Thursday early evening, Oct 20th, 2016

I quickly walked through the tunnels, paying close attention to my surroundings as I did so. I’ve been attacked in these very tunnels before, and I was wary of it happening again.

“Um, Bianca,” Janine said from beside me as she glanced around nervously. “I think someone is following us…”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a grimace. “I think it might be Mouse.”

“What?” Janine gasped, looking back behind us. There was a quick shuffling sound from around the corner, as though someone was trying to duck back out of sight. “Why?”

I shrugged at that and let out a sigh. “Why do you think?” Then I shook my head and gave her a wry smile. “The Spy Kids have been following me around for a couple weeks now. Apparently, they think I’m a dangerous supervillain or something.”

At first, the Spy Kids had only been trying to bug me, but they’d become a little more active in their snooping. Lately, I’d seen several of them watching me or even following me around, usually Mouse. I had no idea how many times she might have spied on me without my knowledge, because when she shrank down, she could be really hard to spot.

Janine gave me a look of disbelief. “You should tell security that they’re stalking you…”

“Do you really think it would do any good?” I asked. But before she could answer, I explained, “And if I did go to security, it would only make more problems for me.”

“That just stinks,” she grumbled, glaring back the way we’d just come, as though daring our tail to come out and reveal themselves. When nobody did so, she quietly asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry,” I assured Janine. “I’ve got a plan.” Now, if I only felt as confident as I sounded.

We continued walking through the tunnels, passing a couple other students, though they ignored us as they went about their own business. That suited me just fine because I didn’t want to deal with anyone else right now, at least, nobody besides Janine.

Once we’d gone a little further, I decided that it was time to unveil my secret weapon. I reached into a pouch on my belt and pulled out a single piece of paper, a card about the same size and shape as a tarot card, though this one had a rune painted onto it rather than some picture.

“What are you doing?” Janine asked with a curious expression.

“Just leaving a little something for our tail,” I answered with a faint smirk.

With that, I poured a little essence into the card, activating the spell that I’d previously drawn. This was a new spell that I’d figured out the other day, one that was actually a variation of a generally more useful spell.

One of the runes that I’d learned a couple weeks ago was for a ‘don’t look here’ spell, a fairly common type of spell that simply made it so that people didn’t pay much attention to whatever the spell had been cast on. It wasn’t invisibility, but it often served the same purpose. My new rune, the one on this card, translated as ‘look here.’ It did almost the exact opposite.

As soon as the rune began to glow, I slapped the card against the tunnel wall. The card turned black and crumbled to ash, yet the glowing rune remained…now on the wall. This wouldn’t last long, but it should last long enough to lose our tail.

“Come on,” I told Janine as I hurried down the tunnel. However, I paused a little further down and paused. “Wait…”

When I looked back, our tail was revealed. As I’d guessed, it was Mouse, who was just standing in place, staring at a certain spot on the wall as though it was especially interesting. The distraction wouldn’t last long so I gently nudged Janine and we continued on our way.

“I’ve been wanting to try out that spell,” I told Janine with a grin.

A minute later, we reached the area where my new lab was located. I’d spent the last couple weeks getting it fixed up to suit my purposes, and it was nearly finished. In fact, that was why Janine and I were heading there at the moment.

Just up ahead, there was what appeared to be a janitor closet, which held a hidden door to the lab space. However, Janine and I walked right past this closet, not even bothering to slow down.

Unfortunately, my secret lab wasn’t quite as secret as I would have liked. Last year, Samantha Harris...Tek Rider…had used this place for her lab, and she was the one who’d told Janine that she could have it. Janine had then given the space to me since it was far too small for what she needed, but just about perfect for my own needs. So, not only did Samantha know about the space, but so did everyone that she’d told about it…or might yet tell. And because of that, I’d taken a few extra security precautions.

The first precaution that I’d taken had been to completely seal off the old door while creating a new one. This had been relatively easy, thanks to my built-in earth elemental spell. That spell let me shape and control stone and concrete, so I’d been able to dig out a new entrance without much effort. However, it had been time consuming since I could only use that spell for very short bursts, and then I’d have to wait an hour or so before I could use it again. It had taken me three days to move the door this way.

I walked just a little further, then turned the corner into an even more unused section of tunnel. This section was poorly lit and had lots of shadows against the wall. In one of those shadowed spots, there was the new doorway, positioned so that the shadows made it hard to see. The ‘don’t look here’ spell that I’d also placed on the doorway would further prevent anyone from noticing it.

The door itself was coated with a thin layer of concrete so that it looked like the concrete walls around it, though the coloration was just a little off and you could still see the outline of the door. This was where the shadows and spell came in, since those helped to hide those details.

“You did a great job on this door,” I told Janine, who’d made this door for me. Apparently, she’d gotten advice on how to make hidden lab doors from one of her devisor friends. “I can barely even tell it’s here…”

“Thank you,” she told me, looking both proud and embarrassed at the same time.

With those words, I pushed on the door and it swung in, revealing a closet sized space and another door. The first door, the outer door, was just for camouflage. The second door, the inner door, was the real entrance to my lab.

Janine had made the inner door as well, or at least, most of it. I’d made my own contributions to the effort, mostly in the form of runes that I’d etched in the metal surface, so the door had ended up as a combined project. And right beside the door, there was a digital keypad.

Ignoring the keypad, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a magnet, which I stuck against the door in a very specific spot. This magnet pulled a small pin that normally kept a key gear in the lock from moving. Without the magnet to move this pin out of the way, the door simply couldn’t move, even with the correct code. Janine had outdone herself with this clever bit of design.

Once I heard the click that told me the pin had moved, I entered the passcode…though not on the keypad. Instead, I used my finger to draw a specific rune in the middle of the door. This rune matched one that I’d etched on the inside of the door and completed a spell, a spell that released the primary lock and deactivated the magical seal at the same time.

I pushed the door open and stepped through. Janine followed close behind me, making sure to close the outer door and then the inner one. Once we were both inside my lab, I grinned.

“I love what you did with that door,” I told Janine again. “You’ve got a knack for locks.”

“It’s all mechanical sequencing,” Janine responded self-consciously. “And not very complicated…”

“I still appreciate it,” I told her seriously.

Janine smiled at that, blushing a bit. “I never would have thought of using a magic spell as part of the sequence... That was really neat…”

I nodded in agreement, then admitted, “I like having such a unique lock on my door. It’ll make it a lot harder for people to figure out.”

Of course, the unique nature of my lock made it a lot more secure. There were people at Whateley who could hack any keypad or digital system, who could pick locks and crack safes. However, it would be a lot harder to bypass something when you didn’t know how it worked.

Janine crouched down and began looking over the back of the door and the exposed mechanisms. She’d come along to tweak the lock and make a few minor adjustments. And while she did that, I looked over the rest of my lab.

My new lab was technically more of a hidden workspace than an actual laboratory, but it sounded a lot more exciting to call it a lab. It wasn’t very large, and in fact, it was just a little smaller than the dorm room that I shared with Morgana. But, unlike my dorm room, there were no beds to take up space, nor did I have to share it with anyone else.

There was a long workbench set against one wall, which was perfect for when I needed to make my various inks and chalks. Along the opposite wall, I’d placed bookshelves and cabinets to store all my tools and supplies, including the ones I’d finished preparing. And finally, I had a desk where I could work on any of my actual spells…or where I could just do my homework away from the madhouse that was Poe.

Of course, if anyone else came into my lab, one of the first things that they’d notice were all the ‘doodles’ on the walls and ceiling. These glyphs were various protective wards, similar to what I’d placed around my dorm room…but even more numerous. Some people would say that I got a little carried away and was being paranoid, especially Morgana, but I had a good reason for all the wards.

I scowled as I began thinking about my list of enemies. Some of them, like the Spy Kids, were more of an annoyance than a real threat, but not all of my enemies were so harmless. Scorn and his agents were anything but harmless.

“Not now,” I muttered, forcing my thoughts away from that topic.

I’d come to my lab for a reason, so I might as well get to it. And with that, I opened up a bottle of ink that I’d recently made and began to add a few more wards to the wall. This was a new type of ward that I’d just learned today, and after I got back to my dorm, I’d have to add one of them there too.

Once I finished up with the new wards, I took a step back and looked them over again. There were a lot of them, which was a good thing, though it was possible to have too much of a good thing. After all, each of these wards took a little essence to operate, and if I wasn’t careful, I could end up tying too much of my essence to this kind of thing and not leaving enough for other uses.

“Are you done?” I asked Janine?

“Yeah,” she responded. “All done.”

I moved closer and examined the door, not really seeing any difference. There were a couple bars and gears, along with a dozen runes that I’d etched into the metal. After a moment, I touched the runes and recharged them with a little more essence.

While I did this, I thought about what else I could do to protect my new lab. Maybe I could get a real security system installed, with video cameras watching the outside. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the resources for that kind of thing, at least not here at Whateley. That was one of the reasons that Janine and I had to come up with our own security for the door.

“Now that we’re done here,” I suggested, “why don’t we go to your workshop so I can recharge your wards too?”

“Sure,” Janine responded cheerfully. “Then we should probably head back to our dorms. If we wait too much longer, we might be out past curfew.”

“Good point,” I agreed, taking one more look around my lab and smiling with pride.

This was my space. Mine. This was not something that I’d inherited from my grandmother, but which I’d made for myself. Well, admittedly, Janine had helped me set it up, but since she was my self-proclaimed ‘personal assistant’, that didn’t count. The important thing was that my grandmother…nor anyone else in the Family, had anything to do with this place.

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Friday morning, Oct 21st, 2016

Powers Theory was an interesting class, at least in theory. After all, it’s a class about the various types of powers and how they work, which was an inherently exciting subject. However, the class did have one major flaw. It was my first class of the day.

I let out a wide yawn, though I quickly covered my mouth with my hand in the hope that our teacher didn’t notice. It wouldn’t do to get caught falling asleep in class.

“Wake up,” Morgana whispered to me.

“I am awake,” I responded with a scowl. Of course, I wouldn’t turn down a chance to get another hour or so in bed.

“And this is why you should start drinking coffee,” my roommate told me with a smug look. “Look at me, all wide awake…”

“And annoying,” I muttered with a roll of my eyes. “Besides, I don’t like coffee. You know I prefer hot chocolate…”

Morgana gave me a look of mock offense. “I wouldn’t touch that stuff you Americans call chocolate. And just for that, I’m not giving you any of MY chocolate…”

My roommate held up a chocolate bar for me to see, though I didn’t recognize the brand. The label said Askinosie, which was a kind that I’d never seen before.

“My sister brought some when she came to check up on me,” Morgana said, a reminder of her burnout and time in Doyle. “A little taste of home.”

I was about to tease her about the reputation of British cuisine when I suddenly noticed that Laura had been listening in on our conversation and now had a pained look on her face. Of course, she was a bit touchy about the subject of chocolate, as her guilty expression clearly reminded me.

“Oh,” Morgana muttered, noticing Laura’s expression as well. Without a word, she quickly tucked her chocolate bar back out of sight.

Since I was in need of a quick change of topic, I looked around and spotted Janine. She was seated on my other side but had been completely silent for most of the class, and not just because she wanted to pay attention to the lecture. At that moment, she was drawing something in a notebook.

I quickly glanced to the front of the classroom to make sure the teacher wasn’t paying attention, then quietly asked Janine, “What are you working on?”

Janine gave a slight start of surprise, looking flustered for a moment. Then she slid her notebook over so I could see the page, though I couldn’t really make out much. It looked like there were gears and wheels. It looked like she was working on something that resembled the lock mechanisms on the door to my lab.

“I had so much fun working on your door,” Janine told me, “that I decided to work on some more security stuff for my own lab…”

“Nice,” I told her, taking another glance to the front of the classroom. So far, our teacher didn’t seem to either notice or care that some of us were talking during the lecture.

Janine nodded at that, getting excited. “I’m gonna ask Smith to help me fabricate the parts…”

This time, I was the one who nodded in understanding. Eddy Walters, AKA Smith, was a gadgeteer who specialized in metallurgy and old fashioned blacksmithing. I didn’t really know him, but Janine and Laura had both talked about him before. Apparently, he helped a lot of the other gadgeteers and devisors with metal parts fabrication.

I wanted to ask Janine more questions but our teacher had finally noticed the conversation and gave us a warning glare. I bit my tongue and tried to listen to the lecture, or at least, pretend that I was paying attention. Unfortunately, without the conversation to distract me, I found myself fighting the urge to nod off again.

When class ended, I let out another yawn as I got up to leave. At least the walk to my next class would get my blood flowing a bit and help me to wake up.

I glanced to Janine as she turned to leave and suddenly noticed something…off. It was her silhouette from the side… Was she bigger up top? My eyes widened slightly as I realized that she was a little bigger, by maybe a cup or two.

Was it natural growth that I just hadn’t noticed until now, or had Janine been eating some of Laura’s chocolate? Either way, I wasn’t about to ask. That kind of topic was WAY too personal and embarrassing. Still, that didn’t stop me from wondering about it all the way to Kirby Hall and my Magic Theory class.

After Magic Theory started, I continued thinking about Janine, but not her bust. At least, not JUST her bust. For some reason, my thoughts kept going back to that, though I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a pair of my own now.

Janine had been helping me quite a bit lately, ever since she decided that she was going to be my personal assistant. She helped me organize my homework and assignment due dates, cut up card stock into the right size for me to use for spell slips, and of course, there was my lab. Not only did she find the location for me, but she’d done a lot of work with the new door and its lock. And she hadn’t asked for ANYTHING in return.

I frowned at that, my cautious…or as Morgana would say, my paranoid nature…couldn’t help but wonder WHY Janine was being so helpful. Was she trying to get close to me so she could spy for someone like Esquire or the Spy Kids? Was she trying to get in good with the new White Lady and the Family? However, I quickly pushed those thoughts away, knowing that they were nonsense. If I’d really thought that Janine had those kinds of motivations, I never would have let her get close to me, much less work on the security for my new lab.

And after everything she’d done for me, what had I done for her…besides just providing a few security wards for her own workspace? Not much, I reluctantly admitted. I put her in danger from my enemies and caused gossip about how she might be my minion. She didn’t deserve that kind of thing. She deserved better than that.

With a wry smile and a faint chuckle, my thoughts returned to the previous topic of her improved assets and I mused, “Maybe some new clothes…”

Then I paused as I realized that this might not be a bad idea. Girls liked new clothes, didn’t they? I might be a girl myself now, but I wasn’t exactly the girliest of girls. Maybe I should ask Laura…

“Hey,” I leaned over and whispered to Morgana, trying to keep it pretty quiet so that Grimes didn’t notice. “I was thinking about Sunday…”

“What about it?” Morgana whispered back. “You’re not gonna back out, are you?”

“No,” I quickly assured her. “I’m still up for our shopping trip to Berlin…”

“Good,” she responded. “After we filled out the paperwork and went through the trouble of finding an escort, it would be a shame if that was all for nothing…”

I nodded at that, not about to tell her that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of shopping. At least, not traditional ‘girly’ shopping, for things like clothes and makeup. However, I did want to get into Berlin because there were a couple shops I wanted to check out…such as one for stationery supplies. They were bound to have some good card stock and ink that I could use. And of course, it would be nice to get off campus for a bit.

“We’ve already asked Laura to come to Berlin with us,” I said carefully. “So, I was thinking about bringing Janine too…”

Morgana gave me a faint look of surprise, then grinned. “I don’t see why not… The more the merrier.”

“Thanks,” I responded with a faint smile. “I wanted to thank her for all of her help, so thought that I might treat her to some new clothes or something.”

Morgana smirked at that. “About time you two are going somewhere with all this…”

I blinked in confusion. “Of course. We’re going to Berlin.”

My roommate let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner. Why she was being so dramatic, I wasn’t sure. But this was Morgana, so who knew what she was thinking half the time.

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Crystal Hall, Friday late morning, Oct 21st, 2016

Melody Sheridon purposely strolled through the cafeteria, simultaneously strutting a bit so as to show off for all the students around her while also doing her best to ignore them. She was there for a reason, and it wasn’t for lunch.

“There he is,” Melody mused when she spotted her target.

Bobby Grace…Crysis…was sitting at his usual table, by himself as usual. He didn’t have many friends, for which Melody was thankful. That made it easier for her to get a private word with him…and to manipulate him.

“Hello, Bobby,” Melody greeted him as she sat down at the table, not waiting for an invitation.

“Chained Melody,” he responded with a nod, using her codename.

“I told you that you can just call me Melody,” she responded with a flirtatious wink. “No need to use codenames between friends…”

Crysis raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t say anything. This annoyed Melody a little since he refused to fall for her charms as easily as most guys. Of course, she could use a little magical persuasion, though there was no need for such tactics with him. After all, they already shared similar goals, hence their alliance.

“You know,” Melody commented almost casually. “I happened to overhear something interesting today in Magic Theory…”

“Happened to overhear?” Crysis asked, looking just a little skeptical.

Melody smirked at that, not bothering to admit that there was no ‘happened to’ involved. She’d intentionally eavesdropped on the conversation, though she wasn’t so crass as to straight out say so.

“I happened to overhear a conversation between Glyph and one of her freak friends,” Melody continued.

This suddenly had Crysis’ attention. “Oh?” he responded, gesturing for her to continue.

Melody silently examined her fingernails, checking for any chips in her manicure, though of course, that wasn’t the real purpose of this little act. The real purpose of her act was for the dramatic pause, of catching Crysis’ attention and then making him wait.

“Well,” Melody finally said, looking away from her nails and seeing the impatience on Crysis’ face. “Glyph and her pet freak were talking about a shopping trip to Berlin this Sunday…”

Crysis suddenly sat up straight. “She’s leaving campus?”

“That generally comes with a shopping trip,” Melody responded.

The blonde exemplar was feeling quite pleased with herself, especially for having cast her spell in class without Grimes catching her. Sure, Glyph might be immune to most of Melody’s spells, but Melody didn’t need to cast a single spell on Glyph or her friends. In fact, the spell that Melody had used, had only been cast on herself. It was a simple little spell that just improved her own hearing for a short time. That spell was turning out to be quite useful.

“Anyway,” Melody explained a bit smugly, “I already have an idea of how we can use this… It would be pretty easy to follow them on their trip, then whisper a few suggestions to the shop owners…” An almost predatory smile formed on her lips. “It won’t take much to get that pasty freak and her friends accused of shoplifting…or worse. I can almost guarantee that they end up in jail…or in so much trouble that that they might even get kicked out of the school…”

“NO!” Crysis snapped.

Melody blinked in surprise. “What…?”

“Stay away from Glyph on Sunday,” Crysis ordered. “Stay away from Berlin…”

“Why?” Melody asked in confusion. “This is the perfect opportunity…”

“Yes, it is,” Crysis agreed with an almost predatory grin. Then he stood up and began to leave the table. “I’ve got to make a call…”

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Crystal Hall, Friday late morning, Oct 21st, 2016

“How does your shoulder feel?” Morgana asked me.

“It still hurts,” I admitted, rotating my arm and wincing a little.

“Sorry,” Laura said, looking a little guilty.

I gave Laura a wry smile to show that there were no hard feelings. “All’s fair in BMA…”

“But maybe next time,” Morgana added with a smirk, “try not to twist her arm out of the socket…”

I nodded at that. “At least I heal fast.” In fact, I had no doubt that by the time lunch was over, my shoulder would be fine.

A moment later, I turned my attention back to my tray and the large amount of food that was just waiting to be selected. I added a slice of pizza to my tray, even as I mourned the fact that it wasn’t REAL pizza. Now, give me a nice deep dish from Lou Malnati’s or Giordano’s… Now THAT was pizza.

After throwing a few more items on my tray and finishing with the lunch line, I started making my way towards the M3 table where my friends and I usually ate. But while I was making the relatively short journey, I noticed something from the corner of my eye. Or more accurately, someone.

Crysis was already sitting at another table, eating his own lunch. He was well away from my own path, but I took careful note of where he was since he was always a potential problem.

My eyes narrowed a little as I stared at that table, and not just because Crysis was sitting there. Chained Melody, the obnoxious ‘mean girl’ from my magic classes was sitting there as well. And this wasn’t’ the first time that I’d seen those two together over the last couple weeks.

“What are you two up to?” I muttered suspiciously.

Maybe I was being a little paranoid. Maybe there was a legitimate reason for those two to be hanging out together like that. For all I knew, they could be friends or even dating. Maybe.

“But not likely,” I added.

When two people whom I considered to be enemies kept hanging out with each other, the suspicious…or maybe that was the realistic part of my mind…screamed that something was up. And whatever they were up to, I seriously doubted that it was anything good for me.

“Hey, what’s up?” Morgana abruptly asked from behind me.

“Um…nothing,” I answered awkwardly.

My roommate gave me a skeptical look. “Is that why you just stopped and stood there in the middle of the cafeteria?”

I looked down at my tray then glanced back at the table where Crysis and Chained Melody were sitting. Neither of them seemed to have noticed me staring, though as I watched, Crysis got up and hurried away.

“I just noticed Crysis and Chained Melody were talking with each other,” I admitted as I continued towards our table.

“Those twats?” Morgana asked with a snort. “Yeah, that can’t be good. But never mind them for now. I mean, you wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite by worrying about those idiots.”

“Good point,” I agreed with a weak smile.

When we reached the table, I saw that Vic, Jimmy, and Tia were already there. And while I didn’t know what they were talking about, I could make a guess based off the fact that Tavi, Jimmy’s little holographic ferret VI, was dressed up like an Oompa Loompa and was dancing around.

“Don’t let Laura see that,” I pointed out, gesturing back the way we’d come. “You know she’s still pretty sensitive about that whole chocolate thing.”

“Okay, Tavi,” Jimmy told the ferret. “Knock it off.”

“Okie dokie, boss,” Tavi responded with a crisp salute. However, the cartoon ferret was smirking, which made me curious about what he was up to.

A moment later, the orange tone faded from the ferret’s fur while the green wig vanished entirely. Tavi kept the white coveralls though, and a moment later, his” fur turned blue and a little white cap appeared on its head.

“Oooh, that is not any better,” Vic said.

Morgana just laughed. “No, it’s perfect.”

Laura reached the table a few seconds later and paused to take in the sight. The blue Tavi was now singing, “La la la-la la la…” As she watched the VI, her incredulous stare turned into a glare.

“What’s the matter?” Morgana teased Laura. “Not a big fan of Tavi Smurf’s singing?”

“Not especially,” Laura responded, setting her tray down right on top of the ferret, which vanished.

At this point, everyone besides Laura was laughing, though after a couple seconds, she began to chuckle as well. Tavi reappeared beside Jimmy, once again looking like his normal ferret self.

“Oh,” I announced, quickly glancing around the cafeteria to see if anyone was paying too much attention to our table. “I almost forgot…”

I’d been so distracted that I nearly forgot about my protections. Without another word, I reached into the pouch on my belt and pulled out a card that was just about the same size as a tarot card. This was a spell slip, or more accurately, a spell card.

Both sides of the card had runes drawn on them, spells to prevent eavesdropping and ensure a little privacy. With the way the Spy Kids kept stalking me, I had to take some precautions to keep them and anyone else from listening in on my conversations.

With only a little concentration, I pushed some essence into the spells, causing the runes to glow a little. Then with a well-practiced gesture, I casually tossed the card right to the middle of the table.

“How many of those things do you go through?” Tia asked, gesturing to the card. “You do that every time we eat here…”

“A lot,” I admitted. There was a reason I needed a place where I could make all my own inks in private.

Morgana snorted. “She makes a bunch of those things every night.”

“I make more than just privacy charms,” I point out a little defensively.

My hand went to the pouch on my belt, which contained a couple dozen spell cards. About a half dozen of those were privacy charms while the others contained a variety of effects that I thought might be useful.

“I have to replace all the ones I use in BMA,” I explained.

“That makes sense,” Laura responded thoughtfully. “Too bad you can’t just reuse your spells. Devises are a lot better that way.”

I just nodded, wishing I could reuse my spell cards too. It would save me a LOT of time and effort if I didn’t have to keep making more of them. Of course, it would also save me a lot of time and effort if I could simply print out my cards instead of having to draw all the runes by hand, but that didn’t work either.

“It is what it is,” I said with a sigh. My powers had a lot of advantages, but they came with an equal number of disadvantages. “If I want to use magic, I have to put in the time and effort.”

“I can relate to that,” Laura responded, probably thinking about how much time she’d spent in the devisor labs.

With that, I went to take another bite of my pizza, only to suddenly have something appear in the air right above my plate. I leapt back with an ‘EEP’, stumbling over my seat and barely catching myself.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Tia demanded, leaping to her feet and pointing to my tray.

Whatever it was that had suddenly appeared in the air, had fallen right into the middle of my food. It wasn’t moving so I leaned in for a better look.

“What…?” I asked in surprise and a bit of confusion. “It’s…”

“A rose,” Morgana finished for me.

Morgana reached over to my plate and picked up the single red rose. She held it up, revealing that there was a small tag tied to it.

“I think it says something,” Laura pointed out.

“Yeah,” Morgana agreed.

I reached for the tag and turned it for a better look. The words ‘TO GLYPH, FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER’ was written on the tag.

My eyes widened and I recoiled back from the rose, feeling a bit stunned and confused. Then I quickly looked around the cafeteria, trying to see any indications of where this had come from. When I didn’t see any clues, I turned to my roommate.

“Is this a joke?” I gave Morgana an accusatory look.

Morgana just burst out laughing. “Not from me, it isn’t.” Then she gave me an evil grin and pointed out, “Looks like you’ve got a secret admirer.”

I just groaned, knowing that this was only going to be the beginning of the teasing.

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Poe Cottage, Friday evening, Oct 21st, 2016

I sat at the desk in my room, staring down at the stack of spell cards in front of me. Then I looked at the half dozen blank cards that I still needed to finish.

“The ink is getting low,” I commented, staring at the bottle while I flexed my hand to prevent it from cramping due to all the writing I’d been doing. “It looks like I’ll have to spend some time in my lab tomorrow…”

That made me smile a little since I finally had a place where I could make my inks, without worrying about someone messing with my materials. Since I sometimes used my own blood while making my inks, securing my workspace and materials was absolutely critical.

After wiggling my fingers for a few more seconds, I reached out for the next blank card and frowned, considering which spell I wanted to draw. I’d already replaced all the cards that I’d used during the day, so this was an opportunity to expand my options.

Once I decided on the spell, I picked up a fine-tipped paint brush and dipped it into my ink. The symbols I needed were complicated, but I’d already practiced them enough to memorize their every line and squiggle. Still, I moved slowly, being as careful and precise as possible since a single smudge or drip could ruin the entire card.

“There,” I announced when I’d finished the glyphs. “A silence spell…” This was a variation of the spell I often used in the room to keep Morgana’s snoring from waking me up. “You never know when something like this will be useful.”

I carefully moved the card to the side so that it could finish drying. Before I was completely finished, I’d spray the card with a little fixative that would help protect the rune from future smudging and smearing.

“Maybe I should start laminating my cards too,” I muttered with a scowl of annoyance. My cards were still vulnerable to large amounts of water, a weakness that I’d discovered after a sparring match with Vic. “Might not hurt to do that with a few cards…just in case.”

By the time I finished inking my last card, most of the others had dried. I sprayed the fixative on the inked sides, then set them aside to dry again.

