23: Mysterious Call
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School was actually pretty boring after lunch. I had a few people realise who I used to be and spout exclamations of wonder at my gender change, but by and large I was just another kid at school. It helped that I was part of a spirit race that was fairly common, which meant that fox people must rate high on the fuckability index. I guess it also helped that we had a humanoid form that some horny human could actually get frisky with.

At the end of the day I found myself wandering out of the main school building towards the spot my friends and I usually chilled at for a while after school. We had a little ritual where we wandered into town to get a bit of fast food and generally hang around until it was time to be home.

Today we had an extra, Saoirse would be joining us! I was already feeling a little attached to her after watching her fumble her way through school life like a drunk toddler. I should figure out a way to introduce her to mum, because the girl needed the type of help that mothers were skilled at dishing out.

As I saw my friends, I felt my phone buzz with an incoming call. Casual interest turned to confusion and suspicion when I saw the caller ID show a series of gibberish symbols that shouldn’t have even been in the phone’s font directory.

Stepping off to the side, I carefully lowered my voice into my Lette persona’s tone and placed the handset to my ear. “Hello?”

“Is this Gauntlette speaking?” the feminine voice on the other end asked hesitantly. “The vigilante?”

“Who are you?” I demanded rather than answer her.

“I am… ah… Dremea,” she stammered, sounding less than certain about that. “I’m calling to find Gauntlette, I’m trying to bring together the um, the Concord heroes that have started operating and… yeah.”

“Okay, yes, this is Gauntlette,” I sighed, letting some of my guard down. She sounded way too anxious to be trying to fuck with me.

“Oh good! I thought the spell had failed,” she said with a giggled breath of relief. “Ah… are you free in like, three hours?”

What was this? A group project meet up at the library?

“Uh, I’ll be in town around that time,” I hedged, frowning at the phone all confused. My gauntlets were at home still, so I wouldn’t be ready for a fight. Somehow I also needed to get myself an outfit to wear, because I couldn’t go out in the same stuff I was wearing now or I might get recognised.

“Good, good… ah… can you meet us at… oh no, I’ll send you an address, it’s easier to use google maps these days,” she stammered haltingly. Girl needed some anti-anxiety meds, stat.

With a sigh, I agreed, “Yeah. See you then.”

I hit the end call button and stared at my phone in bemusement. What a strange call. Normally when these calls happened in movies, it was some heavily doctored voice giving orders and hanging up before the hero could say anything. I guess out here in reality not everyone had a voicebox made of gravel and a jawline that could cut steel.

“Are you coming or what?” Eva’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts, causing me to turn and stare uncomprehendingly for a few seconds. “Huh?”

“Town?” she asked, giving me a look that was all like dduuuuh.

"Oh, yeah!" I nodded with a laugh of light hearted embarrassment. "Sorry, just got a real weird phone call."

She didn't respond for several seconds, instead she just stared at me with wide eyes like I'd just told her that the moon really was made of cheese.

I nudged her. "You okay?"

"Your laugh is really cute," she blurted quickly, then cringed and grabbed me by the arm. "Come on."

My laugh was cute? How was my laugh cute? She couldn't just say that and then pretend everything was chill! What even made my laugh cute anyway? Also why did my brain feel all warm over it?

I was dragged over to the rest of our friends while still trying to get my brain to wrap around the whole cute thing. Sure, I was a fox girl now and fox girls were cute, but I still wasn’t like, that cute… was I?

"Took your time," Doug commented dryly. "Was that your girlfriend on the phone?"

Eva spun on me. "You have a girlfriend?"

"No, Doug is just being a fuckwit," I explained, flipping him off in the process.

"Yeah, I was just teasing," Doug said, hands up like a cop had a gun to his head. "Chill Eva."

"Sorry," she sighed, wilting in on herself. "Today was… hard. Sorry."

My reaction was second nature, I reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist and smiled up at her. "It's fine. Did my tail help at all?"

She leaned into the hug like it was a breeze on a boiling hot day. "Yeah… yeah it did. Thank you."

"Wish we could get you your own tail," I commented, testing her on the idea. "So you had something to play with for the classes we have together."

"But I like your tail," she said in a small voice, bottom lip all pouty.

Something in my chest did a little flip when she turned that look on me and I had to hold tighter to her waist for a second. "Right, my tail then."

"I mean, I'd love to have a cute fox tail like yours," she said quickly. "Just so long as I get to hold your tail too."

"Wow," Doug chuckled, turning to the others. "Girl is turning into a hoarder."

"Shut up Doug," Noah sighed, rolling his eyes. "Two of anything can't really be considered hoarding."

