1.5

 

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It was a little weird, being here. No one was really giving me odd stares or gawking, but I still felt like they were, and even that they should be. I pursed my lips and took a deep breath, which came out as a small huff. It centered me a little bit. I was here often enough that no one cared, and I’d been on the team before anyways, so everyone here knew me. It shouldn’t matter.

The team was practicing against each other. Luke was first, fastest like he always was. He actually may have gotten better since I left the team. He was gonna kick ass when the meets rolled around again in a few months.

Danny was next up. I would have been between them if I was still on the team. Pretty sure I could have kept up the rate at which I’d been improving. We’d been the top three. I was better at the distance events than both of them. I was smaller, even before the blockers. It gave me better endurance. I’d never beaten Luke in the shorter events, though. Against Danny, it was fifty-fifty. Depended on the day, I guess. Maybe what we’d had for lunch or how tired we’d been.

I still hated the summer, just a bit. It was weird to be showing this much skin still. I felt like a bit of an imposter in the shorter shorts and the more fitted t-shirts and tank tops. But Pandora and Shannon had helped me pick out basically everything I owned now, with almost surgical precision. They’d cheered me on with basically every item. And I did like it. Sometimes loved it. I felt awesome on occasion, when I passed a mirror and just casually looked like Ellie Bridges.

“El!” That little nickname hadn’t changed. Luke was coming out the water, walking towards where his bag was. He was wearing our school’s branded swim shorts. Tight and comfortable, for less resistance. They were black all over, with only a stripe of white text that read Atwood Swim on the band, across the hip.

I waved back at him in response. Still had my weird thing about not raising my voice. That wasn’t going away anytime soon, I guess. I didn’t flush or look down or anything dumb, but I still felt strange, just a bit. Not for thinking Luke was cute. I’d thought that when I was on the team. He’d been at least four inches taller than me and twenty pounds heavier for the three years we’d been teammates. I had realized I very much liked that around thirteen. Pandora had agreed and Shannon had been a bit whatever. Not her type.

What was weird was looking at him and thinking of being a girl thinking a guy was cute. It was still a shift in identity I was getting used to after months. All the guys on the team had known I was gay. They’d actually helped keep it from the coach because we’d managed to get it into our heads that he very much wouldn’t have liked that; I don’t remember how. I also don’t remember how it had come out, but he hadn’t seemed to care. Or he hid it well if he did. Which was fine by me.

But now some of them seemed to be a little- on edge? Off-put? Just generally strange around me, when they hadn’t really been before. They hadn’t been into guys and I’d known that. Now they seemed to think I was gonna ask to play spin-the-bottle with them on a whim since I’d come out. Or come out again, I guess. Which wasn’t gonna happen. If it was Luke, I wouldn’t say no, though. Maybe I’d do something worse, actually. Like freeze and not say anything, like a dog caught chewing on a shoe.

“Think we’re still up to snuff?” He asked. He was closer now. He’d come up the bleachers a bit. I was sitting at the back. Like a visitor. Because no one else was back here, and maybe because I they’d have to actively turn around to stare at me.

“Mhmm.” I said, nodding. Literally had no idea what else to say. It wasn’t even nervousness. I thought Luke was nice to look at and he was cool but I didn’t really get butterflies around him. I just liked hanging with him. My brain just seemed to be missing whatever let it form snappy retorts to things.

“You still swimming?” He asked, pushing his hair out of his face. He used his goggles as a headband to keep it back. Looked a bit dumb, but we’d all done it, so I wasn’t in a position to make fun.

“Nope. My mum doesn’t have a pool.” I said, shaking my head at the start. I shrugged a bit. “Still running, though. There’s that.”

“Pretty sure they wouldn’t expel you if you came to practice and swam with us. None of the other guys would complain. If coach did, we’d outvote him.” It was a good idea. I had kind of thought of it in bed a few times, when I’d been restless and running hadn’t been scratching the exercise itch. But I hadn’t wanted the ask. That was really imposing and I hated doing that. Even with people I’d been friends with for years.

“Maybe. Gotta get a new swimsuit, then.” I said a bit lamely. Luke smiled a bit at that.

“Do it.” He said, like a dare. I smiled as well. He looked down to the pool and saw the team still milling around, so he sat on the bleacher below mine.