Once I was finished with my new cards, I began to put everything away, including storing the remaining ink in my safe. Since it had my blood as one of the ingredients, it could potentially be used against me. The fact that I’d already processed the blood meant that this wouldn’t be easy, but better safe than sorry.

Now that I was finished, it was time to take care of something else. There was another bit of business that was badly overdue, and the sooner it was done, the better.

I left my room and made a short trip though the cottage, going up the stairs as I did so. I was looking for a specific person, so it was fortunate that I knew exactly where her room was.

Before I could quite reach my destination, I saw my target, walking down the hallway towards her dorm room. It looks like I caught her just in time because if I’d been even fifteen seconds later, I would have had to knock.

“Scrye,” I called out, just loud enough to get her attention.

“Bianca,” Scrye responded, giving me a polite nod and pausing to wait for me. “I assume you have some business to discuss?”

“Of course,” I agreed with a polite smile.

Scrye was one of the top information brokers on campus, and especially within Poe. She wasn’t quite a fixer, though she served many of the same functions.

“What can I…?” Scrye started to ask, only to abruptly pause and stare down the hall behind me.

I quickly looked back and saw a thin boy with a monkey tail who was standing at the far end of the hallway. Of course, I recognized Sam Verner, also known as Tiptoe. He was a freshman, like me, so we had a couple classes together.

“What…?” I started to ask, then bit back my question. Sam was a member of the Spy Kids, so I doubted that it was mere coincidence that he’d come up to this floor at the same time that I did…especially right behind me. With a scowl of annoyance, I turned my attention back to Scrye. “Can we talk somewhere a little more private.”

“Of course,” Scrye agreed, giving me a polite smile and gesturing to her room. “There is something that I’ve wanted to discuss with you anyway…”

“Oh?” I responded, a little curious.

“Please, step into my office,” Scrye said, gesturing to her room. “We should have a little more privacy in there.”

We stepped into Scrye’s room, though I paused just long enough to glance back down the hallway. Tiptoe was gone. Once we were inside, Scrye carefully closed the door and then paused to study me for a moment.

“Now,” Scrye began as she gave me a speculative look. “You had business to discuss?”

“Yes,” I agreed, gesturing in the direction that I’d seen Tiptoe. “As you might have noticed, some students have been following me around…”

“The Intelligence Cadet Corps,” Scrye commented with a wry look. “I have noticed.”

I scowled in annoyance, then tried to keep the frustration out of my voice as I continued, “They’ve been following me around for weeks… Spying on me. Putting bugs on me and my friends…”

“I can sympathize,” the information broker said. Then she smiled faintly. “And I assume, since you are coming to me, that you want some information regarding them…”

“Yes,” I said again, nodding as I did so. “Since they’ve been sticking their noses in my business, I think it’s about the time for me to do the same thing to them.”

Scrye laughed at that. “Oh, I definitely approve. Enough to give you a small discount. However, this information will cost.”

“Of course,” I responded, having already known as much.

The next several minutes were spent discussing what I wanted and how much it would cost. We negotiated a bit and finally settled on the price.

“Very well then,” Scrye told me once the negotiations were finished. “I’ll have the files to you tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” I told her, looking forward to reading those files. “And earlier, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something…” I gave her a curious look. “Assuming it wasn’t about this…”

“No,” Scrye responded, looking just a little smug. “That topic is a different one entirely, though I must admit, there is some crossover…”

“That…isn’t very clear,” I admitted, giving her a curious look.

Scrye nodded at that. “I have some associates who asked me to speak with you,” she began to explain, looking as though she was carefully choosing her words. That care tickled my wariness, making me just a little suspicious about what she really meant…and what she wasn’t saying. “I have been asked to extend an invitation…”

But just then, the door suddenly flung open, making Scrye and I both jump. I snapped around, only to see a girl burst into the room. She was an attractive girl with an athletic physique, and short dark hair that was in a bit of a punk style.

“Cherry,” Scrye greeted her roommate, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, though not succeeding.

The girl was Kerry Swanson, Scrye’s roommate, so this was her room too. I wasn’t surprised by her presence, only by how she’d burst through the door. Then again, this was Cherry Bomb. I would have been more surprised if she’d calmly knocked on the door or announced her presence in some way.

“Hey, Callista,” Cherry Bomb greeted her roommate before nodding to me. “Bianca.”

“Hello,” I greeted her politely.

“Are we still on for Sunday?” Cherry Bomb asked with a broad grin.

I nodded, but before I could say anything, Scrye announced, “I can’t believe they’re letting you escort students off campus…”

“I’ll have you know that I’m a member of the Future Superheroes of America,” Cherry Bomb exclaimed with a look of mock offense. “I’m a very responsible person…”

Scrye just snorted and pointed out, “Last I knew, YOU were required to have an escort anytime you left campus… Especially after what happened in Boston last year…”

Cherry Bomb gave a look of mock offense before grinning. “Boston was a LOT of fun…”

“Of course, it was,” Scrye replied in a wry tone. “You blew things up…including a police car. I swear, the only reason that you’re with the Cape Squad was so that you’d have an excuse to legally blow things up…”

Cherry Bomb just shrugged, not bothering to deny that accusation. I stared at the two of them for a moment, shaking my head. I’d never seen Scrye quite like this before. She was usually calm, collected, and professional, so it was a little startling to see her bickering with her roommate the same way I did with Morgana.

For a brief moment, I wondered if they might be more than roommates. After all, they were both lesbians… Well, technically, Cherry Bomb was known around Poe to be aggressively bi, but the point still stood. Still, it was none of my business.

“I’ll see you, Sunday,” I told Cherry Bomb before nodding to Scrye and politely excusing myself from their room. Obviously, my meeting with Scrye was over with. Then, as I hurried down the hallway, still thinking about what they’d said about ‘Boston’, I muttered, “Maybe we should have asked Rook to be our escort instead.”

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

Poe Cottage, Saturday morning, Oct 22nd, 2016

“Why did I sign up for a class on Saturday mornings?” I grumbled as I adjusted my backpack over my shoulder.

“Because you hate sleeping in?” Bailey asked with a smirk.

“Because you’re a masochist?” Morgana teased.

“Because you weren’t given much choice?” Laura responded wryly.

Morgana nodded. “Good point. I knew I wasn’t wasting a good Saturday morning of my own free will.”

I glared back at my roommate, deciding that she was way too energetic for this time of the morning. Of course, the coffee mug in her hand was probably responsible for that. And the sight of that was enough to make me wonder if there was a spell of protection from caffeine. That would teach her to be so awake. Then again, that would leave me to deal with a grumpy dragon-girl, which would probably be even worse.

With a sigh, I turned my attention back to the task of making the journey across campus to the classroom, which seemed like a monumental task at the moment, especially since we hadn’t even left our cottage yet. Oh what I wouldn’t give for a nice quiet Saturday morning with no classes, and nothing else to do except catch up on my reading.

“You’re lucky you don’t have to go to classes this morning,” I said, looking to Laura and Baily.

“Maybe not classes,” Laura pointed out with a sigh of her own. “But I still have a lot to do…”

“A mad scientist’s work is never done,” Morgana commented before taking another sip of coffee. “Those twisted perversions of science don’t build themselves after all.”

“Very funny,” Laura responded in a tone that made it clear that she didn’t think it was funny at all. I snickered faintly.

After this, Morgana and I continued on our way. We were just about to leave Poe when Mrs. Horton greeted us at the entrance.

“Bianca,” our house mother told me, “someone left a package here for you…”

“What?” I asked, a little surprised.

The only package that I’d been expecting were the Spy Kid dossiers that I’d bought from Scrye, but those had already been delivered straight to my room. I gave Mrs. Horton a curious look.

“Someone delivered this a short time ago,” she explained as she held out small box.

I cautiously accepted the box, only to notice that there was a tag on it. ‘TO GLYPH, FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER’

My eyes widened at this and Morgana leaned over for a better look. As soon as my roommate read the tag, she began snickering. “Another one…”

I glared at the box suspiciously. The box was about eight inches long, four inches wide, and two inches deep. It was light, and when I shook it, it rattled.

“Well?” Morgana urged me. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“I’d rather not,” I admitted, though I was a bit curious. Then, letting out an exasperated sigh, I muttered, “Fine…”

A few seconds later, after taking a deep breath, I opened the box. I was startled to see that it was full of chocolates. There were a dozen of them, looking nice and tasty. My eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Wow,” Morgana said with a whistle. “It looks like your secret admirer is fairly serious. Flowers and now chocolates. If you hold out, you might even get some jewelry out of this.”

That earned my roommate a glare, right before I unceremoniously dropped the entire box into the garbage can beside the door.

“We’d better hurry,” I told Morgana through clenched teeth. “We don’t want to be late to class…”

I didn’t say anything as I quickly walked across campus, and neither did Morgana, much to my surprise. Then again, with that gleam in her eyes, I knew she wouldn’t be silent for long. She now had more material to tease me with, and I had no doubt that she was going to use it.

My suspicions were proven correct, when almost as soon as we sat down in our costuming class, Morgana exclaimed in mock horror, “I can’t believe you threw away that whole box of chocolates…”

I groaned at that, realizing exactly why my roommate had held off on her teasing. She’d wanted to wait until we were in class and she had an audience.

“What do you mean?” Tanya asked, giving us a curious look.

Taka, who also sat close to us, also turned his attention in our direction. However, he didn’t say anything, probably because he wanted to get a better idea of what was going on before then.

“Bianca’s secret admirer struck again,” Morgana explained with an evil grin.

“Secret admirer?” Taka asked, though whether it was because he didn’t know I had a secret admirer or that he didn’t know what one was, I wasn’t sure.

“Sure,” Morgana continued, eagerly embarrassing me in front of our friends. “Last night, they gave her a rose, and this morning, they gave her a box of chocolates…”

“Chocolates,” Tanya mused. “So, you really do have a secret admirer…” She had a look of excitement in her eyes as she leaned forward. “That’s great…”

“Not really,” I grumbled self-consciously. I was squirming in my seat, something which I fully blamed on my roommate. “It’s annoying…”

Tanya gave me a look of surprise. “Annoying?”

“Whomever it is,” Morgana continued cheerfully. “He…or she…is going to have their poor heart broke.”

I glared at my roommate. “I already have Mouse and her friends following me around. I don’t need anyone else…if it wasn’t them in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” Tanya asked, looking to Morgana rather than me.

“Oh,” my roommate explained as she shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. “Bianca here threw the whole box of chocolate straight into the rubbish.”

Tanya looked almost aghast at that. “Why would you do that?”

I snorted. “Would you eat something when you had absolutely no idea where it came from?” I shook my head at that. “For all I know, some practical joker tried slipping me some of Laura’s chocolate…”

“That is a good point,” Morgana admitted. “I kind of wish I’d thought of doing that.” She chuckled for a moment before admitting, “There’s a person or two whom I wouldn’t mind slipping some of that to…”

“See,” I gestured to Morgana. “This is exactly why I’d be stupid to eat any of those chocolates. Hell, they could have been laced with laxative…or worse.”

“Worse?” Tanya asked in a curious tone.

“Worse,” I repeated, thinking about all the poisons that could go into something like that. There were a lot of people at Whateley who wished me harm and I wouldn’t put it past any of them to try something like this. “I am NOT stupid enough to eat anything that just randomly shows up at the door.”

Tanya let out a sigh. “I guess, I can see your point. In your place, I probably wouldn’t either.” Then, with a disappointed look, she asked, “But what if this was legitimate? What if you really do have a secret admirer?”

Morgana let out a snort. “Then they could be right under Bianca’s nose and she’d never even notice…” There was another chuckle at that.

Fortunately, the class officially started a few seconds later, which meant a change of topic. I let out a sigh of relief at that as I turned on my computer. Still, I gave Morgana a warning look when it looked like she was going to say something else. She shrugged and turned her attention to her own laptop.

I opened up the folder for this class and brought up the designs for my costume. Overall, it was a fairly simple design, focusing a little more on function than appearances.

The whole spandex thing was definitely NOT my style, though admittedly, there were reasons for the spandex type costumes. As we’d learned in class, costumes that hugged your body tightly could not only be aerodynamic for speedsters, flyers, and so on…but they also made it more difficult for people to grab your costume.

My costume was definitely not spandex, but it did hug my body fairly closely…while not showing off too much. It was white, of course, and I planned on adding a little black trim just to break things up a little. I was also thinking of adding another touch of color somewhere, like a gold belt buckle or something. Just because I was the White Lady, that didn’t mean it was the only color I had to use.

“But it still isn’t right,” I mused, considering what else I could do to make it a little more practical. “It needs something else…”

Then, an idea suddenly came to me. I quickly added it to my design as a form of rough draft to help me see what it would look like. After a little consideration and a few minor tweaks, I nodded, sure that I was on the right path.

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

Saturday morning, Oct 22nd, 2016

Scrye shifted position in her chair, keeping the movement subtle and not changing her expression in the slightest. She calmly looked around the clubhouse, taking note of which Masterminds were absent, though she wasn’t surprised by them.

Ellison…Devil’s Advocate, almost never showed up to any meetings before noon. If he’d bothered getting out of bed yet, he would probably be nursing a hangover. Either that or taking some hair of the dog.

Bystander, the sick freak, was a welcome absence. He didn’t care about the day to day operations of their club, for which she was grateful. The less time spent in his presence, the better.

“Now then,” Edward, the Golden Lion asked. “Does anyone have any other business to discuss?”

“I’d like to suggest we don’t do morning meetings anymore,” Aiesha, Swandive said as she leaned back in her chair and let out an exaggerated yawn. “There are better things to do on a Saturday morning than be here…”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” Edward responded wryly, just as he had during the last three meetings where Aiesha had made the same suggestion.

Once it became clear that nobody else had anything else, Scrye announced, “I have something…”

Helen, Doma Know, glared at Scrye. “And you had to make it all dramatic?”

Scrye responded with a faint smile before looking at Edward. “Last night, I attempted to extend our invitation to Glyph, but unfortunately, we were interrupted before I could finish.”

“So, you blew it,” Aiesha said with a roll of her eyes. “Try again later. No big deal.”

“Continue,” Edward urged her.

“Last night emphasized something that we already knew,” Scrye explained, “and which I’ve witnessed numerous times over the last few weeks.“ She paused again. “The Intelligence Cadet Corps have been following Glyph rather closely.”

“That is what they do,” Burst commented in a neutral tone.

“Indeed, it is,” Edward agreed.

“Glyph has a great deal of attention focused on her,” Scrye continued. “Between her enemies and her allies, there have been very few opportunities to speak with her in private. I believe this increased attention would be problematic to our interests if she was to join us.“

“It is true that we don’t need any more attention drawn to us,” Edward mused. “That could turn her from the asset we’d hoped for into a liability.”

Helen scowled. “So, we just need be more careful when meeting with her.”

“That would be difficult,” Scrye disagreed. “The Cadets keep following her, bugging her, and sending drones after her. Sooner or later, they’d follow her to us and could learn things we preferred they didn’t.”

“You bring up a good point,” Edward mused. “Glyph could be a useful connection, especially outside of Whateley. But she is just a freshman so there would be plenty of time to recruit her…”

Edward was scowling in annoyance, a clear reminder to Scrye that he was a senior and would be leaving Whateley at the end of the year. If he wanted any personal benefit from recruiting Glyph, he would need to do it before he graduated.

“We can hold off on recruiting her for a little longer,” Edward reluctantly said. “Once there is less attention on her, we can make our recruitment offer.”

“She’s the White Lady,” Aiesha pointed out. “There’s always going to be attention on her.”

“But perhaps not as much,” Scrye responded.

“In the meantime,” Edward said with faint smile, “we might be able to use her as a distraction. After all, if those would-be detectives are focusing on her…then their attention will not be on our business.”

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

Saturday morning, Oct 22nd, 2016

Carrie Harper scowled as she walked through the tunnels, which were dark, dirty, and confusing. The whole place was a maze that would be incredibly easy to get lost in. In fact, the tunnels would be a complete nightmare for anyone who suffered from claustrophobia, arachnophobia, or even a general fear of the dark, though admittedly, none of those were why she really disliked the tunnels.

These very tunnels were the scene of her most recent failures and humiliations. Failure in itself was not always bad. Sometimes, it could be a useful training tool to help you identify your weaknesses and correct them. But other times… Other times, failure was inexcusable. Other times, it was something as stupid as trying to do a simple summersault but slipping and landing flat on your face. It was having the Russian judge score you at a three, and only giving you that high a score because they were amused by your ‘successful’ face-plant.

The Cadets had given her the important task of following a dangerous criminal. Glyph. The White Lady. The head of her own mob family. Carrie still didn’t see why the school would allow someone like that to attend. And her job was to follow Glyph, which was easier said than done. Sure, she could shrink down, which made it difficult to see her, but her tiny leg span at that size meant that she couldn’t actually follow anyone while shrunk.

Every time Carrie had followed Glyph into these tunnels, so she could try to find the other girl’s secret lair, she either got lost or distracted. She lost her target this way on several recent occasions, a fact that the other Cadets had teased her about…and lectured her on.

“Hurry up, Mouse,” Caroline Voight, who preferred her codename of Miss Violet, called back to Carrie. “We don’t want to lose you…”

“You don’t want to get lost down here…again,” Edward Temple, Mister Blank added. And though Carrie couldn’t see his face since she was at the back of the group, she knew he was smirking. He was always kind of smug like that.

“It is easy to get lost in these tunnels,” mused David Nayer, better known as Cyber Swarm…or just Swarm for short. “Last year, Dyson got lost in these tunnels for three days…”

“Then it is quite fortunate that you have a map,” Mister Blank told their leader. “Now, we will finally locate that villain’s lair…”

Miss Violet nodded agreement. “We would have found it already if Tek Rider would have told us the location of her old laboratory sooner…”

“And I wouldn’t have had to try following HER,” Carrie muttered bitterly.

Carrie looked at her companions, Mister Blank, Miss Violet, and Cyber Swarm, all of whom were more experienced than she was in this kind of thing. Sure, this group was only a portion of the Intelligence Cadet Corps members, but they would be more than capable of handling Glyph, if it became necessary.

Swarm grumbled, “I had to trade Tek Rider my second-best micron assembler for this information. She builds motorcycles, so what does she even need a micron assembler for?”

“We appreciate your gracious sacrifice,” Mister Blank told Swarm. “It will be well worth it once we collect the evidence we need to get HER arrested…”

“Yes, of course,” Swarm agreed, looking down at the tablet in his hands and then turning down the next tunnel section. “I knew that when I made the trade, though it still grates on me…”

“Come now,” Miss Violet announced with a smirk of her own. “We all know that you’re just grumpy because you’d rather be back in your lab than marching through these tunnels.”

Swarm hesitated a moment before admitting. “True. I was hoping to work on my new dragonfly drones today…or even begin construction on the wasp drones that I designed for the next combat fin…”

“There it is,” Mister Blank suddenly cried out, pointing down the tunnel with the tip of his umbrella. “The cleaning closet that Tek Rider told you about…”

“The secret entrance to her hideout,” Carrie added, more to be part of the conversation than anything else since the others already knew this too.

As soon as they reached the closet, Miss Violet reached inside for the hidden latch that they’d been told about. She frowned and felt around for a few more seconds before announcing, “I’m not finding the latch…”

“Let me try,” Mister Blank insisted as he stepped into the closet and began looking around. He ran his hands against the walls, checking the spot where the hidden latch was supposed to be and then everywhere else. “I’m not finding anything in here…”

“Is there a vent or something I could squeeze through?” Carrie asked a little nervously. She wished Perfume was there, because Perfume was the only Cadet who really took her seriously.

“Nothing that I can see,” Swarm answered, surprising Carrie a little because he’d actually listened to her idea, even if it hadn’t worked out. “But perhaps we can create one…” With that, Swarm reached into his pocket and pulled out tiny robotic worm that was barely over four inches long. “My drill worm might work…”

Swarm placed the metal worm against the wall and it began burrowing right into the concrete. The devisor kept his attention on the tablet he was using to control the drone, though Carrie stared at the worm itself. Once it had completely vanished into the concrete wall, she frowned. The hole that the worm left behind was still too small for her to use, even at her smallest size.

After a minute, Swarm muttered a few profanities. When everyone stared at him, he gave a self-conscious shrug and explained, “My drill worm burrowed in about nine inches before the battery died… This was supposed to be a hidden door…but it never made it through.”

“Nine inches,” Miss Violet mused, crouching down for a closer look at the hole. “And it spat out plenty of concrete dust… I do believe, this is a wall, not the door we were expecting.”

“And what does that mean?” Carrie asked, feeling a little confused.

“It means,” Mister Blank explained with a look of annoyance, “that either Tek Rider lied to us…or Glyph closed off the old door completely.”

Crystal Hall, Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

“Are you sure it’s all right if I come?” Janine asked nervously, not for the first, second, or even third time.

“Of course it’s all right,” I assured her, trying to keep my impatience from showing. “I wouldn’t have invited you if it wasn’t.”

When I’d first asked Janine if she wanted to come with us on our Berlin shopping trip, she’d been excited about it. She was still excited, though she’d been growing increasingly worried that I’d change my mind, or that Laura or Morgana would object to her presence. Of course, none of that was going to happen, but that didn’t stop Janine from worrying about it.

“Stop worrying about it and go have fun,” Dodo told Janine in a slightly exasperated tone.

“And don’t forget to bring something back for us,” Giggles added with a grin.

“I’ll accept chocolate,” Blackberry suggested. Then she blushed and self-consciously continued, “Especially if you can get Laura to get you some of her special blend…”

Janine let out a gasp of that, her eyes quickly darting down to her own chest, drawing my attention to her improved assets as well. She blushed noticeably but didn’t say anything. I quickly looked away, before she could catch me staring.

“Laura feels real bad about what happened,” Giggles told Blackberry. “I think she’s afraid that someone is going to sue her…”

“That isn’t really a problem,” I pointed out, knowing that Giggles was right. Laura did feel guilty over what had happened, which was one of the reasons that she needed this shopping trip too. “She followed all the safety protocols that they required…”

“That doesn’t mean that someone might not TRY to sue her,” Dodo reminded me. “People can be real jerks sometimes.”

I nodded agreement, though I didn’t say anything aloud. Instead, I just looked around the table, smiling faintly as I did so. This morning, I was eating breakfast with Janine and some of her friends rather than with my normal crew. They’d all been pretty nervous about me when it first came out that I was the White Lady, but they’d gotten to know me well enough to relax in my presence. I appreciated that because so many of my other classmates still treated me as if I was some kind of evil supervillain.

Dodo was a cute girl. Not beautiful, but ‘girl next door’ cute. However, the fact that she had light gray feathers on her head, where her hair should have been, added an exotic element to her appearance. Between this, her weak powers, and her unfortunate codename, a lot of students made fun of her, so she was happy to have another friend…even one with my reputation.

Blackberry was a bit shy and had taken a little longer to warm up to me, though the truth was, I suspected that she tolerated me and my bad reputation more for Janine’s sake than for any other reason. Still, she was a nice girl and loyal to her friends, so I couldn’t fault her for that.

And then there was Giggles, a gadgeteer with an embarrassing form of Diedricks. Whenever her Diedricks went off and she dricked out, she burst into uncontrollable fits of giggles, which was way better than the psychotic delusions and fits of violence that some had to deal with.

“So,” Giggles said, looking at me. “I heard that a secret admirer gave you flowers the other day…” She grinned eagerly. “Do you know who it is?”

I cringed a little at the line of questioning. “No,” I admitted, shaking my head as I did so. “No idea…” Then I hesitated a few seconds before adding, “But they left some chocolates for me yesterday…”

“Ooooh,” Giggles and Dodo both exclaimed, looking even more interested.

Janine, on the other hand, was frowning. “Was it good chocolate?” she cautiously asked, looking almost worried.

“No idea,” I responded with a sigh, wondering how many more times I’d have to explain this. “I’m not about to eat something when I have absolutely no idea where it came from or who left it…”

“Generally a good policy,” Blackberry pointed out with a nod of approval.

“Yeah,” Dodo agreed. “That probably wouldn’t be smart.”

“Still,” Blackberry mused with a sigh. “Wasting good chocolate is almost a crime…”

Giggles burst out laughing at that. Real laughter, not her Diedricks induced giggles. “Don’t let those Spy Kids hear you saying that or they might start investigating Bianca for wasting chocolate too…”

I chuckled at that almost in spite of myself. “Probably,” I agreed. “I’m still not sure if they’re trying to investigate me for anything specific…or just on general principle.”

“They should leave you alone,” Janine firmly insisted. “You haven’t done anything wrong…”

“Try telling them that,” I told her with a sigh.

“Anyway,” Giggles asked. “Do you have any idea who your secret admirer might be?”

I shook my head, replying, “Not really…”

This is a question that I had considered off and on for the last couple days, especially since receiving the chocolate. There were several clues, but none of them gave me any clear answers, merely more questions.

Someone had delivered the chocolates to Poe, which meant that they probably hadn’t come from someone within the cottage. This meant my secret admirer, if there even really was one, was likely a boy. That thought just made me feel a little queasy.

The flower had suddenly appeared at the table, right when I was eating dinner. None of us there had seen anyone approaching, but there were a number of ways to pull off that kind of thing. Invisibility? A speedster who moved faster than we could see? Or was it simply teleported there?

Even if I knew for a fact that teleportation had been involved, there were multiple ways to get that type of effect. Warper? Mage? Devisor? And I was sure that there were other ways to pull it off too. And of course, whomever this ‘secret admirer’ was, they may not even have done this themselves. They may have asked a friend to deliver the flower for them.

Unfortunately, I might enjoy a good detective novel, but that didn’t make me into a detective. Investigating this kind of mystery was a little out of my experience. Jimmy might be better suited for that kind of work, especially if he had Tavi to help him, but I didn’t want to burden him with something so ridiculous as tracking down someone who gave me flowers and chocolate.

“That’s too bad,” Dodo said. “A secret admirer sounds romantic…”

“Or scary,” Janine added, looking at me. “If you don’t know who they are or what they really want…”

“Yeah,” I agreed, relieved to see that Janine understood.

This was scary, especially considering how many people were after me. I didn’t know whether this was a legitimate secret admirer…which I had a hard time believing…or just one more person trying to mess with me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which of those two options would have been worse.

“Bianca already has enough stalkers,” Janine stated firmly, almost protectively. “She doesn’t need any more.”

“One stalker would be more than enough,” Dodo agreed a little awkwardly. Apparently, she still thought that my secret admirer might be legitimate.

“So,” Giggles asked, clearly trying to change the subject back to something a little more comfortable. “Who do you have as escort for your shopping trip?”

“Cherry Bomb,” I answered. We’d asked a few of the older Poesies and she was the only one who’d been available.

“Cherry Bomb?” Giggles gasped, her eyes going wide. “Your escort is Cherry Bomb?” She shook her head and exclaimed, “You’d be better off taking KARMA as your escort…”

“You know,” Dodo told Janine. “It isn’t too late to change your mind.”

Janine gave me a faintly nervous smile before responding, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Famous last words,” Blackberry added.

“I thought that was hold my beer and watch this,” Giggles said with a grin.

“Those are different last words,” Janine told her with a giggle.

We finished our breakfast a short time after this and got up to leave. Janine and I began to head off together while the other girls went in their own directions.

