Chapter Fourteen

“This is... it’s mortifying,” Amber said.

She was still standing on an exercise mat, booted feet digging into the soft material and causing her to shift awkwardly to stay upright.

Morgan’s transformation dance, she discovered, wasn’t a dance at all. The girl only had to gesture to the side as if holding an invisible sword, then she’d swipe her arm through the air in a quick, complex fencer’s salute. In the moments between swings her costume would appear.

In the end, Morgan would be standing tall and proud, feet set at a ninety degree angle and her sword held out with point down before her.

It looked cool.

Amber’s transformation wasn’t.

I look like a clown.

“It’s not that bad,” Morgan said. She had a slight twitch to the corner of her lips, a smile that was trying hard to break through Morgan’s iron grip. The older magical girl sighed and her costume disappeared with a flutter, leaving her once more in shorts and a loose t-shirt.

Amber did the same. It was a little tricky to essentially loosen the mental muscle that she’d never had before, but she was getting used to it. The costume around her didn’t disappear with the same wavering motion as Mongan’s. It was there one moment, then gone the next. More time-themed stuff, she supposed.

“Alright, now do it again,” Morgan said.

“Do I have to?” Amber asked. It wasn’t like her to whine. And I’m not whining, just confirming things.

“You do,” Morgan said. “You never know when you might need to change in a hurry.”

Amber gave up trying to stall and raised her hands. Palms out, she began to move her arms around, each shift done in stop-motion, as if her arms with the arms of a clock. At the same time, she swayed her hips from side to side with a metronome beat. It wasn’t so much a sway really, as it was jerking her rear from one side to the other.

Between one beat and the next, there was a second-long burst of orange-y light, then she was in her costume once more.

A glance to the side and she saw herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror against the far wall. Long boots that rose up to mid-thigh, strange, ballooned out pleated shorts. She had a sleeveless coat, cinched at the waist by a clock-faced belt, and of course, she had her hat.

It is a rather cute hat.

“There you go,” Morgan said. “How long is that, ten seconds?”

“Eight,” Amber said. “Eight very long seconds.”

Morgan chuckled. “Just wait, you’ll see far worse. By the way, are you a pure magical attacker, or do you have weapons?”

Amber reached under the edge of her coat and pulled out a knife from one side, and one of those strange circular blades from the other.

“A throwing knife and a chakram,” Morgan said. “You have more than the two? Right, so you’re a ranged attacker. I guess you could use those up close too.”

“Is that good?” Amber asked.

“It’s not bad,” Morgan said. “When fighting different nightmares, you need to approach them in different ways. I’m limited because I’ve no choice but to fight up close and personal. You have more options, but I don’t think you’ll be hitting as hard. If you’re our team’s equivalent of a healer, being mid-ranged is great.”

Amber nodded. “Alright. Thanks. It’s going to be nice to have someone that knows tactical stuff.”

Morgan nodded. She placed her hands on her hips and eyes Amber up and down. “Shall we put you through your paces?”

“You’re making me sound like a car or something,” Amber said.

Morgan grinned. “Come on. Untransform for now, you can practice later.”

She led Amber to the gym’s doors where they pulled some shoes from a rack of sneakers labeled with various sizes.

Amber bounced on the spot a few times to make the shoes fit right. It was a little strange having entirely new shoes on loan, but then everything in the school was over the top like that. She followed Morgan to the track where the blonde began to stretch. Amber moved to her side and ran through her own routine.

“Running is pretty important,” Morgan said. “Both to engage and disengage with a nightmare. You’ve jogged and such before?”

“I was big on soccer for a long time,” Amber said.

“Good!” Morgan replied. She moved to the edge of the field, right next to the path of beaten earth where others had been running earlier. Amber saw one of those girls laying on the grass a little ways away, panting and staring into the sky. “I’ll follow your pace.”

Amber finished stretching, jumped on the spot a few times to unlimber her legs, then took off at a slow jog. Man, I feel great. Maybe that healing the other day helped? Morgan kept up easily, her longer legs actually making it hard for her to jog instead of just walking quickly.

Pushing on a little, Amber started running properly, then when that didn’t feel like enough, she leaned into it and started moving even faster. There was a little device to one side of the track, with a tiny solar panel sticking out of it and a digital screen with red numbers on it. She flew past it and flashed at 32KMH.

She wasn’t even winded as she started running a little faster. The ground beneath her started to blur just a little, and she felt the wind beating at her face and sending her hair flying out behind her.

The next pass had the machine flashing a 34.

Amber grinned and started to go all out, legs beating, breathing finally becoming laboured. She felt light, breezy even. Her legs pumped, the ground flew by. The machine flashed at 37 kmh.

That was her limit, she found. She could push herself faster, but then her form was always a little off, her foot-falls not timed exactly right to be able to move any faster, and her grip on the ground not quite as solid as she needed it to be.

Morgan stayed by her side the entire time, making it all look laughably easy. She glanced to the sky after some time, eyes closed to take in the sun. “We should stop soon,” she said. “Maybe get a bite to eat. It’ll be noon by the time we’re done.”

