Chapter Seven

As soon as the Black Hawk touched down, the rotors started to slow down and the pilots in front started flicking things off one-by-one. Outside, Amber saw men in grey overalls running towards the vehicle to... she wasn’t sure, exactly, but they looked like mechanics and so she figured that was normal.

Cecilia opened one of the side doors and leapt out, soon followed by most of her team. Oli extended a hand to Amber, and when she took it, helped her to her feet. “Keep your head down. And don’t leap off until after clearing the blades, alright?”

Amber nodded and let go of the girl’s hand.

She still felt a little bit off, and the ache in her bones and muscles wasn’t helping, but she was able to jump out of the helicopter with no trouble.

They had landed on a steel-grated pad, with fluorescent white marks painted on the ground and little trenches with technicians to the sides. It reminded her of videos of aircraft carriers that she’d seen, only without the churning waters.

Six more helicopters were parked on similar platforms, each one a fair distance from each other. A glance to the side showed that they were atop a sort of cliff overlooking the city she’d seen from above. The scattered lights below were strange. Parts of the city looked organic, with curving roads and no two buildings at the same height. The majority of it though, was all laid out in a neat grid.

A hand on her back snapped her out of her staring. “Come on,” Cecilia said. “Let’s get you inside.” The girl pointed ahead, and for the first time, Amber saw the Academy.

That wasn’t entirely accurate.

She had seen the Academy before. On posters, and as part of newsreels that sometimes talked about magical girls or interviewed them.

But that photage was always taken from slightly above, and in the full light of day. Painting the Academy like some sort of statuesque ivy-league school.

What she saw now was more like a castle.

Walls of flagstone rose up a few meters into the air, with rounded towers at every point where the wall changed directions. Not proper towers, just pillars of stacked stone with conical roofs.

Beyond the walls she could make out a few larger buildings. One rose taller than the rest, with a verdigris-green roof and towers at its corners. It reminded her a little of a Disney castle, if one that looked a lot more robust. The towers had huge gun emplacements atop them instead of the more fantastical trebuchets she would have imagined.

“The Academy’s a bit confusing at first,” Cecilia said.

“I still get lost sometimes,” Oli admitted.

Jess snorted. “That’s because you’re a big dork. You couldn’t find north if you were standing next to the pole.”

Amber found herself in the middle of the group, uncertain of what to say as they walked towards the castle walls. The area around where the helicopters were stored looked a lot more like Camp Chet than anything else. Prefab buildings, a few hangars, some square administrative buildings, and lots of soldiers moving about.

“You can ignore those,” Jess said.

“Huh?”

“The soldiers. They like to posture and make noise, but they’re pretty much just here for support. No actual legal rights to do anything, you know?”

“I... don’t?” Amber said.

Jess shrugged. “You’ll figure it out.”

The group arrived at a door in the castle walls. Not quite a proper door. It was wide and tall enough to drive a semi-trailer through it with room to spare. It was also closed except for a smaller door built into it.

Amber squeezed in with the others, then slowed to a stop on the other side.

The castle was split down the middle. There was a narrow space, maybe as wide as a highway, that cut across the entire ground to an identical door at the far end. Walls rose up on both sides, with parapets and slitted windows, and a bridge spanned the distance above, with ornamental stonework all across its side.

The space between had trees and walkways, flowering bushes and little benches tucked up against the sides.

“We’ve got some pretty good gardeners and all that,” Cecilia said. “Some of the girls that came here first had magic to warp stone and do stuff with plants. It kinda shows.” She pointed to one side. “Okay, so that you don’t get too lost. Southside is fun.” She pointed to the other side. “Northside isn’t.”

“What she means,” Jess said. “Is that southside is where the dorms, the library, the lounges and all the nice places are. The northside has the admin buildings, the teacher homes, and all the schoolrooms. It’s also where you’re going now.”

“I am?” Amber asked. She shook her head. I haven’t felt this lost in a long time. “Sorry. It’s just, a lot.”

“Hey, no worries,” Jess said. “The infirmary is staffed at all hours. Usually a couple of volunteers who can cast healing magics too.”

They set off towards the southside, up a set of stairs and through a heavy wooden door. Southside was a little more utilitarian than the passage in the middle of the castle. With large, victorian-style homes crammed together next to little gardens. The roads were lit by solar-panel topped lamp-posts, and the houses all had panels bolted to their roofs.

It felt like the place couldn’t decide which era to stay in.

Amber saw a couple of magical girls moving by, some fiddling on phones, others carrying backpacks. Most, she noticed, weren’t in any sort of costume, but instead wore dark blue sweaters with a crest over one breast--a medieval dragon with a sword through its head--over knee-length black skirts. Some had jackets on atop that, but most skipped those.

There were boys too, in similar sweaters over pants.

“Yeah, we have uniforms,” Jess said. “They’re lame. But unless you’re on-duty, you’re kinda meant to wear them.”

“Okay?” Amber said. “I don’t know if I’m going to, uh, be going to school here?”

Jess eyed her for a bit, and she noticed Cecilia looking back. Even the quiet Emilia glanced her way.