“We’ll meet up with the others at the bus,” I told Janine. “I’ll need to get some makeup on before we go though.”

I held up my hand, showing the pure white skin that would clearly mark me as a mutant for anyone to see. Well, my white skin didn’t necessarily mark me as a mutant since my grandmother and other predecessors hadn’t been mutants, but it did mark me as being unusual. I didn’t need the kind of attention that could get me.

Janine and I hadn’t quite left Crystal Hall when I noticed the figure walking towards us. He was a slender boy who was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.

“Shades,” I muttered in annoyance. The last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment, was him asking to become my henchman again, especially since I thought we were done with that nonsense. “What now?”

“Tinker,” Shades greeted Janine before giving me a bow. “Milady.”

I scowled slightly at the ‘milady’ but carefully controlled my reactions so that I didn’t show just how uncomfortable that made me. “What do you want?”

Shades grinned, though it was definitely a cocky one that verged on being a smirk. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses, but I could feel them locked on me, making me want to squirm.

“I just wanted to tell you how exceptionally lovely you are today,” Shades told me. I blinked in surprise. “You are like a majestic glacier with the sunlight gleaming off it and blinding all who see…”

I stood there for a moment, confused by what was going on and trying to make sense of what Shades had just said. Before I could overcome my shock, much less figure out what he was up to, Shades gave me another bow and hurried away, this time clearly smirking.

“Did he…?” I started, blinking several times and then looking at Janine. “Did he just try hitting on me?”

“He did more than just try,” Janine responded with an angry glare in the direction that Shades had gone.

Suddenly, I remembered one small but important fact. Shades was a teleporter…able to move other things but not himself. That meant, he could easily have sent a single rose to me while I was eating dinner the other day.

“Oh no,” I groaned, feeling equally stunned and disgusted. “I think I know who my secret admirer is…”

“Yeah,” Janine agreed with a deep scowl. “I kind of figured that out too…”

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

The Quad, Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

Shades hurried across the Quad to where his best friend Beatdown was waiting for him. “I did it,” he blurted out excitedly. “I’ve completely dazzled her with my eloquence…”

“About time,” Beatdown responded with a shrug. “Took you long enough to build up your nerve…”

“These things have to be done right,” Shades told him a bit defensively. “You have to build up to it. Chocolate, flowers, and romance… Chicks love that stuff…”

“Maybe,” Beatdown admitted. “But Glyph isn’t like other girls…”

“No, she isn’t,” Shades agreed with a smirk. “She has money and influence… The kind that can get us set up for life…”

Beatdown snorted. “I still don’t think that this is the best way to do it. I mean, sure, things might be good as long as you’re dating her…but what happens when she gets bored of your ass and dumps you?”

“That will never happen,” Shades disagreed emphatically. “I’ll make her fall for me hard and get her completely wrapped around my finger…”

The larger boy didn’t say anything to this, knowing from experience that Shades wouldn’t listen. “You know, her sidekick is kind of cute… If this works out for you, maybe you could hook me up with that Tinker girl…”

“Maybe,” Shades told him. “But I think she’s already got the hots for me since she looked totally jealous when I flirted with Glyph. Still, I’m not gonna waste any time with her when I can get the White Lady herself, so you can have her.”

“Gee, thanks,” Beatdown responded with a loud snort and a roll of his eyes.

“Now, for the next step,” Shades mused to himself. “More flowers and jewelry… Damn, this is gonna get expensive…”

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

Crystal Hall, Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

I looked around at the small group of girls who’d gathered for the trip. We were all there and ready to go, with one notable exception. Our escort. Cherry Bomb had yet to show up.

“Where is she?” Morgana asked impatiently. “You’d think our responsible escort would at least be here on time…”

“If you wanted responsible,” Laura pointed out, “then you probably should have asked someone other than Cherry Bomb.”

“Anyone,” Janine agreed.

She and Laura shared a pair of knowing smiles. Since they were both geek girls…a gadgeteer and devisor respectively, they both spent a lot of time in the lab…and had more contact with Cherry Bomb in that kind of setting. The fact that they both agreed, said something about our chosen escort.

“Too late to change escorts now,” I pointed out, just thankful that we’d found someone in the first place. “Besides, considering some of our reputations, we were lucky to find ANYONE willing to come with.”

“She does have a point,” Morgana agreed, giving Janine an evil grin. “Darn you and your evil reputation.”

“Me?” Janine gasped in surprise before she realized that my roommate was just messing with her.

“Sure,” Morgana continued with a chuckle. “Between Willy Wonka…”

“HEY,” Laura protested, giving her a glare.

“The mafia princess,” Morgana continued, gesturing to me.

“HEY,” I responded, giving her my own glare.

“And my absolute perfection,” Morgana added cheerfully. “You’re the most normal and responsible person here…”

“And that includes our esteemed escort,” Laura pointed out wryly.

I just nodded at that, then looked in the direction of our cottage to see if I could spot Cherry Bomb. Nothing yet, much to my own annoyance.

Since it looked like we’d be waiting a bit longer, I wondered if I should touch up my makeup a little more. I held out my hands, which had a thin layer of makeup to make them look a little more ‘normal’. A long-sleeved hoodie hid the rest of my arms. I had similar makeup all over my face, though hadn’t bothered to do anything about my hair, beyond the hood on my hoodie. Pure white hair could be taken as a serious bleach job, but pure white skin was a bit harder to explain. But at least white skin made for a good blank canvas. Blue skin was a bit harder to cover up.

Laura was done up similar to how I was, with long sleeves to hide her blue skin, while her hands and face were coated with a heavier layer of makeup. Again, her blue hair could be explained as a dye job, so it didn’t need to be hidden.

And then there was Morgana, who didn’t have anything to worry about. She’d shifted back to her ‘normal’ form, which got rid of her horns, though she also had a hoodie on so she could hide them if she needed to change back to her dragon form for any reason.

And of course, there was Janine, who was the only one of us who never had any form of GSD that needed to be concealed. Perhaps, because of that, she was also the only one of us who wasn’t wearing a hoodie.
Of course, I’d made other preparations for this trip, besides the ones to hide my features. I had a couple pouches on my belt, which contained some of my spell cards. These were mostly the cards that I carried around on a daily basis, though I made sure that I had a few extra ‘emergency’ cards, just in case. I knew that Morgana and Laura had both made their own precautions as well.

“There she is,” Laura announced, drawing my attention to Cherry Bomb, who I could now see walking towards us.

“Finally,” my roommate muttered.

When our escort reached us, she flashed us a grin, adjusted the backpack that was slung over one shoulder, and asked, “Is everyone ready?”

“Just waiting on you,” Morgana told her.

I nodded. “We’re ready to go.”

“Awesome,” Cherry Bomb responded, gesturing for us to get in the bus. She gave Janine a grin and a nod. “Hey, its Tinker Bell. Looks like you get to ride the Poesie Express today.”

“My codename is just Tinker,” Janine replied a little self-consciously. “Belle is my real name… Janine Belle…”

“I know that,” Cherry Bomb responded with a chuckle. “I was just teasing…”

“Cherry Bomb,” I started, not happy about the way she was teasing my friend, though I couldn’t tell why it bothered me so much.

“Call me Cherry,” the older Poesie announced cheerfully. “Everyone does. Well, except for one teacher who keeps calling me Crazy Harry for some reason…”

I blinked at that. “Crazy Harry.”

“Or sometimes, Crazy Cherry,” she continued as she climbed up onto the bus.

“THAT, I can believe,” Morgana said from beside me.

“Now come on, girls,“ Cherry called out, “We don’t have all day…”

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

Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

A teenage boy sat hunched over on one of the campus benches, his baseball cap pulled down low. Anyone who saw him would have thought he was either texting or playing some game on his phone, though the truth was that he hadn’t even looked at the screen in several minutes. Instead, his attention was on something else, a group of girls who were gathered together some distance away.

There were four girls, gathered around beside the bus, obviously waiting. But waiting for what, he didn’t know. Eventually, a fifth girl arrived to join them and only then did they get on the bus.

Once the bus pulled away, the boy stood up and slowly walked away, being careful not to hurry or do anything that might draw attention to him. He’d already done everything he could to avoid that, and he wasn’t about to ruin it now.

Crysis waited until he’d gone at least a hundred yards, then he dialed a number on his burner phone. The moment it picked up, he announced, “She just left campus.”

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

Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

“This is it,” Mister Blank announced as he gestured to the cleaning closet.

“According to Tek Rider,” Miss Violet continued, “this is the entrance to her old lab.”

Carrie nodded agreement, not that she needed to. Still, she was part of the team and that meant being a team player.

“Cyber Swarm tried drilling through the doorway,” she explained unnecessarily since Perfume had already been briefed on this. “But he couldn’t get through. He said there wasn’t realty a door there.”

“Too bad Swarm didn’t come with us today,” Perfume said with a faint note of annoyance in her voice. “We could have used his drones…”

“Well?” Miss Violet asked Perfume. “Do you smell anything?”

Perfume stepped into the closet, her usual scent of perfume fading away. Carrie realized that Perfume was turning off her scent manifestation ability since it could interfere with anything else she needed to smell. One of her gifts as an exemplar was an amazing sense of smell. She wasn’t quite as good as a trained bloodhound, but she was good enough to actually track people down by their scent alone.

“Let’s see,” Perfume mused as she took several cautious sniffs. “I smell…grease. Engine grease and gasoline.”

“Motorcycles,” Mister Blank commented.

“The smell is old,” Perfume said as she took another careful sniff, “but still strong.”

“But what about Glyph?” Miss Violet asked. “Do you smell her?”

Perfume hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes, but very faintly. I can still smell faint traces of Tek Rider too…and she probably hasn’t been here for months.” She stepped back outside the closet and frowned thoughtfully. “Glyph has been here…but not often enough to be using a doorway.”

“So,” Carrie asked cautiously. “Does that mean she isn’t using Tek Rider’s old lab?”

“Maybe,” Perfume answered her. “Or maybe, she simply isn’t using this entrance…” She sniffed around the tunnel, then pointed. “I’m catching faint traces of her scent going this way…and its stronger than in the closet.”

The older girl walked down the tunnel just a short distance, pausing when she reached the first intersection. Perfume then circled the intersection, sniffing down each of the other tunnel segments before she abruptly began walking down one of them.

Carrie didn’t like this tunnel section. It was narrower than the last one and not as well lit. There were a lot of shadows along the walls, making the whole area all the creepier.

Mister Blank reached into his pocket and pulled out a flashlight, which he immediately began sweeping back and forth to light up the shadowed areas. “So we don’t miss anything,” be explained.

“Good thinking,” Perfume told him.

They hadn’t gone far before Perfume stopped again. She slowly turned around in a circle, sniffing as she did.

“Did you lose her?” Mister Blank asked worriedly.

“Her scent ends,” Perfume explained as she moved back a little further and then began to turn in a circle again. “Her scent is strongest here…especially on this side.”

Carrie barely even glanced at the wall beside them. There was nothing there. It was just a wall…like every other wall in the tunnels. It wasn’t even worth looking at.

“There isn’t anything here,” Mister Blank announced with a look of irritation. He swept his flashlight over the wall but didn’t bother to really look at it. “You must have lost the trail.”

“Um,” Carrie started nervously. “Glyph is a mage… Maybe she used magic…”

“A good point,” Perfume responded, giving Mouse a nod of approval. “It would make sense for her to use magical security…”

“Very true,” Miss Violet agreed. “There is no telling what manner of sinister spell she may have cast here.”

Perfume reached into her pocked as she said, “I may have something that can help…” A few seconds later, she pulled out a metal amulet that dangled on a leather chord. “I bought this from one of the senior mages, just in case. It can protect the wearer from some magical effects.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “Theoretically?”

“Theoretically?” Mister Blank asked suspiciously.

“I haven’t been able to test it yet,” Perfume admitted with a shrug.

With those words, Perfume slipped the amulet around her neck and suddenly froze, her eyes going wide. “Well, I’ll be… It works…”

“What works?” Mouse asked.

Perfume walked to the wall and put her hand against it, then pushed. The wall opened up, though Carrie barely noticed since she wasn’t paying much attention. However, the fact that Perfume put her arm through it was enough to draw Carrie’s eyes back…for a few seconds at least.

“A door,” Perfume triumphantly announced. “It’s pretty obvious…at least when Edward’s flashlight is on it. It blends in fairly well so it probably would have been hard to see without the extra light…and with this spell.”

“This is strange,” Miss Perfect said. “I know there’s a door there because I can see it… But I still keep thinking that there isn’t anything there anyway…”

“Magic,” Perfume stated simply. “One of their most common spells is one to make people just not notice them…”

“That could be useful,” Carrie said, thinking about how much she could do when she was small, just because nobody saw her. If she could get the same kind of effect while at her full size… Well, that would have to be even more useful.

Now that Carrie knew there was a door in the wall, this strange effect began to fade and it became easier to pay attention to it. She noticed that this door opened up into a small space…and another door. That one wasn’t hidden at all.

“A metal door,” Mister Blank mused as he looked it over. “And a keypad right beside it.”

“That should be no problem,” Miss Violet said. “No problem at all…”

“Allow me,” Mister Blank said as he moved to the keypad. “I will make quick work of this lock…”

Mister Blank began to examine the keypad, but almost as soon as he touched one of the keys, there was a burst of sparks and a yelp of pain.

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

Bus to Berlin, Sunday morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

“You did WHAT?” Morgana exclaimed with a look of surprise.

I quickly glanced to Cherry, who was far enough away that she hadn’t been able to hear our conversation…until my roommate suddenly increased the volume. I gave Morgana a warning look and she seemed to realize her mistake.

“I booby trapped the door to my lab,” I told her in a quieter volume. I still gave Cherry another glance.

This was not the best location for this conversation, but Janine had accidentally brought it up when Morgana began asking about my new lab. Since Janine and Laura both already knew about this little trick, I thought that it was only fair to share it with my roommate as well. After all, sooner or later, she’d be visiting me down there and I didn’t want her to accidentally get caught in it.

“There’s a dummy keypad,” I quietly explained. “It doesn’t hook up to the door at all…”

“I was wondering why you wanted me to make that keypad for you,” Laura said, looking rather curious. “When you told me to hook a taser up to it so that it would zap anyone who tried to use it… Well, I was wondering…”

“The door is pretty well hidden,” I half-bragged, so I’ll probably never get to use it for real…”

“But you’ll zap anyone who does,” Morgana said with a grin. She rubbed her hands together almost gleefully. “I wonder if we can trick those Spy Kids into testing it for you…”

“I can only dream,” I replied with a long sigh.

Janine cleared her throat, then suggested, “Maybe you can try it on Shades…”

“Now THAT would be a fun idea,” I told her with a chuckle of my own.

Morgana gave Janine a curious look. “I understand why Bianca doesn’t like Shades, but what have you got against him?”

Janine blushed brightly before stammering out, “He’s just a jerk is all…”

“He’s my secret admirer,” I reluctantly admitted.

“Ouch,” Morgana responded with a visible wince. “Talk about a worst case scenario…”

Laura’s reaction was more sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear it. I know he’s been a problem before.” Then she hesitated before suggesting, “Maybe he’s trying to make up for what he did before…”

I gave her a flat look. “You mean, beating people up and telling them that I ordered it?” I shook my head. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

“He’s just…gross,” Janine insisted. “He reminds me of a used-car salesman or something…”

Morgana snickered. “I was going to say that he’s a weasel…but used-car salesman works too.”

“Now THAT is an insult,” I agreed with a grin of my own.

A short time later, we finally reached Berlin and were able to get off the bus. I was excited since this was the first time that I’d been off campus in several months, ever since I’d first arrived. And considering what had happened back in New York, I was still surprised that they’d let us go out in public again, even with an escort.

“Okay, girls,” Cherry told us. “Whateley students have a long and proud tradition of getting into trouble in Berlin…”

“I think you’re supposed to discourage the trouble part,” Laura pointed out.

“Fine,” Cherry responded with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Behave. Don’t get in trouble. Yada yada yada…”

“Why do I have the feeling that we’re gonna have to keep HER out of trouble?” I asked.

“But seriously,” Cherry said, her expression turning serious. “You all know the drill. Keep a low profile. Stay fairly close together…and that means fairly close to me. And if there is some kind of trouble, get out of the area fast. Don’t play hero or anything like that. I don’t know about Mazarin, but Carson really hated it when students showed off in public…and especially if they tried playing hero.”

Morgana leaned over and whispered, “Can you believe she said that with a straight face?”

“Me either,” I agreed.

“I think that’s enough of the obligatory safety speech,” Cherry said with a grin. “The sooner we get going, the more shopping we can get done.”

I nodded at that, suspecting that this was going to be painful. However, I couldn’t say that I hadn’t asked for it. Back when I’d still been Bryan, I’d had almost no interest in shopping, at least, none that wasn’t in a bookstore. That hadn’t really changed since my transformation, though there were several items I needed to get. If it was just me, I’d be in and out quickly with the whole trip being done in under an hour. But with four other girls present…and some of them a lot more interested in shopping as a hobby… Well, it was going to be a long day.

“Now then,” Cherry exclaimed, pointing out ahead of us. “CHARGE!”

In spite of Cherry’s enthusiastic beginning, we actually took off at a leisurely pace. I guess that even she didn’t want to wear herself out too soon, for which I was thankful.

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

Berlin NH, Sunday late morning, Oct 23rd, 2016

“The target has been spotted,” announced the radio.

A few seconds later, the man who was only known as Hardcore by his subordinates and professional associates, responded, “Are you certain.”

“She fits the description I was given,” Miller answered from the other end of the radio. “And she’s with four other teenage girls, who also fit the descriptions of the target’s companions.”

“Keep eyes on the target,” Hardcore ordered. “Once the rest of us are in position, the operation will go active.”

“Yes, sir,” Miller responded.

Once the conversation was over, Martin Gills, Hardcore’s second in command, commented, “It would be a lot cheaper and easier to just take her down with a sniper shot.”

“True,” Hardcore agreed. “But our client specifically wanted a show. It has to look like she was caught in a random robbery and killed in the crossfire. They were pretty clear that it can’t look like she was the intended target.”

“Do we know who she is?” Gills asked, more curious or concerned, “or why we’re going through so much trouble for a kid?”

“No,” Hardcore answered simply.

The client hadn’t said and he hadn’t asked. The less he knew about those details, the better it was for everyone involved. Except perhaps the target, but she wasn’t the one paying him. His client was, and he didn’t even know who that was for the same reason.

“What we do know, is that she’s a magic user,” Hardcore explained. “and her companions are all likely to have powers as well. But that was in the briefing. Now, go make sure everyone is ready. I need to get dressed up for the show.”

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

I stepped out of the small shop, wincing at the ache in my wallet. I’d just spent a lot more money on clothes than I was happy with, though only a couple items had been for myself. The rest, a half dozen shirts, had been gifts for Janine. Girl clothes were WAY too expensive.

“THANK YOU!” Janine exclaimed, suddenly throwing her arms around me with a surprise hug. “Thank you so much…”

“Um…,” I stammered, feeling her body pressed against mine. I could feel her breasts pressing against me, which made my whole body flush with nervous excitement. “You’re… You’re welcome…”

I was blushing brightly, or at least, I would be if my skin didn’t stay the same white color. Between that and the makeup I was wearing to hide my real skin color, there was no way anyone could see my blush. Thankfully.

Janine held on for a few seconds more, perhaps a little more than was really needed for a quick hug, then she let go and stepped back. Now, she was blushing as badly as I felt I was and looking every bit as self-conscious.

“Sorry,” Janine muttered in obvious embarrassment.

“Hey,” Morgana joked as she came out of the store behind us. “Get a room, you two…” That made Janine and I both squirm a bit more in embarrassment.

“I was just thanking her for the clothes,” Janine announced a little defensively.

“And those were just a thank you for everything that YOU have been doing for me,” I reminded her a little awkwardly.

Just then, Cherry said, “Yeah, you two are absolutely adorkable.” She pointed at a shop across the street. “But we were gonna hit that electronics shop next…”

Laura brightened up at that, and a few seconds later, the two devisor girls hurried across the street to check out the shop. Janine, a gadgeteer, hesitated a moment before announcing, “Electronics aren’t really my thing…”

“But you still want to check it out,” Morgana pointed out with a chuckle. “None of you lab geeks can resist more parts…”

“Like you’re one to talk,” I teased my roommate. “You’re into all that high tech stuff too…”

Morgana nodded. "True, but I want to get something caffeinated." She pointed at a shop a couple of doors down from the electronics shop. "I'm going to see what they stock in the way of good coffee, and maybe get myself a drink while I'm at it."
I rolled my eyes at that. "Of course, you'd hit the coffee shop"
She grinned even wider at that comment. "One day, I want to visit Seattle, I her they have a coffee shop on every corner..."
Janine giggled at that. “Okay, I’m going to go peek in…just in case they have anything I can use…”

And with those words, Janine went to join Laura and Cherry, leaving Morgana and I to ourselves…for at least a few more seconds. True to her word, my roommate went to check out the coffee shop, leaving me out on the sidewalk by myself.

While everyone else was occupied, I began looking at the nearby shops. None of them really caught my eye, at first. After a minute, I noticed that one of the shops sold coats and jackets, something I normally wouldn’t have cared about. However, I’d recently been thinking about adding something extra to the costume I was designing in costuming shop, something like a jacket.

Some people might say that it was stupid…or very 90’s…to design a costume and then cover it up with a jacket. However, I considered that an advantage. A jacket could help hide any costume I wore, providing camouflage and saving me from some embarrassment at the same time. In addition, there were other uses for a jacket, ones that might serve my needs pretty well.

I was standing in front of the store, looking at the coats on display in the window, when Morgana strolled up to me with a cup of coffee in her hand, along with a bag, which I assumed contained coffee beans. Without a word, she handed me a small paper bag with a pastry in it. I peeked inside then smiled. Pan au chocolate…also known as a chocolate croissant. That was one of my favorite types of pastries while growing up.

“Thank you,” I told her.

Morgana gave me an evil grin. “No problem, as long as you don’t thank me the way Janine thanked you. I like you, but not THAT much…”

“Bite me,” I responded before taking a bite of my pastry.

My roommate chuckled at that. “So, what are you looking at?”

“Just trying to get some ideas for my costume,” I explained with a shrug. “I’m gonna go inside and see what else they have…”

I stepped into the shop, not worried about losing any of the others. My gadgeteer and devisor friends were only a couple doors down while Morgana remained outside to alert them to where I was, should that be necessary.

I had no intention of buying anything at the moment. I was just looking…getting ideas. I wanted to see what was available and what type of style might work for my needs. Once I had a better idea of what I wanted, then I could look to buy…or make it myself. After all, that was what costuming class was for.

Then I found something in the back of the shop, something which caught my attention. It was women’s overcoat, in a sort of trench coat style, and it was all white. It was nearly the same color as my skin and hair, which is why I’d noticed it.

“This wouldn’t do much for camouflage or disguise,” I thought aloud. “But it would definitely fit my costume…” And my color theme.

As I flipped the coat around and examined it, I became more certain that this was exactly what I was looking for. And once I tried it on…and found that it fit comfortably, I knew that I had to buy it. It was almost as if this coat had been made for me.

A few minutes later, I stepped out of the store with a new shopping bag in hand. Morgana glanced at the bag, gave me a curious look, and commented, “And here I thought that you hated shopping.”

“I hate wasting money on a bunch of junk I don’t need,” I countered. Then with a sigh, I admitted, “But between this trip and what I’ve paid Scrye recently, I’m just about broke.”

“So, what did you get anyway?” Morgana asked, indicating my new bag.

“Just a new coat for the winter,” I told her with a faint smile. “I’ll show you when we get back to our room.”

Morgana and I didn’t have to wait much longer before the others all returned from the electronics shop, each with new bags. I got a couple curious looks and some questions about my own new bag.

“I think there’s a toy shop down here,” Janine announced, gesturing down the street. “I’d like to go there, if nobody minds…”

“Why toys?” Cherry asked curiously.

I knew Janine well enough to guess. “Dominos.”

Janine nodded at that. “Now that I’ve got more room to set up, I need to get more dominos…and other things.” She was getting excited just thinking about it.

“I don’t mind,” Laura said.

“Me either,” Morgana agreed.

Cherry just shrugged. “Whatever.”

We all started in the direction of the toy shop, though hadn’t gone very far when I suddenly heard something from the side. I snapped around, only to see a van that was parked alongside the street, with the side door suddenly being flung open. A man hopped out of the van, immediately catching my full attention.

The man was wearing a costume, a green and grey jumpsuit that looked like it had some lightweight armor built into it. Shoulder pads, knee pads, and what could have been some shoulder plates. This suit covered his entire body, with a tight green hood that covered his hair and the back of his head. His entire face was covered with a grey metallic mask that was featureless except for the eye slits.

A second after I took in his appearance, I finally noticed his weapon. It was somewhere between the size of a pistol and a rifle, perhaps more the general size and shape of a sawed-off shotgun. However, it was obviously not any kind of standard firearm. Instead, it was a high-tech thing, the kind of energy blaster I might expect to see in some science fiction movie…or in the devisor labs.

And then, only after I’d taken all of this in, did I realize that he wasn’t alone. Two more men had jumped out of the van right behind him, identical in appearance to the first man.

“Oh no,” I gasped, feeling my heart jump into my throat.

More men began appearing further down the sidewalk, having emerged from another van. All of them wore the same costume…the same uniform. And though they all had the same identical energy weapons, I noticed that most of them had some kind of secondary weapon, though these varied a great deal, from pistols to what appeared to be a sword.

“Looks like we’ve got trouble,” Morgana announced.

“I just know I’m gonna get blamed for this,” Cherry exclaimed with an exasperated sigh. “I always do.”

“Wait,” Janine gasped, staring at Cherry in surprise. “Always?”

“How often does this happen to you?” I demanded.

Morgana just snorted. “At least they’re not wearing squid hats…”

I grimaced as I watched these uniformed men, preparing to call up one of my built-in spells. Fire if I needed to go offensive, though air could be used for either offense or defense. There appeared to be about eight or ten of these men, though they were spread out and I wasn’t about to take time counting them. Instead, I tried to focus on who I needed to go after first.

They were after me. They had to be. But if they were after me, why were they spreading out rather than just attacking me directly?

“NOBODY MOVE!” a loud voice suddenly boomed out.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the newcomer, who had just emerged from a moving truck that had stopped in the middle of the street. This was an armored figure about eight feet tall and in the same color theme as all the other men, though this one also had a little gold metallic trim.

I wasn’t sure if this was power armor or some kind of light power frame. Laura would know, though if I asked her, I’d probably have to sit through a long lecture about the subject and all the technical differences.

“They brought their big brother,” Morgana commented in a worried tone.

“I AM HARDCORE,” the armored figure announced as he came closer. “ALL WE WANT IS THE JEWELRY STORE. IF ANYONE CAUSES TROUBLE OR GETS IN OUR WAY, THEY DIE. STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE AND DON’T CROSS US, AND YOU’LL LIVE.”

With those words, my eyes darted to the large jewelry store that we were just about to pass. The uniformed men were surrounding it…not us…at least not intentionally. We were just caught between them and their target. I let out a sigh of relief, thankful that this attack wasn’t aimed at me, though that certainly didn’t mean we were safe.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I said, noticing that a couple of the uniformed men seemed to be looking at me. It was hard to tell for sure though with those masks they were wearing. “I think we need to get out of here…”

“Me too,” Cherry agreed, already having pulled something out of her pack.

