Sentinel Green 2.7

Wisteria 2.7

Amy’s words send shivers down my spine, but Hannah is on her feet a moment later to supply us with a voice of reason. “You’re right—don’t get me wrong, I so, completely, super agree… but there’s the problem of all of us running away when this thing uses its freaky fear thing on us.”

I sag a little at that. I’ve never fought with Maeve before, and while I think we’d make one hell of a team, I don’t much fancy our chances against this thing if half our group is sent running and yammering when it opens its maw to howl. Hannah has a point.

What’s even worse, she turns to me next. “And you. You haven’t fought it yet, right?”

“Uh, no,” I allow, knowing where she’s going with this.

“Right… so what’s to say you don’t run, too, when it happens? We can’t leave Maeve alone again.” She sets her jaw when she says this—it’s clear she’s deeply bothered by the fact that she and Amy bailed last time. I feel a curl of warmth for her. She doesn’t want a repeat performance of Maeve vs. Horrible Monster from the Deep again, and that raises my respect for her a few notches.

Maeve nods, looking thoughtful. What she offers up next is the closest thing to strategy I’ve heard so far. “So far as I could tell, it needed to scream or roar to get us to flee. Not sure if that’s a limitation, or just how it focuses. But while we were fighting afterward, it didn’t do it again, even if a moment of fear could have stopped me.” That’s sure bolstering, if it’s true. Maeve turns to Amy next. “Amy, think you could shoot its throat out or something before it gets to roar?”

Amy bites her lip but looks hopeful. “...Maybe? We didn’t really see it or fight it, so I don’t know how tough it is, but it’s possible. And... knowing what I know now. Knowing what happened to Krystal. I think, I think I’d be better this time around. I don’t think I’d let it get to me, as much.” It’s a nice sentiment, but I have to wonder if it’s true.

Still, I feel a tentative surge of hope. That’s not a bad idea. I’m glad we’ve got intel from people who have actually fought it—it’ll help to plug up the holes in our plan.

Hannah is looking perhaps less than convinced, but she’s not saying anything, so neither do I. It’ll be hard—there’s no doubt about that. We know its abilities, though, at least to a degree. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve never faced it myself before, but I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.

“That’s a good plan,” I reiterate. “Oh.” It occurs to me abruptly I haven’t shared with the class, in any way, what I do. “Uh, I guess it might help to know what my range of powers are. I haven’t had a chance to test them in combat yet, but, I seem to control flora—vines, plants, earth, the like.”

Well… well, damn. When framed that way, my power sounds kind of really lame. I catch Hannah’s skeptical look, and try to reword it. “I restrained a… a person, with vines that grew impossibly large and strong from a house plant. I think it’ll be more or less combat effective when we get out there. There’ll be way more for me to work with than just houseplants.”

Victor’s shocked, stricken face flashes through my mind and I do my best to banish the memory. I know that my powers are quick and responsive, but nevertheless I’m feeling sort of like the Krillin of this group.

Just then, though, Maeve appears beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder bracingly. “Hey. I hadn’t done anything more than ‘jump high’ when I faced it the first time, and I managed to hurt it bad.” She offers me a small smile. “You’ve already gotten ‘jump high.’ I’m sure we’ll manage if we work together.”

I give her a brief, slightly lost look of subtle gratitude. She has a way of comforting me both with warmth but also logic, which historically has always worked like a charm on me. It's why I'd made a habit of surrounding myself with those kinds of people in my old life.

That's not a great avenue of thought to travel down right now, though, so I metaphorically turn and face forward again. Maeve gives my shoulder a last squeeze before taking her hand back, and I feel a surge of warmth—along with a tiny pang of regret at the loss of her touch.

Hannah is still looking somewhat critical, but I can't tell if it's of my power set or our plan in general. Underneath it, though, it's clear she is bound and determined to see this through—and Amy is, as well. I pat down my pockets again for my phone out of sheer habit to check for the time, only to find for the umpteenth time I don't have it on me and even if I did, it's dead. I groan.

