Midgardia series 02: Highschool

Mirai, a young woman, recently turned 18, although she feels short for her age with all her rather tall friends. Currently a senior in high school, soon to graduate and move on with her life. No plans for college, no plans really for the future. Well, that is aside from her family's legacy...not that it is actually a family tradition or anything. As things currently stand she has their rather expensive two story suburban home all to herself as her mother and father work in the city; a day's train ride away; coming home on vacations, holidays, and the occasional weekend when they can. If not for her cat Toby she'd have this giant house all to herself.

  She has never been the most outgoing girl though, so there was never any worries from her parents about her holding huge parties; although her dad did once say he wishes she would at least once; (after all young lady you'll be working like us in just a few years). That is right her parents are hoping she comes work in the city with them at "the firm" as she calls it. Of her few friends she has, they all have parents working for the same company; sometimes it feels like half her neighborhood works for them; and she's not really sure what they do; other than paperwork.

  Of her few friends there is Nikkie; an often silly and prankster prone tomboy of a Nekojin; something Mirai found out about when they were very little; after all Mirai's family are summoners; seems Nikkie's family have been close with her own for generations. Then there is the boy next door; Luke. Although his mother is apparently also a Nekojin (according to Nikkie's nose), Luke himself isn't one. Not too unusual according to Nikkie as the male children only have a quarter of a chance of inheriting the feline shapeshifting powers; he still can leap across roof tops and has amazing skills...and isn't as subtle about them as Mirai and Nikkie were taught to be. Luke is something has something of a "hero complex"; he even patrols the neighborhoods at night with a katana of all things, seeking out evil and whatnot to vanguish. According to Luke, as he once confided in Mirai, his father (whom he never met and all according to his mother) was a brave hero who once saved a land from some great evil monster...his mother was apparently vague on the details...and just thinking about her kind of gives Mirai the shivers...she is an affecionate woman...a tad too affecionate. This sort of upbringing has given Luke a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

   Not that Mirai doesn't have a chip on her own shoulder. Her mother and father both have moderate summoning skills, however Mirai's grandmother is a grand summoner who has a "mystic creature" she contracted with; a shadowy demon of a thing named Bill the Shadow Demon; and has since she was Mirai's age. Thus prompting her to try and summon a mystic creature of her own. Only...it didn't go as she planned.

  She is thinking of all this when she is supposed to be paying attention in class.

   ******

   "Hey!" shouts Nikkie as Mirai is looking distracted sitting by a tree at lunch looking over an old book she brought from home.

  "Is that..." starts Nikkie looking around, "wow...can't believe you brought that to school...uhhh...wait does that mean..."

  She leans in and whispers, "you about ready to...you know...get a pet..." *wink, wink*

  "I tried last night," says Mirai nonchalantly.

  "Wow!" shouts Nikkie before clasping her own mouth shout with both hands, "...wait, then where is...it...you didn't leave it alone in your house did you?"

  "No, it didn't.....ah here it is," she says pointing at the page, "During the contract we were supposed to meet in a limbo of the minds and make the contract there...but...hmm...I see...I was inside its mind instead..."

  "Mirai," says Nikkie nervously looking around if anyone can overhear her.

  "It was too big," says Mirai focused on the book, "what I made contact with was too big to enter our world in my attic, or...too big to be...in limbo...weird. So instead of meeting mutually my mind was pulled into its mind...hmm...so according to this..."

  Mirai takes out a piece of paper and summoner's brush.

  Nikkie knows when Mirai gets like this she is completly immersed in her studies and the rest of the world might as well not be there; so tries to stand in anyone's view of what Mirai is doing.

  Mirai draws something on the scrap of paper and folds it into her backpack pocket before putting the book away.

  "You okay Mirai," says Nikkie sitting down.

  "Huh...Nikkie," says Mirai looking around, "Uh...oh....no one..."

  "Nooooo," says Nikkie smiling, "thanks to yours trully."

  "Th...thanks," says Mirai, "I'm going to try again tonight...I think I got this figured out."

   As Mirai gets up Nikkie pauses in thought and says, "Wait a minute, Mirai did you say you were inside something's mind? Mirai?..."

  She spots other students gathering too nearby as lunch is ending and everyone is heading back inside for class.

  "After school," thinks Nikkie, "must remember, must remember, must....I'm hungry....my Lunch! I didn't even!"

  She grabs her lunch box and practically inhales her food on the way to class.