Cherry held something out and my eyes widened as I saw what it was. She was holding a black metallic sphere, the size of a baseball, with a four-inch chord coming out of it. It looked like stereotypical bomb with a fuse, just like I’d seen in old cartoons and comic strips.

“Run,” Cherry told us as she tossed the bomb.

“You forgot to light the fuse,” I exclaimed as I turned to start running.

There was a loud ‘BOOM’ and I glanced back, only to see a thick cloud of smoke spreading out behind us. The uniformed men were caught in the smoke, making it so I couldn’t see them…and so they probably couldn’t see us either.

“It’s not a fuse,” Cherry responded with a grin. “It’s an antenna…so I can detonate it from a distance…” She held out two more of her bombs, one of them looking exactly like the last one, which she casually tossed behind us. This time, I noticed her pushing a button on her bracelet before it detonated into another burst of smoke. “And it works with my proximity signal so it won’t go off if its too close to me…”

“GET THEM,” Hardcore called out from inside the cloud of smoke.

There were several flashes of light as blasts of energy shot out from the cloud. One hit a wall and left a melted spot in the stone, several inches across. Another hit a car that was parked beside us, leaving another melted hole.

“THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US!” Janine exclaimed with a shriek.

“Come on,” I grabbed her hand and made sure she kept up. “Don’t stop…”

I glanced at Cherry, who had an almost manic grin on her face. “Time for some BOOM,” she exclaimed, laughing excitedly.

She held up the other bomb that I’d seen her take out, and I noticed that it looked almost identical to the previous ones she’d thrown, except that instead of being painted black, it was painted a bright glossy red while the fuze was actually green. This one actually looked like a cherry.

“My signature bombs,” Cherry explained as she threw the bomb back behind us. “They make great distractions.”

A few seconds later, there was another loud ‘BOOM’, but this time, there was no burst of smoke. Instead, there was an actual explosion that shattered windows and destroyed a parked car that was a little too close.

It was at this point, that I realized an important detail. “We lost Laura and Morgana…”

The smoke was spread out all over the place, making it difficult to see much of anything behind us. I saw no sign of Laura or my roommate and there was no telling which direction they could have gone in.

“We’ll have to meet back at the bus,” Cherry said, looking worried for a moment. Then she reached into her pack and pulled out two more of her red bombs. “Time to create more distractions so we can get away…” She still had that manic look on her face, making me wonder how much of this was a distraction and how much was her taking advantage of an opportunity to blow things up.

Janine leaned over to me and whispered, “I think she scares me even more than those guys do…”

“Yeah,” I agreed, giving Cherry a worried look. “Me too.”

Whateley Academy, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

Carrie sat at the large table in the middle of the Intelligence Cadet Corp’s clubhouse, staring at that small box in the middle of the table. There were numbers on the box, arranged just like the ones on her cell phone. This was a keypad, though it hadn’t actually been connected to anything…except for being glued to a wall.

“I can’t believe we fell for that trap,” Mister Blank grumbled as he gave the disconnected keypad a fierce glare.

“I can’t believe YOU fell for it,” Flipside responded with a faint smirk. “I mean, don’t you have a danger sense?”

Mister Blank turned red at that and muttered something in embarrassment. “It’s not his fault,” Miss Violet rushed to his defense. “His danger sense must have known the shock might be painful but that it wouldn’t actually be dangerous…”

“Exactly,” Mister Blank added a few seconds later. Then he grimaced a bit before admitting, “But I did sense something dangerous… Just a bit. But I thought it was warning me about what was on the other side of the door…”

“So, you ignored your danger sense and got zapped,” Flipside commented with a chuckle.

“You weren’t there,” Miss Violet reminded him sharply. “Perhaps if you’d been helping your clubmates, rather than whatever it was you were doing instead, then we might have been able to avoid that entirely…”

Carrie slid down a little further into her chair, strongly tempted to shrink down to avoid notice. She didn’t want to get caught up in this arguing, or even listen to it. She let out a sigh of relief when Perfume cleared her throat.

“I think that we all underestimated Glyph’s security,” Perfume pointed out.

Mister Blank nodded agreement. “You’ve got that right.” Then he shook his head. “I didn’t think her security would be rubbish, but she’s a mage… I never thought she’d even consider a decoy keypad…”

“Or a technology-based trap,” Miss Violet added with her own nod.

Carrie nodded along as well, sparing another look at the decoy keypad, which they’d brought with them so that Cyber Swarm would be able to study it. Unfortunately, once they’d removed the keypad, they’d all realized that there was no sign of any real keypad, lock, or other mechanism to open the door. They’d tried a few attempts to force the door, but that hadn’t done anything either.

“As you pointed out,” Perfume told Mister Blank. “Glyph is a mage, which means that she probably has magical security…” She paused for a moment before correcting herself. “Further magical security on the door…”

“I might be able to get around it,” Flipside offered, not sounding as confident as Carrie would have expected.

Mister Blank seemed to catch that. “And here, I thought you could warp the laws of physics and turn door into liquid…”

“Or make it as fragile as glass,” Miss Violet added just a little smugly.

“Your powers are good for altering the rules of a problem,” Perfume said as well, though she was more curious than mocking about this.

Flipside just shrugged, not seeming to be bothered by their comments. “True,” he responded without a hint of embarrassment. “My reality warping abilities are rather impressive…” He hesitated a moment before he continued. “However…”

“However?” Carrie asked before she even realized that she was speaking.

“My powers aren’t exactly predictable…even to me,” Flipside admitted. “And when magic is involved… Well, magic is already messing with the normal rules, so when you add that to my powers, the results are even less predictable. Sometimes, nothing happens at all. And other times… BOOM!”

“Now you almost sound like Cherry Bomb,” Perfume commented with a look of amusement. “But I understand your point. It may not be safe for you to try bypassing that door.”

Miss Violet tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment before suggesting, “Then maybe we should talk to one of our magical leaning associates and see if one of them can help.”

“That sounds like a plan to me,” Perfume agreed with a nod of her head.

Carrie just frowned, then cautiously asked, “Isn’t this breaking and entering?”

“What was that?” Perfume asked her.

Several sets of eyes immediately settled on Carrie, which always made her self-conscious and uncomfortable. She was usually able to ignore that feeling whenever she was focused on doing one of her routines, something that she’d practiced doing countless times. However, this was not such an occasion.

“Um,” Carrie squeaked out. “We’re talking about breaking into Glyph’s lab…and we don’t have any kind of warrant. Isn’t that kind of illegal?”

Mister Blank let out a loud snort while Miss Violet responded, almost as though offended by thee question, “This is completely different.”

“Isn’t it always?” Flipside mused.

“We’re the good guys,” Mister Blank blurted out. “She’s the bad guy. It’s as simple as that…”

Perfume hesitated a moment before looking at Carrie and responding. “You do have a point, and admittedly, at other times, we might be pushing things a little…”

“At other times?” Carrie asked, a little confused by that.

“At the moment,” Perfume explained, “we are on school property. And Glyph’s hideout isn’t like her dorm room or gym locker. The school didn’t give her that hideout and never gave her permission to claim the space. What she did is really no different than going into some random closet in Schuster and declaring herself the new owner. We have every bit as much legal right to access that space as she does.”

“Exactly,” Miss Violet added with a smirk.

“Then by that reasoning,” Carrie pointed out, just because Miss Violet’s smug attitude annoyed her, “then doesn’t Glyph have just as much right to come in HERE?”

Perfumed smiled faintly at that, Flipside burst out laughing, and Mister Blank gaped at her in disbelief. Miss Violate glared at Carrie and exclaimed, “That entirely different…”

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

“Where is she?” Hardcore demanded as he looked around.

Everything was obscured by smoke, making it difficult to see anything at any reasonable distance. He shifted his armor to thermal vision to cut through the smoke, but it was too late. The target had already run off.

“Find the target,” Hardcore ordered his men over the radio. “We can’t let her escape…”

Miller responded, “I see a couple girls on the move, but I can’t make out if either of them are the target.”

“Don’t let the target escape,” Hardcore repeated before pausing to glance back at the jewelry store. “Sherman. Mitchell. Clean out the jewelry shop. It will help with our cover. Everyone else, find that girl.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “Kill her companions too… We need to create some examples and make it look like our target wasn’t targeted specifically.”

With that in mind, Hardcore turned and fired a short burst of plasma from his forearm mounted weapon. The blast went through a man who looked like he was thinking about playing hero. Once he hit the ground with a hole through his chest, Hardcore looked around for any other convenient decoys.

Suddenly, a voice came over the radio. “Tyler here. I have eyes on the target.” Hardcore smiled.

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

“I think we lost them,” Janine gasped, out of breath from our run.

We’d stopped running a couple blocks away from the robbery, on a side street that seemed mostly empty. I looked back the way we’d come but couldn’t see much through the smoke. Then, I looked around, my eyes going wide in realization.

“We lost Morgana and Laura too,” I blurted out in horror. “I thought they were right behind me…”

“They were,” Cherry responded, reaching into her pack for a couple more of her bombs. “I think we got separated at that last turn.”

I nodded at that, already starting to walk back the direction we’d come from when Cherry put out her hand to stop me. “Nope,” she told me in a firm tone. “Head back to the bus…”

I gasped at that, immediately protesting, “I can’t leave my friends…”

“And I can’t risk you getting hurt,” Cherry insisted. She stared back the way we’d come with a determined expression. “I’ll find our stragglers…and create a few more distractions in the process.” She flashed a grin. “We’ll meet back up at the bus.”

“But…,” I started to protest, not happy about this plan.

However, before I could finish arguing, a figure stepped emerged from the chaos behind us. It was one of those goons we’d run from, though thankfully, I didn’t see his armored friend, Hardcore. The goon pointed his weapon at us and fired. A burst of energy shot past, just barely missing me.

“Not on my watch,” Cherry exclaimed, throwing one of her red cherry bombs at the man.

To my surprise, our attacker stepped to the side, caught the grenade as though it was a baseball and threw it right back. This happened so smoothly, I had to wonder if our attacker was a professional baseball player. But Cherry wasn’t bothered by this at all and simply caught the ball in her own hand before gently tossing it back.

“Oh, a game of hot potato,” Cherry cheerfully announced.

For a moment, it looked like our attacker was going to catch the bomb again, but it suddenly exploded right in front of him, sending the man flying backwards pretty far. He collapsed to the ground, still moving but clearly not in any shape to continue the fight.

“I win,” Cherry announced with an evil grin. “Of course, its not smart to play hot potato with the person who controls when it goes off…”

“Why didn’t he just use his gun?” Janine asked in confusion.

“He got caught up in the moment,” Cherry responded with a grin. “It happens.”

“Laura and Morgana are in trouble,” I reminded Cherry, gesturing back in the direction where I’d last seen them. “We need…”

Cherry shook her head. “You two need to get to the bus…” I was about to protest again, but she ordered, “RUN! Run like Wondercute is coming to give you a makeover…”

“They already got away from those guys,” Janine told me, looking as though she was on the edge of panicking. “They’re probably already going to the bus…”

With a grimace, I nodded and reluctantly agreed. “Fine.” I gave Cherry a flat look and my most imperious ‘White Lady’ look. “They had better be safe.”

Cherry nodded, already heading back the way we’d come. Just a few seconds after she turned the corner, I heard another ‘BOOM’, with more smoke flooding the area immediately after.

“I guess we head to the bus,” I told Janine a little awkwardly, sparing another glance back in the direction Cherry had just gone.

Then, I paused, suddenly realizing that my hands were empty. I’d dropped my shopping bags during all the confusion, which made me curse under my breath. I’d spent almost all of my money on this trip, and now it was all gone because of those robbers. I couldn’t help but noticing that Janine had lost her shopping bags as well, including the clothes that I’d bought for her.

Janine nodded agreement, fear and worry clearly visible in her eyes. “Yeah…” She looked back the way we’d come as well and forced a smile. “They’re going to be fine. I’m sure of it.” Then in an almost conspiratorial tone, she added, “They’re really tough…”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a nod. “They are.”

I absently wiped my face with my sleeve, then paused upon noticing that I had makeup smeared all over my sleeve. I grimaced, having forgotten that I’d been wearing makeup to hide my skin color.

Then, without another word, we began heading back towards the bus, walking at a brisk pace rather than running. If we were trying to keep a low profile and avoid notice, then running was the last thing we wanted to do.

Janine and I had barely gone another thirty yards when she suddenly yelled, “WATCH OUT!” and tackled me, knocking me to the ground. A moment later, there was a flash of light above me, which would have gone through where I’d been standing.

“What the…?” I started, only to realize that two more of Hardcore’s goons had shown up. Fortunately, Janine had spotted them in time. “Thanks…”

One of the two goons had his short energy rifle pointed at us, obviously the one who’d taken that shot. The other one was raising his weapon and as one, they both fired again. Janine and I scrambled to the side and behind a car, trying to get cover. Windows shattered and holes started burning through the metal. My eyes widened.

“If they hit the gas tank…” I pointed out.

“No…,” Janine gasped in horror.

“But Cherry Bomb might enjoy the show,” I weakly joked, though Janine didn’t laugh.

“They’re gonna kill us,” Janine cried, actually shaking and looking like she was about to faint. “We do this kind of stuff in survival class…but the real thing is a LOT scarier…”

I nodded at that. “Yeah, it is.”

Training in class was almost never like real world situations. For one thing, Tolman could end a match if things started to get too intense, and for another, you were a lot less likely to be killed in class.

An image…a memory suddenly flashed through my mind. I could see the Messenger walking through a ball room while slashing his sword cane. People…family members fell in a spray of blood with each and very swing. Mom. Dad. Paige. Grandma…and so many others.

Then I realized that my eyes were closed and I was shaking. I forced my eyes open and took a deep breath, reminding myself that this would only get me killed. I wasn’t going to allow that kind of thing to happen again. I wasn’t going to just sit there and watch as people I cared about were murdered… NEVER AGAIN!

I glanced at Janine, who was staring at me as though I could save her. “Never again,” I repeated aloud.

Two more energy blasts shot out, one hitting the car and the other on missing and hitting the wall behind us. I noted that one of the blasts had come from a different angle. One of the goons had shifted position and was moving to get around the car.

I took a deep breath and activated one of my built-in spells. The watermark ‘tattoos’ scattered across my body began to glow with a faint silvery light, an indication that the stored magic had been released for my use. And with that, I stepped up and threw up a wall of air between us and the goons. An energy blast went right through the wall of air, which should have been no surprise. Solidified air could stop bullets but not energy. Fortunately, he hadn’t been aiming at me specifically when he fired, so the blast missed me and hit the wall instead.

“What are you doing?” Janine asked with an expression of both awe and concern.

“Fighting back,” I responded, releasing the wall of air and sending out a powerful burst of air instead.

Both of the goons were thrown back, where they hit the ground and tumbled. One of the two lost his weapon in the fall, though I was disappointed that the other one hadn’t lost his as well. And unfortunately, since the two of them had spread out away from each other, it had taken every last bit of my air power to hit them both. Now my air magic was down and wouldn’t recharge for about an hour.

At that moment, I really wished that I had my gun with me. Unfortunately, it was locked up in the armory back on campus, where it wouldn’t do me any good at all right now. When I got out of this, that was going to change.

“Come on,” I told Janine. “Now’s our chance…”

I reached for one of the pouches on my belt and pulled out the entire stack of cards that was stored in it, about two dozen of them. And without looking at the cards, I began pushing essence into each and every one until the entire stack of spell cards was now active.

“Have you ever played fifty-two pickup?” I asked Janine as I threw the whole stack into the air between us and the goons.

Janine gave me a confused look. “Yeah… I have a cousin who likes to spring that on everyone…”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about picking up these ones,” I explained, noting how each of the cards landed on the ground, the symbols that were painted on them glowing. Once they hit, the cards turned black and crumbled away, though the glowing symbols remained. “Now come on…”

The goon who’d lost his weapon scrambled to his feet and went for the weapon he’d dropped, but he stepped on one of the glowing symbols I’d scattered about. As soon as he did, there was a small explosion and a scream as he was sent flying up into the air, only to come down on another of the glowing runes. This resulted in another explosion with him slamming into the ground a short distance away.

“Instant mine field,” I explained to Janine. “Just add essence.”

Of course, this looked quick and easy, but it had been anything but. It had taken me hours of work to prepare that many spell cards ahead of time, but at that moment, I was thankful that I’d invested that time and effort.

The second goon was back on his feet as well, but he’d seen what had happened to his friend, so he stayed where he was and raised his weapon. I scowled in annoyance since I’d planned on running for it while they were down, using my magical landmines to keep them from following. Unfortunately, they’d gotten back to their feet a little quicker than I’d expected, so I wasn’t about to run and leave my back exposed to being shot.

“Why couldn’t I be the kind of gadgeteer who builds weapons?” Janine exclaimed in frustration as she pulled me back towards cover.

“Then you might end up like that idiot, Weaponeer,” I pointed out.

“Good point,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t want to be ANYTHING like that idiot.” We shared a nervous grin as we both ducked down behind another car.

I was already reaching into the second pouch of cards that I had on my belt, ones which were quite different from my minefield cards. Those were all copies of the same spell while my second pouch contained a variety of useful spells. I’d taken to organizing them in a way that would make it easy to find what I wanted, so it only took me a couple seconds to pull out the card I wanted. I gave it a quick glance to make sure it was the right one.

Once another blast hit the car, I came out from cover and slapped my glowing spell card onto the side of the car. This was a ‘look here’ spell, drawing the shooter’s attention, which would hopefully give us the distraction we needed. It worked because he immediately took aim at that spot on the care and opened fire. I jumped back, cursing the fact that I hadn’t considered that reaction to my spell.

“Come on,” I told Janine again. “We don’t have long…”

The goon blasted the car again and again, stepping forward as he did so to get just a little closer. Then he stepped on one of the spells I’d tossed out little earlier and the explosion threw him up into the air. Debris was scattered about in the process which set off more of my mines. There was a series of small explosions, which used up most of my remaining mines.

“I think we have a little longer now,” Janine pointed out cautiously.

“Or not,” I corrected, pointing to the goon who’d first gone through my mine field. He’d recovered enough to get back to his feet, though one arm was bent at a bad angle and he was limping.

“Why are they doing this?” Janine demanded in frustration. “We didn’t do anything to them…”

My eyes narrowed at that. She was right. We hadn’t done anything to them, nor had we gotten in the way of their robbery. They could have continued with their robbery, but instead, they’d dropped that to come after us. No, I corrected myself. To come after ME.

“They’ve got to be after me,” I gasped, knowing that Morgana would probably call me paranoid for think it. “This is another hit…”

“WHAT?” Janine blurted out, staring at me in surprise and horror. “What do you mean another…?”

I snorted as I reached into my pouch for another card. “Just another day in my life.”

Janine suddenly looked angry…furious. Then before I realized it, she was running right at the goon. She floated over a few remaining mines and reached the goon before he could get his lost weapon. He took a swing at her with his good arm, but he was injured and off balance, so barely even grazed her. But then, Janine retaliated by kicking the man between the legs and dropping to the ground. She didn’t hesitate to kick him again, right in his masked face, which knocked him over.

“Wow,” I exclaimed, both surprised and impressed. “I didn’t know you had that in you…”

Janine turned back to me with a blush on her face. “I grew up with a brother and a couple boy cousins who liked to pick on me…” She snatched up the energy rifle that the man had dropped earlier. “I know how to take care of myself.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “I can see that…”

Janine floated backwards, keeping the weapon pointed at the two men, though she held it a bit awkwardly. Obviously, she didn’t have a lot of experience in using that kind of weapon, which was no surprise. Still, she fired a couple shots in the direction of the goons, not hitting them but making a clear statement anyway.

Once Janine was back by my side, I announced, “I’m going to make sure these guys can’t cause us any more trouble.”

With those words, I activated another of my built-in spells, causing my tattoos to glow green. I stepped forward, getting closer to both of them and then bending down to put my hands on the ground. Only then did I unleash my activated earth power. The road softened and both goons sank into the ground, only a couple inches, but enough to keep them locked in place. This was probably overkill since neither of them seemed to be a threat anymore, but this did give me a chance to show off a little for Janine.

A side effect of this action was that a couple of my remaining mines detonated due to the shaking in the ground, not that they were close enough to do any damage. Only one or two mines still remained, but the essence would burn out in just a few more minutes and then they’d fade away on their own.

“I just hope Laura and Morgana don’t have this kind of trouble,” I said, giving a worried glance back in the direction where I’d last seen them.

There was another loud BOOM in the distance. “I think Cherry is still looking for trouble,” Janine pointed out.

I was worried, and though I was tempted to run back to find my friends, I remembered our instructions. Cherry had been very clear when she’d told us to get to the bus, and as our escort, I was trusting her to find Morgana and Laura. Trusting her with that wasn’t easy though.

“Or she already found it,” I muttered.

I shook my head, then wiped my forehead with my sleeve. But once I looked down at my sleeve and all the makeup that was now smeared on it, I realized that this was probably a bad idea. There probably wasn’t much makeup left on my face, and I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to waste any time touching it up.

Just then, a voice called out, “What’s going on here?”

I snapped around and saw a man standing there, having come from around the corner. He was middle-aged, dressed in a nice suit, and he was leaning on a cane.

“I heard the explosions from my office,” the man announced, gesturing back the way he’d apparently come from. “And they knocked one of the paintings off my wall…” He scowled at that, though his eyes remained locked on us.

“Great,” I grumbled with a wince. The last thing I wanted to deal with now was a witness. The smoke and explosions had done a good job of keeping witnesses away…until now. “These guys attacked us and we defended ourselves.”

Janine dropped the energy gun with a guilty look on her face. “They tried robbing a jewelry store, then came after us…”

“I see,” the man said, staring at the two goons who were partially sunk into the ground. “Well, they certainly seem to be dressed for that kind of work.”

I nodded at that, no longer looking at the man. Instead, I grabbed Janine’s hand and gently pulled her in the direction of the bus. “Time to get out of here before anything else happens…”

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

Hardcore scowled as he fired a blast of energy at a parked car, burning the door nearly completely off while destroying the inside. This petty destruction made him feel a little better, even though it did little for this mission.

This mission was a complete and total clusterfuck. Killing a teenage girl while making a show of it should have been a quick and easy paycheck, but everything that could go wrong with this mission had.

At first, Hardcore had planned to use a nearby bank as the location of the hit. After all, nobody would think twice of an armored villain and his crew hitting a bank. That kind of thing was expected. But the target didn’t cooperate and wasn’t going anywhere near a usable bank, so he’d been forced to change plans and use a jewelry store instead. He and his crew were definitely overkill for a jewelry store robbery, but it was the best cover he could come up with on such short notice.

Then someone cut loose with smoke bombs and explosives, creating complete chaos in the process. None of his men could see through the smoke, and half of them kept diving for cover because they couldn’t see the source of the explosions. And of course, the target ran, getting away in all the chaos.

Hardcore cursed under his breath, making sure that his radio wasn’t keyed before doing so. It wouldn’t do for his men to see him getting frustrated like that.

His men had chased after the target, so she wasn’t going to escape. Unfortunately, this would destroy the cover story of her simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They could still obscure the real target of this mission, but that would require a lot of collateral damage. In fact, all the explosions and smoke bombs might actually help with that.

“But first and most importantly,” Hardcore reminded himself. “We need to eliminate the target.”

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

Cherry Bomb stood in the middle of the street as she looked around for her wayward charges. She’d already led two of the other girls to safety…well…relative safety. Unfortunately, she’d lost track of the other two and needed to make sure that they were safe too.

The streets and sidewalks were empty, much to her relief. The smoke and explosions had done their job, driving everyone inside where it was safe. That meant, there were less people to get in the way and fewer witnesses for what was going on.

Small bombs were clutched in each of her hands. One held a cherry red signature bomb, which could generate a nice healthy ‘boom’ with a balanced mix of heat and force. The other was one of her plain black smoke bombs, useful for obscuring the battlefield but lacking that je ne sais quoi that made most of her toys so entertaining.

Of course, Cherry did have some better toys, though she’d been forced to leave them back on campus, along with her combat suit. That was quite a shame because this would have been a great opportunity to test out a few new toys under real world conditions. But as it was, she was left with only a few of her toys and she was almost out of those.

“I keep telling them that they should let students come fully geared out whenever we go shopping, but NOOOOO…” She mused with a roll of her eyes. “It would make things SOOOOO much easier when these situations pop up…”

Once Cherry was sure that she didn’t see her missing kids, she threw her signature bomb down the street as hard as she could, and as an exemplar, she had a great throwing arm. She kept a close eye on the bomb, making sure that there was nobody nearby when she activated the remote detonation. It exploded in the air, creating a nice loud ‘BOOM’, which was sure to draw attention in that direction. Only then did she toss the smoke bomb, making it more difficult for anyone to see what was really going on.

“I hope this was worth it,” she muttered. Those were the last two toys she had on her, except of course for her secret weapon. “Now, to find those girls…”

Cherry’s grin turned into a worried frown. She hoped those girls were all right, and that they were already heading towards the bus. That had been the arranged meeting place if they got separated on the trip. However, Cherry wasn’t one to just sit back and hope. She much preferred to take matters into her own hands.

She caught sight of two costumed henchmen running down the street, only getting a glimpse of them through the smoke. Those smoke bombs were a bit of a double-edged sword, though they wouldn’t have been any problem at all if she’d brought the goggles from her combat suit. Well, she had thought about it…but had then decided to use the space to cram in one more explodey toy instead.

When these guys had first popped up and surrounded them, she’d thought that they were after her because of that thing in Boston the previous year, though they hadn’t actually seemed especially interested in her. Of course, she wasn’t the only one on this trip who had enemies.

Though Cherry didn’t know the details, she did know that Morgana had gotten into some kind of trouble back in Britain. The kind of trouble which might end up following her halfway across the planet.

Smurf Girl…who would probably throw a fit if she ever heard Cherry call her that…had that whole devisor chocolate fiasco that had half the campus mad at her…and the other half cheering her on. But not only did she have enemies on campus because of that, she was also involved in some kind of business in Japan, though Cherry didn’t know any details. It was possible that someone might come after her because of one of those things.

Bianca, of course, was the White Lady, the figurehead of a crime family back in Chicago. She’d already been involved in some nasty business and even had a price on her head. The Cape Squad had talked about it during one of their meetings.

Cherry knew a little bit about what Bianca had gone through…and who she’d been before she inherited the title of the White Lady, and she felt sorry for the girl. It wasn’t Bianca’s fault that the world took a dump on her old life, and she was just trying to get by. This was why Cherry had been running interference for Chalk Girl on the sly, keeping the other Capes from messing with her.

And then there was Tinker Bell…who was way too plain and boring to have picked up any enemies. Well, not unless she’d gotten mixed up with the potato mafia back in Idaho. But as far as Cherry knew, Janine was the only one of their group who didn’t have enemies gunning for her.

“Lucky her,” Cherry mused as she hurried down the street. “And kind of sad too…” Everyone needed a good enemy or two.

Just then, Cherry saw something emerge from the smoke. Someone, though it was a very large someone. Hardcore was walking down the street, though he casually opened fire on a store window, destroying it and the display within.

