"Jane." Missy nudges me with her foot. "What did you get for number 7?"
"Uh, hold on." Digging my worksheet out of the pile of papers on my desk I check which one that was. "13x+3."
"...Huh." She frowns at whatever's on her own paper. "Not plus one?"
"Nnnooo…?" I lean forward, trying to see her paper to figure out how she got that. "Because-"
"Oh, whoops!" Missy blows a raspberry at her paper while erasing something. "I see what I did now."
"Kay." I shrug, making sure to keep my worksheet separate from my pile of story pages this time as I go back to writing.
Rune shoved him, hard, and Kid's world flashed white as the back of his head bounced off the wall. He was pretty sure he was about to die.
But when he finally recovered his wits a moment later Rune was nowhere in sight. The only proof she'd ever been there was his growing collection of very real bruises and… a lingering taste of-
Uhh…
Hmmm.
"Hey, Ruth. Pssst. Ruth! You're an Empire wannabe." I whisper, nudging her with my boot under the desks. "What flavor chapstick do you wear?"
"What? Cherry." Ruth answers before frowning. "...What?" She finally actually looks up from her worksheet to stare at me, her face growing more and more suspicious as I lose the fight not to giggle over the idea of Ruth rocking out to Katy Perry.
"Sorry. I'm not-" Pushing my fist against my mouth in an effort to contain the giggles, I try to wave her off but she just gets more incensed. "I'm not laughing at you. There's just this silly song and… no. Nevermind. It doesn't matter."
Getting myself under control I go back to my writing.
-cherry chapstick on his lips?
"What just happened?" he asked the air.
Putting my pencil down, I eyeball the scene. Okay, that… is probably way longer than Miss Sawyer asked for but whatever. I add it to my folder for English class and look around for something else to distract-
Hit for 1 HP damage!
"Ow!" I pull my legs up onto my seat and rub at the spot that just got kicked even if my HP means it just fades to tingling immediately. "What the hell, Missy?"
"Huh?" My glare fades as Missy looks up at me in obvious confusion.
"Hey!" Ruth leans over next to Missy, glaring at me. "That was me, dumbass."
"Oh. Sorry, Missy." I shift my glare to Ruth. "Rude."
"What song?"
"Huh?"
"Jesus fucking Christ." Ruth's glare shifts upwards as she shakes her head. "The song you were just laughing about."
"Oh! Uh…" I grimace. "I don't really think it'd be your kind of mus-"
Ruth glares at me. "What. Song?"
Well, I mean... she asked for it.
Leaning in, I grin as I sing the line quietly. "I kissed a girl and I liked iiit…" I waggle my eyebrows up and down at Ruth. "The taste of her cherry chapstick."
"Ooooh!" Aisha leans in while I'm still giggling at the grossed out face Ruth is making. "Is this for that-"
"Jane." Ruth hisses, trying to interrupt after scavenging some semblance of her composure. "Are-" she cuts off, looking almost comically offended as Aisha shoves a hand at her face to shush her.
Aisha, face lit up with troll-ish glee, plows onward even as Ruth shakes her sleeve out over her hand to push Aisha's away without touching her. "-shit-fic you're writing in English?"
"Are. You. A dy-"
"Ship-fic." I hold up a finger for Ruth to wait while I glare at Aisha. I hesitate to call the expression on her face a shit-eating grin given the topic at hand, but a spade's a spade. "Shi-Puh. With a P!"
"Woah…" Aisha leans back, eyes wide in blatantly feigned shock. "They're gonna pee on each other?" She grins again. "Kinky."
"...Nnnooo! They are not going to pee on each other! Kid Win and Rune are gonna make out and angst about it. Maybe they'll even go as far as holding hands, but not… Not that. Jeezus."
The troll-ish glee is still going strong in Aisha's eyes so I end my rant with a huff and turn away from her as emphatically as I can.
Ruth is staring at me with a kind of constipated look on her face. Understandable given the places Aisha's aspersions upon my story just tried to drag our conversation but, in the interest of keeping Aisha from getting another word in edgewise, I try to re-rail our earlier discussion. "Sorry, Ruth. What was it you were trying to ask me?"
Ruth almost ruins everything by dropping the ball completely as her mouth opens and then closes without saying anything, but fortunately she manages it on her second try. "You're writing a story about Rune?"
"And Kid Win!" Missy adds with obvious, if maybe a little conflicted, mirth.
