castle. She left the precious blade in the earth and walked back into the Forge. She had to begin the hilt and pommel immediately. None would touch the precious blade. None would dare.

The forging took a week, as she examined her work. Only the richest metals had been used in the delicate basket hilt of the blade. Steel and Silver with Orichalcum laced as golden filigree made it up. The handle wrapped in precious hides was stained a deep, royal purple. She carried the hilt to the blade, and stepped up to the blade. A serving girl, vassal of her queen stopped and stared in horror. She was human, it was to be expected. The girl ran in fear as she slid the pommel onto the blade to complete the joining process.

Whispered words and bent knee before the heavens and the sky erupted in storm. Eldritch energy flashed from above and below in equal measure, as the Queen's people desperately sought shelter. It was not her place to worry about their safety. Her only concern was the blade of her Lady. She chanted on for hours, rain falling upon her naked body, and the blade. She was oblivious to the screams of terror from the humans beyond the castle wall's enchantments. The Humans would have to fend for themselves. They would cry and shout, and beg the Queen to abate her anger, but it would not. Until her task was complete there would be no abatement.

The sword slid free of the earth easily. She walked up the castle battlements, always chanting, always speaking in that language that none, not even she could understand. As she passed in and out of the castle to her destination Even the Queen's true people moved away from her, some sneering with contempt at the naked woman who blithely stalked past them. They were not her concern. Her Mistress'; will be done.
The battlements were clear, and even the pointy-eared, beautiful people of the queen dared not disturb her. To stand against the storm was beyond them, all but the most powerful mystics. She pointed the sword high, and thunder clapped and the while light of lightning speared the tip of the blade, searing it, forging it anew, ripping the length of the blade and into her. Even in her weary state she felt refreshed, energized, and ready for the next task that her mistress would lay before her once the sword was presented by the court seneschal. She would not see the queen. Base servants were to stay to their place, not seek to see or speak with Her Majesty.

She tested the blade not. She knew it would cut the strongest steel, and pierce the magic defenses of the Queen's enemies. She laid the blade by her bed and went to sleep. When she awoke, the blade was gone. In it's place there was a note with instructions, and the raw materials she needed, as divined by the Court mage. Her Majesty's champion required armor. This would take a year of nonstop work.

She walked to her mirror and looked upon herself. She did not know she was beautiful. She did not know she was human, or had been. It had been so long since she realized she was like those round-eared people. She was plain, even ugly to the court. She did not see herself. She saw the marks of the tattoos, they covered her body, her face framed on the sides by delicate, cobalt blue waves that tapered to tips on her forehead and chin. The tattoos that bound her power, that allowed her to ply her craft. Without them she would have died, consumed from within. The tattoos marked her for all to see.

Artificer.
Mage.
Weaponsmith.
Armorer
Slave.

She could not see herself, just the beautiful, delicate cobalt blue marks that were her brands. She could not remember her name. She looked in the mirror, and saw nothing.

There was a crack of shattering glass, and it took a moment to realize what it was. The mirror was shattered, her fist held in the wall, bleeding from it's passing. The castle guards desperately ran to the forge as the furious shriek tore through the silent night.

* * *

Sunday, November 19th

Erik opened his eyes slowly, mind buzzing, pulsing with the throbbing rhythm of the migraine. He hurt all over, never mind the confusing dreams of heat and steel. Still, it was a welcome respite to horror and death. He pushed himself up and gave himself a once-over, seeing everything in place where it was supposed to be. He tried to remember how he got there.

He had seen it, but hadn't looked too hard until he caught sight of the girl's face. He looked over, examining the objects on the table and saw it. He'd thought it was a simple focusing crystal at first until he REALLY looked. The knowledge had come unbidden to his mind. He KNEW that there was something trapped inside. He could tell it was calling out, reaching. Then he saw it. The trap was elegant, delicate, and keyed somehow to what the girl had become. Bean Sidhe, the ghost of a Sidhe woman who died in pain and horror. It would kill any fae that touched it, he didn't know how, but he knew it would... He reacted... The knife came down... Nothing. Pain.

He shook his head, then looked around again. He saw it. the delicate, nearly invisible lines cut into the wall. Circles, stars, and a few other symbols came unbidden to his mind. The pentacle surrounded his bed, which was situated in the dead-center of the room. Earth, fire, air, water, spirit. All focused to keep magic from the bed. The walls warded to diffuse and disperse magic in the room. He suddenly knew how to unbind the wards. He didn't necessarily want to though. They seemed to project in a protective array, and he was at the center of that protection.

His vision was off, the air around him seemed to ripple and swirl like a living thing, just below the surface. He could feel the passing energy, and he reached out to touch it... It slipped through his fingers. He couldn't grasp it, mold it, shape it as every instinct was now screaming at him to do. Shape... Mold... Build... He shook himself from the reverie, looking around again, this time standing up.

He realized as he looked at the wards on the wall, he knew what they were, though he wasn't familiar with most of them before this moment. He knew what they were, what they did, how to use them. What escaped his consciousness was why they were important and how, exactly, they worked. It was like being gifted with the knowledge to build a gun and knowing what the end result could do without understanding any of the processes involved in making it or what exactly caused it to work. Do this, get this. Do that, this is the result. Nothing of the hows and whys ever entered his mind. He looked back at the range weapon inspections. He always knew what it was made from, and always knew what it would do and how to make it work, never understanding why it worked.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in his face. He'd been doing things by rote, never knowing really what could happen if he made a mistake on the range, or with the magic items, just figuring it out and accepting the result. He knew if he stepped from the pentacle circle it would alert someone but not how it would alert them, or how it would work. The realization chilled him.

Most people, when they think of the marines, think maniacal, effective, and above all, stupid apply. Hardly anyone realized that when training it was drilled that every movement, every action carried a purpose. They were taught that purpose, and expected to learn it. It wasn't throw a grenade and it explodes in a few seconds, it was far more complex, and even the most dimwitted infantryman could explain in detail, exactly how every piece of gear he carried works. They had to. Their lives and the lives of those around it depended on this.

He was playing with explosives without the knowledge, or instructions the entire time he'd been working at Whateley. What he had been doing was both dangerous and foolhardy, though seemingly innocent. Sure, he could completely disable the entire ward network in the room more or less harmlessly, but he couldn't tell how they were interacting, or how they were working, just the beginning and the end. No middle ground was there that he could see.

He stepped from the pentacle and went through the medical closet. He picked up a bottle of clear fluid from the improperly secured cabinet and examined it without the label. Clear fluid, containing water, sodium, and a few other distinct chemicals he couldn't put a name to. Results when mixed with blood would stop the blood from clotting and scabbing over. He kept his mind clear and picked up a syringe, and the same happened. He knew what it was and what it was used for in the instinctive manner, but he actually had to think about what it was to put together the procedure for actually using both together. But he couldn't discern dosage, or potential side-effects.

"Erik what are you doing?" Doctor bellows asked from behind him.

"Checking something." He set the items down.

"Doc, find me something oddball. Find me a piece of equipment that is simple and innocuous to use that you think I won't know what the function is or what it's for."

"Why Erik?"

"Because I think I've hit the really fucking dangerous part of my being able to operate anything trick."

He didn't see the Doc leave, or return with a small device that looked like a pen until it was handed to him.

Erik picked up the pen and looked at it, a picture forming in his mind again. Some kind of sonic thing. Click it this way and it caused sonic vibrations at short range. Harmless to humans. He tried to discern why it worked. He saw the little projector in his mind, saw how it was constructed and how to disable it, about fifteen different ways, but nothing on why it worked. Erik handed it back.

"Fucking hell I've really been playing with fire." Erik braced himself against the counter.

"What's wrong Erik?"

"Doc imagine being able do open heart surgery... by rote."

"Ah, actually I can do it by rote if I have to."

"Really doc? Now imagine being able to do the same surgery without knowing the hows and whys of the human body. Imagine doing it without any knowledge but action and result." He turned as he spoke.

Doctor Bellows' face was a bit pale and he looked a bit ill. "So that's what you're doing."

"Yeah. I see all this crap on the walls I know what it IS, but not what the individual pieces ARE. I know how to start it and how to stop it, but I don't know why it works." Erik looked up. "I think I have a problem."

Bellows sighed. "Erik, your problem is bigger than that. You seem to be some kind of energizer. You've picked up a pretty heavy charge via the staff, and the magic things Sir Wallace said you have interacted with. And we missed it, but your body's been developing this charge for a while now. It probably started the day you started working here."

Erik looked up. "Oh shit. It's just building and I have a limit, isn't it?"

Bellows just nodded.

"OK. So what happens when I hit critical mass?"

"We don't know, hence the wards, set up by Fey and her tutor."

"Any way I can dump the charge? I know that oddball kid Skybolt does the same thing with electricity, but she can dump it off like it's her job."

"That's what we'd like to find out. Because when you hit that critical point and overcharge, I'm told you're porting enough magic to blow a crater the size of the campus in the ground."

"Fucking wonderful. So you mean I'm now a direct threat to the kids now too?"

Bellows nodded slowly. "I really didn't want to say it, but yes."

"Let's get to it doc. I wanna figure out how to dump this charge off."

"It will be dangerous Erik. We have to take you away from the children for this, and we can't risk them if you..."

"I get the picture Doc. Better me than them."

"That's not what I..."

"No, but it's what I meant. Let's go."

* * *

The drive out into the countryside was pretty boring, especially since the Doc seemed awfully nervous. Erik couldn't blame him. Ever since he'd been to the doc's office things had started to go straight to hell in a hand basket, and so far it was a rocky ride. He felt like he was spiraling into insanity, and wondered if he was. If it was he'd wake up strapped to a bed hopped up on drugs, probably, then have to make some kind of hellish recovery. But the problem was, it felt all too real. Never mind the whole fact that all of the students at Whately took the concept of reality and wadded it up for a game of basketball.

The truck lurched as the doc took the truck off the road. Signs were posted, he didn't pay attention until he saw the very prominent hazard warnings, marked with the biohazard sigil. One had the instantly recognizable nuclear radiation symbol. "Uh doc? where are we going?"

"Hazard zone. We test students with powers that are dangerous and often uncontrollable out here. There's a few who'd qualify were it not for their control. Tennyo for instance."

"Tennyo?"

"Blue haired girl, tends to stand in defiance of gravity. One of the Poe kids."

"I think I read the file, but I tend not to remember the kids' details unless I have to. Only Poe kids I'm familiar with are Zenith, Nikki, that Jade kid, and one or two of the boys who make the Gunny uncomfortable."

Bellows chuckled. "Gunny Bardue is a character but at least he doesn't hold it against the kids."

"Nah, Gunny's a pro. Besides, the kids tend to like him. I'm the one a lot of 'em have problems with."

"Ah, yes, you're the so-called 'range Nazi.' I figured you'd be taller."

Erik chuckled mildly. "Kids never really seem to understand the safety rules until someone gets really hurt."

"Erik, be careful. This range is for children who cannot keep their powers in check. Watch yourself. If you can bleed off the magic energy safely, I'll be happy. If not I have no idea what will happen."

Erik nodded. "Hey is that Westmount? What's he doing out here?"

"Earning Hazard pay."

Erik shook his head and got out of the truck with a nod to the doc, and walked to the Englishman fairly calmly. Inside his emotions were roiling. He barely noted it when Doctor Bellows revved the truck and drove away. "I wasn't expecting to see you out here old man."

Westmount nodded. "Yes, but the magic department is rightly rather skittish about you Erik. They are worried that they would only accidentally overcharge you and cause you to burn out. In fact the only volunteers to assist in helping you overcome this ordeal were Nichole and Sara Waite."

"Hope you squashed that idea Sir Westmount. I won't endanger the kids." Erik considered. "Maybe the Ultraviolents."

Westmount chuckled. "Well Erik, please call me Wallace. I believe two men risking death together should at least be on a first-name basis."

"Can't argue with you there. So what's the plan?"

"A few simple exercises. You soak up mystic power like a sponge. We are going to see if we can squeeze you out a bit."

"Wow, my smartass gland just ran out of juice. I don't know how to respond to that one."

"Small mercies Erik. Shall we?"

"Yeah. Let's get to it." Erik looked up. "Thanks. I appreciate this."

"No man should walk into danger alone Erik. Yea though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death..."

Erik finished the statement. "I shall fear no evil, for I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley, and my battalion is well entrenched"

"You're weird."

The exercises were a series of meditative exercises, during which Erik outlined the knowledge gap in his talent. Wallace seemed troubled about that but let it pass. He also described the undercurrent he felt almost beyond his perceptions and Wallace nodded. "All right Erik I want you to focus on that target down there. I want you to watch my movements, and words. Normally I'd force you to learn the formulae and the hows and why's but for this purpose, we need to try and bleed off your power. The target has a symbol engraved. That is the formula. Keep it firmly in your mind as you do as I do."

Wallace went through a fairly simple series of gestures, and spoke a word. "Incendius!" The adjacent target burst into flame. He showed Erik the motions again and again, forcing the marine to get them just so. Erik finally nodded and turned to the target and performed the motions and spoke the word. The currents seemed to catch in his hand and formed into... something, then snapped from his grip as he felt a wash of energy burn into him.

"Uh-oh."

"What happened? Your execution was almost perfect. I thought you were actually going to get it on the first try."

Erik looked at Wallace nervously. "That's just it. It worked. I felt it pull back and diffuse into me. Just like all the other shit."

"This can't be good."

Erik turned, and he felt one of the currents seem to stick to his skin, and as he felt it snap away he felt a spark, and a burning sensation as the air around his arm burst into a shockwave, throwing him and Wallace apart.

He tried to stand, and the brush at his feet caught fire. "Fuck me Wallace get the fuck out of here! Whatever it is it's catching and breaking off me!" He darted away from the sudden fire and vanished with a sick *POP* and reappeared forty feet away. He tried to turn, and again felt the current catch on him and froze in place like a soldier stepping on a land mine.

"Erik are you OK?" Wallace was running forward and realized Erik stood stock-still. He stopped a few feet away. "What is happening"

Erik rasped out through gritted teeth. "Those currents. They're clearer and they're sticking and snapping every time I move. Ever step on a mine that if you lift your foot it goes off?"

"Can't say I have."

"Well it's happening like that, and with every step I make I can feel that charge building. I think you might want to get the hell out of here Wallace."

"I'm not just going to leave you out here Erik."

"Yes Wallace, you are. Go. You've done all you can, now get clear and get away. No one's saying it'll be lethal. We just know it might be lethal. And no point in you getting killed by accident."

"Erik..."

"Which way is the center of the range zone here Wallace?"

The gentleman sighed and pointed. "Godspeed sir."

"Thanks. Now get out of here. I don't want any more ghosts on my conscience."

Wallace walked away from the range, got into his vehicle and drove away, fully conscious of the fact that he was leaving a good man to die alone, and knowing that good man would not allow him to stay and bear witness. He hoped that Erik was right, and this wouldn't be fatal, but he wasn't optimistic.

Erik stood stock-still for a very long time, far longer than it should have taken the man to get clear, then tensed, crouched and felt the energies clinging like spider webs to him, and he burst into a full sprint directly towards the center field, felt the energies build, release and burst around him, building up a tempo rather akin to a machine gun the faster and farther he ran, oblivious to the wake of fire, ice, storms of force or the bizarre transformations that erupted and burned about him. When the final eruption happened he was beyond delirious, and when the final wave took him he was mercifully well beyond where pain could reach him.

Upheaval: Walking Alone

By Joe Gunnarson

The time was right. The tree was prepared. The forest had died by plague, the Tree burned to death. The work had taken years to accomplish, signalled by the dying wail of the last animal in the cursed place. She stood, and walked widdershins, in a spiral, carefully measuring each step in the spiral of her passage. Days passed, the ground defiled by the plague. The master bid her complete her work. She ignored the fallen bones of the dead animals, the dried out husks of every insect that had once lived here. The work had been painstaking. She had had to call upon her master's servants to make the work progress apace, no faster, no slower.

An age passed, and she came to the tree, a stark and gnarled monolith of death itself. Here the pain, and death was focused. Her hands reached out, and she tore the trunk open with hardly a grunt of exertion, tearing away the charred wood that was useless to her. She extracted the heart of the tree, leaving the rest to rot with it's brethren, carrying the dire package to her home. Her place. The master's mad children scurried about her, never looking too closely at her unmarred body, and she ignored them and their mutations. They were irrelevant to her.

She had prepared this place two years ago, a sanctum of terror even to the children of her master. The Gateway Sigil was branded into the stone floor of the massive chamber. The tools were prepared. She began forming the blackened wood, cutting away the chaff in measured detail. With each stroke, she spoke the guttural and horrific words of her master's language. The gnarled wood became a staff, and each syllable of the profane speech blackened the wood further. The staff in hand, she walked out of her sanctum.

The children of her master saw her, and gibbered madly in the wake of the awakened staff. They felt it's hunger, and begged for what they knew would join them to the creation. She ignored them, passing the boundary of the village without word or pause. The road was long. She never stopped. The township ahead never saw death slip in like a thief in the night. The two guardsmen died silently, their blood and life energy fed to the shaft of wood. With each killing she etched a rune. It would have been easier had the master allowed for his sigils, but he wanted the staff to be innocuous and unknowable. Thus did the process extend a year of prior preparation. The first man to emerge from his hovel at the screams died as his chest was shattered by a single blow from a fist, then the staff was buried in his body at one end as she etched another sigil.

One by one the men died. these were not warriors, merely simple peasants, for whom the daemon had come. One by one they fell, and as the moon reached it's zenith, the real work began. Only the crows marked the passing of the village from life. When the next humans passed through, they would find nothing, merely the dead of a village untouched in their silence even by the scavengers that fled the unhallowed place.

She returned home to madness. The master's children gibbered and whooped at her passing, though none dared touch her or her charge. They gathered around her sanctum and chanted as she stepped into the gateway sigil. The rite was complex, the stars in perfect alignment. The roiling darkness and horror coalesced into an unknowable mass, A Shoggoth. Eyes and mouths and tentacles watched and flailed and screamed in profane chorus as the beast's presence drove the master's children beyond the brink of madness. She struck twice, drawing debased ichor from the beast at both ends of the staff and drove the end into the center of the sigil. The Shoggoth did not interfere. It did not care that the speck of nothing had blooded it.

