A soft chime went out from the alarm and Kai woke up in his room. Day 3… no, 4 at TOAL headquarters, and the teen was already starting to feel familiar with the place. He lifted himself off the soft bed and headed into the attached bathroom to get ready for the day.
As Kai finished up, Marnick, his assigned chaperone for the week, knocked on the metal door. With a pair of brief greetings, the two headed out for breakfast.
“So, what’s my schedule look like for today?” asked the teen, mouth half-filled with pancakes and some kind of exotic syrup. He’d decided to treat himself this morning to something a little more exciting than oatmeal. “Actually, what does it look like for the rest of the week? Guessing what I’ll be doing every morning is kind of getting annoying.”
“You’re in luck!” exclaimed Marnick, handing over a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s everything you’re asking for!”
Kai took it with a smile and began to look it over. Every day had the same schooling, gym, and free time allotments, but the gaps in between them varied between each day. In fact, today looked especially interesting.
“You know, I was wondering when I’d get a chance to get some therapy,” the teen said with raised eyebrows. “I still think this should’ve been scheduled waaay earlier.”
“Well, you did get some on your first-”
“First day doesn’t count,” Kai shot back. “Can’t really get much out of therapy if I don’t remember any of it.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” replied his chaperone with a chuckle. His hands remained on the table rather than trying to awkwardly scratch the back of his head through his helmet.
“And after the gym, there’s a field trip!”
“Yup! TOAL hosts a different excursion every day on a rotating schedule so they can get everyone outside at least once a week. And yours happens to be scheduled for today!”
“Says I’ll be heading to a place called Foxtail Sanctuary. Is that some kind of animal rescue?”
“That’s right, and it’s a pretty nice place! I think you might like it.”
Kai nodded in response, before turning to his chaperone with an excited look. “Hey, is Kazuma also scheduled for this?”
“Your new friend? I don’t know, but I can check with Sheila to see if she can move him to today if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Sweet, thanks!”
“No problem, now finish up your breakfast. You’ve got a pretty big day today!”
Class came up quickly for Kai. Rather than sitting in the classroom with the middle schoolers, he was led to a meeting room repurposed into a private study lounge. With the limited time he had scheduled at TOAL compared to the 6-7 hours he’d normally have back home, the teen decided to focus his efforts on only two subjects instead of the usual 5 or 6. And wanting to get the worst of it over with as soon as possible, he chose Algebra and Chemistry.
At first, Kai expected to offset the misery of tackling both academically rigorous subjects head-on with the lingering excitement he still held from being portalled into TOAL’s gentle arms, but one small detail took care of the issue of motivation. Two small details, actually.
“Hey, this is a highschool chemistry book, not even an honors or AP one!” said the first of those small details. “This’ll be a piece of cake to teach you!”
“I don’t see any physics or engineering books here, but algebra’s going to be a cakewalk!” added the other. “Kai, do you want to start with math and get it over with? I promise you it’ll be way more fun than chemistry.”
“Uh, guys?” meekly asked Kai.
“Oh please, it’d be better to get the hard stuff out of the way first so you won’t have to deal with it,” retorted the first. “And looking at that bookmark, there’s really not much left to cover either, maybe a week or two’s worth?”
“Guys,” repeated the teen.
“If anyone had to cram that much chemistry in a week or two, they’d probably jump out into the void without a spacesuit! It’s a miracle that you alchemists haven’t done that already.”
“Guys!”
“What?!” shouted the two.
“I really appreciate both of you coming here to tutor me, but why don’t I do both? I don’t think I can concentrate on a single subject for three hours straight.”
“Fine,” said the first tutor with a sigh. “So let’s get started with some chemistry! You were learning about electron valency back on Earth, right? So pretty much-”
“Hold on, bucko,” interrupted the second tutor with a glare. “Who said Kai’s going to start with chemistry? Trigonometry’s going to need a fresh head from him to get, so I say he should start with math!”
Kai looked down at the two textbooks in front of him and let out a weary sigh. This was going to be a long morning.
Class went by quickly, which was a new experience for the teen. Sure, it felt like hours waiting for his tutors to decide who’d be teaching Kai first, but the actual lessons sped by in a flash. So this was what it was like to have good teachers who knew what they were teaching? Kai felt like he could get used to this.
Eventually, his scheduled time ended, and he bid farewell to the members of the competing tech teams, before making his way to his next appointment; the gym. There, the teen was introduced to several weight machines and shown how to make the most of them.