“What I wouldn't give for a watch,” I grumble.

Amy pipes up with, “I can give you one of my old ones tonight or tomorrow.” She eyes me and adds, “Your phone dead or something?”

“Yeah, and I can't exactly waltz back home to grab my charger.” My voice is a little glum and she looks thoughtful before voicing her next decision.

“Well, depending what kind of phone it is, I can lend you a charger, too.”

I reply with, “uh, iPhone 6,” before thinking. She nods and says she'll bring one of those for me too, and I'm left with a pit in my stomach. Do I really even want access to my phone and all the missed calls, texts and voicemails on it? But it seems stupid to refuse the gifts, so I keep quiet.

“Ah… speaking of, Hannah,” Maeve says. “You still have my things.”

Hannah jumps a little, a sheepish look coming to her face. “Oh yeah. I kinda have to be transformed to pull it out—I can store and retrieve things, but nothing as big as your case without being transformed, sorry. I can drop it here before we go.” I’m momentarily struck by jealousy at the sheer usability of that power, and how convenient it would be. Then again, my action figure comes with its own (hopefully) impenetrable safe house, so I can’t complain too much.

“Back on track,” Hannah says, turning to address me. “You trying to plan what time we should do this?”

“Yeah,” I reply, rubbing the wrist where my watch will someday rest. “There are ups and downs of the cover of dark.” I glance to Maeve for her input.

“I don’t think it matters much what time we do it so long as we can still communicate. Half the reason it all went bad last time was that you,” she nods to Amy, “were trying to warn us without actually shouting, but had no way to make us understand.”

That’s a good point, and I frown in tandem with Maeve. She glances between Amy and Hannah, mulling something over, and when she speaks next it’s in a tone that makes us all pay very close attention. “I don’t care if it hears us, or if other people hear us, just go ahead and shout. If we had more setup time, and money, I’d suggest getting radios, or learning hand signals or something.” That’s a really great idea for down the line, and I file that away to bring up again later. Maeve continues. “But I’d rather have it not get the drop on us like last time. If you don’t want to shout a warning, just hit it as soon as you see it.”

We settle into the meat of our strategy together, which goes down like this:

    Go in together
    Try to spot the damned thing
    Have Amy shoot it in the throat
    Tackle and beat the everloving fuck out of the thing
    … Profit?


We decide to try to get this done sometime before night encroaches in full, but not in the blaring light of the afternoon sun. We pick seven p.m. and the girls exchange nods before looking back to us.

“Let’s give Maeve her things,” Amy suggests, shooting a look at Hannah and then back to me.

“Huh?” Hannah asks, glancing between me and Amy, clearly still deep in strategy-land. Amy gives me a very exaggerated, honestly kind of funny head jerk and Hannah seems to realize something. “Oh! Yeah. Riley, you mind if I use your bathroom for this, since it’s not just us girls anymore?”

For a second I don’t get it at all, and just automatically respond with, “Uh?” A second later it clicks and I try not to look flustered as I stammer out a, “Oh! Yeah, by all means.” Hannah gives me a lingering, curious look, but slips into the bathroom for a few minutes. I sort of wish we had elevator music to listen to while she’s gone; she doesn’t take long, but a silence settles in on us in her absence. The others probably assume that I, new to the whole magical transformation thing, just forgot about the way we look while we transform. That was part of it… but the truth is it’s going to take me a good long while to intuitively remember I’m a guy now.

Hannah finally reappears what feels like a long time later, hefting a soft-sided rectangular case that I only recognize because Victor owns a rifle. My eyebrows lift just a little at the sight of it. “Sorry if that was a little awkward.” She hands the case and a bag over to Maeve. “But it’s really the only safe place I could think to keep, y’know, a gun.”