As it flowed over and around her she called out the final syllables of the horrific chant, ignoring the screams in the village as the monster devoured all life in it's path, absorbing the master's children into it's own mad formlessness. The chanting continued and gained crescendo, until finally all sound ceased, in time with the last mutated wretch's dying, ecstatic wails. Eldritch light erupted through the sigil, binding it's power to the staff, and she stood against the storm of energy that crawled across her mind. It did not matter. She could not even see the eldritch, nauseating, green symbols branded into her flesh, the energies matched her color perfectly. And any mortal being who looked upon the mad whorls and spirals in the pattern would have gone instantly mad. It had happened before.

A gateway tore open as the energies coalesced. She stepped through and knelt in supplication, holding the instrument forward, head bowed. It was taken from her gently, and a tentacle raised her gaze . She beheld her master, in all it's glory. She...

* * *

Dark chest of wonders
Seen through the eyes
Of the one with pure heart Once so long ago -Nightwish, 'Dark Chest of Wonders'

Whateley infirmary,Thursday, November 24th

She woke up screaming, primal madness and terror warring in her voice as her mind desperately drove the image from her mind and destroyed it to protect itself from what would come if it failed to do so in time. Her horrified shriek echoed through the bare room, and she screamed and screamed and screamed, eyes wide in horror and near-madness. Eldritch fire erupted across her body, burning away the blankets and the sheets, searing the bed to it's frame and giving voice to her terror.

The doctors' staff at Whately bolted into the room to see their charge burning with unholy eldritch fire that did not touch her skin. One of the orderlies tried to restrain her and recoiled, burned as the eldritch energies lashed out from the screaming girl. The sound was soul-wrenching, showing a depth of horror that few could comprehend. The confusion reigned until Ophelia burst into the room and barked a few words. The wards flashed and the fire died, but she kept screaming. Doctor Bellows walked up and pressed a needle into her thigh as the orderlies desperately tried to restrain her. A few seconds later the screaming began to fade, and she slumped back onto the charred mattress. The unholy light in the room finally died as she passed from consciousness.

* * *

Mrs. Carson looked at Gunny Bardue across her desk. The Ex-Marine was angry, tired and stressed. One of his best people was laid out on a gurney in Whateley's infirmary, and unable to see anyone for the safety of all involved. Carson could definitely understand his perspective on this, and for once his discomfort over the kind of changes his man had gone through did not show. At this point he was far beyond caring.

"I can't just approve of that and you know it, Elizabeth. He's one of us, and he's been a damned fine example to the students as well." He paused to compose himself. "I understand the concern here but we can't just dump him in the brig at ARC! I don't get it. We have several students who are just as dangerous to themselves and others and we make accommodations for them over at Hawthorne. But a teacher's powers explode into the fritz and suddenly he needs to be black holed?"

"Gunny name one student who could be considered as dangerous, or even nearly so. His uncontrolled explosion was well beyond anything that we can contain." Carson kept her voice even. She agreed with Bardue on principle, if not when compared with the safety of the school.

"Puppet."

"Gunny we can't compare her to Mahren. It's not on the same scale."

"Same scale? We have to keep that poor girl sequestered away from everyone to keep her blood from killing someone on contact. Spill that shit and it'd take a decontamination team weeks to clean that shit out."

"I'm not seeing any options here gunny. Every time Erik moves, even in sleep, there's a burst of magical energy. Hell he damned near destroyed the room he was in earlier today. I agree with you on principle but even if we keep him here, we couldn't let him out of wherever we put him, just in case he has another uncontrolled episode like the hazard test range."

"I can't see why everyone's so fucking ready to hang him out to dry. He's a good man and a good marine."

"Gunny I know he is, but I know with you this is personal. He's your man. He had been even while in the armed services."

"Personal? Yes it's personal." Bardue forced himself to calm down. "Even with my personal feelings, and Hartford's aside, since I put Erik on weapons control and rangemaster there has not been one single injury on any range while he was directly supervising it."

"I read his record since he got here. It's exceptional, but there we can't handle him here, and there is nothing that says this was a result of the school's normal operation."

"Wanna bet?" The large Marine leaned back as Carson looked at him. "First off, his talent for weapons and gear is well-documented in both his personnel file and his service jacket. This whole thing snowballed because of me, his direct supervisor. Further, I was following school policy when I ordered him to go see the docs in accordance with those policies. Further, had he not gone to see the doctors he never would have snowballed into the nightmare that's happened to him."

Mrs. Carson was silent, listening quietly.

"And last, he's an energizer, only keyed to magic instead of another, more common phenomenon. Nobody picked up on that. Not his folks, not the Corps, and not our overworked staff here even when he was being tested for this shit. He's been building a god damned charge from the minute he stepped on the grounds on his first day. The only reason we found out was because a freshman girl happened to get a good look at him after he blew an item, that from Westmount's description, would have killed her on contact. And you're telling me the school doesn't owe him anything?"

"What would you have us do Gunny?"

"Carson I don't know, but if we don't try, and we just Black Hole him we'll have betrayed a good man and left him to rot as a lab animal like the real threats in this world deserve." He got up from his seat and walked to the door. "Further, if Mahren is sent to ARC the letters of resignation from myself and the entire Crisis Simulation Team will be on your desk Monday morning."

Bardue left the office without another word, leaving Carson looking as if she had bit into something foul. In a way she had, and he was right. But how in God's name could she acquiesce to his wishes and keep the students safe at the same time? And how could she live with herself if she didn't try to help the man?

* * *

Erik woke up slowly as the realization that he was not, in fact, dead filtered into his consciousness. He shifted under the sheets a bit and a stinging crackle accompanied by a burning sensation accompanied the movement. He jolted upright, and another snap accompanied the hissing sound as he bolted out from the bed. The first thing to filter into his forcibly awakened consciousness was that he felt wrong, body felt lighter, completely balanced wrong, and there was an uncomfortable wobble at his chest. There was also hair in his face. He brushed it up over his head and looked around.

The room was large, about the size of his old apartment. And it was absolutely covered, walls, floor and ceiling in wards and glyphs and symbols he didn't feel like getting too curious about just yet. The bed was a typical hospital bed, all white and made for maximum discomfort, and the sheets and mattress has scorch marks all over. Hooray for fireproof linens. Besides the bed, there wasn't much to the room besides a mirror, and every time he turned or twitched to look around there was a static hiss, and occasional a crackling snap. The snaps hurt, and he twitched and closed his eyes, holding perfectly still.

Given the feelings he was getting from his body he could guess what had happened, although he didn't exactly know how to feel about it. He opened his eyes and walked to the mirror, trying to keep his calm while knowing exactly what he was going to see. Yup. It wasn't him anymore, and every time something moved the mirror showed coruscating energy clinging to him, or rather, her. Wild blues, greens and angry reds ripped across the body of the girl reflected, sometimes erupting in sparks or little arcs of energy, similar to lightning. Those stung like a bitch. He took a deep breath and looked closely. Best get it done before reality caught up and he freaked out completely.

The heart-shaped face was very well defined, and showed no hint of the older man he'd been before. Thick, dark, bluish-black and very reflective hair hung down straight, to the small of her back. Her eyes were the disturbing bit. They had a color of metal, and seemed rather reflective as well. He looked close and realized that the irises seemed to have been disks of shaped steel, with some kind of marks, or runes etched around the pupils. Her pale skin was offset slightly by her lips, which while pretty and definitely 'his type' was never going to attract DSL jokes. Thank God for small mercies.

"Oh fuck me running." No surprise, his voice sounded lighter, and quite a bit more feminine than before.

He took a deep breath and backed away, then looked down, twisting to get a good look. He ignored, or tried to ignore the odd snapping and sapping, hissing sounds and smell of ozone whenever he moved. Trim, athletic, with some well defined muscles, his new form didn't have any excess body fat, except the one place where he never wanted to see it. Those breasts looked huge from where he was standing, though they seemed to be perfectly proportioned to her body in the mirror. He checked his plumbing. Yup. It's a girl. God damn it. This sucks.

Erik closed his eyes for a minute and fought down the howl of rage and frustration that was building inside and felt a massive pressure, and a sensation he'd not felt since some hellish winters in Alaska as freezing waves rippled across his naked body. Eyes opened again and he saw that every single ward was glowing with a purple almost fae light. He also saw that frost was forming on his skin, and along the floor and wall. He sucked in the emotions and the frost vanished, burned away by the wards surrounding him until they stopped glowing.

He examined the walls and floors, mind sifting through the sigils and runes until it clicked. The wards were there to dampen mystic energies, and they were really powerful. The door to the room was also marked, and Erik snarled when he recognized it as a portal ward. he wouldn't be able to break it from this side of the door, so not only was he in a room full of mystical power dampeners, and in the wrong body to boot, but he was a prisoner here.

"Windows. Jesus I'm an idiot sometimes."

The windows were fairly large, they were also marked with the same containment sigil as the door, and further warded to hold in power. It was too much. Erik slammed a fist at one, and it ricocheted off something invisible. He leaned against the glass and felt the frustration building again. He could see the main part of campus a ways off, see the children milling about between the buildings. And here he was, trapped in a god damned storage building, apparently with no way out and not even a pair of underwear. Screw it Let it out.

The scream ripped out, loud and long, and it felt good, rather cathartic in fact. What he hadn't counted on was the eruption of electrical balls that burst on the center of the room, sending bolts of energy into every part of the room. The wards absorbed the shock. The bed didn't. It's frame wasn't grounded well and the part where one of the bolts struck super heated one of the legs, which buckled, bent and snapped, dropping a corner of the aluminum frame onto the floor. It didn't help that the thunderclaps hurt, and it didn't help that it was startling and more than a bit scary.

The emotional roller coaster of fear erupted around Erik, burning with eldritch fire and the Ice of the Arctic and stormed through the room in a mad cacophony, blasting the mirror and bed to shards, and wracking him with sizzling pain without burning the flesh whenever it struck, but he felt his vitality sapping with each strike, and the panic grew, all while the wards in the room burned like purple stars to contain the eruption.

When the storm ended he was huddled in a corner, shaking uncontrollably, causing more of the mystic energies to burst, crack and sizzle along his body. He didn't know what was going on, and at this point he was emotionally burned out, and mentally drained. He didn't even have the presence of mind to realize he was crying as the tears fell.

When the door opened he was oblivious as Gunny Bardue entered the room. Bardue took stock and noted the annihilation of the bed and mirror, then saw the girl huddled in a corner crying quietly. The walls and floor and ceiling showed no sign of damage, but he could only imagine what had happened here. He looked at the demolished bed and picked up a scorched, but intact sheet and walked over, draping it over the naked girl. He winced as the arcs of energy scorched the ends of his arms a little. She pulled the sheet in tight and looked up.

"You look like you're having a rough time kid." Bardue paused. "You OK? You look pretty shaken up."

Erik looked up and saw the big man standing over him. "I don't know what happened. I was trying to figure stuff out. I got frustrated and everything blew up." She seemed damned near on the verge of tears again.

"Normally I'd tell you to pull yourself together, but given the circumstances, I'm going to go get a replacement for your bed. Try to calm down and we'll talk."

"Can I get some clothes?"

"We tried that. You keep burning through everything. Got the magic department working on something for ya."

Erik nodded and Bardue walked over to the wrecked bed and hauled the remains out of the room, leaving the door open. He stood, wincing at the cracking and hissing, walking slowly to the door. He poked a head out the door and the response was immediate. Green lightning arced in the hallway as several lights exploded all at once, and the wind began rushing. He pulled back into the room and the disturbance ended quickly.

He wandered over to one of the walls and leaned against it, wincing with every few steps. He looked around again and sighed.

A loud thump as the end of a bed frame pushed through the door sounded, and he heard muffled grumbling. The bed came in and Bardue set it down with a loud thump before going outside and bringing in the mattress and more fireproof sheets. "Damn, Erik what the hell happened to the hallway?"

Erik shrugged. "Poked my head into the hallway and things went apeshit so I ducked back in. Wasn't fun."

"Yeah I can imagine. Stay inside the room until we can figure out a way for you to safely move about, will ya? I know it sucks, but you're building up intensity, and we couldn't keep you in sick bay safely any more."

"Figures. I'm not sure how it all goes together, but this is some heavy duty shit." He pointed at the walls and floor while holding the sheet wrapped around him with the other hand.

"Damn kid you light up like a Christmas tree whenever you move."

"Tell me about it. Seems like every few minutes I'm getting electrocuted, and it burns like a motherfucker." Erik looked at Bardue for a minute. "I'm not going to be able to go back to work am I?"

"I dunno Erik. We're not sure, but it's looking like that won't be in the cards. Especially not with Hartford throwing her two cents into the pile. I don't know what we can do with you at this point. I had to do some fast talking to keep them from dropping you in Red Complex."

"You gotta be fucking kidding me. I'd rather suck off a shotgun."

Bardue smirked. "Yeah I kinda figured it'd be something like that. I'm still trying to find a way to keep things going, but for now I need you to cooperate as much as you can so you can get through this."

"Wonderful. More Lab Rat time."

"Hey, look at it this way, our human Lab Rats get fed and clothed. Like I said, I got the magic department kicking around some ideas for clothing that won't randomly flash-fry. I'll be back. Going to go snag you some chow at the chow hall, then see if I can't scrounge up a few books on magic stuff for you to look at and work on.

"Thanks, Boss."

"You hang in there, Marine. You been through worse shit than this. We'll find some way to help you."

"Semper Fi Gunny."

* * *

Monday November 27th

The last couple days had been a hell of boredom and frustration, staring at walls that held the maddening glyphs and wards. The currents Erik could see were more defined and distinct, superimposed seemingly 'behind" reality somehow. The worst part was the boredom. She's had nothing to occupy herself for four days. The books Gunny had brought had survived all of eight minutes before bursting into flames, disintegrating or simply falling apart, completely unravelled winding up as a mass of wood pulp in a pool of ink. Then there was the whole sleep thing.

Every time she fell asleep she wound up awake and alert less than an hour later, and no amount of tossing and turning could help it, so she bided her time by pacing back and forth through the room, getting used to ignoring the odd burning or electrical or freezing feeling that ripped across her body whenever that multi hued corona erupted all over her. The computer had been a bust, the keys now resembled some poor kid's science experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, with small plants growing in the circuitry.

The worst part, which she was keenly aware of, was her body. It felt off, moved completely differently around the hips, and her center of gravity had dropped, throwing off her balance. The walking and running had helped,and her muscles were very clearly defined, without looking like a professional weight lifter, just very athletic. Her tattoos were gone, something she hadn't noticed until she'd tried to sleep, replaced by unmarred skin. That seemed odd with the dreams she had that only lasted as long as she was out, but seemed to cover years. In every dream she was marked in metallic tattoos of varying colors and patterns, and the thought of them brought a simultaneous need and revulsion. She didn't know what it was, but whatever she had become wanted them, while somewhere, on some primal level, everything that made the core of who she was raged in defiance of it.

Things were not helped by the fact that all she had for clothing was a fireproof bed sheet. She deliberately forced her mind away from things she lost, as every time she got deep into such thought, depression came, and with it wild storms of uncontrolled energy that the wards could not suppress. "It doesn't matter what I've become. I'm still me." It had become her mental mantra, her shield against the seeming waking nightmare. She'd honestly wondered how the kids who had to deal with the problem coped. Most of them didn't have an extra thirteen years of self-image reinforced every day. She figured it was that self-image that was keeping her somewhat sane. After all, the body didn't define the person. That's what she kept telling herself at least.

Gunny Bardue walked in carrying a suitcase just as Erik got bored, and was treated to the sight of a naked woman doing push-ups easily, each movement causing ripples and waves of energy to burn along her body. He turned away, not that he wasn't liking the sight, but it was Erik. He wouldn't violate the other marine's trust for anything.

"Hey Erik, hurry up man I got a package for ya." He hollered over his shoulder.

He heard some slapping of feet and a rustling. "All right Gunny, I got my toga on. Come on in."

Neither mentioned the naked push-ups. It didn't feel appropriate. "So whatcha got for me there, boss?"

Bardue shook his head. "The latest and greatest from the mumbo-jumbo crowd here. Clothes. They said they did something to keep the Llama energies from peaking out. So I guess it's just finger-wiggler lingo for keeping you from hitting critical mass and going nuclear."

The suitcase popped open and Erik looked at the clothing. Yup. This was going to take some getting used to. Clothing, and underwear, all styled appropriately for a teenage girl. "If I see anything with Hello Kitty in here someone's going to die."

Bardue chuckled, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Sorry, this is going to take some getting used to."

"Tell me about it. Remind me to fire my career planner." Erik shot a sidelong glance at the Gunny.

"Hey wait a minute you little snot-nosed dust rag..." Bardue stopped as he caught the smirk.

"Even after what, eight years, you're still too easy to get a rise out of there bossman."

"Not my fault I got stuck with a smart-mouthed pissant PFC who knew entirely too much for his own good." Bardue was relaxing, good.

"OK Gunny, first off, same rules of the game. If you start treating me any different I will go absolutely insane and I will take you with me. Just cause I had a freak fit and have boobs is no reason to get all wonky on me."

"It's weird Erik, hell I'm even having a hard time calling you by your old name. It just doesn't fit. And Erika is a far jump too."

"I know, and it's driving me fucking nuts." Erik picked up a few pieces of clothing. "So what's been happening since my happy bout of incarceration here at Whately Correctional?"

"The usual." He continued as Erik went into the small bathroom. "The students are missing you, the good ones at least. The Grunts are pretty off-kilter, seems they prefer your hardass PMI teaching style. The crisis team's waiting on word. They wanna see you up and about. Wilson's a bit freaked about the whole... Chick thing. He'll cope."

Erik's new voice was muffled by the bathroom door. "Wilson better swallow it down. That fucker still owes me from that poker game two weeks ago."

"Erik you been card sharking again?" Bardue had warned him about that... Repeatedly.

"It's not sharking when I tell them up front I can and will take them for every dime they have, and that I was offered a spot in a Vegas tournament."