"Sure it can!" Doug frowned. "Two boats is definitely hoarding."

"Tell that to our navy then," Noah shot back.

"I think that having two planets is hoarding," Benny said to the group. "I haven't even seen all of this one, how is anyone meant to do all the things on two planets?"

"Uh…" Noah blinked, along with the rest of us as we all tried to figure out how to respond to that.

"Yeah… so I'm hungry," Doug said slowly, still staring at Benny.

Right, and I had places to be in a few hours. "Yeah, let's go then. I'm feeling BK."

"Truueee," Doug grinned, clearly liking the idea.

"What is beakay?" Saoirse asked innocently, glancing between everyone like we were speaking a foreign language.

"How did you know about shampoo but not BK?" I muttered under my breath. I'd need to sit down with her and have a good long chat about the world. BK was life.

Our trip into town proved uneventful, except when Saoirse almost went fox mode on us over the cheeseburger we got her. Interestingly, I could see her magical form begin to shift before it made it to her physical one. The more I learned about our particular brand of spirit, the more intrigued I became.

Eventually though, it was time for me to dip. A dipping which proved far more difficult than I anticipated.

“What do you mean you need to go now? We get the same bus!” Eva practically growled, frowning down at me with hands on hips. Her height advantage was proving to be an issue here as she backed me slowly up against the outside wall of the burger king.

“I have errands I need to run,” I told her, kinda truthfully. I needed to buy a different and preferably cheap outfit, then meet a bunch of randos on a rooftop.

Her eyes narrowed. “What errands?”

People were staring at the scene as they walked past, a bus halting the conversation for a second as it growled past, another fossil like our yellow one. Concord, unlike some american cities, actually had a good public transport system.

“Eva, come on,” Doug groaned when the bus was finished farting out black smoke. “She’s not your girlfriend, she can fuck off into town if she wants.”

I noticed Eva’s eyes twitch as the word girlfriend came out of our friend’s mouth. Was she like, secretly homophobic or something? No, that couldn’t be, she’d gone along with gay jokes between us all day.

“Doug is right, plus, this is a little extreme and definitely not normal behaviour for you Eva,” Noah said, siding with his nemesis for once.

They weren’t wrong, Eva had been acting pretty weird ever since I’d become Tia, but especially today. With a sigh, I tried to figure out how to get out from under her stern glare.

“Look… how about I come over to your place for the weekend?” I finally said, giving her what I hoped was a peace offering.

“Friday night to sunday evening?” she asked hopefully, angry demeanour melting into a puppy dog look that had my own expression softening too.

“Sure,” I said gently, reaching up to take her hand. “That sounds really nice.”

“It does,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. The way she was looking at me right then… it was so raw. I had this sinking feeling that something was really wrong with her, something deep that was causing her to act all crazy like this. Our weekend sleepover would also give me alone time with her so we could have a proper heart to heart. She was clearly hurting about something and I really wanted to help.

“For what it’s worth,” I said, matching her volume so the others couldn’t hear. “I wish I could ride that bus with you, all the way to your place. I don’t want to go do this shit… but mum um… text me, so I have to.”

“She’s too strict with you,” Eva said sadly. “If even half of what you’ve told me in our calls has been true.”

I groaned. “You have no idea.”

“Okay… well,” she said, stepping back. “Text me when you’re home? I’ve been wanting to try a modpack with you.”

Oh thank fuck, she was calming down. I needed my chill, screw the world, Eva back.

“Minecraft or Starbound?” I asked curiously, thankful to be free from my erratic best friend’s clutches.

“Starbound,” she said excitedly. “It’s all cthulhu-y and stuff, it’s really cool.”

Her smile had me smiling, and I couldn’t help but nod an affirmative. How could I not say yes when she was beaming at me like the dawn sun?

“That sounds fun! Can I join in?” Noah asked.

Eva and I spoke together, our smiles and eyes still locked on each other, “No.”

 

Despite this coming out two days after the last chapter, it was very hard to write. I sat at my desk trying to write for about six hours today and instead managed to read through a number of Biden's executive orders instead. I also got a 3.25 KDA in a match of pvp destiny and did some worldbuilding for a different story. Then I got into bed and sat with my new laptop for a further two hours staring at my screen while my brain packed a hissy fit and refused to work. Only after I snuggled in with my bun plushies and started browsing reddit on my phone did my brain say yes to writing. So I got up and sat down at my desk, then wrote a paragraph before my inspiration went on strike again. Back in bed and it was suddenly all good again. So yeah, I wrote most of this chapter on my phone in bed and now it's midnight and I HATE MY STUPID BRAIN I SWEAR.

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