Maeve reclaims her items, rummaging through the smaller bag as if taking inventory. She’s halfway to my small closet to stow her items when she pauses.

“Hannah.” There’s something about her tone that gives me pause, and the others snap to as well. “Would you like to keep Krystal’s sword? I wasn’t really her friend…”

My stomach twists uncomfortably at the little aborted sound of surprise from Hannah. After a lingering moment, she sighs, then says, “I… sure.”

Maeve opens her case and pulls out a blade that has to be at least three feet long. It’s beautiful, made of a gleaming, silver-blue steel, and Maeve holds it out to Hannah gently. It strikes me that Maeve handles the weapon like someone who’s had lessons before, or at least knows the do’s and don’ts.

Hannah takes it after a second of hesitation. She stands tall, closes her eyes, salutes, and sends the blade away before my eyes.

I swallow and wait for a moment or two to make sure I’m going to be able to keep my composure. I wonder if I’ll ever know what happened to the family and friends of the girl I killed. Is it better to know or not know? I can’t tell.

“Want to kill time together before we go?” Hannah asks, seemingly recovered, and I glance around the apartment. I don’t personally need time to prep anything before we go, and I can’t think of a reason to hang around here instead of somewhere else.

“I’m good with that,” I say, but then pause. “Um. Well, I don’t know what you had in mind, but, I’m guessing your parents might not be keen on you bringing a guy around?” I guess.

“You can wait in the car while we run in and drop off our crap from school,” Hannah says, dismissing my worries. “From there we can go get dinner somewhere.”

“We parked the car at the shopping center before heading here, so we have plenty of options,” Maeve adds.

I suppose I better start working on my cover story—who I am, what part of the city I’m from, which school I go to—just in case I get asked questions during the surprise appearance of a parent or some of the girls’ friends. It’s something I haven’t given much thought to so far. The three girls crowd around me, we put our hands in the center again, and I close my eyes to transport us. As I do I decide I’ll be from a school far away from Hannah’s and Amy’s—easier to maintain that story. Then I banish thoughts of my double-life in case I accidentally teleport us to that school while I’m supposed to be concentrating on the Jeep.

We pop back into existence by the correct vehicle and I immediately take a surreptitious glance around to make sure no passersby are gaping at us in disbelief. All appears to be clear.

Amy lets out a small sigh. “I’m, uh starving. And if we’re gonna do this, we’ll need to be fed.” Painfully aware of my own lack of money, I keep silent, not about to ask these high schoolers to foot me for dinner.

Something shifts out of the corner of my eye from the general direction of Maeve, and I swivel to look her way. It takes me a second to realize what’s different; she has a purse now. There’s no way she always had that, right? I frown, confused, while Maeve shifts through the contents, then looks up and smiles.

“I guess I’m buying. And since I’m buying, I say Mexican.”
It’s a relief I’m not the only lost party here. Hannah looks perplexed. “I thought we had all your stuff, and you didn’t have any money with it?”

Maeve tosses the soft waves ofher dark brown hair over one shoulder and my eyes follow the movement automatically. “Well, getting paid was one of the conditions for this gig… and I just figured out how to get my magic money.” She waves some cash our way. “So I guess I’m buying.”

I grin broadly at the appearance of some vessel of cash flow, and wiggle my eyebrows at Maeve. “Thanks, sugar momma.” It’s about the closest I’ve been able to come to my own sense of humor since I turned, and it feels great to joke around.

I can’t quite get a bead on the look that crosses Maeve’s face at my joke, and for a second I worry that an echo of it comes across my own face, like we’re playing a high-speed game of facial expression tennis. For a second I think I might have offended her, but dismiss that out of hand quickly. It wasn’t that—it was something else, but I don’t know what.

Amy gives a groan of longing. “Lucky! My allowance hardly pays for anything. Mexican’s fine.”