A moment later, the armored figure noticed her. Hardcore turned and opened fire, sending blasts of energy in her direction. Cherry leapt to the side, easily avoiding one blast that went through where she’d been standing, then she dashed over to take cover behind a car that had been abandoned in the middle of the street.

“Ah, the star of the show,” Cherry mused with a grin. She reached into her pack and pulled out the very last toy she’d brought with her. This was her secret weapon, the one she’d reserved for a special occasion. “And the big bad super villain is perfect for it…”

Cherry’s last bomb looked much like the rest of the ones she’d used, a round main body with an antenna that resembled a fuse. However, the main body of this one was a bright blue and a gold letter F was painted on the side.

Then, with an almost maniacal grin, Cherry leapt out from cover and raced down the street towards Hardcore, wanting to get closer so that she wouldn’t miss. She dodged another of his blasts and picked up the pace.

“Hello daddy, hello mom,” Cherry loudly sang, “I’m your ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!”

With those words, Cherry dropped the F bomb, tossing it at Hardcore. At this range, she couldn’t miss…and she didn’t. The bomb hit him in the chest and exploded in a massive ball of fire.

“F you!” Cherry exclaimed with an excited laugh.

Hardcore was completely engulfed in flames, as was the ground around him. Spots of embers were scattered about nearby, burning with a white-hot intensity. Her furnace bomb had a relatively small boom, but it also contained a highly concentrated napalm-like gel, as well as some magnesium shrapnel. And it had just blown up in Hardcore’s face.

Cherry came to a stop and just watched the show, thinking that this would have to be a rough way to go. Still, Hardcore had been shooting up the street with no care at all about collateral damage, so she didn’t feel too bad about this.

But just as Cherry was congratulating herself for stopping the villain, Hardcore stepped out of the flame. His armor was still burning, at least for a few more seconds, before those flames went out. The armor looked a bit charred, but not badly damaged.

“How the…?” Cherry demanded, gaping at the villain in surprise.

Obviously, his armor was a lot tougher than she’d thought, though she suspected that he probably had another trick or two as well. The flames on his armor…including the burning shrapnel that had embedded in it…had all gone out. That wasn’t normal behavior.

“He probably has some kind of energy suppression field,” she mused, her devisor side taking the reigns as she tried to figure this out. Suppression fields were somewhat like force fields, but they tended to dampen one kind of energy or another. In this case, it looked like it might be heat or fire. “Damn. I wasted a good F bomb then…”

Hardcore held out his armored arms and opened fire with a series of energy blasts, one after another, almost like a machine gun. Cherry dodged and ran, jumping behind one parked car and then another. Blasts burned through each so she kept moving until the barrage finally stopped.

“Well, that was interesting,” Cherry gasped. “It looks like I got my daily cardio in…”

When she finally popped her head out from behind a car to see what was going on, she was relieved to see that Hardcore had turned away from her. After what he’d just thrown at her, he probably assumed that she was dead now.

But then, Cherry saw that Hardcore was not just walking away…he was heading in the direction where she’d last seen Janine and Bianca. Suddenly, he shot up into the air…flying away. No, she quickly realized, not flying. Leaping. Hardcore went up and then came back down again about half a block away.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” she muttered.

Cherry looked at the still burning spot on the ground, then at the surrounding cars and buildings, all of which had been torn up. There was still enough smoke to make it difficult to see very far, though fortunately, nobody remained in the streets to get caught up in all this. In the distance, she could hear the sirens, which made her let out a sigh.

“I just know they’re going to blame this whole mess on me,” Cherry said with a long sigh. She looked around at the destruction and shook her head. “Again.”

And with that, she began to follow after Hardcore. She still hadn’t found Morgana or Laura, but now she had to go find Bianca and Janine again…before it was too late.

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

Berlin NH, Sunday early afternoon, Oct 23rd, 2016

A faint hum filled the air, though it quickly grew louder…and closer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I snapped around, looking for the source of this humming sound. Mere seconds after I first heard it, something dropped from the sky and crashed into the ground about thirty yards from me.

A huge, armored figure stood there, back in the direction we’d just come from. Hardcore. And he was staring right at us, or at least, he seemed to be. It was nearly impossible to tell where his eyes were actually looking because of the helmet.

Janine grabbed my arm in fear, gasping, “Oh no…”

I let out a gasp of my own, my eyes narrowing as I stared at the villain. If he was there to rob a jewelry store, then why was he coming after us? That didn’t make any sense at all…unless we were the real goal. I was the real goal. I’d thought that was the situation when I first saw his henchmen, and I was only growing more and more certain of it. This was another hit.

Hardcore suddenly reminded me of Overstrike, another armored villain who’d been sent to kill me…back in Chicago. And this time, I wasn’t going to count on some random superhero showing up to save me like the last time.

Without another word, Janine and I turned and ran away. The humming sound kicked up again and before I knew it, a shadow passed overhead as Hardcore actually jumped over us. He landed up ahead and then turned back to us again. Obviously, we weren’t going to be able to outrun him.

“YOU GIRLS HAPPENED TO SEE SOMETHING YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE,” Hardcore called out, a lot louder than he needed to. It was almost as though he wanted people to overhear. “NOW I NEED TO ELIMINATE ALL WITNESSES. THIS IS NOT PERSONAL.”

“What is he talking about?” Janine demanded. “He was pulling a robbery right out in the open… Is he going to chase down everyone who was there?”

“I don’t think he was ever after that jewelry store,” I pointed out grimly, already reaching into my pouch for a spell card. “If he was, he would have just grabbed the jewelry and left…instead of wasting his time chasing after us.”

I held up my spell card and charged it with essence so that it would be ready to use as soon as I got close to Hardcore. This was one of my most reliable spells, and I wish I’d had it back when Overstrike came after me since it was ideal for dealing with power armor.

Hardcore held out one of his hands and fired a blast of energy from the back of his arm. Janine and I both dove to the side to avoid the blast.

“Good thing he telegraphs his attacks,” I muttered.

Then I realized that I’d dropped my spell card while diving, and it had landed against the side of a parked car. I stared at the car, my eyes going wide as I saw the car door rusting and crumbling away.

“NO,” I exclaimed in frustration.

That had been the only spell card that I’d prepared with that spell. Of course, I could draw another rust spell on the ground, but I didn’t think that Hardcore would give me the time to do that…nor conveniently walk into it once I was done.

Hardcore opened fire again, though Janine and I were both watching his arms. The energy weapons began glowing just a second before he opened fire, letting us know that it was time to move again.

“In our urban escape and evasion class,” Janine said, her voice shaking, “our teacher said that you should always try to run or hide…to lose whoever is after you.”

“We tried that,” I pointed out, though admittedly we’d done a lot more running than hiding. “I don’t think we’re gonna run away from this gun…”

Janine nodded, but continued anyway. “She also said that if you got stuck and had to fight…that you should fight dirty.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “But I don’t think that kicking him in his nuts is going to do any good.”

“Probably not,” Janine agreed, a little flustered. “I really should have kept that energy gun…”

I pulled Janine back behind a car, trying to stay out of Hardcore’s sight. That would make it harder for him to target us…and possibly easier to escape.

I thought about how we could fight dirty, but all I could think at the moment was my built-in earth spell. And unfortunately, I’d already used it up on those goons…along with my air spell. That left me with three built-in spells and a handful of prepared spell cards…most of which would be useless against an armored opponent.

“All those weeks of BMA,” I grumbled, ducking down as an energy blast struck the car I was hiding behind, burning a massive hole through the front end. “And as soon as I run into a real-world situation…I can’t use ANY of it…”

That wasn’t completely accurate, though it certainly felt like it at the moment. There was one thing I had learned in BMA though, and that was to hit your opponent hard and fast if you could, with whatever your best attack was for that moment.

Once again, I flipped a mental switch and activated one of my remaining built-in spells, causing all of my ‘tattoos’ to glow a reddish-orange. Fire was my most powerful remaining spell, and it was time to see if Hardcore could take the heat.

“When I jump up,” I warned Janine, “run. Get away while I distract him…”

“What?” she gasped. “What are you going to…?”

Before Janine could finish, I leapt out from behind the car, focusing all of my fire magic into a single focused blast and sending it right at Hardcore. He was standing still, making him an easy target, so I hit him right in the chest, burning through every ounce of energy that had been stored in that spell.

“GOTCHA!” I exclaimed triumphantly, sure that I had him.

The armored figure just stood there, and for a few seconds, it looked like the heat was starting to char his armor. But then, it abruptly stopped. In an instant, the air around him shimmered and the fire vanished. His armor was a little charred and lightly damaged…but it had already looked like that before. I wasn’t sure that I’d added any extra damage to that.

“Not good,” I gasped, taking a terrified step back. I’d just hit Hardcore with my most powerful attack…and he’d simply shrugged it off.

Now I only had two remaining elemental spells I could activate, and neither of them would do much. First, my light power would be completely useless against Hardcore, while my water spell could control water…not create it. And I didn’t see any bodies of water I could use.

“Is this what Vic always feels like?” I muttered, desperately trying to think of what I could do next.

This was not my kind of fight. My powers simply weren’t made for going head on against an armored opponent. If I wanted to beat him, I needed to get away…to draw a bunch of spells on the ground and wait for him to walk into them. However, I had no illusion about getting the time to do something like that now. Maybe if I’d started setting my trap as soon as we’d finished dealing with those goons…

Hardcore held out his hands and I could see the glow forming in his weapon, giving me another warning about what was to come. Then to my surprise, the glow flickered a little and an energy blast came out…but it was weak compared to the previous ones.

I leapt to the side again, avoiding the blast, though I tore my hand open a little when I hit the ground. I was already pretty bruised and scraped from all this fighting, though I didn’t pay it much attention since my regen was already taking care of it.

Hardcore paused for a moment, then shifted position and tried for another blast. This one flickered and came out even weaker than the last one.

“He’s running out of ammo,” I gasped in realization. “Or power…or whatever he uses for that thing…

I felt a surge of relief at that…and hope. So far, Hardcore had just been standing back and blasting us, so if he could no longer blast us… Well, this could be a game changer.

“It’s broken,” Janine exclaimed. “Now we can get away…”

“Maybe,” I responded without much confidence. I remembered how well Hardcore could jump…and how easily he’d cut us off. “Maybe if we go into a building…” I gestured at a random building. “He’s too big to follow us inside…”

“But we could also end up trapped in some random store,” Janine pointed out. “Until he busts in after us…”

In spite of that, this seemed to be our best chance to escape. I picked out a nearby building that looked like it might have a bunch of offices, the kind that would have a couple side exits we could escape through. But before Janine or I could head towards it, the humming sound started again and Hardcore launched into the air.

I was already reaching into my pouch as I moved away, trying to find a spell that could help. About half my spell cards were ones for security…to keep me from being spied on in one way or another. I did have a few more spells like those land mines, and even some utility spells. I charged a couple of those and threw them to the ground, right where I thought Hardcore was going to land.

Hardcore landed right where I expected, smashing into the ground and activating two of my spells. One exploded while the other released a concentrated burst of kinetic energy, the kind that would toss a normal person up about five feet into the air. Combined, they caused the armored figure to stagger back a couple steps.

When Hardcore stepped forward, his foot came down onto one of my other spell cards, activating the spell I’d stored within. This was a quick binding…the magical equivalent of super glue. If a normal person stepped on that, it would hold their foot in place for half a minute, long enough for me to either attack them or escape. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly strong enough to hold that power armor and he easily tore free.

I scrambled backwards, trying to put more space between me and Hardcore, though I’d given up any hope of outrunning him. Instead, I desperately searched through my stack of spell cards, trying to find something…ANYTHING…that could slow him down.

Suddenly, an empty beer bottle flew into Hardcore’s head, shattering into glass shrapnel. “RUN!” Janine shouted as she threw another bottle at the armored figure, even though she had to know that this couldn’t hurt him. Still, I appreciated her attempt to distract him.

“YOU RUN!” I shouted back, wishing that Janine would take the opportunity to escape while she could.

“I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!” Janine responded, throwing the second bottle along with that looked to be chunk of broken masonry, probably broken loose from one of the buildings during all the fighting.

“YES!” I suddenly exclaimed, realizing that I had one card in my stack that would be absolutely perfect for this situation. I did have a second rust spell prepared… “Now I just need to hit him with it…”

Just then, another familiar voice yelled out, “BIANCA!”

I glanced around while I continued backing away from Hardcore, quickly spotting Morgana and Laura running towards us. My roommate was back in her dragon form, and her clothes looked a bit torn and singed, though honestly, I would have expected them to be a lot worse. In fact, I was a little surprised that she hadn’t burned all of her clothes to cinders yet. Laura, of course, was in much better shape.

“I CAN’T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR FIVE MINUTES,” Morgana called out.

“POT MEET KETTLE,” I responded.

A moment later, I heard the now familiar humming. That drew my full attention back to Hardcore, who looked like he was about to do another one of those leaps. I was out of his reach but not far enough away to bother with that kind of powered jump. Maybe he was going to go after one of my friends next… But then, instead of launching up into the air like I expected…he shot forward…straight at me.

I tried to jump out of the way but couldn’t move fast enough. Before I knew it, Hardcore slammed into me, causing me to drop all of my spell cards. All but one, and I wasn’t even sure which one I’d managed to keep hold of. I just hoped it was my rust spell, because if it wasn’t…

The impact knocked the wind out of me and left me dazed for a few seconds, long enough for Hardcore to get a good grip on me. The next thing I knew, he’d grabbed me around my midsection using both hands, one on each side of my rips…and lifted me off the ground. His grip was strong enough that my ribs ached and I knew that he could easily crush me.

“No,” I gasped, having a hard time breathing.

My friends were calling for me, but I didn’t pay them much attention. Instead, I turned my attention the card I still held in my hand, the last chance for me to escape this situation. I hoped it was my rust spell. I wasn’t religious, but I silently prayed for it to be the right spell. And then as I looked at the card, I let out a pained sigh. It was my silence spell. That would be a great one if I wanted to keep Hardcore from communicating with his people or calling for reinforcements, and maybe even if he had some kind of sonic weapon. But for this situation… It was useless. Without bothering to charge the spell, I let go and it fell to the ground to join all the others that I’d lost.

“Who are you?” Hardcore asked. His voice was lower than the previous times I’d heard him speak. This time, he seemed to be speaking to me alone rather than to everyone nearby. “Not that I care, but you hardly seem worth this effort…”

I blinked in surprise. “You’re trying to kill me…and you don’t even know who I am?”

This confused me a little because I’d thought he was another hitman. But if he didn’t even know who I was…then was I really his target? This whole situation had only become even more confusing.

While Hardcore was talking, he wasn’t pressing his hands together and crushing me like a grape. As long as he was talking, I still had a chance. I glanced to my friends, hoping that they could take advantage of Hardcore’s distraction. However, what I saw was that all of them were holding back, staring at me with worried looks. Of course… I was effectively a hostage. They couldn’t come at Hardcore without risking me further.

“I’m on my own,” I whispered in dread.

For a moment, I nearly collapsed at the hopeless situation. Then, I suddenly realized that this might actually be an opportunity in disguise. I’d lost all my spell cards, but not all my weapons. In fact, my most powerful weapons were stored in another pouch on my belt…one that I could reach.

“ONCE I KILL YOU,” Hardcore announced, once again raising the volume so that other people could hear, “I WILL KILL ALL THE OTHER WITNESSES. THIS IS NOTHING PERSONAL.”

Those words sent a chill down my spine. An image flashed into my mind of the man who’d previously spoken those words to me. Fear flooded through me at those words…at that memory. However, that fear quickly turned to anger and determination.

“Nothing personal,” I spat out bitterly. “The Messenger said the exact same thing before he slaughtered my family…”

“The Messenger?” Hardcore asked in his quieter voice. His voice was modulated through the armor, but he still sounded surprised.

“He said that when he tried to kill me,” I continued in a cold even voice. “But I killed him first… Then I had his head cut off and sent to the person who’d hired him…”

There was a moment of silence before Hardcore responded, “The Messenger was killed by…” Then he went silent again.

I could feel his eyes locked on me as the wheels turned in his mind. My white hair was loose and spilling all over the place. Most of my makeup had been lost during the fighting, letting my ‘natural’ skin color show.

“You’re HER,” Hardcore gasped, the surprise and even fear now clear in his voice. His grip tightened on me, painfully so. I was sure I’d cracked a rib or two during the impact, so this hurt even worse and made it nearly impossible to breath. “You’re the new White Lady…”

Hardcore was starting to get worried, which admittedly, made me feel a little better. However, now that he knew who I was, he probably realized that there could be consequences for killing me…such as retaliation by the Family. Not that this would do me any good if he killed me…and he was clearly about to do that anyway.

With that, I held my hand out, revealing my secret weapon. That caught Hardcore’s attention, though he was probably confused as to why I was holding out a red crayon. And while his attention was on the crayon, I reached out with my other hand and pushed essence into the symbol that I’d just drawn onto his chest.

I kicked Hardcore as hard as I could, causing his armor shatter where my foot struck. I followed that up by slamming my elbows down, cracking his arms and forcing him to let me go. I dropped to the ground, where I immediately rolled to break the fall. It looked like BMA was good for something after all.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Hardcore demanded, obviously confused by how easily his armor was breaking.

I just grinned triumphantly. My rust spell would have been useful, but I had no idea how much of his armor was corrodible metal and how much would be made of things like ceramic or fiberglass. That was why I’d used my new ‘fragile’ spell. That one briefly made nearly the whole thing become as brittle as delicate crystal.

“NOW ITS MY TURN!” Morgana yelled as she rushed forward, flames flickering over her body.

Morgana reached Hardcore a second later and gave him a good punch. His armor crumbled beneath her fist, breaking into large shards of material. But my roommate wasn’t finished and hit him again, sending the armor flying back into the side of a car. The side of the car was smashed in while the armor practically exploded into splinters and shrapnel.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Morgana asked me in an aside. “That was one nasty spell…”

“I’ll have to add it to my usual repertoire,” I responded with a weak smile. “I only found it recently but didn’t think I’d use it much since I already have my rust spell…”

I stared at Hardcore, or at least, at what was left of his armor. Now, it was so broken up that it would barely even qualify as scrap. Pieces of the armor, both large and small…mostly small…were scattered all over the road. Only part of the core body remained semi-intact, and even the outer shell of that had been removed. What little that remained, didn’t look like it could be any kind of a threat.

But as I watched, the remaining core began to crack open as something started to emerge, almost like a bird breaking out of its egg. But the figure that emerged was human, a man wearing a green and grey jumpsuit similar in style to the armor than those henchmen had worn. This was Hardcore, the man inside the armor. Or at least, the man who’d formerly been inside the armor.

Hardcore looked shaken and a bit disoriented, but also determined…like a man who wasn’t about to give up just because his power armor had been peeled off him. He reached for a gun that was strapped to his side, but before he could even draw it from the holster, he suddenly collapsed to the ground. My eyes went to Laura, who’d just shot him with her neural neutralizer.

“And who says shopping trips are boring?” Morgana joked, flashing me a broad grin.

“Not the way you do them,” I said with a sigh. “Next time, can we skip the crazy villain part…?”

“But that’s the best part,” my roommate protested.

Suddenly, Janine threw her arms around me, making me wince in pain from my tender ribs. “You made it,” she exclaimed, hugging me tighter. “I was so worried…”

“Me too,” I admitted awkwardly.

“I was afraid you were going to die,” she cried out, still not letting go of me. “And I never even got to…”

When Janine abruptly cut off, I asked, “What?”

Janine was still hugging me tightly, though thankfully, no longer around my tender ribs. She was also blushing brightly as she pulled back and looked into my eyes. Then, without warning, she leaned in and surprised me with a quick kiss on my lips. It was just a quick peck, but I gaped at that…and the implications.

Before I could gather my wits, another familiar voice exclaimed, “I can’t believe it!” I looked over and saw Cherry coming towards us. “I finally find everyone, only to find that you had all the fun without me…”

“Um…sorry?” Janine responded awkwardly. She was staring at the ground, bright red, and not looking at me at all. I probably would have been blushing just as much if I’d been able to.

“It looks like you didn’t leave anything for me,” Cherry grumbled as she joined us. “Not that I have any more bombs on me, but the point still stands.”

“About time you showed up,” Morgana teased. “Too bad, you missed the party. We saved you a piece of cake though…”

“But she ate it,” I added, gesturing to my roommate who just shrugged.

“Laura ate the last piece,” Morgana disagreed, gesturing to Laura.

I glanced at Laura, who was staring down at the shattered remains of Hardcore’s armor with an expression of immense disappointment. “Such a waste… I wanted to study this armor, but this is completely useless…”

“It could be worse,” I pointed out wryly. When Laura gave me a curious look, I added, “I could be dead.”

“And I for one am glad you’re not,” Morgana told me. “I’d hate to have to break in a new roommate…”

“Nobody else would put up with you,” I respond with a faint smile.

Then I paused as I saw something from the corner of my eye. Someone else was coming towards us. My first impulse was to get ready for another fight, though I quickly realized that this wasn’t another of Hardcore’s goons. It was the same man Janine and I had run into earlier, the middle-aged one with the cane. He glanced at the wreckage and then gave a longer look at Hardcore before nodding in approval.

“You kids should get back to Whateley, as soon as possible,” the man announced as he came to a stop in front of us. He scowled as he took another look around. “Campus security has been notified and should be here soon…”

“What?” I gasped in surprise. “You know about Whateley?”

He chuckled at that, looking amused. “Oh, I’m quite familiar with the school…” He looked over at Cherry and added, “I see that you’re just as bad at staying out of trouble as ever.”

Cherry shrugged, not looking the least bit ashamed of herself. “I tried.”

“I’m sure you did,” he responded wryly.

I stared at the man, examining him a little closer than before. He was well-dressed, wearing a professional looking suit. However, there was one spot of whimsey that I’d missed before. His tie pin looked like a cartoon character that I remembered from those old Looney Tunes cartoons. It was that little brown bird that always gave that big rooster a hard time.

Was this guy a teacher? He obviously knew about Whateley and he even seemed to know Cherry. However, I couldn’t remember ever seeing him around the school, not that I actually knew everyone who worked there.

“I lost my bags back at the jewelry store,” Janine told me apologetically. “All those new clothes you bought me… I’m sorry…”

“I lost mine too,” I told her with a sigh. “And it looks like everyone else did too…”

“Unfortunately,” Laura agreed, staring at a shard of shattered armor before shaking her head and dropping it onto the ground. “All those new parts…”

“Any chance we can go back for our bags?” Morgana asked Cherry, who merely shook her head.

“Not a chance,” Cherry said. “Hear that…?” She gestured down the street. “Sirens. Sounds like the cops are finally heading this way and we REALLY need to get out of here before they arrive.”

The man nodded agreement. “That would be a good idea.”

None of us needed to say anything more about that. The sound of the sirens spoke loudly enough. And as the sirens got closer, we all began hurrying back towards the bus.

Once we were away, Janine cautiously asked, “So, what do we do now?”

“Paperwork and lectures,” Cherry muttered bitterly. “And probably a LOT of detention…”

Poe Cottage, Monday morning, Oct 24th, 2016

I grimaced as I tried to mentally prepare myself for the trial that was called a morning. And not just any morning either, but a dreaded Monday morning, the worst of all mornings.

At the moment, I stood in the hallway, having completed as much of my preparations as possible. I was already showered and dressed, which felt like an enormous accomplishment. Now, I just had to get breakfast, then I’d be ready to face the rest of the day. In theory.

The hallway was filled with girls who were about to take the long trek to Crystal Hall, the same as me, though they presented a wide spectrum of moods. Some, like myself, were lacking in energy or enthusiasm, and rightly so. However, there were others…or at least one…like Nina, who was practically bouncing off the walls.

A variety of conversations took place around me. Some were about plans for today, some were about personal drama, and some was just the kind of mindless gossip that spread like some kind of infection. And of course, some of this was about what had happened yesterday in Berlin.

“I heard you guys fought a supervillain,” someone exclaimed. I was still a little too groggy to tell who.

“Again,” someone else added. This time, I recognized the voice. It was Nina.

“Honestly,” Laura corrected, “Bianca and Janine…Tinker were the ones who really fought him. Morgana and I only came in at the end.”

“What?” Chessa asked, giving Laura and Morgana confused looks. “Where were you guys then?”

“Yeah,” I teased Morgana with a smirk. “Where were You?”

Of course, I already knew where my roommate was when I’d been fighting Hardcore. She and Laura had been busy with their own problems, specifically, a bunch of Hardcore’s armed goons.

“Bite me,” Morgana responded, cheerfully giving me the finger.

“You have to admit,” I continued to tease her. “You were rather late to the fight.”

“Nonsense,” she replied with a smirk. “A dragon is never late. She always arrives precisely when she intends to.” Then, before I could think of a comeback, Morgana continued, “Besides, the most interesting part was when you kissed Tinker.”

My eyes shot wide at that comment, and I would have turned bright red if my pigmentation allowed for that. Instead, I gasped, “What…?” I could barely believe she’d said that with so many other people around. No, scratch that. I could believe it. This was Morgana I was talking to.

“You kissed Tinker?” Nina asked with a grin.

“Oh yeah,” Morgana cheerfully continued while I was too stunned with embarrassment to speak. “They were all over each other. It was damn near indecent…”

“About time,” Chessa exclaimed.

Bailey added, “I was wondering if you two would ever hook up…”

My eyes widened even more at that. “Wait… You thought that was going to happen?”

“Of course,” Chessa answered with a smirk. “It was obvious…”

“Tinker has been giving you goo-goo eyes for weeks…,” Zapper explained cheerfully.

“Oh God,” I groaned, putting my hands over my face.

I’d had absolutely no idea that Janine might be interested in me like that, at least not until yesterday when she’d surprised me with that kiss. I still didn’t know what she felt about me…or even what I felt about her. We hadn’t talked about it yet. But now, I was suddenly getting the impression that everybody else…or at least, everybody in Poe might have known about her interest before I did.

“I think Pat won the pool…” Bailey said, looking disappointment. “I had them down for not hooking up until after parents day…”

“After Christmas for me,” someone else grumbled.

“I had them down for never,” Zapper commented. Then she added almost defensively, “I figured Bianca might prefer guys…”

I groaned again and stared down at the ground, unable to look anyone in the eyes. I couldn’t believe that everyone had been talking about…even BETTING on my love life. Fortunately, this probably didn’t go beyond Poe. At least, I REALLY hoped that it didn’t.

Fortunately, I was rescued from this humiliating conversation when Mrs. Horton appeared a few seconds later. “Laura. Bianca. Morgana. Come step into my office for a minute.”

“Okay,” I responded, letting out a sigh of relief, right before I gulped nervously.

I might have escaped that conversation, but I suspected that I was about to be getting another lecture over what had happened yesterday. I was really getting tired of the lectures.

After we’d returned to campus yesterday, our entire group had been unceremoniously ushered into the security offices in Kane Hall. Following that, there had been hours of debriefings over what had happened, and of course, lectures on what we should have done differently.

However, we’d done exactly what we’d been instructed to do in case of trouble. At the first sign of danger, we ran and tried to avoid any direct confrontations. None of us had really fought until we’d been cornered and had no other choice. And because of that, none of us had been given detention or any real punishment. Well, none of us except Cherry. For some reason, they seemed to blame her for the whole mess.