“Sick ring. Where’s that from?” He said while he motioned to my right hand with his chin.

“Pandora and Shannon and me all got one. Friendship bracelet sort of deal, I guess.”

“Like the colour.”

“Me too.” I said. Of course I did. Both in this lie and in reality, I’d technically chosen it. “All the stones are different colours. Shannon’s is red, Pandora’s is gold.”

“Sweet.” He said. Then coach Randall yelled something unintelligible and motioned around the room and pulled his hand inward.

“Oh, shit, before I go; we’re having a swim team party thing. You’re invited, if you argue, I’ll throw you in the pool.” I closed my mouth as he said that and smiled. “Bring Pandora and Shannon if they wanna come. And whoever else, I guess. It’s gonna be a whole thing.”

“Okay.” I said. He shot me some finger guns as he got up.

“I’ll text you when the date is set up.” I nodded and waved a little.

Practice started up again. Coach was yelling and directing people. He saw Luke walk down from the bleachers and slide into the water, and went backwards from there up the stands. His eyes landed on me, and he waved distractedly before getting back to the team.

Maybe my mum would be okay with getting me a new swimsuit. It would be a bit of an explanation, but I’d get to be in the water again. And it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad or a strange explanation, that would freak her out. So she’d probably be okay with it.

I sucked in and let out another big huff of air. I trilled my lips and rested my elbows on my knees, and my chin in my hands. School had felt like a big pause button on the excitement of the last couple days. Yesterday, learning about how to fight and the things I could do now, and the, I don’t even know what to call it, perk that came with my transformation, I hadn’t thought about anything else but the immediate present. Then I’d gotten home and been so tired, that I’d hugged my mum, had five glasses of water, and collapsed onto my bed.

Today, it was business as usual. I’d pass the pool or the track outside, or I’d see any of my teammates around school, and get that weird drop in my stomach. Because I was happy for the change. Sometimes I would look in the mirror or walk around Atwood, in places that weren’t familiar to me, and feel like a bit of an imposter, but overall it was still good. I was ninety percent sure, which was good enough for me, most of the time.

But I’d also given up swimming and running, which were important. I was gonna use those to go somewhere nice. Not just Atwood’s closest college in another small town, but maybe one of the nice ones in the city. It felt like I’d been given a lifeline to save me from quicksand, but had one of the strings keeping me metaphorically afloat cut at the same time.

And now, after Shannon’s speech at the clearing, I was getting those same nagging doubts I get when I go shopping for new clothes. Or put my hair up a certain way, or whatever not-male thing I wanna do. Shannon was like a lawyer, way too precise in arguing her points. She could cut through yours like a scalpel through spiderweb. But Pandora was convincing in her own way. Her excitement had been contagious, and I was afraid half of the reason I had agreed with her was that I’d just been swept up in it.

But my point still stood, I think. I did want to help people. Running and swimming had been taken away and this had just dropped in my lap. It felt too lucky to pass up.

Someone shouted in the pool, which cut through the circle my thoughts were running around in. A few people were standing now, looking down at the body of water. I saw Luke dive in from the edge and disappear. It was ten or twenty seconds of my muscles getting more and more stiff before he came up, with one of the younger members in hand. Jared, I think, although he had joined the team around the time I’d left, so I wasn’t sure. I got up as soon as their heads broke the surface.

I was going fast enough down the bleachers I was half-afraid I was going to trip. Jared was already coughing and sputtering water by the time I got there. That was gonna suck on his throat later. I knew that from experience.

“What happened?” I asked. Luke turned his head up and to the left a bit, looking a but out of it.

“He was under for a while.” Luke rubbed the kids shoulder a bit in a brotherly way. Jared gave another cough. No water this time.

“Felt like I just fucking fell down to the bottom of the pool.” He said. His voice was hoarse and garbled.

I heard murmurs from the rest of the team around us. Talking about if he’d hit his head, maybe, or if he’d inhaled at the wrong time. Jared was shaking his head a bit as he heard all of it. Luke had gotten up and grabbed Jared’s bottle from his stuff. He handed it to him as he sat down next to the younger boy again.