“You’re free not to,” Cecilia said. “But, well, your options are kinda limited. It’s either this academy, or the military.”

“Or one of the other academies,” Jess said. “If you’re not American you could get transferred to... you know, wherever. Norumbega scores well, but it’s got some stiff competition.”

“We’re going to kick those Frenchie’s asses next time, I swear,” Oli said.

“We won’t even be here for that,” Cecilia said. She turned to Amber. “We’re all third-years. That’s the last year here. After you’re done you can kinda pick what you’ll go into, but we’re magical girls, so it’s usually something related to killing nightmares.”

Amber nodded along, absorbing what she could. There was a lot to take in. They came up to a large, long building. Two stories tall and built of stone like many of the others around them, but this one had a large plaque by the door that read, The Healing Place.

The entrance had a little waiting room, currently empty except for a man behind the counter in a military uniform that didn’t fit the otherwise home-y lobby at all. He looked up on their entrance and stood. “May I help you?”

“Team Glasir, returning from a VIP rescue op,” Cecilia said. “This is the VIP. She’s overloaded.”

“Understood,” the man said before picking up a phone and muttering something in it.

“Um,” Amber said. She was still forming a question when a pair of nurses burst in from a side-door, a bed rolling behind them.

“Alright,” Cecilia said. “You going to be okay on your own?”

“I guess?” Amber said. The nurses stopped nearby and gestured for her to sit on the bed. “Do I go with them?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s probably literally the best care you can get, on Agartha or on Earth.”

“Magic healing’s pretty overpowered,” Oli agreed.

Amber nodded and sat on the edge of the bed. It felt a little as if she didn’t have any agency, but the cramps had been getting worse as she stood there.

“If you’re still in a room tomorrow we’ll stop by for a visit,” Jess said. “Maybe we’ll steal some flowers for you.”

“You never brought me flowers,” Oli said.

“You don’t like flowers, you big lug,” was Jess’ retort.

Oli shrugged. “It’s the gesture, you know.”

“What about my flowers then?”

Amber waved awkwardly at the girls as she was wheeled off. They were nice. Weird, but nice.

“Miss, could you lay down, please?” one of the nurses asked.

Amber did so, head on a hard pillow and legs up atop some folded blankets. The rough cotton-y sort she’d seen too many of in too many hospitals. She hated being on her back as they pushed her along, but the trip didn’t last very long. She was brought to a little room, with a nightstand and some high-tech looking machines next to the bed.

One of the nurses took her arm and placed a band connected to one machine around her wrist, the other came to stand close to her with a clipboard. “Can you give me a brief rundown of your situation?”

“Uh,” Amber said. “I guess? Where do I start?”

“Whenever it started to hurt.”

“I became a, uh, magical girl this afternoon,” Amber said. That feels so stupid to say.

The nurse looked up. “On Earth?”

Amber nodded. “Yes. Is that bad?”

The nurse scribbled a few things. “It explains a lot. Have you been feeling weak? Disorientated?”

“I was on Earth, and then I was here, so yeah, a bit disorientated,” Amber said. “Not weak, but I have these cramps, I guess. Like period cramps, but all over and weird.”

The nurse nodded. “Too much exotic energy,” she said. “Noted. Fortunately, that’s an easy fix.” she glanced over to the machine which had begun to beep in time with Amber’s heart. “Pressure is fine. Heart rate seems normal. Any bleeding, injuries?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Amber said. “Will I be seeing a doctor?” Would her family’s insurance cover any of this? Was that even a concern?

“You’re talking to one now,” the nurse--the doctor said. “Everyone on staff has a doctorate in something. Limited staff means lots of specialists trying to get the same position. We all took nursing courses too, so no worries.”

“Oh,” Amber said. “Sorry?”

The woman smiled. “It’s fine. We’ll be monitoring you overnight. But before that, we need to drain your energy reserves. Someone will be coming over soon with a device for that. They’ll explain it.”

“Is that all?” Amber asked.

“You’re a magical girl with too much magic in her system. It would be impressive if you were injured.”

Amber blinked. What was that supposed to mean?

The question in her eyes must have been obvious because the doctor caught on. “Magical girls heal at an accelerated rate. Won’t catch any sickness that we’ve noticed, and can survive some physical trauma that would kill someone three times your weight. You won’t even age at the same rate as us normal folk. We don’t actually see many magicals here who don’t have actual injuries. Overloading on exotic energy is pretty common though, especially for first years, and it’s an easy fix.” She pat Amber on the knee. “But if you feel anything strange, anything at all, you call out to us, alright?”

“Okay,” Amber said. “So I just stay here and wait?”

The doctor nodded and tucked the clipboard under an arm. “That’s it. Have you eaten at all? No? We’ll have something brought over. If you need the washroom just ping us and we’ll remove the monitor. It’s a bit tricky to remove.”

Amber nodded and watched the doctors head out of her room. She was left alone for a moment, under the light from an incandescent bulb in a very ordinary lamp on her table. A window looked out to the street before the hospital, but other than a glance at some dark clouds above, there wasn’t much to see.

I should try to rest, I guess.

An all-too-familiar voice intruded on her. “You made it! Wonderful. We were worried.”

***