"Oh well, in that case stupidity should be punished."

"Stupid thing is the idiot wants a rematch to recoup his losses."

Erik came out and the Gunny was stunned to see a young woman in a white tank-top halter with black jeans. Everything hugged her figure and made her look very attractive. The white halter was covered in glyphs and sigils, embroidered in black and silver thread, a pentacle prominently displayed between her breasts. The pants were hip-huggers that fit very tight. More glyphs were sewn in with that silvery thread, making her look rather like the teen pagan from hell. It didn't help that with her face, figure and metallic hair she was a real looker.

"Wow. That was fast."

"It's what all the girls loved about me Boss, I pay very close attention to details." She threw her hair forward then back, letting it fall straight along her back and shoulders. "How do I look?"

"Get a bat and a gun. And don't go near any military bases."

"Wonderful." Erik looked around and pulled on socks and sneakers, then a pair of fingerless, black leather gloves with more wards on them. The corona seemed to die out as she got fully dressed, save for a few sparks in the hair. That went away when she tossed on the red ball cap with another pentacle embroidered in the brow. She found a wallet with all of her I.D.s and her debit card in the mix, helpfully warded. Her keys were there, including all the ones to the Whateley grounds. She slid that into her pocket and stood up, realizing that the magic energy didn't immediately spark up when she did. It was like those currents were being pushed away and forced to release when they did touch her.

"Holy shit I can move."

"Yeah, Circe said as long as you're wearing this mumbo-jumbo clothing and inside the wards your little nimbus thing should be fully suppressed. Outside it's back to the mad light show like before in here. Don't take off the clothes outside, otherwise things might get really interesting."

"Great. Who's bright idea was the teeny kid wear? And how the hell did they find it so it'd fit so well?"

Bardue grinned. "Well, Circe, in her supposedly immortal wisdom, figured it'd be easier for you to be anonymous if you looked like any other kid on campus. The ward-things have to be wide-open to work right. As to the measurements..." He kinda looked sheepish.

"Oh HELL NO! You didn't." She took his guilty look in and turned bright red, cheeks burning. It was a well-known talent back in the marine barracks that Gunny Bardue had. He could look at a woman and tell someone what the woman's measurements were to the millimeter. There had been more than a few betting pools in the barracks over it.

"Let's never talk about it again. Ever." She ground out through clenched teeth. "And if I hear about a betting pool in the CST I will kill all of you in the most painful fashion I can come up with."

"No betting pools Erik. Well, one, but we're having a bitch of a time getting the information on Hartford. So far that pot's been growing for a while."

"Put me in for twenty that you win."

"Look, Erik, I wasn't sure how to tell you this, but it's about Cat's memorial."

Erik felt his mood darken severely. The corona came back with a hiss. Blazing red energy ripped across her body, and over her new clothing.

"They held it yesterday. Hartford pushed it based on the fact that no one could be sure how long you'd be laid out. I wasn't able to do anything about it."

"That fucking bitch, I'm going to kill her!" The partial body corona erupted into a full body burn, in fiery oranges and reds as her emotions lit up. It burned, it hurt. Good. "She knew that this was the one god damned thing I wanted. I wanted to be able to lay Cat to rest! God damned fucking WHORE!"

Bardue flinched from the sudden display. "Erik, there's nothing I can do, and killing Hartford won't bring her back."

"No but it'll make me feel a whole lot better."

"God damn, kid, we put too much marine in you. Tell you what. I'll lay in some targets with her picture on them, but you can't go haring off with violence on the mind, comprende?" He nodded as the glow simmered and finally faded. "I know you're mad, but it's all I can do to keep you here and not in a lab. Never mind your job, which I'm not sure we can get back unless your situation drastically improves. Whenever someone touches you or moves you it's hit or miss whether they're going to get hurt, bad."

"Hurt? I thought it just hurt me."

"No Erik, that energy that causes pain to you had burned or severely injured people who were moving you to the room here. And that's while you're asleep. It's ten times worse when you're awake, from the doctors' notes."

"Oh I feel so much better now."

"Yeah." He looked at his watch. "Look I gotta get back to the simulator. We're running the Grunts and that Kimba batch through the wringer tonight. Get out of the room, get some air, walk around. Think about what you want to do for the next couple weeks. The only thing you're really not allowed to do is resume duties on range control or official instruction. At least, that's what Hartford said. So get creative and have fun."

Erik smirked. The last time Gunny had told him to get creative and have fun he'd thrown a kegger at the barracks, flaunting, bending and exploiting about a dozen base regs, and had gotten away with it. He'd been the hero of the platoon until the next morning's hangovers.

She looked out the window, noting the green flag, and walked to the door, gingerly stepping into the hallway. The currents were clinging and snapping again, causing the stings and burns, but no eruptions, no storms of hell and no demons poking through to eat her. So far so good. She left the storage building and walked out towards the campus and prepared to face down her new change.

She got a lot of stares. Mostly from the guys, and not a few girls, which made her self-conscious as all hell, but she figured it had as much to do with the fact that she looked like she had St. Elmo's fire ripping across parts of her body at random. Then there was the whole Avatar of Pagan Mysticism look from all of the glyphs, wards and sigils on her clothes. She supposed it could have been worse. Some of the kids were a hair shy of absolutely horrific, and they tended to hide away from the public eye. At least she didn't have to hide from normal people.

The walk through campus was uneventful, if a little hellish to her awareness that a lot of people were looking at her, and she caught more than a few snippets of conversation about her ass and tits. The conversations stopped when the Arcane fire started really blazing when she caught Greasy and Peeper talking about her on the WARS setup they always carried about.

"And look at this new hottie to the Whateley board!, absolutely smoking! Care to tell us your name missy?" Peeper was always really good at not getting caught by the campus watchdogs at his kind of obvious sexual harassment. Sure it was broadcast for all at the school to hear, but they actually needed to catch him at it.

Erik had made all the classic blunders, walking alone, not really looking around much and looking like an easy mark in general. "Not in the mood for this boys, please leave me alone."

Peeper pressed on, oblivious to the reddening face and fiery corona that was building around her. Several other students saw the buildup and started backing away.

"Aww, come on hottie, if you're not going to tell us your name you could at least share the secrets of how you developed such a fine ass."

That was it. Erik's temper blew. His fuse about certain things was painfully short, harassment of women being the easiest trigger that didn't involve outright attack. Peeper jumped back, alarmed as the air around the young woman exploded in a cloud of black energy that hissed, steamed and was rapidly melting the concrete around her.

"Listen you little perverted Jack-off! If you come near me again I swear by all that is holy and a few things that aren't I will end you!" The expression on her face was somewhere between angry and bloodletting psychotic, and that blackened cloud was creeping outward.

"I can see you're in a bad mood, so we'll talk to you later." Peeper and Greasy bolted off, looking for an easier target as Erik fought to get her emotions in check. Slowly, steadily, the fog vanished and she stood there, breathing slowly. When she stepped away and looked down, the concrete was warped and deformed at the radius, and the surface seemed almost glassy, obsidian. She knelt down and cracked the glassy sheen away from the rest of it and broke it into chunks idly, wondering why she was doing it. Pretty soon she had two big chunks of it, and several more were jammed into her pockets.

Then she became aware of it. The stares. There were more than a few slack-jawed looks and people were looking at her like she'd sprouted a second head that preached the gospel of Dagon. Then again there was a small crowd of girls who were clapping. Erik raised a fist to them and walked away, trying to be nonchalant, as if she had intended the bit of minor havoc.

She went back to her room and dumped the obsidian in a corner, and stared at it for a few minutes. "Tools. I need tools." She never realized that she was zoning out, almost on autopilot, as new instincts kicked in, sparked by the sudden appearance of the Obsidian glass.

She was back out the door and on her way to the school store pretty quick. She'd been to the store often enough, and the presence of oddities like bulletproof jackets didn't even faze her. She wandered into the area frequented by devisors and started poking at the tools. She eventually settled on hand tools and sanders. Nothing in the lot was motorized.

She wandered over to the mystic section and snagged a goodly number of random bits and pieces that actually caught her eye, as well as some blank rings that weren't made of any normal jewelry metals, and a silver chain. She carried the lot in a basket that shocked the kid at the register when he saw how deformed and scorched it was.

"Umm, is that all?" He looked at the basket like it might try to eat him.

"Got anything I can carry this lot in? Preferably something really resilient. I think plastic bags would get destroyed."

"Uh, yeah." He wandered over and picked up a heavy steel-reinforced briefcase and hauled it over.

"Sweet, thanks." She kinda bounced in place, mind elsewhere, and showing some really ADD behavior, not to mention distracting her cashier every time she bounced.

He put all of her stuff into the case and charged her debit card. She picked up her loot, and grinned, never realizing that he was paying very close attention as she left. She was in the zone, heading back to her room, then out the door just as fast. Erik wasn't really thinking, just acting, as if by some weird impulse. She hiked out away from the campus grounds and began sifting through the dirt until she found what she was looking for. She wasn't even sure what it was until she found it.

An hour later a pinkie knuckle-size piece of quartz was added to the pile and she wandered out to the auto shop, picking up a disposable acetylene torch and igniter, followed by a visit to the magic department, where she trimmed away a few loose ivy leaves from the wall. A picture was forming in her mind, and she was damned near completely mentally occupied, not registering the looks and comments from the boys on campus. It just didn't seem important. The occasional shock and stab of mystic pain didn't seem to bother her either.

As she went back around, a few kids entering the magic department just stared. One child saw the phenomena, but other senses showed something very different. The other students were much the same, shocked at how much raw magic tore across her skin, and how much more was restrained by some very powerful wards. All of them were left with an impression of heat and steel being shaped and forged.

The hyperactive, distracted mood evaporated as she sat down next to her little pile. The rings came out, as did two pieces of obsidian, one large, and one fairly small. she set a small ceramic container to the side and lit the acetylene torch, promptly dropping the two rings and the quartz crystal before slowly heating them with the flame. It seemed to take forever, but the metal started to glow, and the crystal cracked a bit from the heat. She set them aside and took the small piece of obsidian and used a hammer and chisel to crack off the sharp edges and split off the sides. Another tool came out and she began scraping away unwanted material, then sanding and polishing the piece gently. When she was done she set it aside and heated the metal and crystal again. When she was done she went outside, taking all of her stuff with her, leaning against the walls, outside the influence of the wards.

The long shard of obsidian she chipped, cracked and cut away. She ended with another piece that looked like a dark glass knife with an sixteen-inch blade. She took out the etching tools, and began carving symbols and patterns in the blade. She didn't know how she knew them or how she knew where to place them, but she did. She did the same to the smaller piece. She heated the rings and crystal again, this time letting them melt and gel into one another. She began chanting as she kept the heat on, watching the metal pool become almost clear. She dropped in the ivy leaves and let them sear to ash and mix with the odd fluid. She dipped the small piece into the odd liquid, and then poured the rest onto the blade while gripping the hilt. In each case the melted stuff dripped like mercury through the channels and patterns etched, but slid off the naked obsidian like water off a windshield. Most of it wound up cooling on the ground, but just enough managed to stay inside the markings.

She watched and waited, seeming to time every breath and counting seconds. The sun hit the horizon and she slid the silver chain through the loop she had carved on the small piece and hung it from the branched of a nearby tree, where it could bathe in the moonlight. The blade she pierced the earth with, and left it to sit as the sun's dying rays passed over the world.

* * *

"You understand your task here, child?" The wizened old man's eyes were alight with hope... and greed. The priest's robes he wore were scorched and marked from handling the girl into the closed chamber.

"Yes, your eminence, I understand. I will wait and be still while you flense the sickness from me." She looked around. The chamber was marked, wall to wall with the symbols of the church to ward off unholy influences.

"Yes child, while I was expecting a warrior, I suppose God works in mysterious ways. Now lie down. This will hurt most likely."

The girl nodded, giving a hateful glare to the mirror, noting the metallic hair, the mad eyes and the energies that marked her apart from her family. She steeled herself and disrobed, lying on the table as the priest began his prayers. He held a needle in his hand, and a glass jar, horrifically expensive, and filled with a metallic gold fluid. His prayers didn't stop over the course of two days and nights, as he carefully dipped the needle into the golden ink and pierced her flesh. He did it again, and again, thousands of times over, carefully marking the symbols of purification and absolution upon her.

She felt the prick, the pain on her face, her arms, her breasts, her stomach, her legs. The whole time he kept stern concentration, and kept painful attention to the details. When he was done with her front he went to her back, again pricking, always marking her. She knew that the Cardinal would save her. She knew her soul was in peril and was willing to be marked for life if it meant she may go to heaven. The pain, the marks, the pricks. She prayed silently that she would not be so marred that she would never find a husband. Little did she know, it was not to be.

He placed his hands in her head, and she could feel blessed water dripping down her hair. "In god's name, be complete child."

She burned, her skin feeling the searing light that penetrated her mind and soul. Then she felt a numbness creep through her body, penetrating everything she was. She felt... empty.

"Lord in heaven please forgive me for what I have done to this child."

What did he just say? Never mind, it was unimportant. She stood quietly and looked into the mirror. She was beautiful still, with metallic hair, and odd eyes. It did not seem to matter anymore. The emptiness filled her, and she knew the demon had been driven from her. She couldn't see her old face, any sign of... a name... She had a name before. She couldn't remember it. Perhaps the demon had taken it when it was driven out, leaving her with the metallic golden marks, the script across her forehead in Latin, the cross that framed her breasts, or the other symbols of the church that were now a permanent part of her body.

"Come, little artificer. The Knights of the Thorns have a service they need you to perform." His voice seemed strained with something...guilt? It didn't matter.

"Yes Master."

The priest recoiled as though he had been stabbed.

* * *

Tuesday, November 28th

Mrs. Chulkris walked into the empty room in the early morning just before dawn. Apparently Mahren was off enjoying his new freedom. She was glad she and Circe had been able to put that wardrobe together on such short notice. Even though Mahren and Bardue often maligned the mystics of Whateley as mumbo-jumbo speaking finger wigglers, they were good people. She checked the wards, and saw no damage. A few simple tests showed that they were still going strong, so she looked around. A glimmer of light caught her eye out the window for a brief second, off something glassy hanging from a tree outside. The sun's face was just now peeking from over the horizon.

She went outside and looked around, noting the tools and the torch lying near the wall. There were bits of obsidian glass all over the place, and something else. She pried the odd, silvery crystalline substance from the ground. It had pooled and congealed with bits of dirt and rock trapped within. It was light, but she couldn't bend or break it. She muttered something under her breath, and the stuff faintly glowed with a purplish light. She turned to look at the tree, and saw a inch-wide obsidian pentacle pendant with intricately carved runes dangling from a silver chain on a branch. The runes were filled with that odd, silvery crystal. She reached out, but held back, whispering something.

The pendant seemed to burst into eldritch fire, only white, like the balefires of fae legend. She stood back as the fire faded, and the pendant, unmarred, sat glittering in the sun's rays. She almost tripped over the knife. She looked down and picked it up, noting the insanely sharp blade and the silvery crystal etchings carefully. The knife practically hummed, and she could feel... something. Another test and the blade burned with white fire, as the pendant had.

A girl's voice rang out. "Awww, shit!" Then a snapping and buzzing sound erupted. When she turned it was to face a girl who looked somewhere in her mid-teens to mid-twenties bolting across the yard, a corona of energy blazing violently to match the girl's frantic speed. A forgotten lunch bag lay on the ground a ways back.

"Shit shit shit shit shit! You didn't touch them before the sun came up did you?" She seemed almost frantic.

"Calm down, dear. The sun was up when I found them." She got a good look. From the metallic hair and odd, metallic eyes she looked like Bardue's description of his wayward range hand. That and she was wearing the clothing she and Circe had made. She could see that the wards would need to be improved. The girl was still crackling and sizzling with every movement. The lines around her looked like they were clinging and snapping insanely.

"Oh thank god." She seemed honestly relieved.

"Where did you get these?"

"The knife and the pendant? I made them yesterday. I don't know why I set them so, but I know it was important."

Mrs. Chulkris could swear there was something odd about her eyes. Then the statement registered. "You made these yesterday? How? It takes months to empower items like this!"

"Huh? Empower? Uhhhh." Now the girl seemed confused.

"Erik, right?" The way the girl froze with a look of panic she knew she'd hit the mark. "Relax, child, You know I won't share your secret. These items are empowered."

She performed the spell again and both the pendant and the knife flared yet again. "Woah! I thought I could only figure out how to use and break that shit!"

"Language, dear. I know you're older than you look, but best not to shatter the illusion just yet." She picked up the two items gently.

"Mind if I take these? I'll bring them back. I'd like someone to inspect your work." She turned the items over, looking intently at them.

"Uh, mind if I keep the pendant? I kinda made it for me."

She handed the pentacle back to the girl who clasped the short chain behind her neck. The pendant hung just above her breasts, and looked right somehow. Just to check something she cast the spell on the girl. She was suddenly wreathed in heatless flames entirely, skin and all. The eyes, however, burned blue.

"Woah hey hey hey, no igniting the Jarhead here!"

"Relax, the flames are harmless. I was just testing something. I've only seen two items that showed that kind of flame before." She looked close. The girl's hair looked like it was literally made of black metal filaments. And her eyes. They were like forged steel, with really odd markings.

"Uh yo, Earth Mother? yeah I know you're used to the hairy eyeball but it's kinda uncomfortable from this end."

"Oh, sorry dear. I think I should get going. Be careful Erik."

"Uh, sure."

The confused, and mildly irritated, girl went back, collected her tools and breakfast before going back into her room. Body of a teenager or not, she wasn't a child.

* * *

Mrs. Chulkris walked back into the magic department and began preparing her class for the day. She finished the prep work and took the knife and the chunk of silvered crystal and wandered through to the main office and knocked. "Come in."

Circe was a contrast to Mrs. Chulkris' verdant form. She seemed to have an ageless face and a lot of years behind her eyes. She was a striking woman, with Greek features and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked over at her colleague and smiled.

"Hello. I don't see you walking the halls this early very often. What can I do for you?"

The teacher smirked. "I have a puzzle for you. Some kind of Athame it looks like. I don't recognize the type and it's got a very unique signature."