Now that things had settled down again, I felt the ring on my finger. All the screaming and the talking had mellowed out and I noticed the band felt like it was freezing from the inside out. Not completely ice-cold, but like it had been sitting in a basement on a winter’s day.

 

Lady was using her little pocket dimension again, this time. The blue light seemed to have created some sort of insulation against the outside world, because the heat wasn’t as bad in here. I wanted to profusely thank her for that.

Pandora dropped her bag the same spot as she had yesterday, underneath one of the bigger trees lining the clearing. She stepped forward and activated her transformation. In between her toes leaving the ground and her heel hitting it again, cool sparks ran and swirled up her body, decaying her clothes into particles of sand or dirt or even glass. When her fit hit ground again, it was clad in a black boot.

Shannon followed suit, stepping away from the leaves and keeping an eye on the grass below her. We weren’t sure if the energies in our transformation affected anything outside us, but we weren’t keen on setting the entire forest on fire finding out.

“Something happened at swim practice today.” I said. A gentle breeze hit me and took my clothes with it. I was extra grateful for the lack of heat in my pants and poncho-shawl thing. Especially with the fur lining.

“Did Luke jump out of the water like a dolphin?” Pandora asked. She pressed her hands together like she was praying, and then rolled her left hand into a fist and made a pulling motion from the palm of her other hand. She withdrew her sword until the tip was visible, then let it drop to her side. The weapon was silver-white, with a slim blade and a simple but slightly decorated handle and cross-guard.

I made a sound of frustration at her and frowned, while my eyebrows came together.

“My ring reacted to it.” Both of them turned to me a bit when I said that. Shannon looked confused, and Pandora looked interested. Lady padded up beside me.

“It went cold. Not icy cold, but still. Cold.”

“Ah. Hmm. I was hoping it would be a bit before we encountered this.” Lady said. She began to pace a bit between the three of us, who had all turned and centered our attention on her.

“Expand on that please.” Shannon said, crossing her arms.

“Ellie has already found an entity. Your rings will grow cold depending on your proximity to them. I was hoping to give you a solid base of training before we went seeking out opponents.”

“Can we wait?” Shannon asked. I looked up at her.

“It almost grabbed someone from the swim team and it could already have others. Why would we wait?’

“Because it could be better to go in prepared.” Lady interrupted. “None of these creatures are easy fights. Some will have servants or smaller spawns they’ll send out to fight you, which will be easy. They will try to overwhelm you with numbers, then. As powerful as you three are now, it would be unwise to go in without practice and preparation.”

Shannon gave me a look and a shrug at that.

“Less chance people survive if we wait longer. Or more of a chance it grabs someone else. Successfully.” Pandora chimed in. She was swinging her sword, practicing the forms Lady was showing us. She didn’t have the exact amount of passion I would have liked to hear in her voice, but she was on my side, so it counted for something. Playing devil’s advocate, which wasn’t unusual for her.

We all stood quietly for a few seconds and took that little conversation in. Looked around at the other two and then at Lady. Two against two, which was a great outcome for an argument that needed a decision.

“A compromise, at least; We do today’s lessons and come back to it at a later point. You three can discuss it at lunch, if you need to.” Lady said. Pandora looked at Shannon. Shannon looked back, gave a small shrug and a nod and then looked at me. I inclined my head slightly in agreement.

Lady seemed satisfied at that; she was radiating an aura of contentedness. She stepped towards us and gave a small huff as she shook herself a bit.

“We’re going to manage your gifts today. Learn to utilize them without harming your teammates; this was intended to go a bit slower, but it seems I need to speed up my lesson plan. No flora or fauna will be harmed while you’re in my dimension, do not worry.” She said, taking a seat. Shannon stepped up first, as per usual. There wasn’t really any hesitation on her part, although Pandora seemed fairly eager and fairly annoyed she was going to have to go second now.

 “So how does this work? In a step-by-step, instructional sort of way.” Shannon asked. We were all fairly sure we knew what each of us could do. Not only because of the transformations, but because it was easy enough to feel inside you, if you concentrated. Mine was like something really light and excited and bouncy in my stomach, almost like butterflies. It faded into the background if I stopped paying attention, but I knew I could reach into it if I wanted.

