Loop Two - Chapter Thirty-Two - Alert

Amber was having a surprising amount of fun with Wendy and her teammates. They ended up buying several small tubs of different flavours of ice cream, then they found a small open space outside next to an intersection. There had been a building there once, but it had been removed at some point and replaced by a large patch of cobblestones and a few benches next to the road.

It was a place for the locals who were walking around to sit back and relax a little, but right now the seven of them were crowded around a table with about nine tubs of ice cream between them.

I wonder if we should be worried about how unsanitary this is, Amber wondered as she scooped a spoonful of Cassy’s bubblegum ice cream from her tub and chewed on it.

The ice cream was all melting, of course. It wasn’t exactly hot out, but the sun was still overhead and the buildings around them did a good job of cutting off the chill wind. That just meant that the ice cream was at that perfect near-frozen point where it was easy to cut into with a spoon.

Wendy was clearly the one enjoying herself the most. The older girl was grinning wide between bites and had about four different flavours of ice cream smeared across her lips and cheeks, with a few droplets staining the front of her shirt.

“You’re so messy,” Yuri complained as she licked a handkerchief and then started to dab at the stains on Wendy’s chest.

Lily shook her head and wiped at Wendy’s face with a napkin, as if she was a child instead of the young woman she was. “You’re impossible,” she said.

“Impossibly hungry,” Wendy said. “Amber, lemme taste yours.”

Amber pushed her peanut butter ice cream closer to Wendy so that she could grab herself a rather generous scoop of it.

They were making a mess, Amber noted. With little droplets all over the table. The only ones who’d somehow remained spotless were Morgan and Jade, who were both eating more carefully. Amber eyed both for a moment, just to make sure that they were having fun too.

“So, what kind of training has Wendy been putting you through?” Lily asked. “Has she been a good teacher?”

“It’s been good, I think,” Amber said. “The first class was just us showing off what we could do. Today’s lesson was... uh, painful, but probably helpful too. We did dodging practice.”

“I hit them with balls,” Wendy said. “And they tried not to get hit.”

“Did you use your trick that makes it harder for you to miss?” Lily asked.

“Yup!” Wendy said. “That’s why we’re getting ice cream. They lost hard.”

Lily shook her head. “Oh, Wendy,” she said fondly. “Don’t hurt your students too much.”

“I know! I’ll go a bit easier on them next time. But I want them to be tough! You know, in case something happens.”

“Nothing will happen while they’re at the Academy,” Yuri said. She patted Wendy on the shoulder comfortingly.

Wendy shook her head. “You say that, but a girl still died this year, and we’re not even a week in. You also said that these babies were my responsibility, so I won’t let them die if I can stop it.”

Amber wasn’t sure if she should be insulted at being called a baby or kind of warmed that Wendy cared so much. It was kind of her, and she didn’t have the impression that Wendy had a bad bone in her body or a mean thought in her head. Her head feels like it’s a third fighting stuff, a third ice cream, and the rest is all dense resistance to her team’s obvious advances.

They continued to eat and chat, both Yuri and Lily were kind enough to give them some pointers since they figured that Wendy--while she was an excellent fighter--didn’t know very much about the magical side of combat.

“Right,” Lily said as she pointed to each of them in turn. “Nothing, magical time stuff, magical gravity stuff, and magical space folding stuff. That’s one hell of a team composition.”

“Morgan’s the best fighter,” Wendy said while pointing at Morgan with a spoon. “She’s fast and hits hard, and learns fast too.”

“Hmm, alright, that makes up for the lack of offensive magic,” Lily continued. “I think I could give you each some tips and tricks.” She winked.

“Are you a magic user, then?” Jade asked. It was a fair question. Wendy seemed almost entirely focused on physical fighting as far as Amber could tell. But if their team was well-balanced, then it was possible that Lily was on the opposite end of the scale.

“Yup! I’m pretty decent.”

Wendy nodded. “Lily’s the best! She’s got a ton of healing magic stuff. It’s really good. And she has a few other magical tricks too. But she needs to kiss you for them to work.”

“Um,” Amber said. “What?”

Lily flushed a little. “Ah, well, my magic’s strange. But then, who’s magic isn’t? I can copy a person’s magic on touch, and I have a minor healing power too.”

