Loop Two - Chapter Twenty-Nine - Dodge

The entire team was, predictably, sore the next morning. The training hadn’t gone for as long as they had planned, even, and it wasn’t as if it had been very good exercise, but it still hurt for Amber to move in the morning.

“I feel awful,” she said at breakfast.

Cassy glared at her. She had a brown eye. Amber tried not to laugh because that would hurt her ribs.

“I, for one, think that it was worthwhile,” Morgan, the least injured in the group, said. “Besides, by this afternoon most of the pain will be gone. We’re magical girls, we heal fast.”

Amber groaned. “I believe you... but it still hurts now.”

“I don’t want to train anymore.” Cassy slumped.

Morgan shook her head. “Any pain you feel now will save you from a lot more pain later. Besides, we were all holding back.”

Cassy pointed to her eye.

“That was your own fault,” Morgan said.

It was true, even. Morgan had taken her time beating them all up, but she was pretty soft with her blows and never hit them in the face or crotch or anywhere too sensitive. Cassy had earned the shiner when she tripped into her own broom.

“I don’t know if I feel like I’m better at fighting now,” Jade said. “Now I just want to run away from fights more.”

“That’s actually a good step forward,” Morgan said. “Running from a fight you can’t handle can mean the difference between living and dying. And running away often forces an opponent to waste a lot more energy than you. Of course, none of us run as quickly as a properly trained magical, so it’s a moot point.”

Cassy ate her cereal angrily. “Fine,” she said. “I do think it helped, a tiny bit. But I don’t wanna do it every night.”

“We’ll do something else tonight,” Amber said.

Morgan shot her a betrayed look, but Amber shrugged. “We can’t train every day. Besides, we have combat training this afternoon.”

That elicited a few more groans all around.

Once breakfast was down, showers were taken, and everyone was dressed and ready, the team headed out and made it to their morning classes just as they were about to start. They had High School EQ again. Two days in a row.

Amber didn’t mind too much, but she imagined that the grind would eventually make the novelty of it wear off. In the meantime, she focused on her studies and worked hard to cram as much as she could. By the time noon was approaching though, Amber’s energy was gone and all she could think about was the grumbling in her stomach.

When the bell rang, she stumbled to the door, joined by the rest of team Svallin and the others in the classroom. Amber noted that they were one team short. Had Helskor decided not to show up?

Can’t blame them. I haven’t known Cassy or Jade or Morgan for all that long, but I’d be upset if something happened to any one of them.

They rushed over to the cafeteria, spurred on by hunger, and even Cassy loaded her plate up high (with no protests when Amber and Jade both added to it). They sat, then acted like savage animals for a while as they scarfed everything down.

By the time Amber’s stomach stopped grumbling, she was on her second trayful. “The food here is too good,” she said. She had long strips of some sort of super tender beef, marinated in a savoury sauce, and a large bowl filled to the brim with mashed potatoes.

“You probably need it because of last night’s training,” Morgan said. She gestured to Cassy, and Amber followed the gesture, finally noticing that the bruise around Cassy’s eye had faded almost entirely. “Healing is hungry work. Mana intensive.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Amber said.

Once lunch was done, they lazed around for a bit, digesting, looking at memes on their phones, and listening in on some of the local gossip. Unsurprisingly, news of Mary’s passing had started to circulate, but it seemed like no one knew anything concrete about it.

Amber was surprised to overhear some teams talking about her and her friend’s takedown of Seafoam as well. It seemed that it was quite the little event.

“This place is a hive for gossip, isn’t it?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Morgan said.

Jade giggled. “Come on! The place has what, two hundred magicals? More than half are magical girls. How could it not be a gossip hub?”

“That’s sexist,” Cassy pointed out. Then she immediately started gossiping herself.

Amber, with her better-than-average grasp of time, stood up and grabbed her friend’s trays to square them away. She returned just as the others were getting up. They filed out of the cafeteria, then back across campus to the building where they’d had combat training last time.

On entering the room, they found Wendy sitting on a chair, staring into her phone with a frown. A Seelie was sitting on the ground next to her with... a boxing helmet on? Amber squinted at the bright red helmet wrapped around the seelie’s head and jaw. There were holes in it for the seelie’s big ears to poke out of, of course.

“Hey Wendy!” she said. “Hi Seelie.”