“What you’re utilizing is your connection to me to fuel this. It’s like having a hole inside you, attached to a tube, attached to my power. Your end has some sort of filter on it that turns it into whatever your gift controls. Like a live wire or a hose, you can control how much comes out of your end; that could be a small flame or tiny spark. If you lose control, it could turn into an inferno or a storm. That’s your goal here, to simply create a small example of your power.”

“Okay.” Shannon said confidently, like she was walking into a test she was sufficiently prepared for. Absolutely zero worry in her mind or on her face. She cupped her hands together and stared at the bowl shape it made for a few seconds, with a lot of concentration in her expression. Finally, a small, very red flame popped into existence with a little noise. It was hovering an inch or so above her skin. She passed it to one hand, flexed her fingers, and it doubled in size. She grinned crookedly into the flame, a rare look of mischief on her face. She extinguished it by grabbing the entire bit of fire and closing her hand around it.

Pandora was next. She was already smiling, which was also rare for her. I didn’t really know if I was worried or not that this was the only time I’d seen her really, really happy in- a long time. I made a note to talk to Shannon about that later.

Pandora held her hands about a foot apart, and stared into the space like Shannon had. Almost immediately, golden lightning leapt between her palms and fingers. She let out a laugh that almost sounded maniacal. She stopped the arcs of electricity by slamming her open hands together pretty hard. When they came apart, nothing.

“it’s almost like letting pee out.” Pandora said. Shannon put fingers to her eyes and rubbed them while she sighed. I let out a small snort.

My turn. I was nervous and I didn’t know why. I knew neither of them would throw actual, mean jabs at me or make fun of me if I messed it up. I think I was maybe just scared of messing up, and having people around that were looking directly at me while I wanted time to screw around and practice it in private was getting to me.

It was air inside me, I knew that. Which sounded gross, when I phrased it in that way. My power was wind. Which kind of made sense, in a way, because it was always how I felt when I ran. Shannon and Pandora called me insane and needled me in a friendly way about it, but I liked running. It came really easy to me. So did swimming, as well, so I would have accepted water, but even in the pool, it was more about the movement then the liquid around me. But I didn’t really have either of those things now. I was off both teams. So maybe this was the way I could let that weird energy that had been taking root inside me out.

I didn’t know what I was gonna do, really. Shannon and Pandora had seemed to have a hand gesture ready from go, but I just stood there and looked quietly at my hands for a moment. Then, I moved them around, with one hand facing palm-up on the bottom and the other facing palm-down at the top, like I was holding a stack of something together. I pursed my lips and willed whatever was inside me to please come out. And Pandora was kind of right, it was like letting out a pee you’d been holding in. The energy flowed through my body and into my hands and then right as it touched the outside of my skin, nothing really happened. All I got was a gentle breeze that ruffled my friends skirts.

‘Oh.” I said. I wasn’t blushing, I don’t think, but my lips were even more pursed and I was definitely feeling dumb. It had been right there, I had felt it and summoned it, but it hadn’t really amounted to anything. Fuck. I was already racking my brain trying to figure out why.

“That wasn’t your full power, I can assure you of that. And there are no stray winds in my dimension, so it worked. You haven’t found the right way to channel it yet, so we will practice more.” She turned to Pandora as she said the next part, and her laughed popped into my head once again and I smiled a bit, “All of us will. The ease at which you picked this up combined with your laugh concerns me greatly.”

It was sarcastic and in a joking manner. Pandora didn’t seem to take it to heart, which was good. She had a tendency to look like things grazed over her and then let them stew, and then eventually have it all come out when the dam broke, so to speak. Guess I kind of did as well, now that I think about it. Maybe that’s why we’re friends.

So we practiced more. Shannon and Pandora shot at trees with their magical projectiles and I kind of got a bit of a better grasp on mine. Somewhat. It didn’t like how Pandora and Shannon did it. From a standstill, they could cast a lightning bolt or a fireball and control the size. All that did for me was give us a way to cool off when we were sweating. No, mine seemed to like big sweeps of the arms and twirls and pirouettes, like a big, dramatic dance. Of course I would get stuck with a drama queen inside me, wanting me to show off to activate it. My complete opposite. I thought of the idea of water again. Calm and gentle when it wanted to be, which is what I wanted. Maybe it had been a coin toss between the two, and I had ended up with a bit of bad luck.