"Well let's have a look at it."

She examined the blade. "This isn't an Athame. It's similar, but this one is definitely not." A quick word and the whole dagger shimmered and glowed, the etchings blazing white.

"I also came across this. It's the same kind of material in the etching."

Circe picked up the crystalline bit and stared at it. Pieces clicked into place. "I've never seen this stuff in raw, unworked form before." She looked at the dagger and touched the blade to her desktop, the blade sliced a thin line a centimeter deep without pressure. "It's a Harvester. Gods where did you find a Harvester?"

"Harvester?"

"It's used to harvest mystic components safely, and unlike an Athame it can be used to fight without disrupting the energies. There are only a few craftsmen in the world to ever build one of them."

"And the crystal?"

"It's a signature, a byproduct of a true artificer. The last person to actually make and use this substance died just before the fourth crusade. She was executed as a witch when the more hardline members of the church got hold of her."

Mrs. Chulkris winced, but Circe continued. "Don't feel pity, the girl... Well let's just say even death was a mercy for one like her."

"And if I told you that this blade and the bit of crystal slag there were made by a girl on campus? She claims she made it in a day."

"That's not possible. Only a true artificer could make something like this that quickly, and not one of the magic students here. None of them have the knowledge."

"This isn't one of ours. Tall girl, Metallic hair with eyes that look like forged steel with glyphs and markings around the discs of her iris."

Circe went pale, and held her breath a moment. "Which student?"

"I never said student." She frowned at Circe's apparent concern. " I found these when I went to check Erik's wards. She made this, and a pendant she didn't want to part with."

"This is not good." She handed the blade back. "Take that back to Mahren and forget you ever saw it. Or this." She held up the slagged crystal.

"But..."

"Chulkris, believe me when I say if word gets out before we can help her she is fucked."

"But, how?"

"Just do it. And don't tell anyone where that came from. If someone grabs that girl she will become a slave, and there won't be a damned thing we can do to free her except kill her."

* * *

Erik walked into the crystal hall at lunch time, her knife now proudly strapped to a thong she'd put together at her hip. She watched the students milling about getting food, and counted heads that she recognized. Thankfully only a few people stared. Most were deeply engaged in eating food and talking loudly to friends. She stopped near the entrance to the staff cafeteria when she saw Amelia Hartford go inside. Nope, not going to go in there. She knew without a doubt that if she had the woman within arm's reach she'd cheerfully strangle the life out of her.

She looked at the chow line dubiously, then back at the door. Hmmm, kid line, kill Hartford, kid line, kill Hartford... Tough decision. Eventually the growling stomach and a lack of desire to start another violent light show won out. She went into line, got a tray and a plate full of food. Most of the girls were getting light stuff, salads and such. Hell no, no rabbit food for me, she thought as she carried the tray full of meat and bread stuff over to an empty table away from the main throng.

She sat, and started picking at the plate, mostly watching the kids. Most of them were just smokin' and jokin' as she and the Gunny called it. Realistically it could have been a scene from a marine chow hall at any given time, except most marines couldn't spray napalm from their fingertips. Not for the lack of trying though. She was so caught up in her reminiscing that she only barely noticed the boy who sat down across from her.

Dark skinned, dreadlocked and a fashion sense that screamed "kill me now" were what she saw when he sat. Erik was no fashion guru herself, but there are some things you just don't wear with a kilt. He had pure solid white eyes, no irises or pupils whatsoever, though his face had a certain humor to it. He dropped a book bag and set down the tray, and cane he'd been walking with.

"Uh, hello?" She asked curiously.

"Oh hi!" he didn't face her when he responded, seemingly staring straight ahead. "New face? Don't see too many people sitting back here in outcast corner." It took her all of two seconds to figure out he was blind. It was a common enough mutation side-effect.

"Outcast corner, huh?"

He grinned. "Yup, welcome to the big OC. My name's Jericho, and you are?" He extended his hand in her direction.

"Not safe to touch." She flicked her wrist, causing a hissing *Zap*. "I got this thing that tends to try to crispy-fry anything I come in contact with pretty much at random. Never mind some serious control issues."

"Ahh, I see. Damn that's some pretty ugly energy there, girl. But, no worries, seen worse. Not like things like that don't happen here at Freaky High." He spoke with such good humor it was impossible to get irritated at his deprecating comments. In fact it was kind of infectious.

"You can see the energy?"

"Not as such. See, I can sense everything going on. a full circle awareness. I can see, or more specifically, sense everyone in the hall here in all directions until I hit a wall or the edge of normal human eyesight. Downside is, my eyeballs ain't what they used to be."

"Huh. Not the craziest thing I've heard. So you on one of the teams here?"

Jericho snickered. "Teams? Nah all that spandex and hero crap ain't for me. I'm part of a band, though you probably wouldn't wanna hang around the other two. They tend to weird out the norms."

"Trust me, norm does not apply in my case."

"I'd hope not, Norm's liable to lose an arm to that knife you got there if he gets too gropey."

Erik laughed, in spite of herself.

"Now that's what I like to hear. Too many long faces walking about thinking the world is on their shoulders around here. Need to cheer up, get some laughs. Life's to short for all that other bullshit."

"That sounds suspiciously like advice I've given to people. Maybe I should take my own medicine."

Jericho grinned. "Best kind. And it even don't taste like shit, unless it's a storm of pun."

"Hmm, best not fire my standard ammo then. It tends to be rather punishing."

"Damn girl, that's evil." Erik wasn't sure he cared to be called 'girl,' but all the physical evidence pointed to it, so she let it pass.

She shrugged "Never claimed to be an angel." she looked up. "Oh Jesus Christ it's Peeper and Greasy again. If they come over here..."

"Not to worry. Peeper won't come near me. I give him the creeps. Threatened to use my psychic powers to tell the world just how small his dinky is."

She just about snorted the glass of water through her nose, and looked at him incredulously. "I like your way better. I just threatened to slaughter him."

"Ah, the voice of radio rage. So that was you that told the little bugger off, and from what I heard, making the pavement disintegrate."

Erik shrugged. "You know me, control issues and a hair-trigger."

The boy smiled. "As a last note on Peepers, I gotta say I wish he'd go pester Hippolyta."

Erik chuckled. "That'd end the problem quick."

"You know Hippie? They putting you in Poe?"

Erik thought very carefully about it before responding. "No, I bumped into her once, or more specifically, bounced off of her." True enough. She'd knocked him over and glared at him like it was his fault while she was still a he. She'd gotten real contrite when she'd figured out he was school staff, but only enough to get out of detention. Her opinions of anyone with a penis were well-known.

"Ouch. Can't imagine that was fun."

"Eh, shit happens. So why you here by yourself? Being here in the OC isn't completely explainable by your wardrobe choices.."

He chuckled. "You mean my 'asylum escapee' ensemble isn't going to win me any friends? Damn. there goes my plan for world conquest."

"Sorry no conquest for you. I plan to destroy it."

"And why would you do that?"

"Well, maybe not the world. Just reality. And because it's something to kill the boredom. I've been plotting since I was eight. All I need now are two white lab mice. One needs to be long and dopey, the other one must be tiny and brilliant."

"NARF! Well sorry. I can't let you destroy reality. It's where I keep all my stuff."

Erik chuckled. "Hey, I haven't even finished my burger and I already have a nemesis! SWEET!"

The both got a laugh out of that. Soon lunch was over and they got up.

"See ya later?"

Erik thought about it. "Maybe. Can't promise. I'm kinda here on a trial basis. See what I can see and all that."

"Well I hope you come. Whateley's a good asylum for folks like us, and we could use one or two more pretty ones like you who don't think they're God's gift to the undeserving masses." With that, the technicolor wardrobe nightmare of a boy walked out of the cafeteria in his kilt, whistling. He never saw that the girl he left back at the table was blushing bright red.

* * *

The range was all hustle and bustle when the class started. She noted with annoyance that Wilson was on range control. He wasn't a bad guy, he just was a bit loose with the range safety. She ignored him and walked the line, noting the students' firing positions. A few of them were backsliding, but not much she could do about it, and she didn't want to get Bardue in trouble by doing the old shooting coach thing.

Two members of the Grunts team were there. She picked them out easily enough in their mil-spec digital camo clothing. The two of them, and the other four members of their team were her best shooting students. No surprises there, the grunts team was made up of kids who were enamored with military service. Not the CIA and covert crap that most of the kids got tapped for, but honest-to-god military grunt work. Their code names weren't too imaginative, but they definitely showcased what they could do. Deadeye and Mule were practicing with an M-16A2 rifle and a M-240 Golf machine gun.

Deadeye was definitely the best shot of the lot. His shots were almost universally in the bulls-eye. She didn't bother to score him anymore. He just came in to stay on the sharp edge. He was an odd sight for a kid who wanted to be in the infantry. Tall, skinny as a rail and with a shock of blood-red hair, he looked like a goofy basketball player. His eyes were the weird thing. They were a sickening purple color all the way through, with a horizontal slit pupil that looked more box-like than ovoid. He was using the M-16 like a surgeon uses a scalpel, cutting the targets out of the paper they were marked on. He wasn't showing off, it was the only way he could get a challenge at closer than 1500 meters.

Mule was a classic brick. Big, broad and heavily muscled, he could take a horrendous amount of punishment without flinching. He could also rip tank armor like paper. His eyes looked perfectly normal, and his dark crew-cut made him look like a wall with hair. He couldn't hit shit with a normal rifle. His hands were too big to grip them properly. Give him a belt-fed automatic weapon and he was a genius at suppressive fire. He was currently smearing a target group with short, controlled bursts like she'd taught him.

She saw an open lane, and went to the weapons locker and unlocked it. Students weren't allowed inside, but she had the keys. She wandered over and picked up the MP-5 submachine gun and a couple clips, loaded them, and walked out. Wilson was fucking oblivious. She should leave it unlocked and let the gunny find it. She locked the door and loaded on the way to lane 3, slapping the bolt home with a loud *Clack* and put the carry strap over her shoulder. After she set up targets, she looked over and saw Wilson showing a boy how to get into proper firing position. He'd been oblivious to her deliberate violation of about five range safety rules on the way to the firing lane though. Oh well, another problem for another day, unless he really screwed the pooch. She put in a pair of earplugs and took aim.

She'd set the targets at ten, thirty and fifty meters. The ten-meter one she fired three rounds at the center of the human shaped target. Her sights were off. Wait, she was off. She had to completely re-zero the weapon. She adjusted the sights a bit and fired three more. The recoil was nothing. Odd. there should be more kick. She adjusted the sights once more and the final three rounds made a half-inch group in the center of the target. That's more like it.

She brought up the target and replaced it with a fresh one, sending it to the 20 meter line. Mark. Aim. Fire. rinse, repeat. She put the rest of the clip downrange, putting two shots in each target before moving to the next one. The whole exercise took about six seconds to clear the other twenty-one rounds out of the magazine. She reloaded smoothly without lowering the stock from her shoulder and selected the burst fire mode.

Each pull of the trigger resulted in three bullets spinning downrange at once to tear the target's chest to ribbons. Each target's chest got hit ten times. To an untrained ear it would sound like a machine gun going off, since she took so little time to aim and fire. One burst to a target resulted in some very shredded chest zones. She reloaded and put the bolt home, doing the same to the targets' heads.

"Damn, Deadeye take a look at this shit!" Mule was loud. He could be heard over a hand grenade. This had been proven on numerous occasions. "Check this girl's shots man."

Erik rolled her eyes and turned to look at Mule, clicking the submachine gun on safe as she did so. "Hey, lugnut, volume control. I can hear you over the Barret in lane one!"

Mule managed to look sheepish. "Sorry. I kinda get carried away sometimes."

Deadeye walked over. "Hey who's the new girl? Damn!" He'd seen her targets. Deadeye was one of those rare mutants that wasn't too impressed with himself to recognize good shooting in people without his supernatural coordination.

"Hey, deadbeats, my eyes are up here." Erik knew they wouldn't respond to anything resembling polite conversation. With them it was blunt as hell or the message got lost.

"Sorry." "Yeah, sorry." They were good kids, but Erik wasn't too sure he wanted them ogling his chest.

"Umm, nice shooting." Mule again. He always got tongue-tied with pretty girls, and unfortunately (to Erik) she qualified.

"Thanks. Lemme finish off my last magazine and I'll talk to you, OK?" The boys nodded and Erik tore off the last magazine in exactly the manner she had the last and brought the targets in.

"OK, knuckleheads, come up to the desk so I can take out these earplugs." They weren't used to a girl calling them anything but creepy, so they followed.

Deadeye spoke up first. "Hey where did you learn to shoot like that? Only guys I see able to do that are Corporal Mahren and Gunny Bardue." Great, he wasn't trying to get a date... yet.

"Let's just say I've spent a lot of time on Marine Corps. ranges. Had to prove to the knuckle-draggers that a girl can hang."

They chuckled. "Yeah, Bunker would agree with you there." Bunker was the only girl in the grunts, and she'd fought tooth and nail for their respect from day one. She was short, homely compared to the exemplars and was a crappy shot with a rifle, surprisingly. What she did well was rocket launchers. She'd been the guinea pig gunner for many a gadgeteer before Erik had quashed that. She lived for the days Erik and Bardue broke out the heavy stuff. No one expected the short, cute blonde girl to be such a ferocious user of explosive ordinance. She'd gotten her name by completely annihilating the entire bunker target system that she and Bardue had set up on the range five simulators.

Erik listened with good humor when they described Bunker, then talked shop for an hour while the other kids cleaned up. The boys were animated, since usually the only girl who'd put up with them waxing poetic on the virtues and flaws of myriad firearms, much less be able to intelligently discuss it as well, was Bunker.

When the class ended Erik went a wandering again, this time feeling better. It was always the underdogs and outcasts she hit it off with. She didn't bother walking near the Alphas or the cape squad. She knew well enough that she wouldn't be able to handle high school social politics easily without killing anyone. She wandered aimlessly, trying to avoid the room she was coming to think of as her prison cell.

* * *

Erik was wandering past Schuster Hall when Gunny Bardue finally caught her. "Hey kid, busy day?"

The girl shrugged. "Eh, I managed to keep myself occupied. Seems I fit right in around here."

"Good to hear I guess. Look, Carson wants to talk to you. She's been talking to the head finger-wiggler herself."

"Why?"

"I dunno, some mumbo-jumbo shit that she won't explain to me, and Carson's not being much better. But they're making noise about some kinda hokey plan they have."

"Joy."

The pair walked into the office, and Carson and Circe were standing together. They looked over and waved the two into the office. A quick search for listening devices and spells told Erik this was going to be one of those rare "No bullshit" meetings. She looked at Bardue and nodded as he closed the door.

Erik stood, waiting, not bothering to try to end the silence save for the occasional crackle and snap on her skin. the two women were doing the expectant stare thing of the pair of them, and Erik wasn't feeling like playing.

"Why don't you sit, young lady?" It was Circe who spoke first. Erik bristled at the tone, and it must have shown when Bardue backed off a few paces. God bless the Gunny, he was always a bit skittish with the mystic shit. The fact that he was even here in a room with Circe voluntarily spoke volumes.

"I'd rather stand. I like being able to talk eye-to-eye if you don't mind."

Circe nodded and Carson spoke. "Erik... It has come to our attention through Circe here that your mutation may place you in more danger than we originally anticipated. And after speaking to her I tend to agree. We will not be able to continue your employment at Whateley for your safety and that of the students."

"Carson, what the..." Bardue leapt forward to Erik's defense while his protegee looked shocked.

"Wait, Oscar. It's not going to be a railroading and a kick out the door, so please... Be quiet for a moment."

"OK. why am I suddenly in the hot-seat then?" Erik demanded.

"Your mutation. Circe it's your show."

The striking woman stepped forward, holding up a small crystal sphere. "Do you know what this is?"

Erik picked it up and held it, spun it and examined it and the answer came. "Flash globe. Kinda a mystic night light. Kavate." The last word caused the globe to glow with the strength of a light bulb. He tossed it back to Circe.

"Can you tell me how to make one?"

"No I... " She stopped cold, the crystal sphere in his mind as his brain spilled out the exact method for making one, including all of the ritual steps. It was really no more complex than the pendant or knife, and would be a helluva lot easier to make.

"What the hell?"

"How about those items you are wearing. You made them. The Knife is a Harvester, used for collecting components used in mystic artifice. The pendant is a rather potent little magic focus, although you have had no means to use it due to your control issues."

"Um, seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"Then there is the mutation. Metallic hair, and eyes etched with runes, A complete inability to harness and control the energies connected to you, and finally the ability to identify, create and destroy items of artifice by instinct. What would you say if I asked you to make a Stormwatcher Staff?"

Erik thought, mind assailed by arcane instructions and schematics. "I'd say I'd need a damned compelling reason to make you a toy that calls hurricanes and tornados."

Carson spoke again. "Erik there are only a few people in history with mutations identical to yours. Circe and our sources all point to the fact that you are and have a lot of potential, the kind that would prompt certain parties to take you for their own uses."

"They can try." the girl snarled.

Circe stepped forward, "Erik the people who will try to find you will see you as nothing more than a tool, a mystic resource. And if they can get you still long enough to mark you, they will have a perfect, obedient slave."

"Not bloody likely. No one can force me to do shit." Her eyes bugged wide when Circe set a glass jar filled with metallic green fluid and a mithril needle. "Oh HELL no!"

Erik's knife came out, reverse grip, blade backed against her forearm, ready to rip open anything that came near her with that stuff. "Keep that shit away from me," she hissed between clenched teeth. Bardue was right beside her.

"What the hell you playing at, and why's she so god damned scared all of a sudden?"

Circe looked at Gunny. "That there is an ink, that when applied to a certain type of person will bind them, mind, body and soul to become an extension of the creator's will for as long as they live. And certain things, like faeries and demons live a very long time. Erik recognizes it on sight, and given her psychological profile I'm not stepping within five feet of her right now."

"Why did you make it?" Erik was absolutely livid and building up to killing rage rapidly. This time Bardue didn't shy away, but Carson did. Flashes of violent magic were beginning to appear around the room.

