Loop Two - Chapter Three - Breaking Doubt

“Right,” Amber said as she got up. She had eaten her fill, enough pancakes and scrambled eggs and hashbrowns to knock a man twice her size out, and she felt completely fine. Cassy was looking a bit green at seeing Amber shovel all that food down, but Amber figured it might be for the best. Maybe I can help her get rid of any bad habits sooner. “We need a Seelie.”

“Where are you going to find one of those?” Cassy asked. She was nursing a soda which she’d been sipping at slowly while Amber ate.

“I... don’t know,” Amber said.

“They don’t exactly have a phone number.”

Amber smacked the table. “That’s it! The Seelie once left me with a way to contact them. But that was... well, less than a week from today, but a lot longer for me.”

“Uh-huh,” Cassy said.

I think she still doubts that I’m a magical girl. Amber set her shoulders and took a deep breath. She wondered if there was any magic to the whole calling thing, or if it was just something that the Seelie listened for all the time. In either case... she grabbed hold of some of her magic and held onto it as she chanted: “Seelie, Seelie, Seelie.”

“Yeah?” Cassy asked.

“Um, that was it.”

The blonde girl blinked. “What was it?”

“They said I could call them three times and that it would be enough to have them come,” Amber explained.

“What, like Bloody Mary?” Cassy asked. “Isn’t that just, you know, an urban legend?”

“Our job is literally to fight boogymen and wendigos and stuff,” Amber said.

“Being a magical girl is about more than just fighting.”

Amber grinned as a familiar white form jumped up and landed on their table. She snatched it up by the scruff and held it up before her, the Seelie not fighting back in the least. “You came,” she said. “I have things to ask you.”

“Certainly.”

“Oh, you really are a magical girl, huh,” Cassy said.

Amber stared at her. “You didn’t believe me?”

“Hey, you weren’t exactly convincing. Just sitting down and saying you’re some magic time traveller isn’t exactly convincing, you know. Even if you ate like a pig.”

Amber laughed. Something about Cassy’s indignation loosening some of the tension she felt. “Alright, fair enough. But I wasn’t pigging out. Seelie, tell her that magicals need to eat more.”

“It’s not so much that a magical needs to eat more, as it is that a magical needs to remain fed to prevent their body from auto-cannibalizing. The process of turning energy into magic can be intense to the unprepared.”

Amber huffed. “Right.”

“And Amber’s a magical girl, right?” Cassy asked. “Just making sure.”

“She is,” the Seelie confirmed. “And she is likely to be your teammate in the coming days.”

Amber set the Seelie back down onto the table, ignoring the niggling voice in the back of her head chiding her about putting feet on a tabletop. “So, uh, can you pass a message along for me?” she asked. “To headmaster... uh, whatever name he’s using today.”

“We can do that, yes.”

“The administration building is going to be bombed this afternoon. In a couple of hours. A girl with pink hair is there, she’s the one with the bomb. She might be a shapeshifter, or some sort of illusionist, maybe. I saw her looking different once.”

“That is concerning news,” the Seelie said. “We have passed it on.”

“Already?” Amber asked.

“Yes,” the Seelie replied, its beady little eyes never leaving her face. It spun around once, twin tails wrapping around its legs. “Was that all?”

“I think so?” Amber said. She looked to Cassy, who shrugged a shoulder. “Thanks. Can you keep me posted about anything that happens?”

“Certainly,” the Seelie said before leaping off the table. “We will be seeing you again tonight.”

“Tonight?” Amber asked.

“When you come to Agartha once more,” the Seelie said before trotting away. A few people paused to stare at it, some of them wide-eyed.

I guess we’re heading over tonight then. Alright.

“So, uh, you’re really on my team?” Cassy asked. “And you’re really a time traveller?”

“My powers are more annoying than you’d think,” Amber said. “Useful, but I think I’d lose most fights against anyone. Heck, you beat me in training.”

“Yeah, but I can’t remember it,” Cassy said.

“Well, it hasn’t happened yet. And maybe it won’t. I know your tricks now.”

“I don’t know my tricks,” Cassy said. “I’ve only been a magical girl for like, a week.”

“Really?” Amber asked. “Huh. So, um... shopping?”

Cassy stretched her back out until it popped. “Yup. I literally have nothing better to do. It’s either shopping or I spend the afternoon on my phone again, and that’s lame. My Facebook and Instagram are all messed up.”

“How come?” Amber asked. She had a few social media accounts, mostly to keep up with things in school, but she wasn’t as glued to them as some of her classmates had been. Not being able to afford good wireless probably accounted for some of that.