An hour or so had passed since we’d arrived when Lady called for a timeout. We all went to our bags and dug out some water and snacks, feeling a bit depleted from the magic.

“If you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to introduce you to an ally nearby.” Lady said. Pandora barely finished swallowing the mouthful of water she had before responding.

“The friendly entity you mentioned?” Lady nodded at that.

“Yes. The Woodsman. It’s a representation of Atwood as a whole, and the forest surrounding it. It’s not necessarily a nature spirit, but it’s not the soul of the city either. It is very powerful, however, and would be wise to make a friend of if you three plan on working in this area for an extended period of time.”

“Let’s go make a friend then.” Shannon said. She twisted the cap back on to her bottle, threw it in her bag, and slung her bag over her shoulder. Sparks and smoke overtook her figure again, and she was back in her sundress. Pandora and me did the same thing, and we all followed Lady into another section of the forest.

It wasn’t really a trail, not like the path from the convenience store to the meadow was. People did come to this meadow, sometimes. Usually teenagers, drinking and kissing and whatever late at night. But wherever Lady was taking us, people didn’t frequent.

It was only a five minute walk, but the last couple days had been a lot, and I was also a lot more active than I’d been in a while, despite the running and the exercises I did at home. So I was a bit generally tired, overall, when we got there. Pandora and Shannon looked wiped. Pandora started chugging water almost immediately.

“Here we are.” Lady said, sitting in front of a particularly gnarly looking tree. The leaves it had were sparse and a bit spindly. Shannon opened her mouth to say something, but Lady was quicker.

“it’s hidden in this tree, if that’s what you were going to ask about.” Lady said. Shannon nodded tiredly.

“is this going to involve anymore anything?” She asked. Lady shook her head.

“No. You’ll meet it, we’ll have a quick lesson, and then you girls can rest.” She said.

“How do we get in?” Pandora asked.

“Put your hands against the trunk and then push against it and to the left, as if it’s on a turntable and you want to spin it.” Lady answered. I was closest, so I stepped up wordlessly and placed my palms against the bark. It was smooth and most definitely close to being dead. I did what Lady said to do and felt nothing. When I turned around to say something, I was in a clearing.

It wasn’t the one we trained in. This one was much larger, with a very, very big tree sat in the middle of a forest set in autumn. Fiery leaves carpeted the ground. There wasn’t much greenery or flourishing life.

On the bottom of the massive tree was a hut built into the trunk, almost like something an elf would live in. It had a gray curtain pulled over what I assumed was the entrance.

Shannon appeared beside me, looking a little surprised. Pandora did the same on the other side, although she looked significantly less shocked. Lady was last, sitting right in front of the group.

“This is his branch.” She said, and then walked off as if that explained it. Shannon slowly turned to both of us with a certain look on her face that seemed to say I’m just about done with this. We followed behind Lady towards the hut.

Despite the dead flora and lack of colour everywhere, it didn’t necessarily feel threatening. A bit weird and not-quite-comfortable, but it was more of the feeling you get when you have to spend a lot of time in a house you don’t really know.

That feeling went up about five points when we entered the hut and I saw the thing sitting in the chair. The piece of furniture was carved out of the trunk of the tree, and on it was a very large old man. Not fat or muscular, but literally large. Like someone had taken a normal seventy or eighty year old and just grew him equally by two hundred percent. He was slumped in his throne, and vines and wood had grown into and over his body, like he’d been there for eons. He didn’t seem to recognize our presence aside from some movement of the eyes.

“It’s a tad bit worrying to look at,” Lady said, “But it’s entirely harmless. it’s just as it looks; of very old age. It will be reborn soon, it seems, to catch up with the changing times of Atwood. I’ve decided to introduce the four of you before then, so it can get used to your presence around the town.”

“Does he eat?” Pandora asked. Lady shook her head.

“It lives off the power of the town.”

“Ah. Was thinking of giving it something, like you do with old gods or whatever.” Lady seemed amused at that.

“A good tactic to keep in mind, in this world. If you ever meet a god or a greater power, it will appreciate that, I’m sure.” Pandora just nodded at that.

“You mentioned a lesson?” Shannon asked.

“I did. The reason for this visit is two-fold: an introduction to a friendly face, and to show you an example of where entities tend to reside.”