"To see if you are what I think you are. And it might give you the key to finding a work around. As long as no one marks your body with that kind of ink you're free, but completely uncontrolled. If they mark you, your powers fully come under control, but you will be a slave. This is the dilemma here. And if you're marked the only freedom is through death."

Bardue edged around and picked up the jar and needle. "I'll just dispose of these."

"No Oscar, you won't" The ageless sorceress said. "Those are for Erik to puzzle out. She is an artificer who can be controlled by another kind of artifice. If she can find out how to work around the compulsion aspects and use them to gain control who are we to deny her?"

"You want me to take it and try to figure out how to fake this shit out? How the hell am I supposed to do that?" The knife stayed in place, but the energy storm was dying as it began.

"I don't know. There are maybe three or four artificers, and not all of them manifest. It takes a rare circumstance to have one in the right place at the right time to absorb enough magic to manifest, and they were always hotly contested when word got out. We're worried that if someone finds out before we can find a solution to the slave dilemma we are going to be in for a very vicious brawl."

"Fucking hell. This is insane. I can probably make more of that stuff easy enough, but I dunno jack about magic. I dunno how this all works, goes together or anything. The only time I ever tried to cast a spell I exploded and grew boobs!" Erik didn't know how the hell to go about this.

"Which brings me back to the original problem," Carson began. "We can't keep Erik Mahren here at Whateley academy without endangering the students, And we can't just set you loose into the world. If we did we might as well be murdering you ourselves."

"So whatcha got up your sleeve Carson? Spill it. All this talk about my Marine is beginning to wear thin."

"Well Oscar, we can't keep him, and we can't release him, so we bury him. We take every record we have of Erik Mahren and bury or burn it. We can make it appear that Erik was black holed at ARC in Black complex. Just getting to that information will be damned near impossible, to say nothing of anyone trying to break in."

She looked at Erik, who was looking about ready to scream. "You, we can hide in the open. We can keep you here at Whateley, as a student for as long as we have to. Anyone searching for one of these so-called artificers will be searching for a hidden, probably terrified girl, not one firmly entrenched and in the open."

"And another thing they won't expect," Circe interjected, "is a girl who can, and undoubtedly will, give them pure, violent hell before being taken. So far as our research has shown, all of the prior artificers were timid, quiet and reserved, and usually desperate for the pain to stop by any means necessary, male or female."

"So me being a complete psychopathic bitch is my best defense?"

"In a word, yes. But save the psychopathic part for those who deserve it."

Carson looked forward. "We need to hammer out a few details. Not the least of which is family history. We need to re-invent your identity from the ground up."

Bardue spoke up. "Family's easy, orphaned child of a KIA marine. Put me down as having been her Godfather, and post-date the adoption papers a year ago. That should clear a few holes about why she's here at Whateley."

Erik stood slack-jawed at Bardue, the old man who was uncomfortable with anything resembling an alternative sexual lifestyle. He looked at her. "Don't look so surprised, you're a good kid. I ain't going to let any shit fall downrange on any of mine, blood or not."

The girl grinned "Thanks boss, or is it Dad?"

"Don't push your luck. We still need to hammer out the paperwork."

Carson pushed a packet toward her. "This is the basic admissions package. Fill it out and return it to me. We'll fill in the blanks. You try to fit in and get to the doctors so we can classify your powers, with appropriate editing by Circe and the Gunny. Whateley takes care of it's own. And Erik?"

"Yes?"

"Try not to kill the doctors. It's too hard trying to find ones willing to work here, much less skilled ones."

"I swear, it's a conspiracy to suck all the fun out of my life."

* * *

Erik was settled into Outcast Corner with a full tray of food and a packet of paperwork. Hidden within was her final bit of spiteful revenge, and a way of honoring a friend at the same time. She was engrossed, even though she usually loathed paperwork. She was halfway through the packet when she decided to eat her food before it got too cold. She was busy wolfing down her plate of food when a familiar face plopped into the seat across from her.

"I see I didn't scare you off. I'll have to try harder." The not-so-blind boy chortled. "I guess I didn't creep you out after all."

"Well Jericho, I figured you were trying so hard at it you deserved another go." She smirked over the paperwork.

"Yeah, you're definitely a keeper. So you still hanging about our merry little mayhem factory?"

She held up the paperwork. "Enrollment package. I figure it'd be a good place. At least here I don't need to see what pretty shapes I can twist Humanity first! fuckers into." She let genuine hatred seep into her tone.

"Well good! So you one of the strong and tough types then?"

"Dunno, this is literally a kind of overnight thing and I haven't had a lot of room to experiment. Plus I don't need super strength to snap a beer-bloated pervert racist in two. But I do have a knack for figuring out machines and electronics."

Jericho's grin nearly split his face.

"So you mentioned friends, why they not here with you?"

The boy looked surly. "No offense, but you're what some call the barbie girl package. A few of my friends don't know how to react to pretty girls, and some of 'em have been burned pretty hard. They see pretty girl and just walk away, they don't want to have to put up with sneering or sickened looks while they're trying to eat."

"Sounds like the story of my life."

"New to the beauty queen game then?"

She looked up from her paperwork. "Six days. And I still have a really rough time believing it's me in the mirror. Dammit!"

She put out the small fire that erupted on the page she was writing on.

"I hope that wasn't an important bit there."

She looked. "Nah, just a juvie record. Fortunately I'm clean on that score. So back to the original topic you should have your friends come over. It's not like they all are monsters or something."

"Actually..."

She didn't even bother looking up. "Lemme guess, some of 'em are either ugly or just flat-out inhuman looking?"

He nodded.

"Seen a few around campus, the ones brave enough to go in public. I won't have much pity, lord knows it's the last thing someone needs." She looked up at his crestfallen face. "But I will treat 'em like the human beings they are under all the crap. This pretty face and tight bod? It ain't me, and it drives me nuts that people are going to judge me by it."

"You make yourself sound like a complete dog before with that tone."

"Ohhh yeah, in more ways than you can imagine.." It didn't bear mentioning that marines were oft-referred to as 'Devil Dogs.' "Don't wanna get into it. But my point is, we all gained or lost something. I got metal hair, freaktastic eyes and a body that is probably going to be on a poster if Peepers gets near me with a camera. Plus if I touch someone their arm might randomly explode or rot off."

"Sounds like quite the package. Difference is, you're being honest. Every other time someone said something like that I smelled bullshit a mile out, and I was always right. You actually mean it."

"Yeah, Yeah I do." She didn't feel the need to mention that she had served in the military with the most ornery buncha mixed-race bastards on the planet, and a pair of mutant twins that were constantly mocking the world. She'd dubbed them Heckel and Jeckel, and the name stuck. She learned to live with everyone there, and the mere thought of racism, be it racial or mutant made her want to fight.

"Do me a favor, don't ever change."

"No worries about that. I'm more interested in trying to not self-destruct than getting in with the school booster squad."

"So I never did get your name."

"Oh! Sorry! Caitlin Bardue."

"Nice name. Hey we got a instructor here named Bardue. Old guy, Ex-Marine or something."

"Do tell..."

Upheaval: New Friends, New Problems

By Joe Gunnarson

Wednesday, November 29th

Caitlin woke up, groaning. The dreams had to stop. It was bad enough that she only seemed to be able to get an hour of sleep at a time, but the dreams stretched off into eternity. Always the same, always images of forge and fire, and always those maddening tattoos. She shook her head to clear the images from the last one. She really shouldn't complain, after all the new dreams were better than dreams of screaming terror and gunfire. She got up and picked through her limited wardrobe, grumbling.

She picked out a black T-shirt and blue jeans, all inlaid with those damned wards. Getting dressed wasn't as much of a pain in the ass as it could have been. The bra was easy. She'd removed enough of them from enough women in the past that it was almost intuitive how the damned things worked. It still felt weird to have one on, but she was also acutely aware of the reactions she'd get if her nipples were poking through her shirt. She got dressed and put the ballcap on, grabbed her knife and pendant and wandered outside.

Whateley was dead quiet at three in the morning, per usual. The only light and sound besides the stars was the crackling hiss of the energies that tore across the surface of her body. It still hurt like hell, but she was becoming adept at tuning it out. When she was still male she'd had an insane level of pain tolerance, and all of it was purely psychological. She had no innate resistance to pain, just a remarkably easy time tuning it out as background static. There were occasional flashes of searing agony, but thankfully those were rare.

She began her routine walkabout of the campus, looking satisfied at the complete lack of activity. Even with the change she loved being out when it was dark, the cold night air was thick with the promise of snow, something she actually liked when it didn't come in the typical Alaskan overabundance. Watching roofs collapse under the weight of metric tons of hard-packed snowflakes was not fun. She felt a bit of the cold, but it didn't feel bad at all. Given her attire she should be freezing. She moved into an easy jog, just enjoying the morning, picking her path randomly through the school.

She heard the two men jogging to catch up to her before she saw them, and slowed to a stop to look at them. Two of Chief Delarose's security gumbys were moving up to her at a quick trot. They were lightly armed and armored, and it only took her a moment to realize that she looked like a student out after curfew and lights out. She waited the short moments it took the two men to catch up and nodded to each in turn.

They went from relaxed to at ease when they realized she wasn't going to be a fussy one. "Miss, you shouldn't be out of your cottage past curfew." The shorter one said.

"Hey guys, sorry. Can't sleep. Literally. Besides, I haven't been assigned a cottage yet."

"Can I get your name Miss..."

"Caitlin Bardue." She smirked as the taller one shook his head in disbelief.

"Bardue? Not related to old Gunny Bardue are you?" the tall one asked.

"Yeah. Adopted when my dad bought it overseas. The Gunny was my godfather."

"Ah. Well, sorry about your family, miss, but we have to take you in to see the duty officer." He looked somewhat annoyed at having to play truant officer. "Students aren't allowed loose after hours."

"Ok, fine. I'll talk to him." She sighed. "Lord knows you guys put up with enough shit without me adding to the pot. Just don't touch me, ok? The results aren't usually pleasent and I can't stop it."

The two men nodded and led her to the main security office, flanking her on each side while keeping a respectful distance. She noted the security React force around a table, playing cards, while a the command center crew was looking bored, sipping coffee and staring at empty screens. She recognized Lieutenant Forsyth immediately from her many dealings with him in the past. The man was, by reputation, almost as big a card shark as she was according to some of the security goons she'd dealt with.

"Any problems?" Forsythe asked her escort.

"Not a damn bit of trouble from this one, boss. Cooperated all the way and was kind enough to warn us off of touching her. Something about a bad reaction." The short guy said.

"Yeah, my little lightshow is hazardous to self and others." She snarked just a bit. She was getting tired of that ever-present, snapping, coruscating field of pain

Forsythe looked at her, noted her posture and expression. "Go ahead back to the ready room guys. She's gonna be one of the cooperative ones."

The two men wandered back to the ready room and he turned to her. "Thanks for making this easy for everyone."

"No problem. Gunny Bardue... Guess it's Dad now, said you guys put up with too much bullshit already so I didn't think going for a blood pressure rise would be that great an idea."

"Yeah, I think we all appreciate it. So you're the new student coming in that Gunny's sponsoring?" He saw her nod and relaxed.

"I keep forgetting that normal people get nervous at lone wanderers at Oh-Dark-Stupid in the morning."

"About that. We will have to file it with the school that you were out after hours."

"Somehow I doubt that will be a problem." She noted his look, "And no, I don't mean Gunny... Dad... God this is confusing... Will be trying to pull my fat outta the fire. I only sleep an hour a day, if that. Past that and I'm up and moving and fresh as a daisy."

"So, in other words, you're going stir-crazy staring at four walls for hours on end."

"Yeah, that's about the size of it." She looked around. "I'm used to being able to take care of myself in a pinch. Got to the point where I could wander a military base without having to worry about anything."

"I can understand that. But yeah, you are right, it probably won't matter much. You weren't causing trouble, so the report's a formality. Gives us something to do."

She looked at the monitors and sensor panels. "Damn, and I thought the Pentagon was tricked out."

"Been there?" At her nod he continued. "Yeah, this place is layered. A lot of it is top of the line hardware, plus what the students have built and sold to the school as added precautions. There's not much that can sneak by us, although we had a near miss with some assholes earlier this year."

"Oh god, those Holy G.H.O.S.T. chumps? Yeah, Gunny told me about them a while back. I heard the kids at one of the cottages rolled 'em for their lunch money and then beat the tar out of them."

Forsyth chuckled. "Yeah, that's about the size of it. Poe cottage. Strange kids, but they tend to be harmless, at least they don't deliberately start trouble. Wish they were better at avoiding it though."

"Hey, we're kids. What's the fun of growing up if you can't cause havoc in the process?"

She was slipping into character easily. Looks like all those tabletop and LARP games she'd played off and on for fifteen years were paying off. They chatted for a bit and Forsyth let her go after signing a few papers and she went back to her morning run.

When she finished she hadn't even broken a sweat, which was hardly surprising given the temperature outside, and she felt a bit better, having gotten out and really stretched her legs. She wandered about before heading over to the ranges. The indoor range was locked and empty, so she plugged in her code to the keypad, and went in. The lights came on and she went about setting up Lane three. Two hours, and about three hundred rounds from her personal stash later, she was less than pleased. She'd has to completely relearn her firing stance with the pistol. Her body wasn't built for the same shooting style as Erik Mahren. She cleaned the pistol, policed her brass and locked the door on the way out.

The school was coming awake as she headed towards the main campus area, walking past the center area and had a sense of Deja-vu as she watched the three girls from before practicing their Tai-Chi. All three were graceful in their own way, but it was the slight chinese girl, Chou, who flowed the most. it was obvious that she was the most practiced. The other two had a lot of grace, but it was became apparent that the fiery-haired Fey was the least practiced after a few minutes of observation. She shrugged and began wandering aimlessly, waiting for a bit before heading over to the Crystal hall for food.

She didn't get directly into the line, instead settling back to watch as the students trickled in. She saw the pattern now, that she'd missed during the frenetic hustle of the lunch and dinner times. The groups trickled over to favored areas and ate. Mostly they divided by team, or cottage, and a few tight groups. The GSD kids came in, ate, and left, seemingly in a hurry to get out of sight for the most part. There were a few exceptions, of course, but they were grouped together, as much for protection as company.

The Alphas came in a trickle, but sat together in the best seats in the house. She immediately recognized Aries and Hekate, as well as Don Sebastiano, Skybolt and Cavalier. She paid less attention to the hangers-on. Those five students were the core of the Alphas. They were markedly less animated and condescending than they usually were, but then most of them had that 'just woke up' look to them.

The Grunts came in, being the loudest and most boisterous in the early morning. Deadeye and Bunker were leading the conversation, with Mule, Slapdash, Bomber and Breaker eating and laughing at the other two's wild stories. Caitlin liked the six of them, as they were good kids. They all had aspirations to military service, and while they were hardly the most powerful students on campus, they were some of the most motivated. Bunker was usually they most responsive to the flak other students gave the six of them, and Caitlin had seen the tiny freshman spew streams of invective that would make a drill instructor cringe. Of course the fact that a certain ex-marine Range instructor had taught her how to spit said streams of cussing and verbal abuse never seemed to come up.

She took the time to mark the differences between students, noting how many of them seemed to divide themselves into groups. It seemed to follow no rhyme or reason, but there were patterns that fit in high school. The pretty people gossiping and competing for the best looks. The GSD kids who seemed like they were off in their own world for the most part, and the kids who fit the bill of normal talking and ramping up speed. The social circles, and what held them together became obvious with a little bit of watching.

She finally got into line and got her food, wandering over to Outcast Corner, and saw Jericho there with what looked like the biggest nightmare of a lizard she had ever seen. The Lizard...kid she was forced to remind herself... was big, wiry and covered in yellow and black scales from head to toe. His face was a foot and a half long snout, and he had six spines, three on either side of the top of of his head about three inches long and angling back and out. His back had two rows of eight inch spines that hung at an angle towards the floor, and was sporting a long, thick tail that he had wrapped to the side of the seat. The boy's legs were digitigraded and ended in three thick, bird-like toes. Both the toes and fingers had some wiched looking claws. He was dressed in a simple T-shirt with the Megadeth logo on the front and a pair of shorts.

She shook her head when she realized she was staring and started getting annoyed. This was not the way to prove she wasn't just another daft woman who couldn't see past skin. She walked up to the table, and unceremoniously set her tray down, sitting next to Lizard-boy and looking at Jericho. She nodded to both and looked at the amused grin on Jericho's face.

"What?" She asked, looking across the table at the white-eyed kid.

"Pay up Razor." He chuckled as he pocketed the money that the reptilian kid handed across. "I told you."

"Oh great, I'm now the subject of a betting pool." She looked a bit rueful. "Razor huh?"

The Lizard-boy nodded, impossible to read emotions in his completely inhuman face.

"Yeah. Caitlin, this is Razorback, one of my friends I was talking about before."

"Nice to meet you." She looked the boy straight in the eye and nodded. "I'd shake your hand, but hurting you by accident might make a really bad impression."

The reprillian face made a fast, staccato chirping noise, and his hands moved in the air in an intricate dance that she recognized as sign language. She suddenly wished she knew how to speak it.

"Raz here can't talk. He's mute, except for the odd chirp and growl. That was him laughing by the way. He says he likes you and you smell nice." Jericho watched her reaction carefully.

Caitlin found herself blushing lightly. "Thanks. Those spikes are pretty nifty."

Razorback nodded and turned away and began eating the tray piled high with various meats in front of him.

"Razorback don't talk much, even signing." Jericho started in. "He's more or less fearless, so unless it's a red flag day, he walks around campus like he owns it."

"Good. Nice to see a GSD kid who isn't afraid to stand out in a good way." She looked over at Razorback. He was eyeing her while he ate, eyes spaced just enough apart to give him a wide angle of view without losing binocular vision. She followed his angle of vision and blushed a bit more. The eye looked up and forward as he pretended to be concentrating solely on eating.

"Hah. Busted bro. I told you she was quicker on the draw than most of the other girls here except for maybe Diamond."

Embarassment forgotten Caitlin turned back to Jericho. "Diamond?"