Once we’d all stepped into Mrs. Horton’s office, I gave her my full attention, expecting her to begin another lecture, or even worse, announce some punishment for getting in trouble yesterday. Maybe grounded to our rooms or just to the cottage itself for a couple weeks.

“Girls,” our housemother announced, “Last night, a security officer delivered these bags.” She gestured to the corner where there was a small pile of plastic bags.

“Our stuff,” I exclaimed in surprise, recognizing the shopping bags that we’d been forced to abandon.

“It seems that someone delivered them to the security offices last night,” Mrs. Horton explained. “Cherry was there at the time and was able to identify who owned these bags, so we were able to ensure their return.”

“Thank you,” Laura blurted out, already digging into the bags. She let out a sigh of relief once she verified that the parts she’d bought were there.

“My coffee,” Morgana exclaimed, pulling out one of her bags of beans and giving it an appreciative sniff.

Not one to be left out, I quickly counted my own bags, making sure that all my purchases were also present. Card stock from the stationary shop. A few pieces of clothing and…

“Here it is,” I gasped, pulling my new jacket out of a bag and holding it up. I’d spent the last of my money on this thing, so it was an enormous relief to get it back. “My new coat…”

“It looks awesome,” Morgana told me with a nod of approval.

“Very nice,” Mrs. Horton agreed with a look of amusement. “But unless I miss my guess, you girls have a schedule to keep.”

“Thank you,” the three of us exclaimed in near unison before hurrying out of the office with bags in hand.

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

Berlin NH, Monday morning, Oct 24th, 2016

The middle-aged man sat in the driver’s seat of his luxury sedan, slowly sipping his coffee. He was careful not to spill a single drop on his expensive suit…or on the immaculate interior of the car.

A cellphone rested on his leg, open to an internet message board for golf enthusiasts. He glanced at the phone, checking for new messages. Then his eyes went to the clock. Half a minute left.

Thirty seconds later, he stared at the building down the street from where he was parked, the police station. He thought he heard a ‘BOOM’, but it might only have been his imagination. The thick walls would have muffled the sound of small explosions, and then there was the distance. Outward, there was no visible signs of what had just occurred.

The man took one more sip of his coffee before setting it aside. A new message had just appeared on the message board, one demanding his full attention.

‘A GOOD DAY ON THE COURSE. A HOLE IN ONE ON THE NINETH HOLE.’

His inside man had just reported in, though of course, it was all in code. If he’d said that he had a good day on the green, instead of on the course, that would have indicated that he was compromised and to ignore the rest of the message. The number of the hole specified had meaning too, with each hole communicating something different. The nineth hole meant that his inside man had a clean exit.

But of course, the most important part of the message was the ‘hole in one’. That indicated that the mission was a complete success. If the message had specified a number of strokes, that would have indicated the number of survivors.

It hadn’t been easy to find someone on such short notice, who could infiltrate the police station and slip explosives into several of the cells. Fortunately, a complete success was worth the rather hefty expense.

After reading the message, Robert Grace Sr. closed his internet browser. The message had been delivered and there was no need for him to respond. Instead, he glanced at the back of his phone, at the faintly glowing symbol that had been etched into the case. This was a magic spell, or at least part of one. He didn’t understand how it worked, only that it did. This was part of a magic encryption system that let him communicate with his employer without risk of interception.

“Mister Scorn,” Robert greeted his employer a few seconds later. “The loose ends have been dealt with. Hardcore and his men have been eliminated before they had a chance to talk.” He paused to listen for a few seconds before responding, “That won’t be a problem. Our inside man is under the impression that he was hired by the Family. In fact, anyone who knows of the White Lady’s involvement in the incident, will assume that the Family killed Hardcore in retaliation.”

Once the call ended, Robert put his phone away and started the car. For a brief moment, he considered visiting his son at school since it was only a short distance away, but he quickly discounted that idea. He couldn’t risk being seen by the White Lady…or having the school realize that he was in the area. That might bring the kind of attention that he and his employer had gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid.

And with that decided, Robert began the long drive back to Chicago.

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

Crystal Hall, Monday late morning, Oct 24th, 2016

I stood in the slowly moving lunch line, waiting to get my food. However, even as I stared at the large container of mac and cheese, my thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

Last period, during BMA, I’d gotten yet another lecture over what had happened yesterday, though admittedly, this one was a little more on the practical side of things. Sensei Tolman had pulled me, Laura, and Morgana aside almost as soon as we’d arrived to class, and then she’d asked about what had happened, or at least, the actual fight parts. She’d already read the reports from security, so she’d already known most of it. Unfortunately, after telling us how we could have done better, she’d put us into sparring for the rest of class.

“Why is Bacon even in our class?” I asked Morgana with a sigh. I’d been forced to spar against Bacon for the entire class period, probably because Tolman wanted to give me more practice going up against someone much bigger and stronger than me. As if that wasn’t something I had to deal with all the time anyway. “I mean, shouldn’t he be in a brick class instead?”

“Yeah,” Morgana agreed. “But they don’t let you take the brick…or the more specialized classes until you’ve done BMA 1. They want you to know the basics first.” Then she shrugged. “Besides, some of the PK bricks like Bacon and Tanya can turn it off, or at least way down, long enough for practice.”

I nodded at that, already having known that. I’d spent a good part of the class going against Bacon without either of us using our powers, not that it made much difference. Even with his PK turned off, he was still a lot bigger and stronger than me.

“You’re just mad because you’re out of spell cards,” Morgana pointed out.

“Maybe,” I reluctantly admitted.

I’d used up most of my spell cards but hadn’t had a chance to make any new ones yet. Of course, Tolman knew that, so that was probably part of why she threw me at Bacon. It was probably meant as a lesson, to teach me to always keep more backups or something.

With a sigh and a shake of my head, I mused, “I foresee a lot of time in my lab in the near future. I’ve got a LOT of new cards to make.”

Then I looked down at the food again and began to absently load up my plate, though I only paid half attention to what I was grabbing. At the same time, the rest of my attention was on my surroundings as I kept glancing around me. I told myself that I was just looking for potential threats, the same way I always did, however, I also knew the truth. I was looking for Janine.

Janine had kissed me yesterday, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about it since then. Every time the two of us had been together since then, there had been other people around. And then this morning, she’d quickly disappeared after class, giving me the impression that she might be avoiding me.

“I hope not,” I muttered, feeling a little hurt by the idea.

“What was that?” Morgana asked.

“Nothing,” I quickly responded.

Then with a sigh, I took another quick glance around. Still no sign of Janine, though I did see a couple students looking towards me. I wasn’t sure if they were actually looking at me or just looking in my general direction, but after what had happened yesterday, I would not be the least bit surprised to be the topic of new gossip.

Then I spotted Shades, standing back with Beatdown. Shades was looking in my direction too, but I had absolutely no doubt that he was staring at me. I shuddered in disgust, silently praying that he didn’t take my notice as an invitation to come over and talk. The last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment was another of his attempts to hit on me.

“It looks like stalker boy is still into you,” Morgana commented as she noticed where I was looking. Then she gave me an evil grin and suggested, “Maybe you should go out on a date with him…”

“WHAT?” I gasped in horror, almost recoiling from the suggestion.

Morgana snickered a little at my reaction and continued, “You just might make a certain someone else a little jealous…”

With that, I took another quick glance around for Janine, blushing brightly…or more accurately…blushing stealthily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I protested weakly.

“Sure, you don’t,” my roommate responded with a chuckle as she gave me a gentle elbow in the side.

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

Crystal Hall, Monday late morning, Oct 24th, 2016

Melody Sheridon slipped into a seat at the table, right across from Bobby Grace…Crysis. She didn’t have a tray, but she wasn’t there to eat.

“Bobby,” she greeted the boy with a fake smile.

Bobby looked up, still chewing his food. He met her gaze and grunted slightly in acknowledgement, but he didn’t respond until he’d swallowed.

“Melody,” Bobby finally responded.

“People are talking about a supervillain attack in Berlin, yesterday,” Melody said, leaning forward and whispering.

“There was?” Bobby asked, not sounding as surprised as he was trying to look. “I hadn’t heard…”

Her eyes narrowed. “You told me not to go there…” There was a sharp question in her tone and a hint of fear.

The boy scowled and gave her a warning look before he smiled, a smile that was just as fake as the one she’d greeted him with. “Of course… You wanted to go play a practical joke, but I didn’t want you to do anything that could get you in trouble…”

Melody hesitated, wanting to ask Bobby if he knew anything about that attack. The fact that he’d warned her away from Berlin…right before there was an attack… It was more than a little suspicious. However, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer. After all, plausible deniability was a thing.

“Thank you for looking out for me,” Melody finally said with another fake smile. “I was only planning a harmless little prank, but I appreciate you keeping me out of trouble.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Bobby agreed.

The two of them sat there in silence for nearly a minute, though Melody kept glancing around. She wanted to ask more questions, to find out what was really going on…regardless of any plausible deniability, but they were in the middle of Crystal Hall, surrounded by hundreds of other students. Obviously, neither of them wanted to say anything that could be overheard.

“Its too bad,” Melody finally said. “About that supervillain, I mean.” She gave Bobby an almost predatory smile as she thought about some of the students who’d been in Berlin at the time. “Someone could have been hurt.”

“Yeah,” Bobby agreed as he went to take another bite of his lunch. “Too bad.”

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

Schuster Hall, Monday afternoon, Oct 24th, 2016

Robert Turner and Samantha Everheart stood in the headmaster’s office, scowls on both their faces. A short distance away, Geoffrey Mazarin, the current headmaster, sat behind his desk.

“The incident in Berlin is troubling,” Everheart said.

“Of course, it’s troubling,” Turner pointed out with a shake of his head. “Some of our students were caught in it and could have been killed.”

“True,” Everheart responded, “but I was referring to all the contradictions.” She paused for a moment, glancing over to Mazarin before she continued, “Hardcore is a mercenary, not known for small robberies. Robbing a jewelry store is well beneath him, especially considering the size of the crew he brought with.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Turner agreed with a sigh. “I doubt they would have been able to get enough to pay for all the expenses of that job, much less make a profit.” He shook his head. “Perhaps they were in desperate need of a quick cash infusion…” However, his tone of voice made it clear that he was doubtful.

“Hardcore clearly announced that they were only there for the robbery,” Everheart continued. “Yet when the students ran, he seemed more interested in following them. His actions mark the robbery as a secondary priority.”

“He announced the robbery as his goal,” Mazarin stated, “yet his actions indicate otherwise, especially considering the specific students he ended up confronting.”

“This wouldn’t be the first time St. Claire was targeted for assassination,” Everheart added grimly. “And Jones has her own history.”

“There is some evidence to suggest this may have been another assassination attempt,” Mazarin mused with a look of annoyance, “yet nothing solid enough to act upon.”

Turner shook his head. “Circumstantial evidence and contradictions.” He gave a look of disgust. “Unfortunately, Hardcore and all his people were killed before any of them could talk.”

“Explosives snuck into their cells,” Everheart said. “Whoever did this has resources.”

“Probably the Family,” Turner suggested. “Retaliation for attacking St. Claire.”

“They do seem a likely possibility,” Everhearet agreed. “Though I’ve heard of no evidence to support that.”

“That was not the Family,” Mazarin said, drawing Turner and Everheart’s attention back to him.

Turned blinked. “You know something about Hardcore’s death?” He was careful to keep any hint of accusation or suspicion out of his voice. The headmaster did have a someone…questionable history…but he didn’t want to bring any hostility into their working relationship.

The elderly man ran a hand over his goatee, looking thoughtful. “I also suspected that the Family might be involved with Hardcore’s death…so I contacted an old acquaintance within the Family. He assured me that the Family had nothing to do with this.” He gave a faint smile. “This occurred before the Family even had a chance to organize anything.”

“And you believe him?” Robert asked.

Mazarin nodded. “I do. As he said, the Family didn’t have time to properly organize a response, and this strikes me more as an attempt to silence Hardcore than as an act of retaliation. Especially not a retaliation from the Family.”

“Then we still don’t have anything,” Turner stated with a sigh. “We still can’t be certain this was a direct action against our students…or who directed it. We can make assumptions, but without evidence…”

“We will continue to investigate,” Everheart assured him and Mazarin. “Whatever the truth, we will uncover the evidence we need.”

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

Monday late afternoon, Oct 24th, 2016

I stood motionless, silently straining to hear the sounds around me. Numerous sounds came through the tunnels, most of them faint, distant and far too indistinct to make anything out. And most importantly, I didn’t hear any footsteps.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I took another look around. There were no signs of those robot insects that had been following me around, nor any indication that a person was following me either. However, I wasn’t about to simply accept that I was in the clear.

There was already a spell card grasped in my fingers, and with only a small amount of essence, the symbols on it began to glow. I dropped it to the ground and watched as the symbols spread out beyond the boundary of the card, which was now crumbling to ash. The symbols glowed faintly for several more seconds before fading from view.

This was a simple little spell, a ward to warn me if anyone else passed through this way within the next hour or so. Just because no one seemed to be following me now, that didn’t mean that someone wasn’t waiting further back in the tunnels.

Once I was sure that I was in the clear, I continued walking through the tunnels, heading to my lab. I’d burned through most of my spells during that incident with Hardcore and his men, so I need to replace them. Fortunately, I now had some extra supplies, like the card stock that I’d bought from the stationary store in Berlin.

“Thankfully, someone saved it all,” I mused, grateful for whomever had gone back and recovered our lost shopping bags. Probably one of the security people who’d gone there to clean things up. I adjusted the backpack which was slung over my shoulder, containing my new supplies. “I’m going to need it for the new cards.”

It didn’t take long for me to reach the side corridor where I had my lab, though once I did, I froze. One glance was enough to immediately tell that something was wrong. The camouflaged outer door was open.

“No,” I gasped, my eyes going wide as I rushed forward to get a better look.

I was relieved to see that the inner door…the main door was still closed, though that didn’t make me feel much better. The door itself looked intact, but there were scratches and scuffs on the concrete around it, and the decoy keypad was missing entirely.

“They found it,” I exclaimed in horror. After everything I’d done to create a secret entrance that was completely hidden…someone had still managed to find it. “Damn…”

I looked over the door and was relieved to see that it was still intact and locked. Someone had obviously been trying to break in, but it didn’t look like they’d succeeded. They must have given up and left. For now.

With trembling hands, I placed my magnet into the correct spot and then traced the key rune into the door. It opened up without a problem. Then I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

“Nothing,” I said, relieved to see that there was absolutely no indication that someone had managed to get inside.

I closed the door behind me and locked it, feeling just a little better as I did so. My secret lab hadn’t been completely violated, but the location was no longer secret. I should have felt grateful for that, but instead, I still felt violated.

“My lab,” I whispered, thinking about the intruders and what they could have found.

Everything was intact and exactly where I’d left it. Then my eyes went to a blank spot on the concrete floor. I activated my built-in earth rune, then used the power to move the concrete aside. I’d only cleared a small amount, but it was enough to reveal the hollow space that had been hidden beneath it.

“Everything is still there,” I mused, looking over the special inks that I’d hidden away. These were the rare inks, the ones that had taken the most work to create, and the ones that contained my own blood. “Nobody messed with them…”

Since I was already there, I began setting everything up at my desk so I could make my new cards. I still needed to replace my supply, and that didn’t change just because someone had found my lab.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to focus on my work. All I could think about was that someone had tried breaking into my lab. They may have failed, but they’d tried. They’d come far too close for my comfort and I had no idea that they’d be back…or someone else would.

“The Cadets,” I spat out, sure that it was them.

The Intelligence Cadet Corps. The Spy Kids. Those damn stalkers who’d been following me around for weeks. It was them. It had to be them. Nobody else at Whateley had been as determined to get into my business as they were.

I clenched my fists, thinking about all the times that they’d tried planting bugs on me…including literal ones. Those little robot bugs that kept trying to listen in on every conversation I had, which kept trying to get into my dorm room. I had to keep my window locked…and heavily warded…just because of those things. And that didn’t even take into account all the times Mouse and the others followed me around, watching everything I did.

There was no doubt that I had a lot of problems in my life, ones much worse than those obsessed stalkers. Scorn had murdered my family and kept sending people out to kill me too. I still wasn’t sure if Hardcore had been one of his assassins or not. I was sick and tired of those threats…of problems that I couldn’t do anything about right now. But those Cadets…

“At least I can do something about them,” I announced, finally making up my mind to do something about them.

Those stalkers had been an annoyance, not a real threat. Not like Scorn. I’d tried ignoring them. I’d tried to simply deal with their spying, without giving them the satisfaction of acting out or reporting them. But now, they’d gone too far. They still hadn’t graduated from annoyance to threat, but they had crossed the line. They’d invaded my privacy just a little too much…trying to break into the one place that was my very own. The one place that I’d thought was my sanctuary.

“Its time to do something about them,” I stated, already having several ideas of exactly what that would entail. After all, they’d been annoying me for weeks, so I’d had plenty of time to think about how I wanted to retaliate. Not that I had actually planned to do that…until now. “Finally.”

Then, I began to grin, suddenly feeling as though a bit of weight had just been removed from my shoulders. I had so many problems in my life, ones that were overwhelming and that I was powerless against. But now… Now, I finally had a problem that I could actually deal with myself.

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

Poe Cottage, Monday evening, Oct 24th, 2016

“Hey,” I greeted Morgana as I stepped into the dorm room that we shared.

“Hey,” she responded with a nod, barely looking up from her homework.

I slipped off my backpack and carefully set it down on the corner of my bed. A second later, I placed stack of newly made spell cards onto my desk. It had taken me about two hours to create all of these, which was really fast progress, though I still hadn’t replaced all of the ones from yesterday. Still, I felt a lot safer now that I was armed with more spells.

“Replacing the landmines will be a real pain,” I muttered, thinking about how many times I’d have to copy the same spell. That was going to take a couple days at least, and my hand almost ached at the very thought of it.

Next, I went back to my backpack, opening it up and removing several vials, which I set on my desk.

Morgana gave me a curious look and said, “I thought you were keeping that stuff in your lab now.”

“I was,” I responded with a deep scowl and a surge of barely contained anger. “But someone tried breaking in…”

“What?” my roommate asked in surprise. “Did they take anything?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think they actually got inside…but they certainly tried.” I scowled and clenched my fists. “I’m pretty sure it was those Spy Kids.”

“Probably,” she agreed, looking nearly as unhappy as me. “Those idiots have been nosing around way too much for it not to be them.” Then she let out a snort. “Miss Violet and Mister Blank make all us Brits look bad.”

“And there are a couple that make all Americans look bad,” I agreed with another shake of my head. “But mostly, they make themselves look bad.”

Morgana nodded. “So, what did you do?”

“I made these,” I answered, indicating my new cards, “then sealed my lab completely.”

When I’d left, I’d used my earth element ability to move the concrete around and plug the entrance in front of the door. Now, it not only looked like a plain concrete wall in front of the door. It actually was a plain concrete wall.

“Now I have to find another lab,” I complained bitterly.

“Too bad,” Morgana said, giving me a sympathetic look. “I know how much work you and Janine spent getting it up and running.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, even angrier as I thought about that yet again.

“Sooner or later, we’re going to have to do something about those jokers,” Morgana told me. “Preferably sooner.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, nodding agreement. Then I smiled faintly. “I already have something in mind…”

Morgana straightened up at that, suddenly looking more interested. “Really? Anything I can do to help?”

“Not yet,” I told her. “I already have a few people in mind, but I’ll let you know… But for now, I have to go buy a few things tomorrow…”

My roommate looked a little disappointed that I didn’t have something for her to do immediately. “Hard to be your minion if you don’t have work for me,” she joked, referencing the fact that the Spy Kids seemed to think that she was one of my hired minions or something. “But I thought you were broke…”

“I am,” I admitted with a sigh, reaching over to pick up my new jacket.

I looked it over, thinking about the modifications I would need to make to it before it could be very useful. First, there was some special ink that I’d need to make, and then I’d probably need some specially treated threads…. Then I realized that I’d gotten a little distracted in the middle of my conversation and that Morgana was still waiting for me to continue.

“I called Marcus…my regent on the way back here,” I explained with a self-conscious shrug. “He’s sending me some more money…”

“Oooh, it must be nice,” Morgana teased me with a grin. “You blow your allowance, then you just have to call home for more…”

“It’s my money anyway,” I protested a bit defensively. “Technically.” Of course, I’d inherited a lot of money from my grandmother, though I couldn’t actually touch it until I turned eighteen. Until then, Marcus was in charge of it and of giving me a stipend. “Marcus doesn’t have any problem sending me more...if it’s for security or training.”

“And dealing with those jokers could probably be considered both,” Morgana pointed out, nodding in approval. “So, what do you have in mind? Lure them all into a bunch of boobytraps?”

“Well, that has worked pretty well for me so far,” I said with a chuckle, thinking of the previous bullies who’d come after me. Esquire hadn’t come anywhere near me since I’d done that to him. “But no… Not this time…” I gave her a smile. “This time, I have something else in mind.”

“Oh?” she encouraged.

“I just have to be really careful,” I explained thoughtfully. “I want to push back…but I can’t do anything that will escalate things too much…”

My roommate nodded. “Probably a good idea. Boring, but smart.”

“And,” I added, putting a little emphasis on that word. “I also have to be really careful not to do anything that would get security interested.”

“Also a good point,” she agreed. “Whatever you’ve got in mind, just let me know how I can help. Those bastards have been after me too, you know.”

“Of course,” I told her with an almost evil grin. “But for the moment, I still have to get a few things set up.”

With that, I slipped my jacket on and adjusted it. It was a great fit, and I had to admit that it looked good on me. Of course, once I was done with my own modifications, the whole thing would be even better.

“You know,” Morgana announced with a grin. “All you need now is one of those wide-brimmed fedora type hats…”

“And here it comes,” I muttered to myself.

“Then you’d look like some kind of like the good guy from Spy vs Spy,” she finished.

“And there it is,” I added under my breath. Then I added a little louder, “I was actually expecting a bleached Carmen Sandiego reference.”

“You have to admit,” my roommate continued cheerfully, “it would be a good look for you.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’m not a hat person.” And of course, I wouldn’t want to risk everyone calling me a bleached Carmen Sandiego or a spy either. Then I paused, suddenly remembering something else that I’d wanted to take care of before bed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes…”

Without bothering to explain, I quickly hurried out of the room and rushed upstairs. A minute later, I reached my destination and knocked on the door. I was half surprised when the door didn’t immediately swing open, though it did open fifteen seconds later.

“Bianca,” Cherry greeted me from the now open doorway, looking just a little surprised to see me. Then she looked me over before flashing me a grin. “Nice threads…” I glanced down, realizing that I’d forgotten to take my new coat off before leaving my room. “It really suits your coloring…”

“Thank you,” I responded, pleased by the compliment while at the same time being a bit self-conscious. “That reminds me… Do you know who found our bags and turned them into security?”

“Sure,” Cherry answered with a chuckle. “You remember that old guy who showed up after Hardcore was out?”

“It was him?” I asked in surprise. She nodded, but before she actually said anything, I pointed out, “You already knew him…”

“Of course,” Cherry said with a broad grin. “I used to babysit his daughter…”

“Really?” I asked, more than a little surprised. I couldn’t imagine Cherry babysitting anyone…or any reasonable parents allowing her to.

Then a sharp laugh came from inside the room. “Yes,” Scrye’s voice announced. “Until everyone decided that the kid was a bad influence on Cherry...”

“Hey,” Cherry protested before grinning again. “Get it right. They said we were bad influences on each other…”

I blinked at that, still trying to get past the idea of Cherry being a babysitter. Who in their right mind would possibly ask her to babysit? And from what the two of them had just said, I was curious about the full story.

“Anyway,” Cherry continued, gesturing for me to come inside. “You’re probably here for Callista, so I’ll take off and give you two some privacy.”

“Thank you,” Scrye said as Cherry left, closing the door behind her.

I turned my full attention to Scrye, who was sitting at her desk with a laptop. She stood up, absently adjusted her clothes and gestured behind her. “I was just working on an assignment for my computer science class.”

“Computer science?” I asked in surprise.

Scrye gave a wry smile at that. “Surprised that a magic user is taking computer science?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“Magic is not the only way to gather information,” she explained. “I’d be a fool to ignore my other options.” Then, before I could respond to that, her expression turned all business. “I assume that you’re here because the Spy Kids have been snooping around your new lab.”

I nodded, not really surprised that she already knew about that since she was probably the top information broker on campus. However, I was pleased by the confirmation of who had been messing around with my lab.

“Yes,” I answered, shifting into my own professional mode and going straight into my purpose. “I’d like to know the location of the Spy Kid’s clubhouse.”

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

Crystal Hall, Tuesday late morning, Oct 25th, 2016

The cafeteria was crowded, as always. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many opportunities for people to spy on me without my knowledge. Or to attack me.

I bit back on my nerves, though I didn’t stop scanning my surroundings. Morgana liked to tease me about being paranoid, but I just considered this to be justified caution. After all, as Sunday had proven, people really were after me. Well, the truth was that I still wasn’t sure whether or not Hardcore had been one of those, but he could have been.

“Most people won’t do anything with so many witnesses,” I quietly reminded myself. And there were security cameras everywhere. In spite of the huge crowd, this was probably one of the safest places on campus. “Except for food fights.”

Then I noticed one of my most obnoxious annoyances coming towards me. Shades. And even worse, he had that smug grin that made me think that he probably had some new pickup line that he wanted to try out. I shuddered at the very thought, thankful that I’d never been anything like him back when I’d been a guy. How could girls stand that kind of thing?

This time, I was prepared for Shades…and anyone else who might have tried following me. I pulled out a spell card and activated the rune that was painted on it. A moment later, I reached out and slapped it to the back of some guy who was walking past. The paper crumbled away but the magic remained.

“That should do it,” I mused, hoping that Shades had been paying attention. It was hard to tell since I couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses.

A few seconds later, I let out a sigh of relief. Shades was no longer staring at me, but at the boy whom I’d just tagged with a ‘look here’ spell. In fact, Shades was even starting to follow the other boy, though it wouldn’t last long. Just long enough for me to slip away.

When I reached the table I’d been heading for, I gave a polite, “Hello,” before sitting down.

Almost without thinking about it, I placed a card down on the table in front of me, activating the eavesdropping protections that had become a normal part of my life. There was no doubt that I made these runes more often than any others, though the spells were always improving.

“Um… Hi,” Janine returned the greeting a little self-consciously.

Janine had still been avoiding, at least when we were outside of class. And even then, she had several of her friends present so we still didn’t have the privacy to talk about what had happened last Sunday. Or at least, not to talk about what had happened after defeating Hardcore.

“Bianca,” Giggles said with a smile.

“Hey,” Dodo added.

And then Blackberry, the last person at the table, nodded. “Hi.”

“I heard about that attack in Berlin,” Giggles told me. “That must have been scary.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh, wondering just how much Janine had told them. But after looking at Janine and seeing how badly she was blushing, I couldn’t imagine her having told them about the kiss. “It was pretty intense.”

“You could say that again,” Janine said.

If she’d said that near Morgana, my smart-ass roommate would have undoubtedly honored the suggestion and repeated the comment. However, I was not my roommate so merely nodded agreement.