“You called this place a branch. Is that what you mean?” I asked. I was beginning to settle a bit now, after the shock of seeing the Woodsman at first. It wasn’t really feeling any different than spending time with an elderly person who’d lost something because of age.

“Correct. Some of your people think of this world as part of a massive tree, if I recall?” Lady inquired.

“Norse. Don’t know how popular that religion is now, but yeah. Norse.” Pandora responded.

“It’s a succinct example. There are many expansive, fully-fleshed planes of existence stacked on top of and beside one and other. Where they touch, doorways are opened; you may not be able to get to a certain realm through this plane, but cross over to one that touches Earth as well as your destination, and you can find a path there instead.” She paused for a moment, I think wanting us to take it in.

“Branches are small spaces created when an entity manages to form and gain enough power to break through the walls of a given realm. It usually leads nowhere else, and it is quite small. That is what this is. You’ll find that if you test the limits of this place by walking into the surrounding forest, the trees will become thicker and thicker until you can no longer continue.”

“What if we cut them down?” Pandora asked, almost instantly. Thinking of what lay beyond that sort of barrier almost sent me into an existential spiral.

“Do not. I would highly recommend against that.”

‘Why?”

“If you want frank honesty, I don’t quite know. But I’m going to keep that rule in place, if you don’t mind.” Pandora gave a little nod in response.

“How do we find these doors?” I asked.

“It depends. The entity you’ve encountered seems to be entering and exiting through your school’s swimming pool, if that’s what you were curious about.” Lady responded.

“So we should go there if we want to stop it?” That created a pause in the relaxed feeling I had. Everyone seemed to be looking at each other now, reminded that we hadn’t really settled that conversation before.

“We’re discussing this now, then?” Shannon asked. I looked down a bit, around her collarbone area, and shrugged.

“It feels important.” I said.

“I’m on her side, to be fair. This is what we signed up for.” Pandora added. Shannon sighed at that, and took a few seconds to think.

“I get that. But if we die because we went in there thinking we’re tough shit and we get slammed instead, then no one is around to do this.” Shannon chewed the inside of her lower while she looked at us, and crossed her arms. Not giving herself access to her hands, I think.

“Can we compromise?” I asked. She raised her eyebrows and looked at me for a moment. Then she gestured with her hand, as if to say yeah, go ahead.

“Can we just take a small look around the pool, for any sort of signs? To scout it out before the actual mission?” I asked. Shannon seemed to mull over this. Lady was sitting peacefully in the center of the triangle we had made during this discussion, looking up at each of us as we spoke.

 “No combat or engagement or whatever, nothing like that.”

“Okay.” I said, nodding. She looked over to Pandora, who was looking like she was starting to slip away from the conversation as it went on, spinning to get a better look around the hut. She was brought back by the silence.

“Yeah. No qualms from me.”

“Okay.” Shannon said, and uncrossed her hands, playing with her ring. “Who wants to get this over with then?” Me and Pandora stared at her.

“Wanna go tonight?” Pandora asked. Shannon nodded, and Pandora gave me a small curious look.

“Okay.”

 

The sun was just starting to set as we made it back to school. We had split up and gone home to eat, and so our parents didn’t get worried. Pandora had seemed uncaring about that. We’d talked in the group chat, and decided not to bring anything. None of us knew how to pick a lock or were really equipped with ladders or grappling hooks we could carry, so we decided against any bags.

“Doors are definitely locked.” Pandora stated as we approached. Lady had mentioned she would meet us here, so we were waiting for her to pop up at any moment.

“We should check them.” Shannon stated, starting slowly towards one.

“Why?”

“Because, if they’re open and we decide to climb to the roof and crawl through a vent, we’re going to look like morons.”

No luck, though. Locked, as previously thought.

 “Any plans?” A voice asked from behind us. All of us turned to verify that it was, in fact, Lady. She came to sit beside our gathered feet.

We all stood and stared at the low structure. It was two stories high, surrounded by a group of trees on one side and a road on the other. There weren’t many other structures around it, besides a plaza a few minutes’ walk away, which is where buildings began to gather again.

“Nate would probably have some good ideas for this.” Pandora said. He’d probably already done it and not gotten caught, knowing him. Blake would probably have a way as well. This is the problems we run into, being good little students our whole lives.