He nodded, a bit ruefully. "Diamondback. Another extreme GSD case, only she's got it somewhat worse than Razor here. She's the most self-conscious one. They got her in Whitman with some bint who is constantly on her case. I've known her since we were able to walk. girl had it rough, me and my family had to hide her for a month from her own folks and their pastor. Getting her to meet new people is like pulling teeth some days."

"Why is that?"

"Mostly personal reasons, but she's been the one caught in a corner and burned the most."

"I'll keep an eye out for her." She picked at her food for a minute and dug in. The table was silent for a few minutes as the three wolfed down their food.

"So what's she look like?"

"Huh?"

"Diamondback. What's she look like?" Caitlin looked him in his white eyes.

"Trust me, with a name like Diamondback, you'll know her if you see her."

Razorback looked up, and signed at Jericho. "Hey we gotta go. Class in a few minutes. See you around? What's your schedule?"

"No schedule yet. I got powers testing here in a few minutes myself. I am not looking forward to this."

"Can't be all bad. We all had to go through it."

"I feel like a damned lab rat."

"And a pretty lab rat too. Tell you what. If we get time me or Razor here'll snag you some food. You'll probably miss lunch and those bums usually forget that some of us need sustenance."

"I appreciate that."

The two boys got up and walked off. Caitlin noted that the crowd parted like the red sea around the two of them, as they left unhampered. Those two would bear some watching.

* * *

Caitlin walked towards the powers testing area. This was going to be far from the low-key testing that she had endured with Doctor Bellows before, and she was not looking forward to it. When she stepped in the door Dr. Polland was waiting. She walked up to him and gave a mock-salute. "Student Ma- Bardue reporting for Lab Rat duty, sir." She caught herself before giving her old name.

Dr. Polland smirked. "I see. Apparently the warnings of your personality weren't too exaggerated."

"Well I'd hate to see my reputation ruined by not meeting expectations."

"All right, " he looked at his clipboard, "Caitlin, we've got a full battery set up for you. Dr. Bellows waived the physical examination based on hazards to medical staff."

"Uh, yeah. This trippy lightshow isn't fun." She breathed a silent sigh of relief, the thought of a gynecological exam gave her the willies.

"Well, if you'll follow me this way we'll get your blood drawn. and sent in for testing."

She followed the doc to a room and after some wrangling, got the nurse to let her do the blood draw herself. The nurse had been convinced when she picked up some tissue paper and shook her hand rapidly. The discharge caused the flimsy materiel to blacken and run in rivulets down her arm like some kind of bizarre ink. She got her arm cleaned and went about doing everything the docs back in the corps had taught her about I.V's and needles, cursing when the steel needle sheared and snapped just under her skin.

It took four tries and three needles before the nurse handed her one of the more sturdy variety. The blood was drawn quickly, and she hopped out of the room to follow the doc to the first area. Strength and endurance testing. Wonderful.

The first test was easy. She was set to lift increasing weights until she couldn't lift one, then she was given a rest for a few minutes, then set to it again. The cramping buildup from the increasing weight was typical, but the results were not. She easily hefted the four-hundred pound weight, and was able to work up to just over eleven hundred pounds with effort, and 1200 pounds being her absolute maximum. The process was impeded by weird things happening to the weights. Changing to different alloys, cracking and falling apart, transforming into odd shapes, and the most memorable, superheating and melting. Her arms were covered in molten metal to her elbows before the panicked girl and the medical staff were able to scrape the rapidly cooling materiel off her skin.

A few panicked moments later and she was staring at her unmarred skin incredulously. The heat had hurt like hell, but not the maddening pain she had expected. She looked at the many ruined weights with a sick feeling, suddenly very thankful for the super-pagan looking clothing she was wearing.

The endurance test held a few surprises. The doctors exposed her to rapidly elevating levels of heat, cold, electricity, and other phenomena until she couldn't take it. The heat and cold she endured without complaint or really noticing, until they started getting past the temperatures that would melt industrial grade steel, when she started hollering at them to turn the damned thing off. Open flames didn't even bother her. The cold started becoming too much once the room they had her sit in reached below -100 degrees Farenheit. She had no resistance to anything kinetic, beyond an extremely toughened musculature and bones, so she wasn't bulletproof, although knives and bladed objects would have a much rougher time penetrating deep enough to do real damage.

She was amazed by the amount of raw physical strength and stamina she had. It was like discovering muscles you never realized you had. She pushed herself for the testing, and they found that she was extremely resistant to most natural phenomena that could cause serious injury. Drugs worked just fine on her, but electricity only tickled a bit, even when they amped up the generators. The static charge she built up from that caused several computers to blow out when she got close.

Reflex testing was pure torture. There was a lot of "Dodgeball from hell." She was able to duck, dive and weave extremely quickly, for a normal person, but her reflexes were perfectly in line with what she could do before her world went completely upside-down. Running she was able to do a six-minute mile at an easy run, topping out around sixteen miles an hour at a dead run, still within the normal range of a well-trained and conditioned human. Again, this was pretty much the same as when she had been a man. The two phases of testing didn't really hurt at all but it was frustrating as the docs ramped up the difficulties to just beyond where she could perform effectively.

A side effect of this was the discovery that her energy corona built up in intensity the faster she moved to the point where at a full run she was completely surrounded by a hissing corona of energy that burned like fire. As she slowed down, it faded to a trickle, and when she remained perfectly motionless for a few seconds it died down completely and did not return until she moved again.

The rest of the morning was more or less as expected. Besides the odd currents that she could see, she didn't really show any aptitude for any other types of powers. Doctor Powell was waiting for her on the way out.

"Well we've done about all we can here. Circe wants you over in the Magic department for the rest of your testing. We're going to tag you as an Exemplar 4 for now, along with an Esper 2 given we're not sure what to make of those currents you're seeing constantly, and an Energizer 2. Nothing horribly huge by Whateley standards, but it's a good base to build on."

"Yay. off to Oz with me. Anything else? Bellows said something was off on my bloodwork before I changed."

"Ah, yes, well your blood has a massive mineral content in it. We're not exactly sure why. From all indications you're eating normally for a healthy pair of twenty-five year old men. That doesn't explain the odd composition, or the fact that when it solidified it formed some kind of blood colored metallic alloy. The lab rats are still trying to pick it apart."

"Oh goody. Well at least if I ever need to spot-weld something I can do it by slitting my wrist."

"Actually, you might be able to do just that."

"So what's with the hair? Why's it all shiny?"

"So far as we can tell your hair's normal with some metallic traits, although it's a lot stronger than normal. You could probably use it as high-test fishing line if you were of a mind."

"Jesus can my life get any more weird?"

"Well, since you're being slated to start classes this week, my best guess would be yes."

"Gee, thanks Doc. I feel so much better now." She walked away while Polland chuckled, went into his office and took the cross-file for Erik Mahren and ran it through the shredder and burned the remains, per Carson's orders.

* * *

Circe was in her office when Caitlin wandered in, half-heartedly. The sorceress looked up and smiled slightly.

"Hello Erik, or is it Caitlin now?"

Caitlin looked over at the sorceress for a moment. "Caitlin. I figure I'd best get used to my new circumstances. Hiding from it isn't going to make it go away."

Circe nodded and looked at her, motioning to a seat directly across from her desk. "I'm glad to see that you're holding together so well. I can only imagine what you're going through, and it takes a lot of courage to face what you're going through."

Caitlin sat down, looking at the woman quietly. "Why do I get the feeling that this isn't going to be the frantic testing bum rush that the docs rammed me through?"

"It won't be, mostly because rushing blindly with magic is a sure route to disaster. It's also because I wanted to have a chance to get a good read on you as well." She leaned back in her seat easily. "I know that out at the ranges you all dismiss my department as a bunch of gibberish-spouting finger-wigglers, and for the most part it's not far off the mark. But I'm more concerned with you. You've gone from a healthy and fit man with a strong will to a fairly young woman with no real identity of her own and some massive problems. I'm fairly sure that almost anyone who didn't have a personality like yours would have a total breakdown given the same circumstances."

"It's not easy. I want to just be invisible half the time. Male, female, I never put much stock in form defining the person. Unfortunately it isn't that way with most people, I'm still having issues with feeling completely off, and I'm just not comfortable with how people look at me now." The young woman took a deep breath. "I don't know. Ever since Cat died I've been a bit off anyway. I started drinking and burying myself in work. I wasn't even able to say goodbye." The last was hardly more than a whisper.

Circe nodded. "I think Cat would have approved of you taking her name. She was a strong woman, I liked her a lot, as a teacher and coworker. I'm sorry you weren't able to be at the memorial, but there are many ways to say goodbye. I know you'll find one."

"It's hard. We had plans. We were going to get married next year on the solstice back home. We..." Caitlin stopped, biting back tears that came anyway. "I'm just not ready to let her go."

"You saw her die, didn't you." It was more a statement than a question, and the girl saw sympathy in the older woman's eyes. She only nodded.

"I saw it. I saw what she did. SheThrew out everything she had for the school, and she died. I couldn't help her. I couldn't catch her. I couldn't even be there when she fell. She charged the attackers, she burned them, fought them, and she died. All the while all I could do was shoot and fight. I couldn't even find her body. I never saw her after that."

She broke off, actually crying as the memories and feelings cracked through the mental barriers and came out, full force. She didn't care, she just cried.

Circe moved over and took the young woman's hand gently and crouched by her. The wracking sobs just continued on for a good long while, punctuated by crackling energy whenever her body shook. The tears fell like falling stars, some Ice, some glass, some as pure light. She didn't interrupt the girl. Former man or not, sometimes people needed to cry to get it out of their system.

After a long time, the girl recovered, looking up at the woman kneeling beside her. She instinctively threw herself over Circe and sobbed quietly in the woman's arms.

"You're a strong individual, but everyone has to let go sooner or later. I honestly wish she could be here with you right now." Circe helped the taller girl to her feet easily. "But for now, the time to mourn is best left behind. You need to look forward, and begin living again."

Caitlin nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes, and whispered out, "Thanks."

Circe nodded and smiled. "You're lucky you can pull off the natural look. Most of us would spend the next hour having to fix our makeup."

The young woman laughed in spite of herself.

"Feel better?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Good. Don't let anyone try to tell you that you shouldn't cry. No one is invulnerable, even to emotion."

Caitlin nodded and wiped her face off. She looked at Circe quizzically a bit. "Hey, how come nothing happened to you when you touched me? Everyone else got burned!"

"One of the advantages of being a 'gibberish-spewing finger-wiggler.' A bit of loose magic is easy enough for me to counter, even unconsciously."

They had a bit of a laugh at that. Caitlin stretched a bit. She honestly did feel better. It was like a large weight had been pulled off her shoulders.

"Boy am I glad Gunny didn't see that."

"I don't think Oscar would have blamed you. He loved Cat like a daughter. And you were the pasty faced boy coming along to run off with his baby girl."

"Yeah, that sounds about right." She composed herself. "So what say we get this show on the road? I'm starting to like you, but I'd like to get dinner tonight without running off-campus to the taco bell."

Circe nodded and led her downstairs into an empty classroom, avoiding the press of students coming and going between periods.

"So. I really can't properly test you until we get your talents under control. Have you looked at that ink I gave you?"

"Yeah. I figured out what it's made from, and how to make it, but I'm missing something. It's a part of me, a sacrifice of some kind, symbolically if I was to make a batch of my own. It's not something you can make for someone."

Circe nodded. "For me, I had to infuse it with magic. It's been a part of my life for so long that it is literally a part of who I am. For you it will not be so easy. Each person's is unique. Unfortunately I have not found a way around the soul-binding aspects."

"Is it possible to bind something to itself?"

"Yes, although it is a lot harder. Magic responds not to what you want it to do, but what you will it to do. Sometimes it takes a greater sacrifice in order to accomplish something. After all, the energy does not come from nowhere."

Caitlin nodded. "So all that finger wiggling and latin..."

"Some words have power, but they aren't necessary. The words and motions are mostly a mnemonic trigger, meant to help focus your will into action."

"Like a running cadence."

Circe nodded. "Yes. Very much so. Bardue may not admit it, but the military could give some very good lessons on focus and control that many would-be mages lack. You have a natural connection to it. Unfortunately that connection is a little too sticky. When it tears away from you, unguided by will it simply manifests of it's own accord. For some, these manifestations are harmless, or merely aggravating, like the hobgoblins of one of the newer girls, Fey."

"Met her. She seems like a good kid. Just... a bit confused at how to react sometimes."

"You'd be right. Unfortunately your manifestations are not nearly so benign. When you move against the flow, the connection you have catches any stray bits and tries to hold them, but fails, causing that corona. Quite frankly if it weren't for your new stamina and toughness, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Yeah, I'm getting tired of looking at wards though. I appreciate the clothes, but I think I need to puzzle this out, and quick for my own sanity, and for the safety of the kids here at whateley."

"I would tend to agree. I'm beginning to see why Bardue hired you, Caitlin."

"My dashing good looks and ability to one-up him in a shouting match?"

Circe chuckled. "That may have contributed, but it's you, why you fit so well with the military ideal. You put others before yourself. That's the most common comment I hear from your coworkers since I started asking. Right after that would be 'smarmy bastard' and 'card shark.'"

"That's what I love about my friends. They love me so much."

"Well. Let's get to work. All the materials save one are in this room. The process usally takes about six hours of ritual, but, if you are what I think you are, you'll probably finish much more quickly with far less hassle."

Caitlin nodded and began working. All told it took three hours to mix and match the processes and the components, but in the end she had a clear jar of fluid with a slightly murky tint. She drew her knife and drew it across the palm of her hand, hissing, and allowed three drops, no more, no less to fall into the mixture. The fluid darkened then began shifting, turning a deep, cobalt blue color. She bandaged her hand and looked up.

"Safe stopping point. This is where I need to figure out what the last part is."

Circe nodded. "I would never have believed it if I had not seen it myself. You really are one of the artificers."

"What does that mean, exactly, beyond being really strong, really tough and being able to make weird items?"

"The artificers are also natural magic users. Each one has a form of magic that they take to naturally, depending on who they were before they were marked. It has a lot to do with personality and mindset. Given your personality and adaptability I'd guess that spells geared towards prevention of harm, and transmutation would be your natural inclination."

"How can you tell all that?"

Circe smiled. "I've been at this for a very long time, dear. I've had lots of practice."

Caitlin considered. "You've met one of the artificers before, haven't you?"

"Met isn't the word. What I saw wasn't a person anymore. She had become an extension of her master's will. Nothing more."

"So how can we be sure that even if I pull off making my own mix it won't turn me into a zombie?"

"I can't be sure, but it binds the servant to the master's will. Your will has always been that of loyalty and fierce independance. I don't think any magic you ever undertake will allow for anyone, much less yourself, to become enslaved by it. As I said, the Will shapes the flow. What you think is more or less irrelevant at that point."

The girl considered and nodded. "It's a risk I gotta take. I'm not gonna give some jackass the chance to make the choice for me."

Circe nodded yet again. "Sometimes the courage to drive forward is all it takes to find one's road."

Caitlin picked up the mithril needle and scowled. "This needs a bit of a modern touch. This pricking the needle and umpteen hours of work thing has gotta go."

"It's the way things have been done for thousands of years."

"Just because something has been one way for a thousand years doesn't mean there's not a better way."

"Just so. Now get going. I'll expect you in my office tomorrow afternoon. I will be your class advisor for the forseeable future."

"Cool!" Caitlin smiled, picked up the needle and jar of blue ink and walked out the door.

Circe watched her leave with a slight smile.

* * *

She made it to the Crystal Hall just as the first few students got into line for food. She'd stashed her jar of the ink with Circe's along with the two needles she had. She'd been careful to keep the needles separate, as one was becoming bound to her, the other to the school's magic department head. She also didn't want to lose them. From what little she knew, actual moonsilver was hella expensive, and she wasn't gonna risk losing the valuable items.

She sat down, and began eating, tossing the puzzle over in her head, quietly as she chewed her food. A piece of herself, a symbolic sacrifice. She couldn't think of anything, off the top of her head that actually defined who she was, or who she had been before. She couldn't stuff Range two in a bottle and shake it up. Not that that place really defined her.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw Jericho and Razorback walking up to the table, followed by a girl that actually made her stop cold.

This must be Diamondback. the girl was tall, and athletic looking at first glance, wearing a red T-shirt and black skirt that reached down about two feet, pleated and hanging loosely. Her long, reddish, deep brown hair hung loosely down to her waistline, her bangs obscuring her face. Her body was scaled, similar to to Razorback, but different in a way. The undersides of her arms and her front were flesh-colored, but deepened into rich greens and blacks along the outsides of her body and back, forming Diamond shaped patterns. Her legs didn't exist, and Caitlin saw a thick, powerful looking serpentine tail trailing from the bottom of her dress to a point well about thirteen feet behind her.

The girl was slithering like a snake along the cafeteria floor and was garnering her fair share of horrified and disgusted looks from the crowd. The trio reached the table as Caitlin forced the shocked look from her face, remebering that she'd seen worse. Not by much, so far as GSD cases went, but she'd seen worse. She'd gotten a good look at the girl's face as she sat down. Tiny scales covered it, and went from a pale, flesh tone to the deep green of her backside and tail. The face was long, with high cheekbones, and small chin. Besides the scales and tail bit under any other circumstances the girl would have been considered gorgeous.

Caitlin waited until everyone sat before speaking, beating Jericho to the punch as the new girl and razorback began eating from the heaping plates of meat they had in front of them.

"Hello, Diamondback, right?" She looked at the girl for a moment, and was rewarded with a silent nod. "Nice to meet you. I'm Caitlin. I'd offer to shake hands but I'm not sure it'd be safe for you."

Diamonsback looked up skeptically and flinched as Caitlin flicked her wrist, causing a flash of sickly green energy to erupt. "Happens whenever I move, pretty much randomly, and people have gotten hurt touching me in the past week."

She felt the stares on her, and Caitlin realized both boys were watching the little interaction. She glared at them and they began eating furiously, as if their plates had suddenly developed gold deposits.

"Look Diamond, I know you probably don't buy it from me right now, but I'd like to be friends. I already like these two knotheads. No strings, no promises. Just give me a chance, alright?"