We pile back into the Jeep, me behind the driver’s seat since my legs require more room than they used to. There’s a weird sort of illusion of safety I sometimes get in cars, an idea that, once the doors are shut and I’m inside, I can tune out the rest of the world and enjoy the journey from point A to point B. I don’t quite feel that anymore, in light of how violently my worldview has shifted since encountering Puchuu, but there’s a small echo of it as Hannah drives us the short distance to her place.

I pay close attention to Maeve during the drive, trying to gauge if she’s more quiet than normal, and if something I said or did had set her off. She’s doing something I used to do as a kid, and it makes me smile. One hand is air-surfing outside the car, and my eyes follow the gentle motions. I can already tell Maeve is the sort of person who keeps some things close to the vest no matter what, but even though I haven’t known her for long I can wager a guess when it goes beyond that. One thing I know for certain, somehow; I should not draw attention to her emotional state here, in front of Amy and Hannah. Maybe I’ll check in on her later.

The girls remain oblivious as we pull up in front of Hannah’s house. I don’t have to move, but Maeve jumps out to let Amy out from where she’d been seated beside me. The girls dash toward the house, still chattering about something or other, and Maeve and I are left in sudden silence.

I want to say something, but before I can pin down exactly what, Maeve speaks up. “Hey,” she says, her voice soft. I can already tell she’s going to address what happened, just from that tone. “Sorry if I came off cold back there, you just reminded me of someone I… lost recently.” She stops speaking and from what I can see of the side of her face, she’s struggling to keep her emotions in check. The sight causes me a surprising amount of distress, and I think it goes beyond my knee-jerk reaction to comfort people in pain.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I say softly, but not simperingly. Lord knows I always hate it when people condescend me when I’m already feeling vulnerable.

I don’t know what possesses me to move, but I unbuckle my seatbelt and shift to the middle seat, then lean forward and rest my chin on the shoulder of Maeve’s seat. I lay my hand on her shoulder and keep it there, not staring at the side of her face but rather looking out the front of the Jeep with her. I don’t know for sure how she means the term “lost” but it’s probably not to death. We’ve both “lost” everyone, and the realization hits me like a bout of cold nausea that I have to fight down. It’s undeniable that a part of me clung to the hope that at least Mina would come around in time, and with her might even bring Victor. I hadn’t ever reached my mother, who had been next on my list. Maeve had, literally, crashed into my life before I got there. Yet… perhaps it was providence, in a way. I don’t know how that meeting with my mother would have gone. It… probably would have been awful.

I find it in me to speak at last. “I can’t promise I won’t stumble into something like that again, but… well. We’re in the same boat and, if you need to just, deal with the fallout of all of this, I’m here. Dunno if you prefer to talk about it or just work through it on your own, but… it won’t be alone, whatever you decide.”

After a few seconds, Maeve turns to face me a little better again, and our eyes meet. “I expect it’ll happen again. I’ll probably do it to you at some point. Sorry in advance.” She smiles then, and it’s such a sad, brave thing that my heart skips and I don’t quite know why. “Maybe we’ll talk—actually talk about what we’ve lost and what we need to avoid bringing up later. You know, when we’re not about to jump into possibly lethal battle.”

I can’t help but chuckle at that. “That might be good,” I agree, and pull back to the backseat proper just in time. Hannah and Amy come hurrying out and I slide back to my seat behind Hannah.

The girls jump back in. Hannah appears to have changed her outfit, and what’s weird is Amy has, too. The girls are clearly best friends; they must maintain clothing at each other’s houses. It’s kind of sweet, and makes me nostalgic for simpler times. “I’m officially starving now,” Hannah complains, backing out of her driveway and swinging the wheel to get us back on the road to the shopping center.

“Enchiladas with some kick-ass for dessert,” I comment vaguely, going back to looking out the window. I send up a silent prayer to—to what, Gaia, I guess?—that my powers will deliver when push comes to shove.

Yeah. Maybe for right now it’s safer to just focus on the enchiladas.