“This is what we get for following the rules all the time.” Shannon echoed my thought out loud.

“Do we wanna get on the roof?” I asked.

“Any reasoning behind that?” Shannon responded. I shrugged.

“Not really. Just makes more sense than being down here, staring at the back doors.” I was basically going off what felt right, from the point of view of a burglar. People go on to roofs to sneak in places, I think. Neither of them protested, so we all quickly transformed and then gave each other silent looks.

“Can we make that jump?” Shannon asked, mostly directed to Lady. It was probably around twenty or thirty feet up.

“I don’t see why not. None of you quite realize how strong you are now.” She said. Shannon took in a deep breath and let out a deep sigh, and then backed up a few feet from our group. Then, she took off running, and as she reached us, me and Pandora moved a bit further apart out of fear and Shannon used the foot in front of her to push off. She either miscalculated the angle or hit the jump wrong, because although she did end up on the roof, she was hanging off the edge, with her armpits hooked over it. She swung her leg to the side and used three limbs to pull herself up and roll over.

Pandora went next, doing the same thing Shannon did, just with a better angle. She did catch her foot on the edge and stumbled a bit as she landed, though. Much less dramatic than Shannon.

I backed up a bit more than they did, and broke out into a sprint. I used both my legs to push off, sacrificing a bit of momentum but gaining some power. It came out as more of an arc up and over the roof than a diagonal line. I tucked my knees into my chest a little to clear the edge, then my feet hit the cement of the roof and I clumsily rolled to a stop.

“That was a 10.” Pandora said as I got up. Shannon gave me a grin and a thumbs-up. I smiled. It had been a while since I got to show off a bit with the talents I did have. Man, I missed meets and races.

“Next step?” Pandora asked. We looked around in the dark until we all saw what we thought was the roof entrance. We gathered around it, verified that it was what we wanted, and then stared at the door. Shannon tried it just in case a teacher or staff came up for a smoke break and left it open. No such luck.

“I could melt the lock or something?” She said. I bit my lip. Wind wasn’t gonna do much here, and I was racking my brain for something else.

“Melting it would make people wonder.” Pandora said. She paused for a moment and stared like we were doing.

“We could just break it.” Shannon and I both turned to look at her.

“Pull the handle off, I mean.”

“That wouldn’t make people wonder?”

“Normal people would just break the thing off with a crowbar or something. No one’s going to melt the locking mechanism.” Shannon pursed her lips at that, and after a moment, grabbed the handle and pulled. It came off like a twig from a tree, and I could hear the other side drop to the floor with a clang. She crouched down and placed the one in her hand beside the door frame.

I moved the other handle aside with my toe as we stepped in. Lady followed behind us, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. We all looked, but none of us wanted to risk the noise to ask right now, I think.

 We creeped around the school halls, on the watch for possible janitors. None of us had ever seen a security camera in our three years at this school, so we were pretty sure that wasn’t an issue. We managed to make it to the pool without incident, and cracked open the doors to slip in. Shannon very gently closed them behind us.

The pool was casting water waves all over the dark walls and ceiling. Our boots clicked on the tiled floor, and it was worryingly loud in the quiet.

“My rings definitely colder.” Shannon said. She stepped to the edge of the pool and held her hand over the water. Even without following her, I could feel the metal band had dropped a few degrees in temperature.

“What are we looking for?” Pandora inclined her body to Lady as she asked this.

“Signs of decay, maybe, or disuse. Anything out of the ordinary. It’s a bit dependent on the entity, unfortunately.” Lady said, padding around the pool’s edge.

“It happened in the pool, below the water.” I added, wanting to be a bit helpful. The three of us split up and began to pace around the pool, trying to look below the distortion caused by the surface of the water.

We spent a few minutes circling the circumference of it and standing in place, arcing our upper bodies over the edge so we could get a slightly better angle.

“Should we try disturbing the water?” Shannon asked.

“Not a bad idea.” Pandora said. “Who’s best for the job?”

“I’m going to have to boil it, and because of my shockingly good mark in chemistry and basic common sense, I know that’s going to take a lot of heat. I don’t think I have the energy for that.” Shannon said.