The benefit of weightlifting over cardio was that Kai could talk to his new friend when they were catching their breaths.
“Hey Kazuma, are you going on today’s field trip? I’ve got one scheduled for tonight, and we should go together!”
“Sheila actually talked to me about that a little earlier,” replied the Japanese man while gasping for breath. “At first, I thought it was weird that a woman as important as her was talking to me and I was about to say no.”
Kai arched a single eyebrow.
“But when she said you’d be there, how could I not say yes?”
The teen flashed him a smile. “Sweet, see you there!”
Kai took a deep breath and knocked on the wooden door in front of him, not sure what to expect on the other side. He’d gotten through the first half of his day with little worry, but everything so far had been comfortably familiar. He was venturing into the unknown now.
“Please come in,” replied the soft voice of a woman from within. “And close the door behind you.”
Kai turned the handle and made his way inside, taking in the soft, earthly tones of dark wood and various shades of green. The smell of pine and petrichor hit his nostrils, making the teen’s heartbeat calm down as his racing mind was eased back to the world around him. Kai closed the door and turned towards the lady who’d answered him. She looked to be in her 30s and wore a long green plaid skirt and white blouse.
“Hello again, Kai,” she said, regarding the teen with a soft and friendly expression. “Please take a seat.”
Kai plopped himself down on a plush couch and let whatever was left of his apprehension melt away into soft, velour fabric. “Hold on, again?”
“This is your second visit here,” replied the woman. “You had another therapy session on your first day here, but day one amnesia probably has that blocked off still.”
“Yeah, I remember getting here and a couple of crazy things that happened immediately afterwards, but not much else.”
“Right, that’s normal, especially since it hasn’t even been a full week yet. Everything should come back to you within a few days. I’m Rachel Sandberg, by the way, since you probably don’t remember that either. Just call me Rachel.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Rachel… again,” replied the teen with an awkward chuckle. “So, what’s this all supposed to be like? Am I going to talk about my problems and you tell me how to fix them?”
“Somewhat,” said Rachel patiently. “Usually, I have my patient talk about their problems, and I help them work out better ways to look at them and explore possible solutions, even if it’s only one step at a time. We actually did just that during your first session, so I have a pretty good idea of your issues from back home, and I’ll be happy to continue helping you work through them.”
“So most of the work’s going to be on my shoulders?”
“At the end of the day, you’re the only one who can change yourself. All I can do is point you in the right direction. Or more accurately, I’ll make the problems simpler for you to handle and give you the tools to solve them. I’m the armorer, while you’re the soldier here.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound too bad,” replied Kai thoughtfully. “So what kinds of things did we talk about last time? Can I get a quick recap?”
“Of course! You grew up in a bad neighborhood with an abusive parent and the other one missing, and you’re concerned that has, and I quote, ‘fucked you up pretty bad’. Mainly through relatively minor PTSD, a distrust of authorities and strangers, and a habit of self-depreciation. Do note how I’m using the word ‘minor’ here; I also tend to a lot of soldiers and people who’ve spent extensive time in Gilded Worlds, but that doesn’t make your experiences any less valid.”
“Shit, that sounds pretty accurate…”
“Of course, you told me this yourself last time,” nodded the therapist with a mellow cheer on her face.
“Hold on, what’s the point of having a session on my first day if I’m not going to remember anything about it? I’ve probably asked a ton of people, but I don’t feel like I’ve ever really gotten a good enough answer. Because this really sounds like something that I should remember if I want any kind of progress.”
“That’s true, but it was mainly for TOAL’s benefit,” sighed Rachel. “So they can all understand the kind of person you are and what kind of security to assign you.”
“That doesn’t really do much to help with my ‘distrust of authority’, you know,” replied Kai in a deadpan.
The therapist let out a sigh. “Everyone here tends to be incredibly paranoid, especially Gus, so your own distrust isn’t entirely unfounded. Many of the permanent residents at headquarters have been through similarly terrible situations to your own that’ve bred their own problems. So to an extent, you’ll probably be at home amongst the other paranoid types.”
“So why is distrust a problem then? And besides, I’ve gotten to trust Sheila, my teacher Ms. Neal, and plenty of others!”