“Hello,” the Seelie said, tails whipping to the side.

Wendy looked up from her phone, then plastered on a smile as she jumped to her feet and tucked her phone away. “Hey guys! You’re... just on time, nice!”

“What are we doing today?” Cassy asked. She was sitting on her broom, of course, while the rest of them stood around.

Wendy licked her lips and looked to the floor for a moment. I don’t usually see her this serious. Then again, we’ve had one... two in my case, classes with her. “Is something the matter?” Amber asked.

Wendy paused, then nodded. “Yeah. Just... you guys hear about that girl that died?”

“We have,” Morgan said.

“I was just thinking about that. My team leader, she was worried. She teaches another group, you know. And... yeah, it got me worried too.” Wendy put her hands on her hips and stared at the four of them. “I was going to have us play some games today. You know, dodgeball or something fun. But... look, this is important to me, alright? So you’re not allowed to die.”

Amber wanted to make a joke, but she stopped herself. She’d died once too. She’d already wondered how her team would react to the news, but... How would someone like Wendy take it? I don’t know her nearly as well.

“We’ll try not to,” Amber said.

“Yeah? Good! Now! I’m gonna help make it so that if anything does try, it won’t have an easy time of it, okay?”

“Oh no,” Cassy mumbled.

“Ah, yeah,” Wendy said. She walked to the side of the room where a duffle bag was waiting. When she stood, she had a small medicine ball in hand, a hard-packed ball that was heavy enough to use for exercise. “So, we’re going to do dodge and evasion practice today,” she said.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Cassy said.

“The trick is easy! Each time you avoid getting hit, you get a point! The Seelie will be keeping count. If I would have missed anyway, that doesn’t count, but if you avoided it because you, uh, avoided it, then you get a point. The Seelie will tell me who avoided the most balls, so they’ll be the one I focus on.” Wendy smiled, clearly quite proud of herself.

“Can we use powers?” Cassy asked.

“You can, yeah, just stay in the room. You can even use human shields, but that wouldn’t be nice. Oh, and no stealing my balls.”

Cassy snorted. And Amber rolled her eyes when she noticed that even Jade was covering up a giggle.

“What?” Wendy asked. “Oh... heh, yeah, good one.”

Her entire body flexed as she stomped a foot down and her arm arced around like a whip.

Cassy folded in half and was flung past Amber with a deep ‘gwak’ sound that was drowned out when she flopped to the floor.

“That’s zero points for any of you, and one for me!” Wendy said. “Oh! Let’s say that if I have more points than any one of you, then you guys need to buy me ice cream? How’s that sound?”

She reached into the bag and started to pull out a second ball, and any thought of helping Cassy to her feet faded from Amber’s mind as she took off running to make space between her and Wendy.

The next team Svallin member to be battered was Morgan, who almost slid out of the path of a ball, but still got nailed in the hip and was sent tumbling.

Amber saw Wendy lock eyes with her, and she felt her heart skipping a beat.

She dove. It didn’t matter, Wendy’s ball slammed into her calf and her dive was turned into a spin. So before she hit the ground, Amber rewound time. She ducked instead, and the ball clipped her in the shoulder, hard.

“Ah! Are you making them turn?” Amber shouted. That wasn’t fair!

“Hey, you noticed!” Wendy said. She flung another ball, and Jade yelped.

Amber massaged her shoulder. It wasn’t broken, probably. I need to transform, she realised. Being in costume would give her a small boost. She immediately started doing her little dance.

It was cut off when a ball punched her in the short ribs and Amber was thrown halfway across the room to land with a tumble.

“Ow,” she gasped.

“Did you break something?” Wendy asked.

Amber poked at her side. “No?”

“Oh good, you have twenty seconds before you’re fair game again! Goes for any of you who are hit. But don’t go thinking I won’t smack you just because you’re on the floor. I like rocky road.” She tossed another ball, and Morgan actually dodged this time, the ball ramming into the wall behind her. “And peanut butter swirl. And just plain vanilla, as long as it has those nuts in it. You know the little long nuts that taste crunchy... almonds! That’s what they’re called. Those are delicious!”

Wendy continued to list off her favourite ice cream flavours while team Svallin suffered.

At least, Amber supposed, they were getting some valuable training in how utterly outmatched they were against someone with even just a couple years of training under her belt.

***