“I haven’t quite figured out what my power wants, yet. I don’t think I could just send a strong wind into the water on a whim.” I answered. Once again, somewhere where the water power would make sense. So dumb.

“Okay.” Pandora said simply. She crouched down near the water and balanced on the balls of her feet. Touching a couple fingertips to the surface of the water, I saw arcs of gold leave her fingertips and begin spreading through the water. It churned a bit. She continued for about thirty seconds until Shannon made a noise.

“The drain changed colour, it looks like.” She said. Pandora rose to a standing position and I came closer to her. It was only in that moment I realized she was taller than me. I was a couple inches shy of six feet normally, but I lost about four of those when I transformed. I was used to being the tallest in our group, so it was strange. I still had Shannon beat, at least.

We all balanced on our toes and peaked into the water. Lo and behold, Shannon was right, and I saw the drain, which I was shockingly familiar with from swim classes and practice, had turned from it’s usual clean silver to a rust-red ring.

Then something shot out and grabbed my arm in the half-second that I used to blink some moisture into my eyes. It took me a second to realize exactly what the pressure was on my wrist, and then I was half in the water, with Pandora yelling wordlessly behind me and grabbing on to my other wrist.

“Fuck!” Shannon yelled. I heard a metallic sound that was probably her shield being summoned. I took a deep breath, not trusting Pandora’s grip strength, and my timing was almost perfect because she lost her hold on me and I was zipped into the water, struggling and whipping around.

I heard parts of sentences as Pandora and Shannon tried to figure out what to do. This wasn’t what I was good at, it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing. Fuck, I really, really shouldn’t have agreed to this. I was going to die on my first outing.

What would Shannon do. What would Pandora do. Shannon had pulled her weapon out almost immediately. Except my spear was way too long for this. And if I lost my grip on it, it would probably be gone. I did it anyways, making a pulling motion with my arm like I was rowing with a single limb, which was really slow in the water. The form of the weapon followed the edge of my fist, and in about two seconds I was holding the butt of a short spear.

I chocked my hand up on the thing as my chest started to hurt, and my lung began to feel like they were burning. I had a better than average capacity but I wasn’t used to things like this, where I was flailing and trying to swim against some force while holding my breath.

With my vision swimming, I hacked at the thing around my wrist with the tall, leaf-shaped blade of my weapon. I tried to avoid slicing my skin, and instead focused on whatever was trailing off my arm. It wasn’t a tentacle, like I’d first thought. It was almost like some sort of fleshy limb, with some plant life growing on it. A weird, thick vine.

Something splashed above me, and I saw bubbles rising up to meet the surface. A glint began beside my eye, but I didn’t want to turn. My head felt like it was going to explode now, and I was slicing and jabbing as hard as I could, but I was only halfway through.

A pale hand grabbed the vine, below where I was hitting. Shannon, waving my free hand away, trying not to get hit with the spear. I stopped, my eyes wide, and watched her grab where I’d been cutting tightly, and stare down at the spot with a very determined look on her face. It began to bubble, and after a few moments, I could feel the heat on my bound hand, a few inches away. I was pulling against it, still trying to create tension despite no longer slashing the thing, and it snapped like an elastic band when the fire ate through it. It retreated back to the drain and was gone before I blinked.

A consequence of this was that Shannon didn’t have anything to hold on to, and wasn’t a very strong swimmer. She’d lounge in pools with us, but she’d never be caught in the deep end of anything. The other problem was her seemingly very heavy armour that was beginning to sink her like a stone.

My vision was starting to get blurry around the edges, but she was sinking fast. I pushed forward in a really sloppy form and grabbed her single outstretched arm with both hands and began to kick my feet. Both of our eyes were wide, and she shouted as we broke the surface. We almost immediately began to sink again, because my legs were jelly and she was heavy, but Pandora grabbed the collar of her breastplate with both hands and hauled her closer to the edge. Once she was sure both of Shannon’s hands were gripping the tiled floor, she held out one to me. I took it, and she did the same thing.

We scrambled out of the pool and plopped ourselves down against the wall, as far away from the water as we could get. Me and Shannon were gasping in air, and I could tell I was going to have a sore throat from the water inhalation and a headache from the lack of breathing. My blood was pounding in my ears still.

“Fucking Jesus.” Shannon breathed out.