Amber nodded. It was past eleven already. Half an hour of running faster than she’d even gone before and she was still able to keep going. “That, that was great,” she said between quick pants.

Her legs burned, her lungs wanted more air than she could give them, and she was a little sweaty, but the ache was wonderfully refreshing. Morgan was in better shape, though the blonde had a few bangs stuck to her forehead too. “Showers before lunch?”

“Sure,” Amber said. “Any plans for the afternoon?”

“We can stop by the shops and pick up a few things,” Morgan said. “Or you can do your own thing, I don’t want to impose.”

“No no,” Amber said. “I, uh, like spending time with you? Wow, that sounded cheesy, didn’t it?”

Morgan nodded. She must have been a little more winded than Amber realised since her cheeks reddened a little.

They moved into the locker rooms, then past those into what was essentially a large washroom with cubicles to the sides with showers within. Amber picked out some fresh clothes to wear from the clothing racks to one side. She had to check the sizes against her memories a bit, but pressing the clothes against her front to see if they would fit seemed good enough.

This is so wasteful.

Then she was off, stopping by the first stall with the word ‘unoccupied’ written next to it.

She opened the door and stared at the half-undressed girl within.

Amber slammed the door shut. “I’m sorry!” she said as she checked to make sure the sign next to the door was flipped to unoccupied. It was.

“Hey, hey, it’s all good,” came a voice from within. “We’re all girls here. Bet you didn’t see anything too interesting anyway.”

“Uh, yeah,” Amber said. “Still, sorry.”

“You could at least give me a name, since you did peek,” the girl within said.

Amber looked around, and found Morgan looking at her. She was nearly as expressionless as usual, but Amber had the impression she was nearly as embarrassed as she was. “Uh, I’m Amber? From team Svalinn.”

The door opened and a girl walked out while tugging on some gym clothes. She had her uniform draped over her arm. “And I’m Evelyn, from Helskor. Shower’s free, enjoy.”

Amber moved back to let Evelyn past, then she ducked into another free room where she could blush in private while showering.

When she left, dressed up and with a towel over her head, she found Morgan sitting on a bench against one wall, tugging on some shoes. Her teammate was already immaculately dressed and ready.

“Why do you have pants instead of a skirt?” Amber asked. She tugged her uniform skirt for emphasis.

Morgan looked at the pants she had. “I like these better?”

“But your costume has a skirt,” Amber said.

“It’s not the same,” Morgan said. “Lunch?”

Amber tossed her dirty things in a hamper for that, got her phone from the locker she’d used, then they were out and heading over to the cafeteria. The entire walk her stomach growled and moaned at the thought of food.

They found the cafeteria far more filled than the day before.

Magical girls and a few magical boys were sitting around tables, mostly in small groups, but a few of the larger tables in the middle had perhaps a dozen at them. A line was waiting for food at the far end, perhaps five or six magicals staring at those serving themselves with polite impatience.

“There aren’t that many tables here,” Amber said.

Morgan nodded. “To force people to sit together. Or they just didn’t have enough space and didn’t want to renovate the building, who knows?”

Amber and Morgan took their place in line, then with trays in hand, got their fill of lunch before they both found themselves looking around for a place to sit. That’s when Amber saw someone waving them over.

“Uh, do you know team Glasir?” Amber asked Morgan.

“Barely,” the girl said as she looked over. “But I don’t mind meeting them properly.”

Amber moved over and Jess finally stopped waving. The black-haired girl scooted to her side until she was practically sitting on Oli’s lap. “Sit sit,” she said.

Cecilia and Emilia on the other side of the round table, moved over a little, leaving more room for Amber and Morgan to set down their tray. “You don’t mind?” Amber asked.

“‘Course not,” Cecilia said. “We’re just finishing off our second lunch.”

“I still think it should be called brunch,” Jess said.

“No, brunch is what we had earlier,” Cecilia countered. “This is second lunch.”

Amber smiled as she sat. “Technically it’s not noon yet, so that makes this elevenses.”

Cecilia gasped. “It does!”

Jess leaned forwards. “So, a big fat bird told me that you were at the explosion yesterday. Tell us everything.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Amber said. “I didn’t even get an interrogation or anything.”

“Who the hell would interrogate you?” Jess asked. “The Seelie?” Her eyes narrowed. “Actually, that Seelie with the teeny tiny detective hat is kinda cute.”

Oli nodded. “Like Sherlock Holmes’ hat?”

“Deerstalker,” Emilia said.

Oli snapped her fingers. “That’s the name, yeah.”

“I’ll tell the student council tomorrow that we need more cute hats,” Jess said. “We’ll need to find a new tailor, we lost our best one last year.” She noticed Amber staring. “She graduated. Now, explosions, tell.”

“Right,” Amber said. “There’s not much to say? I saw a pink-haired girl before it happened, but that’s about it. My power warned me, so Morgan and I had time to help people evacuate. Mostly Morgan.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to help without the warning,” Morgan demurred.

“Morgan...” Cecilia repeated.

Oli pointed to Morgan with her fork. “You’re the girl from the disaster last year.”

***