“You know,” I told Janine, trying to hide my own nerves and keep a calm tone and expression, “we should probably talk about what happened on Sunday…”

“Oh,” she squeaked, her eyes going wide.

“The whole thing with Hardcore,” I added, more for the benefit of the others. I was pretty sure that Janine realized this wasn’t what I really wanted to talk about. At least not entirely. “Maybe after classes today…”

Janine hesitated for a moment before nodding agreement. “Okay… That’s fine, I guess…” There was another pause before she added, “Maybe in my workshop…”

“That sounds good to me,” I agreed. “I’ve got some ideas for your security that I wanted to run by you anyway…”

“Okay,” she said, staring down at her food.

I felt nearly as self-conscious, and though my own instincts were to just pretend that nothing had ever happened…just because that would be less awkward…I knew that I couldn’t do that. After everything that had been going on, after all the insanity, I wanted to take a little control over my own life. That meant I couldn’t run away and hide from everything that made me uncomfortable, no matter how much I might want to.

That line of thought reminded me of the other reason I’d come to this table. I looked up at the other girls, Giggles, Dodo, and Blackberry. They’d been watching my exchange with Janine, not interrupting, though I suspected they wanted to. I could see that all three were still curious about the incident with Hardcore and his goons.

“I was wondering if I could get you to do something for me,” I said, once again feeling self-conscious, nervous about asking them for help and worried that they’d turn me down. If they did, I didn’t know who else I could go to. “I can pay you for your time…”

“What is it?” Blackberry asked, sounding a little suspicious.

“Nothing illegal,” I quickly assured them. With my reputation, they HAD to be thinking that I was trying to draw them into something illegal. “But the Spy Kids have been harassing me for weeks…and they just tried breaking into my new lab…”

Janine gasped at that, probably thinking about all the work we’d done trying to keep it hidden and secure. “Oh no…”

“They didn’t get in,” I quickly assured her. “They couldn’t get past the door… But they tried…”

“That sucks,” Giggles said, scowling in annoyance. “I hate it when people mess with my lab work…”

“So, what did you have in mind?” Dodo asked me curiously.

I glanced to my spell card, verifying that it was still active. Then with an evil grin, I began to explain.

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

Tuesday late afternoon, Oct 25th, 2016

I stepped through the open doorway, then paused for a moment to look at the door. It was metal, but nowhere near as sturdy or complicated as the door to my lab. Then again, Janine didn’t need that kind of security for her workshop. All she needed was to keep people from messing with her projects, and the location of her workshop took care of that for the most part. The location of her workshop wasn’t a secret, but it was pretty out of the way, so most people weren’t likely to come here unless they had a real purpose.

Of course, I had promised Janine to help her with a little magical protection, and I had a few ideas that I wanted to put into place. Specifically, I was going to draw a small chain of runes out in the hallway, one that would work to keep people away while conserving essence. All I’d need would be a couple wards to detect people who shouldn’t be there, and if those were tripped, it would activate the normally dormant runes which would project a ‘nothing to see here’ effect.

“That didn’t work as well as I’d hoped for my lab,” I quietly reminded myself.

Fortunately for Janine, she didn’t have people after her the way I did, so this should work to keep random people from wandering in. I was tempted to start work on those runes immediately, but that wasn’t really why I was there at the moment.

“I’m here,” I called out before stepping into the larger space.

Janine’s workshop was actually just a large open room in the tunnels, the perfect place for her to set up her dominos and Rube Goldberg contraptions. She’d kept most of that space intact and clear, except for the complicated domino chain that was half built.

Most of Janine’s actual workshop equipment was set up on the outside walls. There were numerous shelves, each packed full of supplies and equipment. There had to be a dozen large boxes containing nothing more than dominos, and that didn’t even take into account all the random items she’d collected to use in her various chains.

One wall had three work benches set up, side by side, so that they almost formed one long workspace. One of these benches was covered with clutter, the various items she was in the process of building. None of these were inventions in themselves, but were just components for her domino chains or Rube Goldberg machines. Another table had a couple old-fashioned clocks, completely disassembled and spread out. This was where Janine had been experimenting the various springs and gears of clockwork technology. And then there was the last table, which was mostly clear at the moment. This was where Janine was currently seated.

“Um… Hi,” Janine said, giving me a nervous smile.

“What are you working on?” I asked.

But as I got closer, I was surprised to see a shotgun on the table in front of her. I’d never seen Janine with a weapon before.

“This,” Janine answered, indicating the shotgun, though she made no move to pick it up. “After what happened in Berlin…I thought it might be a good idea to get something to defend myself with…”

“Good idea,” I said, nodding my approval. “But isn’t it a little…”

“Low tech,” she responded with a sigh. “I know. A couple people in the labs offered me other weapons…and Weaponeer even tried to sell me some of his extras…but they’re all too…complicated. But this…” She picked up the shotgun, “is really just mechanical sequencing…so I can understand how it works. Heck, I can probably make one that works even better…”

I chuckled faintly. “I was going to say...big. As in, a bit too big to really carry around all the time…”

Janine deflated a little. “Oh, yeah…” She stared at the shotgun for a moment as she set it back down. “I can fix that… I can make it shorter…and better…”

I nodded at that, then suggested, “You’ll want to take firearms safety so you can get it registered on campus… And you’ll need to practice with it…”

“My dad taught me to use his shotgun,” Janine admitted. “That’s part of why I’m more comfortable with something like this…”

“Maybe we can do some target practice together,” I offered.

Janine brightened up at the suggestion, looking excited for a moment, but then she started at me and turned bright red. A moment later, she bit her lip and stared down at the table, obviously embarrassed.

We stood there in awkward silence for several long seconds, both reminded of the elephant in the room. There was a reason that I’d come here to talk with Janine and it wasn’t for her self-defense plans.

“About what happened Sunday,” I awkwardly started, not sure of where to go with this.

“I… I’m sorry,” Janine gushed out, staring down at her table and avoiding looking at me entirely. Tears were starting to run down her cheeks. “I got carried away…and I didn’t mean to offend you…”

I blinked at that, a bit stunned by this reaction…and confused. “I… I’m not offended,” I protested, trying to think of what to say.

Janine continued, almost as though she didn’t hear me. She was starting to shake as she explained, “I guess I kind of like girls…” Then she winced with a look of shame. “I don’t think my dad would understand… I don’t really get it either…”

“Janine,” I whispered, starting to tear up myself.

“I didn’t even realize it until recently,” she quietly admitted. Then she finally looked up at me with her tear-filled eyes. “I… I kind of have a crush on you…”

For a moment, I just stood there, feeling as though my heart was squeezing up into my throat. I didn’t know what to say to this. I didn’t even know what to think.

Ever since my old life had ended…since my family had been murdered and I’d been transformed…I hadn’t really thought about girls or dating. There had been too many other things to think about…to worry about. The whole subject had just been…unimportant. Honestly, I hadn’t even known if I still liked girls since I’d become one myself.

Since words didn’t come to me, I reached out and gently grabbed Janine into a hug instead. I held onto her, tears running down my own cheeks as my emotions broke free and gushed out.

“I… I wasn’t offended by your kiss,” I quietly told Janine, nearly whispering it into her ear. “I… I liked it…”

Once again, I was blushing like crazy, or at least I would have been if I’d been capable of showing it. My heart was racing and it was hard to say anything else, though I managed to force the words out.

“I like girls too,” I awkwardly admitted.

Of course, there was a lot more to it than just liking girls, something which I’d only fully realized was still true on Sunday. I used to be a boy, and deep inside, a large part of me still was. Maybe that would make things less awkward for Janine, though I wouldn’t know since that wasn’t something I was just going to blurt out.

“What?” Janine gasped, looking more than a little confused.

This time, I didn’t bother with words. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I simply acted on impulse instead. This time, I was the one who kissed Janine. For a brief moment, she seemed stunned at this and confused, but then she began to kiss me back.

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

Poe Cottage, Tuesday evening, Oct 25th, 2016

I stepped through the door of my dorm room, relieved that I’d been able to make it back in time. Tonight, I’d cut things a little close, just barely making it back to Poe before curfew.

Of course, curfew wasn’t really as big a deal as most people made it out to be. There were always people wandering around campus after curfew. Some were devisors who’d been working in their labs and lost track of time, some were students who had night classes and were given waivers, and others were just kids who simply ignored the curfew. Still, I didn’t want to get lectured by Mrs. Horton, so it was a good thing that I’d made it back in time.

“Hey,” I cheerfully greeted Morgana as I sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Hey,” she responded, giving me a curious look. “You’re in a good mood…” Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Too good…”

“Too good?” I asked a little blankly.

“What’s up?” Morgana asked me curiously. “Did you start Operation Payback against the Spy Kids?”

I chuckled faintly at that. “Well, I set things in place and got the ball rolling. The fun won’t start until tomorrow though.”

“So then,” my roommate repeated, “what’s up?”

I rolled my eyes at that as I picked up my new jacket and spread it out. I carefully looked it over, ignoring Morgana’s steady gaze. However, she didn’t get the hint and continued to silently stare at me. Finally, I let out an exasperated sigh.

“I was just down talking with Janine,” I explained, doing my best version of a bright blush. “That’s all.”

“Uh huh,” Morgana responded, looking a little skeptical. “Talking. With that goofy grin you had a minute ago, I’d think the two of you were snogging…”

Once again, I was immensely grateful for the fact that my skin didn’t allow for any blushes to show. As it was, I stared at the floor, unable to meet my roommate’s eyes.

“YOU DID!” Morgana exclaimed, bursting out laughing. “You two were making out… Congratulations. It’s about time.”

I squirmed awkwardly. “Just a little…”

Morgana’s expression turned serious for a moment. “Did you tell her about… Well, you know…” She gestured at me and it took a moment to realize that she meant my transformation.

“No,” I shook my head emphatically. There was no way I was going to tell Janine that I used to be a guy, at least not anytime soon.

“So,” Morgana teased me, shifting back to a grin. “Did she make the first move again or did you?”

“I’m not going to kiss and tell,” I said, trying to sound firm. From her smirk, she just took that as an encouragement to continue.

“How far did you two go?” she asked. “Did you get to second base, as you Americans say?”

Yet again, I was hit with an invisible blush, though I tried to hide my embarrassment by turning my full attention back to my project. “I’m not going to talk about it,” I insisted, reaching for a bottle of some special ink that I’d made.

Morgana just chuckled at that. “Fine. Fine. I’ll play along…for now.”

I let out a faint sigh of relief, then pulled out the notes I’d been working on over the last couple days, mostly during slow periods during classes. These were the designs for a couple spells that I’d been working on, ones that I was finally ready to start using.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Morgana said, gesturing to my new coat. “What are you working on?”

I grinned at that. “You know how you’ve been telling me that I need to get some holdouts…?”

“Yeah,” she responded. “And you’re making your new jacket into a holdout?”

“I’m putting a few spells on it,” I explained cheerfully. “I’m limited by the materials on hand, but between the coat and lining, I should be able to get three solid spells on this thing… Protection from penetration, impact resistance, and something to block scrying…”

“Maybe something to protect you from rain and cold,” Morgana added.

“I would,” I told her with a sigh. A little magical protection from the weather would be great, especially for an upcoming winter in New Hampshire. “But I’d need better spells and materials. As it is, I could do that…or the protection spells. Not both.”

My roommate just smirked at that. “Well, there’s always Scotchgard.”

Wednesday morning, Oct 26th, 2016

Carrie Harper, Mouse, kept glancing back behind herself as she quickly made her way to her third period classroom. She was being followed, she was sure of it. After all the time that she’d spent tailing Glyph for the Cadets, she had a pretty good idea of what to look for in a tail.

There was something going on and Carrie didn’t know what it was. Earlier that morning, she’d seen Blackberry and Giggles glancing at her and then whispering to each other. Whatever they’d been talking about had sent Giggles into one of her trademark giggle fits.

Then during breakfast, in the Crystal Hall, Dodo kept hanging out near the Cadet’s table…when she had no reason to be in that area. It had even looked like the other girl had been taking pictures of them with her cell phone, though that could have just been Carrie’s imagination.

And now, someone seemed to be following her. Carrie glanced back…again. There were so many students on campus…and of course, she saw the same ones over and over again. But one of them seemed to be following right in Carrie’s footsteps, stopping whenever Carrie stopped and keeping the same distance between them.

Finally, Carrie was able to get a clear look at her tail. It was Gale…Night Gale…that healer who lived in Dickenson.

Carrie blinked in confusion, wondering why Night Gale was following her…and if it was just her imagination getting the best of her. But then, Gale held up her phone and pointed it right at Carrie before abruptly turning and hurrying away.

“What in the world is going on?” Carrie exclaimed in confusion and a little worry.

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

Wednesday late afternoon, Oct 26th, 2016

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” Janine asked, looking both hopeful and a little uncertain. “It’ll probably be boring…”

“Sure,” I agreed, flashing her a smile.

I would have kissed Janine right then, but we were walking across campus, right where anyone could see us. I wasn’t sure what our relationship was now, now that we’d moved onto kissing each other. Was she my girlfriend now? We hadn’t really talked about that yet, but I hoped I could call her that. I’d never had a girlfriend before.

Then I thought about Janine’s question and why she’d asked it. Janine was still doing the personal assistant thing, which meant that she was helping me track my schedule and everything I had to do. She knew full well that I had a lot of other things that I could have been doing right then, rather than accompanying her. Things that would be more productive for me…but not as interesting.

I let out a faint sigh as I considered my ‘to do’ list, which was definitely full at the moment. I needed to deal with my compromised lab, finish the protection runes on Janine’s workshop, complete all the spellwork on my new coat, get ready for the band trip this weekend which I’d somehow been drawn into, and of course, study for my magic class finals tomorrow. It was a bit overwhelming when I thought about this for too long.

Janine glanced at my hand while her own hand twitched a little. Was she thinking about holding my hand the way I was thinking about holding hers? I quickly glanced around for those who might be watching and she seemed to do the same. Then, the moment passed.

“So,” Janine asked a little awkwardly. “Do you know what you’re going to do about your new lab yet?”

I immediately reached into the pouch on my belt and pulled out a spell card, which I immediately activated. This was one of my privacy spells, the ones I used whenever I was at lunch, dinner, or anywhere else where I didn’t want people to spy on me.

“Too bad my coat isn’t finished yet,” I quietly mused. This spell, or at least a version of it, was one of the ones I was including in my coat. That would help protect me from eavesdroppers and scrying wherever I was. Then, I answered Janine. “I figure, I have three options…”

“Three?” she asked.

“One,” I held up a finger. “I can find a new lab. I’d probably have to talk to one of the fixers…which could get expensive, and then I’d have to move everything over and add the security all over again.” Janine groaned at that. “Yeah. That would be a real pain, but at least nobody would know where it is…”

“Except for the fixer,” Janine pointed out quietly. “And anyone who sees us moving your stuff.”

I nodded my agreement. “Option two is that I can dig out my own space…make my lab from scratch.”

Janine’s eyes widened. “That would be a lot of work…” She’d seen me tunnel out the new doorway for my compromised lab, so she knew how long that would take.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “It would be cheaper…and a bit more secret…but it would take a LOT of work to set up. And I’d have to figure out ventilation and electricity…”

“And you might accidentally dig into someone else’s space,” she pointed out. “Or water pipes… Or sewage…” We both winced at the thought of that. “That would be really bad…”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a shudder. “Which is why I’m probably going to go with option three…”

Janine gave me a curious look. “What is that?”

“Keep the space I already have,” I answered with a sigh. “I just have to move the door again…and spread the rumor that I’ve moved to a new lab somewhere else.”

My possible girlfriend considered this for a moment before agreeing. “That would be a lot easier…”

“Easier, faster, and cheaper,” I mused. “But not quite as secure…”

Of course, that just meant that I’d have to be convincing with my rumors and take a few more security steps as well. I’d already been thinking about what I could do for that, but I’d still need to figure out a little more. Just more for my ‘to do’ list.

“We’re almost there,” Janine assured me a few seconds later.

We soon reached the devisor labs, the large underground warren where many of the devisors and gadgeteers on campus had their own personal workspaces. This didn’t work well for Janine, but for most of the other techie students… For most of the gadgeteers and devisors, this was their world.

Janine led me through the maze, seeming to know exactly where she was going, though I was quickly lost. Laura had her own space nearby, but I doubted that I’d be able to find it by myself. My roommate was also a frequent visitor to this area, so she’d probably be able to find her way around, or at least, she’d be able to find her way to the nearest source of coffee.

While we made our way through labs, Janine greeted some of the other techies, nodding politely in passing or even saying a quick ‘hello’. I knew who many of these kids were, at least vaguely, and I even had classes with a few of them.

The labs were noisy, full of the sounds of strange equipment. One sound got my attention because it was a simple BANG BANG BANG, of metal hitting metal. And that sound was getting louder, enough so that it became the dominant source of noise.

“We’re here,” Janine announced.

I looked around and saw a workspace that was quite different from all the other ones we’d passed. In fact, this one looked positively primitive in comparison.

Against one wall was a collection of tools. Hammers, chisels, metal tongs… A short distance away was a gas forge…and an old-fashioned charcoal forge. I only recognized those from watching a couple episodes of Forged in Fire on TV. And then, in the middle of the space, was a large and sturdy looking anvil.

Standing next to the forge was a boy, who was using a hammer to beat on a piece of red-hot metal. BANG. BANG. BANG. He was a little chubby, but not really fat. Instead, he came off as strong. Not strong like exemplars, who sometimes bulged with muscle, but strong like someone who’d built that strength as a side effect of hard work. I immediately recognized the boy, though I’d never talked to him. This was Smith, a gadgeteer who specialized in metallurgy, metal fabrication…and old-school blacksmithing.

Smith lowered his hammer and just stood there for a moment, staring at the piece of metal he was working. It had cooled off a little so that it was no longer as bright orange as it had been. But in spite of that, it was obviously still VERY hot. Because of that, it surprised me when Smith reached out to touch the hot metal. But instead of yelping in pain or pulling his hand away, he continued holding it there until the metal began to heat up and glow a bright orange again.

“Hey, Smith,” Janine called out, catching his attention right before he was about to start hammering on the metal again.

“Tinker,” he responded, looking as though he was a little startled to see her there.

With that, Smith carefully set the hot metal down on his anvil before setting his tools aside. He brushed his hands on the leather apron he was wearing, then gave his full attention to us. He stared at me for a moment, obviously more surprised by my presence than by Janine’s.

“This is Bianca,” Janine introduced me a little awkwardly.

“Hi,” I said, feeling a bit self-conscious myself.

“I know who you are,” Smith said with a nod. “You’re that mafia princess I’ve heard about.”

I scowled at that while Janine looked a little offended on my behalf. “I’m not a princess,” I said flatly, not bothering to deny the mafia bit. It might not be accurate, but unfortunately, it was close enough for that not to matter.

“Bianca is nice,” Janine protested in my defense. “Don’t believe all those rumors…”

Smith grunted in response, then asked, “Like that rumor about you hiring some kids to follow around the Cadets?”

I hesitated a moment before admitting, “There MIGHT be some truth to that one…”

The blacksmith gadgeteer chuckled, now looking amused. “Yeah, I heard that they asked a couple of their friends to help…and then other people started offering to help too.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. “I…hadn’t heard that.”

Once I said that, I realized that I probably should have remained silent. Silence might have made it look like I’d already known about it…maybe even planned for it. That kind of thing would be good for my reputation as the White Lady.

“Apparently, people like the irony of spying on the Spy Kids,” Smith said, still looking amused. “And some of them think that this game sounds like great fun.”

“It kind of is,” Janine admitted with a giggle.

Smith nodded, then told Janine, “You’re here for your parts…”

“If they’re finished,” Janine quickly responded. “I know it was a rush order…”

“No problem,” Smith assured her in a serious tone. “A quarter pound of ebidum puts you at the very top of my commission list.”

“Ebidium?” I asked, giving Janine a confused look. I’d heard of ebidium before. It was some kind of rare metal, but admittedly, I didn’t know much about it.”

Janine looked a little embarrassed. “You remember all that junk that used to be in my workshop?”

I nodded. When Janine had first taken over that space, it had been full of junk…old, broken, and leftover equipment that various gadgeteers and devisors had tossed down there over the years. We’d been forced to clean it out before either of us could make use of that room.

“I kind of salvaged a lot of the material,” Janine admitted. “You know…old parts and metal… And I’ve been trading some of it to other people in the shop…”

“Ebidium is hard to come by,” Smith said. “Even that small amount…” He gave Janine an almost eager look. “You wouldn’t happen to have any more of it, would you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Janine told him with a sigh. “That was all I found.”

Smith looked a little disappointed but not surprised. He merely nodded, then told Janine, “Anyway, I finished your parts up about an hour ago so they’re ready to go…right on schedule.”

The blacksmith gestured to a workbench where some parts were spread out. They were metal, of course, but clearly not made by forge and anvil. Instead, these parts looked far too smooth and perfect for that…and some of them too detailed. Of course, Smith wasn’t only a blacksmith. He did metal fabrication with more modern methods as well, and I was sure that these parts were an example of that.

Janine began to pick the parts up one at a time, examining them before putting them back down. “These look great…”

“I just followed the specifications and diagrams you provided,” Smith said. “Hopefully, these work for you.”

“They should,” Janine agreed, gathering all the parts up and carefully placing them into a satchel that she’d brought with. “Now I just have to assemble them…”

“You’re on your own for that,” Smith said. “But if you need anything else made, let me know. As far as I’m concerned, you still have a little credit from the ebidium.”

And with those words, Smith went back to his anvil and picked up his tools. Before Janine and I could leave, we were once again hit with the sound of BANG BANG BANG.

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

Wednesday early evening, Oct 26th, 2016

Carrie hurried across campus, trying to get back to Dickenson as quickly as she could. She was sure that once she was there, she’d be safe. If necessary, she could lock herself in her room.

All day long, people seemed to be following her…or taking pictures of her. Most of them tried to hide it, tried to be sneaky about what they were doing, but she could see them. She disliked people paying too much attention to her at the best of times, but this was much worse.

She looked around nervously, afraid that someone would be following her again. Then she spotted Rapunzel, strolling across campus a short distance away. The other girl had her phone out, and she seemed to be playing on it, but Carrie wasn’t fooled. Rapunzel was probably trying to sneak pictures of her.

Carrie picked up her pace, now moving at just short of a jog. But a few seconds later, she realized that she had completely forgotten about an obvious solution.

“I’m a mutant,” she reminded herself with an exasperated sigh. “And I have just the power to sneak past…”

With little more than a thought, Carrie activated her powers and quickly began shrinking. When she stopped, she was mere inches tall, just big enough to be mistaken for a doll, and the perfect size to avoid being seen.

Now that Carrie had shrunken down, she let out a sigh of relief. She knew from experience that most people would never notice her like this, especially if she took care to stay out of sight. There were lots of places she could use for cover, so she’d be able to make it back to her dorm without any problems.

But just then, Carrie heard a low growling noise. She snapped around, looking for the source, only to spot a grey cat that was crouched down and ready to pounce. The cat was even doing the butt wiggle that signaled it was ready to move.

Carrie let out a squeak of fear and ran, only for the cat to leap. The cat hit right where she’d been standing a moment before, though it quickly started to follow after her.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Carrie cried out to the monster cat, who didn’t pay any attention.

The cat pounced again, landing right beside Carrie who stumbled and fell backwards, though she quickly caught herself and shifted the momentum into a summersault. Still, the cat lashed out and got her, gently bopping her on the top of her head with a paw.

“Tag, you’re it,” the cat announced.

Carrie’s eyes went wide in shock and realization. “Shisa,” she exclaimed, now recognizing the GSD student from Whitman.

At that moment, Carrie also remembered one other important detail. Her powers. With that, she quickly grew back to her normal size while Shisa turned and ran off.

“Cut,” a new voice called out. Carrie snapped around to see Giggles, who was standing back with one of those small video recorders, pointed straight at her. “And that’s a wrap…”

“GIGGLES!” Carrie spat out in anger and embarrassment, realizing that she’d just been set up. “Stupid Whitmaniacs…”

The other girl just laughed at that, though the laughter quickly turned into maniacal giggling. Carrie glared at the girl, then turned and ran towards her cottage, the sound of giggles continuing on behind her.

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

Thursday morning, Oct 27th, 2016

I stared at my opponent, my heart racing as I readied myself for our next round. BMA was always a tough class for me, but even more so when I was matched up against Bacon.

Bacon stood across from me, making a show of stretching out his muscles. He was a large boy, one who also looked like a warthog, courtesy of his GSD. Between his appearance and powers, he was always intimidating to face off against, no matter how nice a guy he was otherwise.

The moment that Sensei Tolman told us to begin, we were both in motion. Bacon came straight at me while I stepped to the side and activated the two spell cards that I’d palmed.

“Look,” I exclaimed, holding out one card with a ‘look here’ spell.

Of course, Bacon looked and then couldn’t take his eyes off the card, even as I tossed it outside of the ring. He started to continue after it, almost on instinct, though he seemed on the verge of catching himself in time.

I knew that I didn’t have any time to waste and had to take advantage of this momentary opportunity while I could. With that in mind, I stepped around and slapped the second card onto Bacon’s back, then quickly pulled my hand away. There was an explosion from the card, not strong enough to hurt Bacon, but there was enough force to knock him forward…and right out of the ring.

“Bianca wins,” Tolman announced. If she was surprised that I’d managed to beat Bacon…and so quickly…she didn’t show it.

“Nice trick,” Bacon told me with a grin, giving me a thumbs up as well.

“Thank you,” I responded, feeling a little stunned that I’d managed to beat him this time. As a PK brick, Bacon was notoriously hard to beat when we were using powers.

I returned to my seat beside Morgana, who gave me a congratulatory grin. “Good job…”

“It was pretty neat,” Laura agreed. “But you won’t be able to get away with that trick very often.”

“Not when everyone here has seen it,” Morgana agreed.

“Yeah,” I reluctantly agreed, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before people realized that they just had to avoid looking at the card. “I’ll just have to shake things up…but it is a good trick.”

“Definitely,” Morgana agreed again, this time chuckling. “Bacon almost walked right out of the ring all on his own.”

Class ended about ten minutes after this, and everyone began to get up and head to the showers. However, there was one person who came straight towards me, someone who’d been giving me dirty looks all through class.

“You’re behind this,” Mouse accused, pointing a finger right at me.

“Behind what?” I asked as innocently as I could.

Mouse’s eyes flashed with anger. “You’re having people follow me around… Taking pictures of me…and all the other Cadets too…”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied.

“That sounds annoying,” Morgana offered with a smirk.

“That sounds like karma to me,” Laura added evenly.

After this, we continued to the showers, leaving an angry Mouse behind. She didn’t bother us while we were cleaning up, though she continued to stew in her own resentment. Once I was out of the shower and was getting dressed, she came over again.

“Why are you having people spy on us?” Mouse demanded. “Why are you having people take pictures of the Cadets?”

“Maybe the next time you want to spy on people,” Morgana suggested with a flat look, “you’ll remember what it feels like.”

I could have continued to deny being behind this, but that would have been pointless. Not only was I responsible for it, but everyone knew it. So instead, I decided to mess with Mouse a little.

“By the way,” I told Mouse, perhaps a little smugly, “I’ve seen the pictures of what some of your crew have been up to, and it isn’t pretty. In fact, if admin sees what one of them has been doing…your whole club will probably be shut down.”