“I think they figured out that I’m a magical girl. I’ve been getting ads and private messages nonstop.” Cassy walked ahead of Amber, easily taking the lead and crossing through the cafeteria room and into the lobby.

Amber noticed one of the agents mutter something into their lapel, and a moment later, when opened the doors out of the hotel’s front and onto the street, a second agent jogged after them, then started to follow them from a few paces back.

“Right, babysitters,” Cassy said. “So, what kind of clothes are we looking for?”

“Nothing too complicated,” Amber said. “We have, uh, about a thousand dollars. A bit less if we want to grab something to eat.” She took a moment to look around. The hotel wasn’t in the busiest part of the city, but it wasn’t far from it. The entire sky was filled with towering buildings, ads on their sides lighting up the skies. Nearly every ground-level floor was a store of some sort.

The foot traffic grew heavier until they arrived at an intersection and had to wait for a crossing sign to turn green.

“So, you’re not too pale, ginger hair,” Cassy said. “Autumn colours?”

“Usually, yeah,” Amber agreed. Not that I ever cared too much. “Just skip out on the oranges. Never liked them.”

“Really, a darker orange would go well with your hair. Make your eyes stand out too. They’re nice.”

Amber nodded quickly while Cassy just stared at her face, as if inspecting each and every part of it. She felt her cheeks flushing a little at the attention. “It’s my name. Amber. I don’t want to be caught wearing things like that. My costume is red already.”

“Huh, I guess. Maybe darker blues, or darker greens?”

“Sure.” Amber eyed Cassy up and down quickly, just to see what the other girl was wearing. A high-waisted pair of black jeans, with a few rips near the knees, and a white top, with the name of some band Amber didn’t recognize across the front. It was, she supposed, sort of punk-ish.

“Do you need to wear uniforms?” Cassy asked.

“In Norumbega? Yeah. They’re nice though. By the way, it’s a little weird seeing you walking so much.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess you know I can fly.”

“You pretty much fly everywhere,” Amber said.

“Can’t here. It uses up a bunch of magic, and apparently getting low on that is a quick way to get yeeted over to Agartha and then eaten by some monster.”

Amber winced. “Yeah.”

“Wait, did that happen to you?”

“Just once.”

Amber found herself telling the story of... the day before, but not this time, with Cassy asking a few questions here and there. She’s surprisingly insightful about some things, and completely lazy about others. Maybe training won’t work with her as well as playing and working on things more manually?

Cassy dragged Amber through a few stores, and Amber found herself playing the role of dress-up doll for Cassy. They at least got rid of her sweatpants and oversized hoodie after two stores, replacing them with some nice forest-green pants that Amber had taken a liking to and a simple blouse under an opened button-up shirt.

“Is the shopping good in Norumbega?” Cassy asked as she moved some shirts across a rail with the dull-click-click of plastic hangers tapping together.

“It’s okay,” Amber said. “Lots of brand-name things, but you need to order it all, so it’s not like... this.” She gestured around the store they were in, to the other teens shopping and to the one agent still following them around, who managed not to look awkward standing next to the doorway while ignoring a few giggling girls taking selfies near him.

“So, did we... will we have fun? Oh! Teams have four magicals in them, right? Who are the others?”

“Uh, there’s Morgan. She’s a little bit... well, you once said she had a stick up her rear, but she’s actually really good at everything, just a little stiff at first. She’s nice though.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Really tall, blonde, blue eyes. Kind of intense? Jade’s our other teammate. She’s much shorter. Asian. Um. A little shy at first, but she’s smart. Easy to get along with, pretty funny.”

“Huh,” Cassy said. “Sounds like fun, I guess.”

“It will be,” Amber assured her. “Maybe we can skip some of the boring early-team awkwardness. It would be nice to work hard and get strong together.”

“To kick ass?”

“Exactly,” Amber said.

I have one ass in particular I wouldn’t mind kicking.

“That sounds cool. So, uh, want to stop somewhere for coffee after this shop?”

“I’d love that,” Amber said. “Coffee and snacks.”

“You eat too much,” Cassy said. “You’ll get all bloated.”

Amber sniffed in fake haughtiness. “We’re magicals. We don’t get chubby. Also, you don’t eat enough.”

“I eat plenty.”

“No, you really don’t. But I’ll let Jade get on your case about it after you basically faint mid-combat.”

“After I what?”

“You manage to survive,” Amber said.

Is this manipulative? Even if it’s for my team’s own good?

***