Amber nodded slowly. Touch didn’t mean kissing last she checked. Unless... unless Lily was using that as an excuse to get closer to Wendy? She... wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She still listened as Lily went over Jade and Cassy’s magic, asking them a few pertinent questions and then handing out advice that seemed like common sense in retrospect. Then she turned her attention onto Amber.

“So, you can travel back in time, but you’re not a precog, right? That makes it tricky. On the one hand, you can take bigger risks, because you can undo a mistake, but if you mess up too hard, you might die before you can rewind, or you might end up flat footed on returning,” Lily said.

Amber nodded along. She chose not to mention that the last time she’d died, she had to start the week over. “That sounds about right, yes.”

“So, I see two angles you can use. First, you need to work on your timing until it’s perfect. To someone fighting you, it should look like you’re always doing the optimal thing. For you, that means using your power in tiny bursts to try different things until you land on the perfect combination. That will mean that if you’re fighting someone way better than you, you’re still screwed.”

“Yeah, I could take her,” Wendy said.

“Right,” Amber agreed. Time travel was potent that way, but it wouldn’t get her out of an impossible situation. “You mentioned two things?”

“Right, that’s something you’ll need to practise. The other big advantage is in thinking time and with how much scouting you can do. A team that knows what they’re up against has a massively improved chance of winning,” Lily said. The others on her team nodded along at that. “So you can see what an enemy does, then go back and inform your team. When you’re solo, that means looking at what an enemy does, then trying to figure out the trick to it.”

“Okay, yeah, I think I get it.”

“So,” Lily said. “Let’s say your team was fighting me. I run in, touch Cassy here, and next thing you know, you’re all being flung left and right with gravity magic. You go back, to before the fight even takes off, and you can warn your friends that they shouldn’t let me poke them.”

Amber nodded. That did make a lot of sense. It wasn’t exactly an innovative use of her power, but it was something she could focus on to make her a better teammate. “Thanks,” she said.

“Hey, no problem,” Lily said. “So, Morgan... I bet you have some sort of trick up your sleeve. I’ve never heard of a magical without something.”

Morgan shook her head. “No, I’m just me, I’m afraid. You can touch me to find out.”

Both Jade and Yuri started to giggle at the same time, and Morgan sighed. “What are they laughing about?” Cassy asked.

“I have no idea,” Wendy said. She was laying sprawled onto the table by then, Yuri idly scratching at the back of her head while Wendy seemed to be in the middle of an ice cream coma.

Amber was about to say something, but a nearby noise had her looking up. It was an alarm? A distant wailing that made its way to them from what seemed like the other end of the city. She almost dismissed it as just some city noise when she felt her phone buzz.

Everyone’s phone buzzed, all at the same time.

Amber tugged hers out and found the screen flashing red and blue on the edges, with a message right in the centre.

ALERT!!!
ALL MAGICALS ARE TO RETURN TO THE ACADEMY IMMEDIATELY.
ALERT LEVEL 3!
PREPARE FOR COMBAT.
ALERT!!!

“Oh, that’s no good,” Cassy said.

Wendy and her team were on their feet in a blink, so quickly that Amber wasn’t cognizant of them standing up at all. “Let’s go!” Lily said. They’d changed into their costumes already, with a few quick and efficient motions.

She rushed out of her seat and followed them, heart beating fast in her chest as they took off in a full sprint across the city.

There was a distant explosion, and this time she could tell it came from the direction of the Academy.

It had taken them ten minutes at an easy walk to make it from the buses to the shop. It took them less than one to make it back at a full sprint.

And when they arrived, Amber saw someone in a black robe throwing a flaming bottle across the air where it splashed against the side of the bus and lit it on fire with a whoosh.

She closed her eyes for a moment and focused. This was exactly what Lily had just been talking about.

When Amber opened her eyes, she was sitting back at the bench, her friends around her.

“So, Morgan... I bet you have some sort of trick up your sleeve,” Lily was saying.

Amber slammed her hand onto the table, right next to Wendy’s head. She was getting up already. “The school’s under attack!” she said.

The others looked at her, then they jumped up too after just a second’s hesitation.

“What do you know?” Yuri asked as she started the motions to transform into her costume. Amber did the same. There was no time to feel embarrassed.

“Nothing,” Amber said. “There’s one of those black magi cultists attacking the bus too. With a molotov, I think. We need to hurry.”

***