"Okay." the serpent-girl nodded and began ripping into her tray with gusto, and Caitlin sat quietly, eating from her food, thinking.

Caitlin looked at Jericho, who was smirking, and Razorback, who was unreadable. "So you two have fun today?"

"A bit. Been going through the usual daily grind." Jericho was busy stuffing his face, so Caitlin decided now was as good a time as any to polish off the prodigious amount of food she had to eat. It wasn't all that much to her, she'd eaten this much on a regular basis as Erik. It just seemed that her appetite was bigger because of her size.

"What happened to your hand" Caitlin looked up when she realized Diamond had spoken.

"Session with Circe. Had to use blood to seal something."

"I thought blood magic was dangerous."

"You in the classes?"

"Yeah, I have Introduction to Magic theory, and magic lab With Earth Mother and Circe, respectively."

"I dunno about the blood magic bit. Circe thinks I've got a knack for some things. She supervised the blood bit. It was kinda necessary.

"How much can you do?"

"Nada. I catch and pop magic, it's sticky and snaps like a rubber band on me. I can see it, feel it, but can't do anything except cause random havoc with it."

"So why all the wards?" Diamondback was working up at a rapid pace, talking about something she obviously loved.

"It keeps me from becoming a mystic firebomb. Like I said, I'm a bit dangerous to touch. You do not want to see the kind of crazy, violent stuff that happens when I get mad or aren't wearing the wards." Caitlin pushed the empty tray away from her.

"I don't think I've ever heard of that before."

Caitlin chuckled. "Yeah, story of my life. So what about you, you another natural mystic?"

Diamond shook her head. "No. I'm learning it because I want to. I like learning about magic. I'm Wiccan, despite what my folks would say."

"Hey it takes all types, right? Hell, I just got thrown to the wolves about a week ago. Don't even recognize myself in a mirror."

"You're lucky. You're pretty."

"So're you, actually, just not in the way any of the fools here are gonna look close enough to see, and you have a really pretty voice. you sing at all?"

Caitling considered the shocked look, and open mouth and saw that the girl wasn't expecting to hear that. She also noticed that the girl's tongue was forked, while she sat slack-jawwed, and she had some really nasty looking inch-long fangs.

"You don't have to be nice to make me feel better." Diamondback sounded sullen.

"I have been accused of many things. Being 'nice' was never one of them." She shrugged. "I just call it as I see it. And I see a pretty young woman who's a bit different and hella shy because too many jackasses decided to burn her."

Diamondback cocked her head. "How do you figure that?"

Caitlin snorted. "You kidding? All the kids with GSD around here seem to walk on eggshells around the damned pretties. Well, except for you three so far. And the others who don't tend toward the other extreme. Like that Bloodwolf mook."

Caitlin pointed to herself. "This? This ain't me. Maybe in a few years I'll get used to it, but for now I'm just trying to cope. Sounds pathetic, don't it? I'm just not used to the attention, and I feel all wrong."

"At least you don't look like a monster."

"Meh, give me time. I haven't finished changing I don't think. If I do wind up looking like a monster that's not gonna stop me from being me. And if someone tried to tell me otherwise I'd be liable to hurt them." Caitlin looked Diamondback in the eye, noting the reptilian slits in the ice-blue irises. "Form doesn't define who I am. It just changes the playing field."

The serpentine girl looked thoughtful. "Maybe. Can we talk about something else? GSD always depresses me."

"Sure. We can talk about how the two boys are being absolutely silent and still in the blind hope that we won't notice that they're done eating and listening to us."

Both girls turned and stared at Jericho and Razorback almost in complete, slow synchronization. Their stares were expectant and a little miffed that they were having an audience. Jericho winced and Razorback signed something to him.

"Yeah I hate it when women do that, too." He was slightly smirking. "A little backup here Razor?"

The lizardman shook his head and darted off, not wanting any part of the typical, inexplicable, female behavior. Jericho found that he agreed, and backed out and followed his buddy out the door.

Both girls busted out laughing at the same time.

"Oh my god, I've wanted to do that to them for months!" Diamondback chortled.

"Heh, now I know how other girls do that. I'll have to remember that trick." Caitlin grinned evilly. "So I take it those two are always in cahoots?"

"Oh yeah, and Jericho's the ringleader. He has this kooky band thing that the two of them want to get together. They both play guitars."

"So at minimum they need a drummer and a singer?"

Diamondback smirked. "Drummer at the minimum. They keep trying to con me into singing with their little band thing."

Caitlin shrugged. "So why don't you?"

"I don't think I could handle performing in front of a crowd."

"Yeah, I hear you. So what say we hit the store and get some coffee before we head back to our respective prison cells?"

"Uh... sure?"

"Come on. You need to get out and have some fun, I can tell." Caitlin smiled. "Oh, yeah, one thing." She reached over with a pencil and pushed Diamondback's hair away from the front of her face. "You have a pretty face. You shouldn't hide it."

"But what about the people who call me a monster?"

Caitlin just grinned. "Fuck 'em. If they mouth off too bad I'll pound on them, and I imagine that tail of yours can do a number on someone in a fight."

"You make it sound so easy."

"It is. Me and my friends proved it back home. Most girls catfight, I just smash. Works a lot better, too."

"Ok."

* * *

The two girls went out and picked up coffee at the small shop on campus. With a little gentle encouragement Caitlin was able to keep Diamondback from slouching, or hiding her face with her hair. A few students started to make a comment in the snake-girl's general direction when they were fixed with Caitlin's homicidal glare. The two of them went over to the benches near the crystal hall, and sat down, Diamond coiling her lower body under her to avoid getting tripper over, or stepped on.

"So you said you were studying magic," Caitlin said, "able to throw fireballs or anything yet?"

Diamond looked thoughtful. "No. I'm only able to do a few minor illusions, and some healing spells. I understand the theories, and formulae well enough, but it's hard. It'll take years and years of study and practice before I'm anywhere near a fraction as good as someone like Circe."

"Illusions and healing? Not a bad starting point though." Caitlin pondered. "Can you see the currents?"

"Currents?"

"Yeah, I see currents under everything, and feel them too. I just can't do anything besides having them stick and snap."

"Oh! No, I can see resonances if I concentrate. I've known that some people are good enough to see magic as lines or waves. I haven't gotten to the point of much more than feeling it and seeing what kind of magic something resaonates." Diamondback was animated as she talked, idly flicking stray hairs out of her face.

"Resonance, huh?" Caitlin looked at her. "Care to take a look at a couple things? I'd like to get your opinion. I've heard a bunch of other peoples' takes, but I'm always interested in other pieces of the puzzle."

"Sure." Her eyes widened as Caitlin passed over the Knife. "Holy crap!"

"What?"

"This thing almost hums. It's pulsing with energy, small amounts, but strong." She turned it over. "Hardened, sharp, I get a resonance of... collecting? No that can't be right."

"From what I was told by Mrs. Chulkris, that's more or less dead on." Caitlin picked up the knife gingerly and settled it back in it's sheath.

"That's the weirdest Athame I have ever seen." She went on to explain how an athame is a ritual knife used in magical ceremonies and used to harvest and cut certain herbal items.

Caitlin nodded. "Sounds about right. This one's a bit unique."

"I can see that. The wards on your clothes have a resonance of suppression, your body whenever you're flashing is chaotic. unrestrained, painful?" Diamondback looked Caitlin in the eye. "It hurts?"

"Yeah. Hurts quite a bit. I just usually tune it out. Sometimes it gets pretty bad though."

"Ouch." She looked at Caitlin's neck. "Focusing medallion?"

"Sorta. I dunno what the hell I'm supposed to focus. Maybe I can learn something when I start magic classes."

"You're definitely gonna start on magic?" Diamondback looked hopeful.

"Circe is my Advisor. I go to her to work out a class schedule tomorrow."

Diamondback grinned "She is really something else, huh? Mrs. Chulkris is my advisor. She was happy that someone who isn't a natural mage is willing to put in the time to learn the hard way."

Caitlin thought about that. "Makes sense. I've noticed that folks who work harder toward an end tend to do better than people who start out able to play the game."

Diamondback nodded. "I hope so. At least I'm learning not to take these things for granted." She looked up. "Hey I need to get back to my room. Got studying to do, you know. I'll see you around later?"

Caitlin rose and nodded. "Sure. I'll be around. Catch you later Diamondback."

"Sandra." The snake girl smiled slightly. "Call me Sandra."

"All right Sandra. Have a good one, and don't let anyone give you any shit."

Sandra nodded and slithered off in the direction of Whitman.

Caitlin smiled and walked back up towards her room to work on the puzzle of the Ink she had made.

* * *

Caitlin entered the room to a welcome sight. Apparently someone had gone through her apartment and cleaned it out, transferring all of her stuff to her room out in the storage building. She grinned and moved the desk to the wall, where someone had helpfully installed a cable connection. She pulled out all her stuff and began arranging it around the room, thankful that the combined strength of the wards on the walls and her clothes kept her mystic backlash in check.

A few hours later and the place almost looked like someone lived there, rather than a demonic containment unit. She set up her desktop and work laptop on the desk and booted them up, hooking up to the school internet connection. She smirked as she saw her desktop backgroud come up. It was a picture of two of his old buddies from back in the corps. Heckel and Jeckel, the mutant twins from hell. They were both low-key, exemplar 1's who had the most twisted senses of humor she had ever come across. She almost came close on a good day.

After she finished setting up, she went about studying the two ink containers. The fluids inside were more or less the same except the color, a byproduct of the maker's personality. The green one just screamed power and magic, and she realized that was probably that resonance thing that Diamondback, Sandra, had talked about. The other was difinitely herself, but missing something. Empty.

She poked at the problem, going through all of her stuff, and seeing if anything screamed ME! Uniforms, old records on paper, Cd's everything came up blank. The electronics crap she dismissed immediately as unimportant. The rest of it, seemed to resonate with the past, something she dearly wanted to hold onto. She wasn't Erik Mahren, the rough and ready Marine anymore, but she definitely didn't want to forget or lose that part of her.

Her attention went back to the two needles that awaited use. Both of them reeked of unused potential. Mithril implements were expensive for a reason. She imagined sitting for painstaking hours, even days while those needles were used to inscribe the complex designs that would be necessary. There was no proscribed pattern, each design would be distinctively of the maker's own, an expression of their soul.

"Screw this. I need a tattoo gun." She muttered as the sun came up again, having not gotten any sleep and feeling fine despite the lack. "This stupid ritual shit needs the modern touch.

She walked out and went over to the art department, and talked to the teachers theree, procuring a tattoo gun from them. God I love Whateley, she thought, we have everything here. She took the gun back and looked at the device, comparing the needle, and smiled. She knew what to do.

* * *

Thursday, November 30th

She was going to be late to her appointment. Most of the students, tough or not, knew that one did not stand in the way of someone running full-bore through the campus while blazing with energy across their bodies. She had a clear path to the magic department, stopping long enough for the corona to die down. Normally she wouldn't give a hairy rat's ass about being late to anyone's office save Gunny Bardue's, but she found herself liking Circe.

Circe was in her office smirking as she entered. "Running a little behind, Caitlin?"

She grinned. "Yeah, sorry. I had to finish up a project before I came."

"Project?"

Caitlin reached into her wallet and pulled out a thin silver needle, significantly different than the one Circe gave her. "Yeah, It was one of those 'can't leave it if I want it to work' deals."

Circe inspected the needle. It was significantly shorter than the one she'd given Caitlin, with a hollowed out core, but the Mithril construction was unmistakeable.

"I had enough to make both sets I'll need."

"You changed the needle?" Circe looked somewhat surprised.

"Yeah, I got to thinking there had to be a better way than the dip, prick, dip, prick method of tattooing. I was able to change the needle without altering it's attunement."

"Very nice. I hope you know what you're doing."

"Not a clue, but it kinda came to me."

Circe shook her head. "All right. Down to business. I know you've already graduated High School so we can skip the core requirements. I took the liberty of checking your transcripts from High school before Carson had Hartford burn them. Your grades were atrocious."

Caitlin looked sheepish. "I passed didn't I?"

"Caitlin, a 2.3 GPA is hardly adequate, especially given how intelligent you are."

"Yeah, well. I kinda skipped the homework and aced every test the teachers tossed at me." She looked to the sky. "I got bored too easy. Most of High School was spent going over shit I'd already learned."

"So you'd prefer a challenging class schedule?" Circe smirked slightly.

"In a word, YES!" Caitlin looked at her. "Even if I get this magic thing under control I have no identity except as a sixteen year old girl. I can't just walk away from school at this point, because I have no diploma, and I sure as hell am NOT going to settle for a GED. Those things are worth about as much as toilet paper, and the toilet paper is actually useful." She settled back. "I figure if I have to put up with High School I'd rather have classes that didn't leave me yawning at the end of the day."

"Be careful what you wish for." Circe began typing on her computer. "All right, We'll settle you into Introduction to Magic theory, and Magic Lab. Mrs. Chulkris teaches the first, I teach the second. Any preferences on self-defense classes?"

"I think I should start with the basics. Yeah I can fight just fine, but I'm gonna need to learn how to move all over again. The range has already showed me my points are off."

"I think Sensei-Ito and Sensei-Tolman would appreciate that sentiment, but you'll likely give them a headache if your fighing style is anything like Oscar's.

"Where do you think I learned all my dirty tricks?"

"We'll round out this semester with Basic Rifle Combat, Powers Lab and Physics. Rifle combat won't be much challenge, but I know how you and Gunny are about staying sharp. And I don't know any teachers here at Whateley who haven't read all the powers theory books half a dozen times each, mutant or not."

Caitlin nodded. "So am I officially on a scholarship for this then? And yeah. I've read all the powers theory stuff till my ears started bleeding."

"Yes, the details were arranged by Carson, since even though he signed on as your 'adopted parent' Gunny Bardue doesn't need to foot your bills. That means a job here on campus."

"Yay. How about Range Assist? I know we're short two teachers there, and while Wilson's good at what he does, he's better at teaching the basics. Not so hot on the safety thing."

"I'll look into it. How are you going to explain your expertise?"

"Orphaned child of a single, marine father. I was hanging out with the leathernecks since I got out of diapers. Daddy couldn't afford Day care, so arrangements were made to allow me to go with him into the field and to the ranges. Been shooting since I was eight, total tomboy." Caitlin waited for the verdict.

"Given this some thought have we?"

"Not much else to do besides trying to puzzle out that ink crap. The closest thing that I can think of would be blood, but that's me now. Not me, from before."

Circe nodded. "If I had thought of that earlier I would have had Bellows save your blood samples. But for now, anything else?"

"Yeah. If you can I'd like to take classes for the magic stuff and self-defense with Diamondback."

Circe raised an eyebrow. "Any particular reason?"

"She's a good young lady who could probably use a friend besides Jericho and Silent Bob going to some of her classes. The girl needs to come out of her shell."

Circe nodded. "Good enough. Besides, she might be able to help you catch up easier. The girl hides it well, but she's smarter than almost anyone on the campus."

"Why does this fact fail to surprise me?"

"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch for. Now get going. I have to get ready for my next class." She handed Caitlin the printed schedule and shooed her out of the office.

Caitlin nodded in thanks and went out the door.

* * *

Caitlin looked at the schedule Circe had printed out for her on the way to the Crystal Hall. First period was Aikido with Sensei-Ito, then Powers Thory, and Intro to Magic theory. Lunch, of course, Magic Lab, followed by physics and Basic rifle combat rounding out the day. Not bad, she'd likely need to unwind at the end of the day and range time was perfect for that kind of thing.

She looked at her class equipment list. Lots of stuff. Time for another trip to the store, but that could happen after lunch. She was feeling acutely hungry, something she was getting used to. Before, she'd been able to go for weeks on one middling meal a day. Now she got hungry as hell quite a bit more. More shit to adapt to. Dr. Polland had said something in passing about a highly accelerated metabolism.

Sandra and Razorback were absent when she arrived, but Jericho was in attendance, scarfing his food as only a teenage boy could. She dropped into the seat across from him and dug in. When she finished she looked at him. He seemed concerned. "Hey, Jericho, what's eating you?"

"Sorry Caitlin, just thinking. Word on the grapevine is that two of the guys from Diamond's self-defense class are planning something 'special' for her tonight. Apparently she beat their asses but good and they're looking for a bit of payback."

"Wait, Sandra clobbered two people?"

Jericho looked up, mildly surprised that she used the snake-girl's real name. "Yeah. She's all shy and quiet in public, but Ito's class lets her take out all her pent-up pissed-off. She's a nice girl, but her and Razorback are both people you do not want to corner. Both of 'em got reflexes from hell and Sandra's bite is poisonous. She's a spitter too.

"Ouch. So what, these monkeys planning, just to embarass her, or to hurt her?"

"Willie and Necro are both wannabe ultraviolents. They want in with Bloodwolf and his crew, so it's not gonna stop at embarassing."

Caitlin got a nasty look. "Wonderful. More good news. I'm not even in classes and I'm already gonna get into a fight."

"You don't have to Caitlin. Me and Razorback are gonna be there, and we already set out the word with security." Jericho said evenly.

"Nope, nothing doing. Sorry Jericho, but I do believe I'm gonna have a chat with these boys about how you treat a lady," Caitlin replied archly.

Jericho chuckled. "All right, here's the deal. Sandra's got a dance club/class thing after hours. Not the ballroom, stuff, more modern dance with some traditional styles like bellydancing and native forms. They're planning to ambush her outside Whitman once it's dark. I told security that me and Razorback were gonna meet her and provide an escort home to make sure it don't happen. We're hoping that her having friends with her will deter them, but like I said, they want in with Bloodwolf. Carson's been told, and we've been told to go ahead and do it, so long as we don't start the fight."

"How accurate is the word here?" Caitlin leaned in.

Jericho thought about it. "Pretty good most likely, see we got this guy named Thuban. He keeps eyes and ears out watching for this kinda shit, mostly to keep the GSD kids from getting hurt. He gets favors in return for the info, but when he gives word, word is usually good."

Caitlin nodded. "He's one of the cottage fixers?"