Mouse gasped, looking surprised by my comments, though she quickly recovered and gave me another angry glare. “That’s what this is about,” she accused. “You’re trying to blackmail us…”

I met Mouse’s glare and put on my best White Lady expression. “I have no interest in blackmailing anyone,” I told her evenly, right before I picked up my bag and walked out of the dressing room.

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

Crystal Hall, Thursday late morning, Oct 27th, 2016

Most of the current members of the Intelligence Cadet Corps sat around their table in Crystal Hall. None of them were happy with the current situation.

“I caught Rapunzel spying on me this morning, back in our cottage,” Miss Violet complained. “With a video camera… If I wasn’t so observant, she might have gotten away with it…”

“And I found this on my desk during first period,” Mr. Blank added, setting a small item onto the table for everyone to see. It was obviously an electronic listening device, similar to ones that they were known to use.

Without a word, Perfume set three similar devices onto the table in front of her. She didn’t need to say anything as Cyber Swarm also added several such devices.

“I found these inside our clubhouse this morning,” Swarm announced with a scowl. “How did someone get these into our clubhouse?” He looked offended, as though he took this personally.

“We’ve all been having these problems,” Perfume said.

“I haven’t,” Flipside added cheerfully. “No problems at all.” Everyone glared at him, including Carrie.

“You just haven’t been paying enough attention to realize when you’re being tailed,” Miss Violet said contemptuously.

“We’re being spied on by multiple people,” Mr. Blank stated. “All of them rookies…”

“And we know who is responsible for this,” Miss Violet added.

“Glyph,” Mr. Blank and Miss Violet said at the same time.

Perfume pointed to one of the listening devices. “These aren’t Glyph’s style, at least not directly. Now, if they were magic, that would be another matter…”

Carrie raised her hand, then quietly suggested, “Maybe Tinker made them…”

“Highly unlikely,” Swarm responded with a derisive snort, pausing to look at one of the listening devices. “Tinker’s idea of communication technology is two cups and a string.”

“They’re also off the shelf,” Perfume pointed out thoughtfully. “Anyone could order these off the internet. No devisor or gadgeteers necessary.”

“There’s no telling who placed these then,” Miss Violet mused. “We’ve noted more than half a dozen students involved in this…”

“So, what are we going to do about it?” Flipside asked.

“Report it to security?” Carrie asked.

Perfume gave a light chuckle, followed with a wry smile. “If security cared about following other students and investigating them, then WE would be in just as much trouble.”

“That’s entirely different,” Mr. Blank protested.

“Is it?” Perfume asked, her expression serious. “As much as we aspire towards the intelligence and law enforcement professions, we have absolutely no legal authority. We have no warrants and no official standing. Outside of Whateley, what we do could be considered stalking, harassment, and illegal wiretapping… Outside of Whateley, our tactics would not be acceptable at all… At least, not for any legitimate law enforcement organization.”

“We do what we must to defeat the criminal elements,” Miss Violet pointed out, glaring at Perfume.

“Perhaps,” Perfume responded. “But we do skirt the lines a little more than I like. We can get away with it here at Whateley, because as far as security and the administration is concerned, we’re just kids playing at cops and robbers. If we find anything legitimate, we can pass it onto them for a professional investigation, but we need to remember that we don’t have any legal authority…and that if we want them to take us seriously, we need to do things properly.”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Blank exclaimed, looking offended by what Perfume had just said. “We are the good guys, Glyph is the bad guy, and it is our duty to take her down…”

“But first,” Miss Violet said, giving Perfume her own glare, “we need to deal with those rookies who are trying to spy on us…”

Carrie just stared at Perfume, absorbing what the older girl had just said. Flipside leaned over and whispered to her, “Cops and robbers…”

Then, while the other Cadets began to talk about how to deal with their current problems, Flipside absently reached into his pocket and felt the listening devices he hadn’t planted yet. He smirked as he thought about the looks on the other’s faces when they thought that Glyph had been planting bugs inside their clubhouse. Those expressions meant that his little prank had paid off.

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

Crystal Hall, Thursday late afternoon, Oct 27th, 2016

I made my way across campus, pulling my coat tight against the damp chill. This was my first time wearing my new coat out in public, though I still hadn’t finished all the spellwork. Still, I didn’t need the spells finished to get the nonmagical protections against the cold and wet.

As I walked, I glanced down at my new coat, a long white trench coat. You couldn’t even tell that I’d already drawn all the runes on the outside. Of course, I’d done those in invisible ink. It looked somewhat like normal ink when it went on, but when it dried, it faded away into near invisibility.

The runes I was placing on the inside of my coat…and sewing into the liner, didn’t need to be that subtle. Nobody would really see those ones anyway, at least not once I was finished with them.

“I’m going to have to finish that soon,” I mused aloud. I had a lot of things I needed to do, but improving my personal security needed to be at the top of that list. “At least I finished my magic class finals today…” That was one less thing to worry about.

When I got near my destination, I began looking around to see if anyone was following me. The Spy Kids had been a little too busy over the last couple days to pay much attention to me, much to my relief, but I wasn’t taking anything for granted. Once I saw that things were clear, I let out a faint sigh of relief.

A chuckle escaped my lips as I thought about what those snoops must be up to instead of tailing me. I’d recruited a couple kids to follow them around and take pictures, but from what I’d heard, about three times that many ended up helping out. I was under no illusion that these extra volunteers were doing it to help me. Most of them probably didn’t care about me one way or another. However, the chance to prank the Spy Kids was apparently something that most of them couldn’t ignore. Whatever their reasons, I was grateful for their help.

But in spite of the fact that I didn’t see anyone following me, I wasn’t one to take that for granted. I pulled out a spell card, one for a ‘nothing to see here’ spell and activated it. The spell wouldn’t last long, but I didn’t need long to lose anyone who’d been tracking me.

A few minutes later, I reached my destination. I stood in front of a metal door that had been hidden out of the way, obviously intended to keep people from spotting it.

“Right where Scrye said,” I announced, quickly looking around again.

I pulled out three cards, which were each part of the same spell. Or more specifically, each card contained a single spell which tied together into a simple spell chain. The main spell, which would remain dormant to save on essence, the proximity ward that would detect the presence of others, and then the linking spell which would activate the main spell once someone else got close.

Since I didn’t have much time, I quickly placed the first card against the door. The card blackened and crumbled away while the spell was transferred to the door. The runes glowed faintly before fading away. My heart jumped up into my throat and I glanced around nervously before repeating this process with the second and then third card.

Once the full spell had been applied, I stared at the door for several seconds, trying to see if it was visible. The runes had faded away and were nearly invisible unless you were specifically looking for them. That would have to do.

“I wish I could see their faces,” I announced before hurrying away. I did not want to get caught anywhere near this door, no matter how much I wanted to see what happened.

I quickly left the area and then began heading deep into the tunnels, to where Janine’s workspace was located. Earlier today, she’d told me that she had something she wanted to show me, so I didn’t want to disappoint her by being late.

Once I’d reached Janine’s workshop, I carefully stepped around a couple of the wards that I’d set up and ignored the ‘nothing to see here’ effect that protected the main entrance. Janine had left the door open for me, which didn’t do much for security, though she was obviously not nearly as concerned about that kind of thing as I was.

“I’m here,” I called out.

Janine was standing at one of her benches, then turned around and waved at me. “Bianca,” she called out happily.

“You finished it?” I asked, though the answer was obvious since she had her new invention already completed and in her hands.

Janine brightened up a little more and held it out for me to see. “Yeah… I can’t believe I was able to design it and get it built so fast… That has to be a new record…for me at least.”

I nodded appreciatively at that. “Good thing Smith was able to work so fast.”

“Yeah,” Janine agreed, nodding emphatically. “And I already had a couple of the parts I needed, so didn’t need to make too much myself…”

For a moment, I just stared down at Janine’s new holdout, a custom-made firearm. It looked like a sawed-off shotgun, though there had been no sawing on this thing. Janine had designed it from the start to look like this.

The whole barrel was less than a foot long and instead of a stock, there was a pistol grip, though one that resembled the grip from an old-fashioned flintlock pistol. Beneath the main barrel was a second one of slightly shorter length, though there was no barrel opening on the end. There was, however, a small plastic piece that could be used to hold the weapon stable if you wanted to use two hands with it.

“Now I have something to protect myself,” Janine said, suddenly looking concerned. “Just in case I ever run into another villain again…”

“Good idea,” I encouraged her.

“It uses normal shotgun shells,” Janine told me, holding one up. “But I can also use things like dragons breath rounds, flares…and even beanbag jell rounds. If I use those, then I’ll be able to carry it around on campus…”

“Nonlethal rounds for campus,” I mused, nodding approval. “Good idea. But you’ll still need to take firearm safety before they let you do that…”

“I know,” she replied with a sigh. “I just didn’t want to wait that long before I made it…” She gave me a nervous look as she tried to explain, “I had to make it while I was still inspired and motivated…”

“So, how well does it work?” I asked.

Janine grinned proudly, then pushed the support piece on the bottom of the weapon forward, revealing an opening that was the perfect size for a shotgun shell. She slipped one shell in, then two more, demonstrating that the whole bottom tube was where she loaded and stored her ammunition.

“I can only hold three shells here,” Janine explained. “Plus one in the chamber. Not a lot, but I hope it will be enough for emergencies…”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Personally, I thought that her weapon of choice was a little too big to easily carry around and conceal, but it was definitely better than the previous shotgun she’d shown me. At least, she could keep this one in her backpack.

“Since I haven’t done firearm safety yet,” Janine told me self-consciously, “I can’t really test this at the ranges yet…” Then she pointed to the other side of her workshop to where she’d set up a target, along with several layers of plywood boards.

Janine moved closer to the targets, which was no surprised. A short shotgun pistol like what she had probably wouldn’t have great range or accuracy. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than nothing, especially since she could get a few different types of rounds.

“This is my first time shooting it,” Janine admitted to me. “I’m a little nervous…”

“Good luck,” I told her, not sure what else to say.

Janine pulled the trigger and there was a loud BAM, an instant before she fell back on her butt. She rubbed at her hand and arm, looking a bit worried.

“A bit more kick than I realized,” Janine admitted in embarrassment. “My whole arm kind of hurts…”

“Ouch,” I said, wincing sympathetically as I helped her back to her feet. “That could be a big problem…”

Janine nodded, looking disappointed. “And I missed the target…”

“Won’t do much good if you can’t shoot it,” I pointed out, knowing how frustrating this would have to be, especially after she’d traded some valuable materials to get the parts made.

Janine stared down at her weapon for a few seconds, then she suddenly brightened up. “Oh yeah,” she said with a giggle. “I almost forgot about my other power…”

“Your other power?” I asked in confusion.

Janine was a gadgeteer, but she was obviously referring to her PK abilities. She was only a PK 2, which was pretty low level. In fact, about the only thing I’d seen her use that for was to lift herself off the ground and levitate.

“Okay,” Janine muttered to herself. “I can do this…”

With that, she took her shooting position again and raised the weapon. There was a look of concentration on her face, then she pulled the trigger. This time, the gun fired but Janine remained standing, with her hand and arm completely stable.

“I DID IT,” she exclaimed, nearly bouncing with excitement. “I used my PK to handle the kickback…”

“Very nice,” I told her. “I didn’t know you could use yours that way…”

“Me either,” she admitted. “I’ve never been able to use it for much more than levitating, but now…” She beamed proudly. “I can stabilize myself when I shoot…”

Janine demonstrated this by firing a third shot. Her second one had hit the edge of the target while the third one made a nice peppering of tiny holes which were mostly clustered around the center.

“It works,” Janine exclaimed, nearly dancing with excitement. I hadn’t seen her get this excited about something very often, so I was happy for her.

“Congratulations,” I said, giving Janine a gentle hug. “That is pretty cool…”

She seemed even happier at that and hugged me back. Then, she awkwardly suggested, “You might want to get more holdouts too…”

That made me chuckle. “Morgana keeps telling me the same thing.”

Janine hesitated for a moment before telling me, “After what happened Sunday, you probably should…”

I nodded agreement, then ran my hands down my new coat. “That’s kind of what this is for… I’m putting some spells on it to protect me…” I opened it up to show the pockets on the inside, which could hold chalk, ink, and extra cards. “And I get a little more storage too…”

“And it looks good on you too,” Janine said, blushing self-consciously as she did so.

“Thank you,” I told her, feeling a little more pleased by the compliment. “But I know that I could probably use some direct offensive power too…”

Janine held up her new weapon, which would serve that purpose for her. “I could make you one too, if you want…”

“Thank you,” I told her. “But not necessary…”

She bit her lip as she stared at me with a thoughtful expression. Finally, she asked, “Are you going to use a magic wand, like in Harry Potter? Or maybe, a wizard staff…like what Gandalf uses…?”

“No,” I answered with a faint chuckle. “Though Morgana has suggested I try a wand…” I shrugged at that. “But a wand isn’t really my style…and it just doesn’t work well for me. At least not for offensive spells.”

“What do you mean?” Janine asked curiously. “Is this like that thing where you can’t do any of those spells you have to say aloud?”

“Not quite,” I started to explain, trying to think of how to phrase it. “That limitation is because of my spirit…” Then I abruptly said, “You know how every gadgeteer is different? How most of you have different specializations, and while you can do things outside your specializations…they usually aren’t nearly as easy…or as advanced.”

Janine nodded agreement. “Yeah…”

“Magic can be like that as well,” I told her. “Different people have different affinities and specializations, partly based off the magic traditions you follow, and partly based off your own mindset and how you view magic… Well, between the magic tradition I inherited…and my own perspective, I don’t really have any inclinations towards direct offensive spells. You’ll notice that when I started to upgrade after Sunday…” I gestured down at my coat, “my first thought was to improve my defense.”

“I can use wands,” I continued, “but for me, they work better as a focus for ward crafting than as a ranged weapon.” I shrugged at that. “And as for direct offensive spells… Well, I do know one or two, but…they’re very slow for me to cast…and they take up a LOT of essence. Basically, they’re slow, expensive, and extremely inefficient… Hell, I doubt I’d even be able to get one of those stored on a spell card, which makes them even worse for me…”

“So…no throwing fireballs,” Janine said.

I grinned and activated my built-in fire elemental spell, the one that was tattooed into my skin. “I wouldn’t say that,” I announced, forming a fireball in my hand. Janine squeaked and jumped back, staring at my hand in surprise. “I just can’t do it as a regular spell… Certainly not like Morgana can… But…” I grinned even more broadly, letting the fireball vanish as I did so. “I do have my own solution for ranged offense…”

With that, I reached inside my coat, then around behind me to the small holster at my back. And with a flourish, I pulled out my gun, a simple and mundane pistol, and showed it to Janine.

“I’ve been storing it in the campus armory,” I explained. “But after Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to keep it on me…”

This was a normal gun, given to me by Marcus for my own protection. There was no magic or advanced technology involved, in either the gun or the ammunition. However, it would still be useful when I needed it, as a nonmagical surprise if nothing else.

“I have no intention of using this on campus,” I explained in a serious tone. “At least, not against any students or school bullies… But if someone actually tries to kill me again…I want to be ready.”

Janine nodded, giving me a worried look. “I hope that isn’t necessary…” She paused a moment, then added, “But I know people really are after you…”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly, suddenly worried that Janine would have second thoughts about being around me. Being around me could be dangerous, as Sunday might have proven.

But instead of saying something to that effect, Janine just brightened up again and gestured to her target. “We can do some target practice…”

I stared at the target and the plywood boards behind it. That looked fine for shotgun pellets, but I wasn’t about to trust that setup with anything more solid.

“I don’t want to risk a ricochet,” I said as I put my gun back into the holster. “But we can practice together at the range sometime.”

“Well, I’m going to practice a little more,” Janine told me as she went back to the bench to reload her new weapon. “And if I ever run into someone like that Hardcore guy again, I’m going to be ready…”

“That sounds good to me,” I told her with a nod of approval. “And I might not be the kind of mage who usually throws fireballs around…but I am going to be ready too.”

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

Thursday late afternoon, Oct 27th, 2016

Carrie felt a little intimidated as she walked behind the others. Not only were they all taller than her…and older…but they also had a LOT more presence.

Perfume was gorgeous, which was to be expected of an exemplar and former member of Venus Inc. She also radiated a sense of confidence and competence. In fact, she was everything that Carrie hoped to one day become.

Like Perfume, Miss Violet was also a gorgeous exemplar, and she too radiated a sense of confidence and competence. However, Carrie knew that most of her competence came from her paragon abilities, not from any hard work and discipline on her part. That made a great deal of difference to Carrie, who had spent years training to become an Olympic gymnast.

And then, there was Mr. Blank. Unlike the two older girls, he was not an exemplar or even particularly good looking. However, he always made sure to dress in a stylish suit, and he always had his umbrella cane with him. Mr. Blank always tried to come off as an old-fashioned gentleman, and even though he didn’t always succeed, he still impressed Carrie.

The four of them were currently heading to their clubhouse for a meeting, where the rest of the Cadets would meet them. Well, most of the others, Carrie had to remind herself. Tiptoe said that he had something else going on and wouldn’t be able to make it.

When they reached their clubhouse, Mr. Blank went to open the door. Suddenly, several glowing symbols appeared on the door just an instant before the entire thing shattered and fell to the floor like shards of broken glass.

“WHAT THE…?” Mr. Blank demanded as he leapt back.

“GLYPH!” Miss Violet snarled.

Carrie gasped in confusion, then quietly asked, “Are you sure it was her?”

“The glowing symbols on the door,” Perfume pointed out grimly. “She might as well have signed her work.”

Carrie couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she just stared at the shattered pieces of door, stunned by the damage and even a little afraid. If Glyph could do something like that to a metal door, then what could she do to her opponents in BMA?

Mr. Blank peeked through the now open doorway, then cautiously stepped through. “Nothing seems to have been touched in here,” he called back. “And the alarms haven’t been tripped until just now…”

The rest of them carefully entered the clubhouse and looked around, seeing that Mr. Blank seemed to be correct. There was no evidence that anyone else had been inside, though Carrie couldn’t help but remember the bugs that they’d previously found in there. No alarms had gone off when those had been planted either.

“So, what does she think she’s doing?” Miss Violet asked angrily.

“It seems to me,” Mr. Blank stated, “that she’s declaring war against us…”

“No,” Perfume corrected a moment later. She had a thoughtful expression on her face as she stared at the empty doorway…and the shattered ruins of the door. “If she was declaring war, she probably would have broken in and destroyed everything. Instead, she only targeted our door…and only had it disintegrate when we were there to see it.”

Mr. Blank scowled. “Could the timing be coincidence?”

“I doubt it,” Miss Violet said. “The timing was too perfect for coincidence…”

“Yes, it was,” Perfume agreed. “I think she was sending us a message?”

“A message?” Carrie asked in surprise. “You mean the writing on the door?”

Perfume paused and then turned to look at each of them, still appearing thoughtful. “Consider this,” she finally said. “We’ve been tailing her for weeks…now she has people tailing us…”

“Poorly,” Mr. Blank grumbled. “Complete amateurs…”

“We’ve planted numerous listening devices on her,” Perfume continued. “So, she plants some on us…”

“And she has people taking pictures of us,” Carrie offered quietly.

Perfume nodded at that. “We found her hidden lair and tried to break in…” She gestured to the open doorway.

“Tit for tat,” Miss Violet said in realization. “That’s her game here…”

“And her message,” Perfume agreed grimly.

“Then we’re just going to have to go after her even harder,” Mr. Blank firmly announced. “We have to get even for this…”

Miss Violet scowled thoughtfully. “But what of her next reprisal?”

“Exactly,” Perfume calmly said. “Glyph has delivered her message, so I suspect…that, at the moment…she would consider us even. Now, the question is, do we back off for the time being to reassess…or risk escalating the situation even more?”

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

Thursday evening, Oct 27th, 2016

Scrye sat up straight in her chair, calmly watching the other Masterminds who were gathered in the clubhouse. She was careful not to let any of her thoughts or emotions show because this was not the place to show anything that could possibly be considered as a weakness.

“And now onto our next piece of business,” Edward Lowe, the Golden Lion said from where he sat. “The White Lady.”

All eyes went to Scrye since she was the Mastermind’s liaison with Glyph. Since she and Bianca shared a cottage and already had a prior business arrangement, it made sense for her to be the one to deal with the other girl.

“As you all know,” Scrye said, “I have been giving information on the Spy Kids to Glyph, as the more she keeps them distracted, the less their attention is on our business.”

“That seems to be working quite well,” Doma Know commented. “They haven’t been interfering in our business recently.”

“I’m almost starting to miss all those robot bugs,” Swandive added with a smirk. “Cyber Swarm must be spending all his toys on Glyph these days.”

“Perhaps,” Devil’s Advocate mused, leaning back and casually taking a sip from his class of wine. “But I do wonder, why the girl seems to be playing child games with those nosey fools…”

“Games?” Burst asked, looking a little confused.

“This White Lady…Glyph girl…just seems to be playing some harmless pranks on them,” Devil’s Advocate explained with a sigh. “Have people follow them around, taking pictures… General harassment. Annoying, yet harmless…”

“You do have a point,” Edward said with a thoughtful expression. “We have seen in the past, that when Glyph becomes cornered, she can be quite vicious…”

“And that is my point, exactly,” Devil’s Advocate mused. “The girl hasn’t been using our information to nearly the impact that I’d hoped… We all know, or at least SHOULD know, that Glyph is not nearly as innocent and naïve as she pretends to be.”

“Glyph is not so harmless as some assume,” Scrye commented, fighting the impulse to defend her fellow Poesie. “Yet, she is not nearly so dangerous as others believe…”

“We all know what Glyph did to Esquire,” Devil’s Advocate reminded them all. “The poor boy pissed his pants when she was done with him… Quite literally. And just this last weekend, she defeated a group of professional mercenaries, including a named one in power armor.”

“And he was killed right after,” Doma Know added with a scowl. “She may have ordered her people to finish the job…while keeping her own hands clean.”

“And let us not forget,” Edward said, “she is known to have killed a professional hitman in Chicago, and then she mailed the man’s head to his employer. These are not the actions of some naïve and innocent schoolgirl…”

Scrye frowned at that, almost wishing that she’d kept that particular bit of information to herself. However, it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle now.

Then, Scrye noticed that Bystander was now sitting up straight and looking interested. That was a change in behavior because he normally looked bored in these meetings, as though none of it really mattered to him. A chill suddenly ran down her spine at the implication.

“Just because she has been willing to dirty her hands in the past,” Doma Know said, “that does not mean she is intentionally holding back this time. For all we know, she could be playing a long game…an escalating one. One which could prove devastating to our enemies, and therefore, of greater advantage for us.”

“Maybe,” Swandive mused. “But I don’t know if I buy it.”

“This new White Lady is full of contradictions,” Edward said. “This is good reason to continue maintaining our distance…for the time being.”

“She’ll fall into place soon enough,” Doma Know added with a smirk.

“I don’t know,” Devil’s Advocate responded, pausing to swirl the wine in his glass. “I have to wonder, is this girl really dancing on our strings…or are we dancing on hers?” He downed the rest of his glass and smiled. “I do look forward to seeing which it is.”

“In spite of Glyph’s viciousness when corned,” Scrye stated, “she is no threat to us.” A faint smile formed at the corner of her lips as she added, “Unless WE corner HER.”

Edward gave her a flat look, clearly not impressed. “For now, we will continue our current strategy for dealing with Glyph. We may revise that in the future”

“That would be my recommendation as well,” Scrye added.

“Then, for the next piece of business,” Edward announced.

However, Scrye was not paying attention to the Mastermind’s leader. Instead, she was watching Bystander, who almost looked excited. He even had a creepy grin on his face, one that worried Scrye a great deal. If Bystander was taking an interest in Bianca, then there was no way this could turn out well for the girl.

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

Poe Cottage, Friday morning, Oct 28th, 2016

“Mornings are a blight on humanity,” I grumbled as I walked down the hallway, just beginning the long morning trek towards breakfast.

“I wonder if they make vaccines for that,” Laura joked from beside me.

“They sure do,” Morgana added from the other side. “It’s called coffee.”

“And I bet you make sure to get all your shots,” Laura responded wryly.

Morgana nodded. “And all my boosters.”

“And yet, the morning is still here,” I pointed out bitterly.

Laura gave me a curious look. “You seem extra grumpy this morning.”

“Shades again,” Morgana explained on my behalf. “She’s probably worried that he left another present with Horton.”

I gave a brief nod, acknowledging that she was correct. I was a little worried about Shades and his attentions. Just when I thought that he’d gotten the clue, that I had absolutely no romantic interest in him at all, he made another move. This time, when I got back to Poe last night, there had been a dozen roses waiting for me. All white ones.

“Good thing he doesn’t know about Janine,” Morgana pointed out a little more seriously. “Who knows what that idiot might do if he realized he had a rival.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I warned my roommate, feeling a surge of protective anger. If Shades even suggested that he was going to lay a finger on Janine… Well, I wasn’t quite sure of what I’d do, only that it wouldn’t be nice.

Just then, someone up ahead of me called out, “HEY, WHO LET THE BIRD IN HERE?”

“What bird?” Morgana asked.

We pushed forward a little more, then I saw it. There was a bust of Edgar Allan Poe, positioned right at the front of the cottage, near the main door. I passed it several times, every day. And perched right on top of that bust, was the bird in question. It was a large white bird. Specifically, it was a white raven.

“LENORE!” I exclaimed in recognition and surprise.

“You know this bird?” Mrs. Horton asked in a disapproving tone.

“She…was my grandmother’s familiar,” I explained. I stared at Lenore, who seemed to be preening on her perch. “But I have no idea how she got here…” I looked around and added, “The last time I saw her, she was in Chicago…”

I stood there for a moment, feeling completely dumbfounded. Chicago was a long way from Whateley. And how had she managed to find me? For that matter, there was also the question of how she’d gotten through the cottage wards. But then again, Lenore had always been quite a mystery, and it seemed that some things never changed.

Lenore let out a loud ‘CAW’, then flapped her wings and launched herself into the air. She flew a quick circle around the room, making a couple people duck down for fear of being hit. A few seconds later, she landed on my shoulder and let out a much quieter and more gentle ‘caw’.

“What are you doing here?” I asked the bird.

Of course, Lenore didn’t answer. At least not in English. She gave another quiet ‘caw’, then gently tapped the side of my head with her beak, and leapt into the air again. Suddenly, a book appeared in the air in front of me, right as Lenore was starting to fly away.

“What the…?” I started, even as I rushed to catch the book. I barely managed to do so. “Lenore…?”

I was about to ask the raven what this was for, even though I knew it was pointless to talk to a bird. However, this time the attempt was even more pointless as Lenore had already flown straight towards the cottage entrance, and before I would have been able to phrase the question…she was already gone.

“What’s that?” Morgana asked.

I looked down at the object in my hand, a leather-bound book with a familiar silver pattern embossed on the cover. This book looked nearly identical to the one that Lenore had given to me before, right after I’d inherited the power of the White Lady. That book had been written by my ancestors and contained a collection of knowledge and spells that would be useful for a new White Lady. But this one… I was itching to open it up and see what was inside, but I didn’t want to do that right in the open where everyone could see. So with that, I turned and hurried back to my room for a little privacy.

The End