“I’m simply repeating what I gleaned from what you told me last time. Chances are, you happened to have few authority figures back on Earth who were as direct and open as the ones you’ve listed just now. But with your progress, I suppose it really isn’t much of a problem anymore. So wonderful job, Kai!”
“Uh, thanks? And yeah, the guys in charge back home were either assholes or secretly trying to get something out of me while pretending to be my friend. At least the people here who want something out of me are pretty open about it, and try to make it worth my while.”
The therapist nodded again. “People here tend to be very direct about their intentions. It’s necessary so they can get things done when everyone can literally be Worlds apart in terms of knowledge, culture, and understanding.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t we all from Earth? And different Earths are still pretty similar to each other.”
“Some have been adventuring for years before being rescued, which leads to them adopting the culture of wherever they were sent. Sometimes, it has a tendency to overwrite what they learned from Earth.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” replied Kai thoughtfully. “Hold up, I just remembered there’s another problem I want to add to that list of issues you’ve got. I kind of wish I could’ve gotten an adventure too, but nobody here can give me one. At best, my choices are to keep going to school and get a job here, or retire in some bumfuck medieval village!”
“Of course, I’ll add that to the list,” said Rachel as she took out a notepad and began scribbling onto it. “In fact, it sounds more pressing to you than the other issues we’ve talked about, so I’ll move it to the top and we can talk more about it today.”
“Yes please,” said Kai with a dramatic sigh.
“So to start, can you elaborate on why you would like an adventure?”
“Well, just about everyone I’ve met has gotten one, and right after I got portalled over, I was hoping for one too. Something to get me away from my old life and towards something better.”
“Would you consider what you have at TOAL headquarters right now as something better than your old life?”
“I mean, I guess… yeah.”
“So perhaps there’s more to your desire for an adventure than simply getting a better life? Is there something specific about such a journey that appeals to you?”
The teen sat in silence as he wracked his brain for an answer. What’s so great about an adventure? The answer was obvious! Yet, he had to carefully coax the answer out. “I guess I want to be important? Like, for everyone to love me, and to feel like my life actually has meaning.”
The therapist smiled and jotted down Kai’s response. “Now that sounds like a wonderful reason! I’m curious though, can you think about how you can start achieving some of those things with what you have in the meantime?”
“Honestly, I’d rather just have an adventure,” the teen shrugged.
“Regrettably, those are exceedingly rare unless you become a soldier. But I don’t want you to jump into such a decision out of wanderlust alone.”
“Hey, are you also trying to get me to join some group or another here at TOAL, like the researchers were?”
Rachel’s expression hardened. “Gus has asked me to tell my patients to give TOAL’s army a better view, but my job is to get whatever’s best for my patients. I’m not an army recruiter, I’m a psychologist first and foremost. You can decide what you want to be only when you feel you’re ready.”
“Oh. Well that’s good. Thanks Rachel,” said Kai with an apologetic smile.
The therapist took a deep breath and calmed herself down, before bringing back her previously constrained cheer. “You’re very much welcome, Kai.”
“Yeah,” the teen nodded with a smile of his own. “I’m not surprised Gus is also playing the same game as the researchers. At least Sheila and Artyom aren’t really part of it.”
“Those two have their own responsibilities and troubles to deal with, and faction recruitment isn’t one of them. Of course, nobody is perfect and I’d like you to temper your expectations of them when you become aware of those troubles.”
“This feels like it’s coming out of nowhere.”
“Oh right, my apologies. It just occurred to me that with the sudden change in the types of authority figures you’ve been dealing with, I fear it might create unrealistic expectations of the people here. And disappointment might cause you to bounce back to a lack of trust, so I simply wanted to brace you for any imperfections in the people you meet.”
“Well, alright. I’ll try not to get my opinions too high then, I guess. But what kind of troubles do those two have anyway? I guess Sheila can be a bit too much with her enthusiasm sometimes, but Artyom seems perfectly fine, the guy saved my life! Though I guess he can be pretty intense.” Kai remembered how his savior had treated the court mage back where he was first summoned.
“Well, I suppose those are their major issues,” she hesitated. “But I’d like to ask you to remember that despite people having flaws, you should weigh the good in their heart against the harm they cause to determine if a continued relationship is worth it. Finding that balance is up to you, and should be aligned to your own personal values.”
“Yeah, I think I can do that.”
“So how about if we talk about what values you find important in someone? And what flaws you would consider deal breakers.”
“Yeah sure, let’s do that.”
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