"Yeah. I think he's one of the best ones we got so far. Creepy guy though. Not sure if I like him." Jericho paused. "But then again, if he's right and this set up goes off I'll be happy to pay him his favor."

Caitlin nodded. "Alright. I know where that club meets. I been exploring. I'll provide some overwatch for Sandra, meet her at the door and walk her home."

"No offense Caitlin, but Willie and Necro are nasty fighters. Willie's a speedy. Likes to run circles around you while hitting every pressure point you have. Necro's got this thing where he touches you and your skin starts to melt."

"And I'm combat trained, and am a lot stronger than I look." Caitlin got a nasty grin. "Please tell me Willie is not that kid's codename."

* * *

Sandra slithered out of the building where she had dance class, smiling. This was the one thing besides magic she did at whateley that she loved. She'd figured out a long time ago that not having legs wasn't much of an obstacle, you just had to learn to move differently. She smiled to herself and began slithering over to Whitman.

"I thought I told you not to hide that face behind your hair." Caitlin was walking up, grinning from ear to ear.

Sandra smiled and pulled her hair away from her face. "You're not gonna let me get away with not being seen are you?"

"Hell no." Caitlin grinned and fel into step beside the snake-girl. "Besides, Jericho's been telling you the same thing for how long?"

"About a year now."

"Jericho's a bright boy. He's right. But that's not the issue. Somewhere, between where we are now and the mysterious Whitman hall, there lies two idiots I like to refer to as Willie and Necro, lying in wait for a certain slithering lady."

"Willie and necro are after me?" She began to look a bit nervous.

"That's the rumor." Caitlin winked at her. "Don't worry. You beat their asses once, you can do it again. Besides, now I'm joining the party and Razorback's being sneaky. Jericho's standing by to hit the Campus security panic button."

Sandra nodded. "So why you here?"

"Easy. I'm a lot nastier than I look, and I don't like it when people attack friends. Or threaten to."

"Friends?" Sandra looked slightly surprise.

"I like you." Caitlin stopped. "Oh shit."

Diamondback looked where she was watching and saw them, five bodies creeping through the bushes just as they burst out on the attack.

Sandra recognized Willie and Necro, while both of them recognized Killstench, Maggot and Bloodwolf.

"Sandra hold on, I'm gonna pin down the Ultraviolents!"

Sandra didn't even have time to argue as Caitlin bounded straight into Bloodwolf, smashing him several meters back with broken bones. That wouldn't last long. The big goob healed faster than it took some people to change underwear. Necro and Willie were on top of her in seconds. She dodged Willie, and slapped Necro away from her with her tail. The gaunt boy was thrown back several yards. Willie was a bit harder, as he was a speedster and could match her arguably insane reflexes, so the fight between them rapidly went nowhere.

Caitlin was in trouble and she knew it. Had she been in this fight as Erik, it would have been over in seconds. She was desperately trying to lay a hand on Killstench while simultaneously not getting hit by Maggot. She didn't feel like watching her skin melt. She finally connected and Bloodwolf was back in the game. She found herself completely on the defense as the giant shag carpet rushed her, clawing and snarling. Maggot kept trying to circle behind her, but she wouldn't stand still. A punch convinced Bloodwolf that being mindlessly aggressive wouldn't work, but the Ultraviolents had the upper hand. They were going to savor this one.

* * *

"Chief we got a live one! Scanners show a wild fight about 200 yards away from Whitman." Forsyth called out.

Chief Delarose walked over. "Who do we have in this tussle?" He watched the feeds and was surprised to see what looked like a complete knot of students in open brawl. No flyers.

"Looks like the Ultraviolents, Necro and Willie fighting... Two girls. Sandra Carter, or Diamondback and Hey! I know that girl! That's Caitlin, the one from the other morning!"

"What's her file?"

"Nada, new student settling in. Real cooperative."

"Get second squad out there armed for Heavy. This was the fight Jericho gave us the heads-up on. It's bigger than he thought."

"I'm on it boss. Get the squad there myself."

"You do that."

* * *

Caitlin screamed in pain and rage as claws slashed open her arm. The return punch sent the psychotic werewolf airborne. Killstench was back up and charging, Maggot was still trying to get her to sit still long enough for him to grab her. There were no insults, no witty banter, this was a all-out fight and everyone knew it.

Sandra was fending off Willie, but had to frequently divert attention to keeping Necro's necrotic touch off of her. She cracked her tail like a bullwhip, slashing open his shirt and hurting him, but he kept coming. When he got close enough he charged, and Sandra spit straight into his eyes. He tried to get the goo out of his vision, then fell flat on the ground, paralyzed.

She looked over at Caitlin and saw her screaming and bleeding, and Willie was coming in after her. Two more figures were coming to the fight, one slow, and one very, very fast. She turned on Willie, bared her fangs and went all-out attack.

Caitlin was taking a royal pounding. They were learning too quickly not to let her actually hit them or touch them. Maggot had burns, and part of his acidic slime coating had solidified on his body when he touched the energy corona on her. Even Bloodwolf was leery, but he kept attacking. They were wearing her down. Death by a thousand little cuts. Her right arm was slashed up, and her left had some nasty burn marks from where Maggot had actually touched her. Her shirt was torn, the wards destroyed, and the corona was arcing, burning and erupting into all-out insanity. Her hat was lost somewhere in the area, long since knocked off and her hair kept getting in her face as a result. The only thing keeping the Ultraviolents from really pressing was the fact that insane bursts of magic were beginning to erupt around her and from her, becoming a mad spectacle.

Then the balance shifted. Bloodwolf was knocked aside by two-hundred pounds of snarling, hissing Lizardman, who carried him a bit away before the two absolutely went insane in animalistic fury, each tearing ragged gashes in the other that healed just as quickly. A moment later, Killstench was on the ground when Jericho struck him with his cane. A dull *WHUPF* noise shot out and the linebacker looking guy went down like it was his purpose in life. Jericho stood above him, smiling and gently tapping him with the cane, each time a shock pushed Killstench to the ground, punctuated by Jericho's obnoxious voice. "No, don't get up." *WHUPF* "You need your beauty rest." *WHUPF* "Here let me help you with that." *WHUPF* "Oh, I'm sorry, only intelligent people are allowed to participate in this fight. You have to sit this one out."

Diamondback finally got ahold of Willie and had him wrapped up in her tail, slowly crushing him while he screamed. Caitlin looked at Maggot and charged, her eyes, and upper body blazing with unrestrained power. He tried to take the hit, but she slammed him across the battle area, angry, hurt and bleeding. Jericho and Diamondback watched as the blood from their friend hit the ground and solidified. Razorback was busy in a going-nowhere stalemate with Bloodwolf when security arrived.

Once they disentangled Willie from Diamondback's coils he was all too happy to go with security now that he could breathe again. They packed up Maggot , Necro and Killstench, and when the three friends were able to finally get through Razorback's psychotic instincts, he leapt away, leaving Bloodwolf staring down the barrels of security's heavy rifles and looking worn out. Meanwhile Caitlin was fending off the Security team medic.

"I don't care how bad the cuts are, this glowing shit will KILL you. Don't touch me!"

More arguing ensued until Forsythe came over and put a halt to it. He put several rolls of gauze and antiseptic in Caitlin's hands and told her in no uncertain terms to go to her room and fix herself. Then he turned to the rest of the quartet and demanded to know exactly what happened.

* * *

Caitlin was thankful for the wards in her room making the magic die down enough to bandage herself. She'd lost a lot of blood on the way here, and was busy using Circe's needle and some thread to stitch the wounds, and covering them with antiseptic and gauze. Doing the work without anaesthetic was a bitch, and she was really lousy at the stitching, but it stopped the bleeding. Fortunately as an exemplar she'd heal fast and without scars, at least that was the running theory.

She bandaged the arm Maggot had burned. The skin was melted and pockmarked, and she could almost see the muscles underneath. She wrapped the arm and went to pulling off her shirt and bra. Her left breast was torn up from Bloodwolf's claws. She muttered and winced and swore as she sewed up the slashes as best she could, then put a bandage from her own medical kit on the wound. She dropped the shirt and Bra on the bed. She'd fix them later.

Chief Delarose knocked and entered, realizing he should probably have waited. Caitlin got an annoyed look and put on the White Tank top with all the wards. She put the hat she'd retrieved back on and sighed.

"Sorry, didn't mean to see you..."

"Don't worry chief, everyone got a good view anyway when Bloodwolf tore open my shirt. You here to get a statement or yell at me?"

"Statement, actually. Mostly I was curious about why you were armed, and didn't use it."

"Well, as far as statements, I heard about the planned ambush and went to walk Diamondback to Whitman. I was hoping that Willie and Necro would be too cowardly to go two on two. I wasn't expecting the Ultraviolents, or else I'd have brought the Tazer guns from the Range two armory." She stood, sore as hell and feeling like eleven miles of bad road.

"And why you decided to take on the three Ultraviolents?" Delarose was more curious than anything.

"I got the muscle and the training. I knew I could at least survive long enough for someone to respond, and I knew Jericho had filled the Security station in on what happened. Hell Delarose, I know you know exactly who I am. Why you playing all coy with me?" Caitlin looked mildly irritated at the man.

"Just had to check. I'm gonna miss you up at the ranges there, we've already had to respond to a fight since they pulled you."

"I'm trying to get my student job up at the ranges."

Delarose nodded. "Ever think about security auxiliary? I watched that fight. You have good instincts, and if it had been one less Ultraviolent on you, you would have wiped the floor with the lot of them. The fact that I know I can trust you to be responsible is a bonus."

Caitlin nodded. "Ok I'll buy that. Tell you what, send the paperwork to Circe and gimmie a few days to heal these lovely gashes and I'd be happy to help."

"Already done. Good luck with your classes tomorrow."

"Thanks chief."

"So why'd you skip the knife?"

"Because if I pulled the knife, the only survivor would have been Bloodwolf."

* * *

Friday, December 1st

Caitlin walked into the dojo, wincing and annoyed. She wore a blue T-shirt with silver wards, and a pair of black jeans with a leather studded belt and silver-marked wards. The hat, shoes and fingerless gloves were ever-present. She looked at the clock... Hmmm, 15 minutes early. I have to stop that. Normal High school girls aren't usually that eager to get to class.

She settled in, wondering where the teacher was.

"New student?" She almost jumped out of her skin as the small asian man who taught Aikido seemed to materialize behind her.

"Yes Sensei." She turned and gave Sensei Ito a bow, and looked at him.

"Ah at least you know the proper forms of address." He nodded. "Do you have a Gi for practice?"

"No sensei, I have one, but it won't survive. The clothes I'm wearing have been modified by Circe to keep my powers under wraps." She replied nervously.

"Dangerous?"

"Unpredictable as well, yes."

"Very well. Have you had formal training in the martial arts?" Ito went on quietly, studying her.

"A lot of heavy striking and dirty fighting taught by military types Sensei."

Sensei-Ito scowled a bit. "I suppose I'll have to teach you to unlearn all of your bad habits as well. Do you have any powers that might be an issue besides that energy wave that seems to go off whenever you move?"

"Yes sensei, I'm a lot tougher than I was before and can lift about a thousand pounds unaided."

Ito nodded thoughtfully. "The bandages?" He motioned to Caitlin's arms.

"Close encounter of the Ultraviolent kind, Sensei. I was trying to keep a student from having to go five on one."

"Not the smartest thing I've heard, but children are seldom sensible." He nodded. "Very well once you are healed I will allow you to demonstrate what combat skills you have. But before you leave, I want to know what made you and this other student think you could win five on one odds."

"We weren't fighting to win, sensei, we were fighting for time. We had made sure to report to security that there might be trouble."

Sensei-Ito nodded once again. "Very well, Miss Bardue. I expect to see you no later than monday here again. Sooner if you happen to be an exemplar."

Caitlin nodded. "Aye, Sensei."

* * *

Powers Lab was interesting. Mrs. Bohn was insightful and tried to instill common sense into her students. A few runs in the simulators were done. Caitlin couldn't due to her injuries, but all in all it was an interesting class. She was slightly uncomfortable in the classrooms, but no one else showed any sign that she was out of place, thinking she was simply another Brick type. She saw no reason to correct the notion.

Mrs. Chulkris gave her a smile as she entered the Magic theory class. Caitlin didn't think she'd ever get used to seeing plants growing from someone's body. She nodded to Earth Mother and scanned the room, eyes automatically locking on Sandra's serpentine form. She walked over and plopped down in the adjascent seat, ignoring the incredulous looks from the students who were less than friendly with the girl.

"Heya Diamond." Caitlin grinned.

"Hi!" Sandra immediately perked up and grinned. "I didn't know you were gonna be in this class."

"I kinda finangled my schedule with Circe. She was curious, but didn't really object."

"Cool. We're into a discussion of focusing crystals and how they work."

Caitlin nodded. "Think we can get together so I can get up to speed sometime? I'm way behind on all this finger-wiggling mumbo-jumbo."

"Hey, it's not..." Sandra caught the glint in Caitlin's eyes and her smirk and realized she was messing with her. "Oh you're gonna fit right in with our group."

"Kinda figured. We'd better shuddup now. Mrs. Chulkris looks like she wants to address the class."

Both girls payed attention to the lecture beginning. Mrs. Chulkris started the lecture in much the way Caitlin expected, but it rapidly became apparent that she expected audience participation. Turns out Sandra really knew what she was talking about. She kept up with the more esoteric concepts readily, even answering questions Caitlin couldn't figure out if there was a coherent answer to.

"Now can anyone tell me how to empower a crystal for use as a mystic aid?" The verdant woman asked the class. No hands raised.

Caitlin sighed and raised her hand when she realized that everyone was silent and Earth mother was staring right at her.

"Yes, Miss Bardue."

"Depends on what you want. Care to give an example so I can give a coherent answer?"

"A simple focus crystal that will allow one to channel energies into a ritual or spell to allow finer control." Mrs. Chulkris looked entirely too smug.

Caitlin thought for a minute, wandered up, palmed one of the crystals she had on the display, pocketed it and walked back to her desk. "Easiest way is to simply keep the crystal on your person for about a month or so, especially if you're casting. The more magic you use, the faster it attunes to you."

"Correct. Now I'm going to pass these out to the rest of you. Remember, for the full attunement it will take a month in most cases. Faster for some. Now what is the principle behind this Miss Bardue?"

"Search me. I can tell ya effort and result, but I never got a chance to study the whys and hows of the whole deal." Caitlin felt her face burning as a few students smirked at the new kid being put on the spot and choking.

Earth Mother nodded and went back to her lecture. "It's a simple process. The more exposed to magic an item becomes, the more sensitive to those energies it becomes. Some items have a natural resonance that allows for faster or more powerful results. Crystals are one of these. They don't require any ritual work per se for basic attunement, but more potent results can be attained with such. They aren't the most powerful foci, but they can help in a pinch."

The rest of the day went along in similar fashion, and Caitlin felt like her head was going to pop from the information glut that she barely understood. High school understanding of mysticism really didn't provide many clues to the more potent energies of the world.

When lunch rolled around she and Sandra wandered into the cafeteria, and the two loaded up their plates and enjoyed a nice, low key meal. Jericho and Razorback didn't make it before they finished, and Sandra went over some of the very basics of magic theory. She managed to dumb it down to Caitlin's level, but the ex-marine was left with the feeling that the shy, quiet girl was light years ahead of her in the brains department. The only advantage Caitlin had was twelve extra years of real-world experience, and an ability to break down complex ideas into their simplest forms and build from there.

When the two split off it was getting towards classes, so Caitlin went and picked up her metal case, wandering over to the store with her class lists. She picked up all the required materiels and a few she thought she might need later for random projects. The ballistic vest was problematic. She couldn't use her old one. It was too wide, and she needed something with a bit more stopping power than kevlar. She eventually settled on the matte black Mylar-weave vest with deforming ballistic plates. Someone called it a devisor special. Gauranteed to stop knives and bullets that weren't supernaturally accelerated. She picked up a sewing kit and some special thread from the section of mystic gear, and checked the lot out.

Her bank account took a heavy hit in fifteen minutes of shopping, but had enough to hold out for quite a while yet.

* * *

Physics was a breeze. The class was studying ballistics, something Caitlin knew a disgusting amount about. She managed to get by rather easily, even contributing meaningful commentary. Dr. Zalman was impressed at how accurately she was able to describe and diagram a ballistic arc, complete with ricochet patterns.

Magic Lab was interesting to say the least. Most of the students were concentrating on conjuring illusions and controlling small elemental energies. She watched and paid attention, as the effect the students had on the currents that underlied her vision was absolutely fascinating. The kids seemed to grasp and pull the currents into patterns and shapes that coalesced into actual effects. Diamondback wasn't the most adept at it, but she certainly put forth a lot of concentration and effort.

Mostly Caitlin sat back and was busy sewing mystic wards into her new Ballistic vest that matched up with the ones on her shirt. She was going to ask Circe to activate and empower them once she got the groundwork laid out. Circe said nothing, and everyone was too interested in the results of their work to notice her.

Basic Rifle Combat was a dud. She wasn't permitted to participate due to the fact that she couldn't yet wear her vest without cooking it off or something equally stupid. Gunny Bardue supervised, but they didn't get time to talk. She simply observed the class while continuing her sewing on the vest. The kids were using MILES gear and blanks in open combat, divided into two teams. The Seniors led the underclassmen, and Bardue supervised, hollering tactical information and invective at the students who weren't performing well. Not surprisingly, Deadeye was leading one of the teams. Breaker had control of the other team.

The two Grunts Team members were surprisingly effective leaders, and Caitlin had to suppress a long sigh. She'd been teaching the two since their Freshman year. Both were planning to join the Corps. and she'd wanted to be able to be the one to drop them off at MCRD Parris Island herself, and be able to be there when they graduated. Oh well. Such is life

The day ended, and she skipped the cafeteria, opting to grab her food to go. She went back to her room and continued her efforts to puzzle out that damned Artificer Ink. She knew she was missing something, something so basic that it was almost invisible. She felt like she was searching for a mithril needle in a stack of needles. But all in all, classes were good, and she was looking forward to her second chance at life. Maybe someday she'd be able to get her teaching job back. Maybe she'd be able to do something equally fulfilling. Only time would tell.