"Hey! Kid Win's cool." I 'defend' myself, latching on to Missy's comment more to keep the conversation going in safer directions than out of any real need to justify my pairing decisions. "Well, no, I mean he's a Tinker so he's probably a dorkasaurus but still! He was the best fit for what I'm doing with Rune."
"Really?" Missy asks, eyebrows climbing but otherwise maintaining an impressive level of non-reaction to my calling her teammate a dorkasaurus.
"Yup." I nod. "I mean, probably not like in real life or whatever. I have no idea. But in a story where I'm making up their civilian backstories? Yeah. He's easy to turn into the perfect mirror for Rune."
"Okay." Aisha takes advantage of my being too focused on watching Missy's reaction to lean her way back into both my field of vision and the conversation. "But like… why Sabrina the Teenage Nazi of all fuckin' people if you aren't doing it just to shit on her?"
"You are weirdly obsessed with- Nope. Not touching that. But yeah: Rune." I point at Ruth. "That's actually all her fault."
"What?" Ruth hisses, looking startled. "Me? No!"
"Yeah." I nod. "That talk we had about Kaiser and The Twins? That was still on my brain when Miss Sawyer told me about the daily free write assignment and it got me thinking: How fucking awkward must that be for his kids?"
"His…" Ruth frowns. "Kids?"
"Yeah." I wave a hand at my pile of papers. "I'm doing a bit of a Romeo and Juliet thing where the gangs are all, like, extended families and stuff so Rune is Kaiser's kid and Kid Win is Hal-beard's."
"Okay, so it all starts with her and Kid accidentally fighting Mush together. They end up trapping him in a dumpster that Rune then yeets into the bay and then miraculously manage to not immediately start fighting each other and instead end up bonding over the fact that they both fly around on skateboard things while watching the sunset."
"You know," Aisha frowns, "you made this sound like it was going to be way more exciting than… that."
"Yeah…" I scratch the back of my head. "It's probably the weakest part of the whole thing but and if I'm being honest a decent chunk of my reasoning was that there was this one-liner about 'taking out the trash' that I let myself get overly attached to using. I mean, they also both have daddy issues and stuff but that didn't seem like something they'd talk about on a first date and 'we both like flying around on things' is still more than she has in common with any of the other Wards so…" I shrug. "I mostly just needed something to bring them together since that was, like, the entire premise, you know?"
"Right… Right. So. You were serious about that hand holding crap then?" Aisha's disappointment is as immense as it is obvious.
"...You do remember I'm doing this for a homework assignment, right?" I pick up my stack of scenes and wave them at her.
"So?"
"I'm not handing in porn to Miss Sawyer."
Aisha pauses. "Oh, yeah. She's all old and stuff. She'd probably flunk you."
"Or worse." I shudder. "What if she says she likes it?"
"…Eww." Aisha mimes retching, pauses, and then pouts at me. "Does that mean the twins aren't gonna bang either?"
Before I can reassure Aisha that the very next scene heavily implies Rune walked in on exactly that, Ruth snarls. "Fenja and Menja aren't like that you disgusting-"
"Ruth!" I cut her off before she can say something even today's incredibly chill sub would have to respond to.
Ugh. As useful as having a weather vane on hand for what the average Empire groupie finds plausible is… actually managing said groupie's unfortunate racist tendencies is a serious pain in the ass and I could really do without having to listen to another racist tirade.
To which end, given how well it worked last time, I spin up the proverbial bus and prepare to distract her by running over Kaiser again. "Even if they aren'tinto it, do you really think they're allowed to say no?" I roll my eyes as Ruth's incensed look shifts my way. "They're trophies Kaiser uses to make himself feel like a man after Purity had the audacity to divorce him."
"How do you know that?"
"He's a rich old dude and they're a pair of pretty coeds. The power-dynamic there isn't exactly mysterious even before you add actual powers into the mix."
"Not-" Ruth twitches in her seat-
Hit for 1 HP damage!
-as she kicks me, apparently. "How do you know they got divorced?"
"I…" have no reason to know that.
And now Missy looks curious too. Shit.
"I.." try to buy myself time to think.
Shockingly, this does nothing to assuage Ruth's increasingly suspicious stare.
"I…" can't tell them the truth, obviously, er. Wait, no. 'I read it online' totally works! "Umm... I think we've met?" I slowly hold out my hand to Ruth, while giving her a confused look. "I'm Jane, from the internet. I click on links I probably shouldn't and end up seeing things I can never unsee a lot." Plaster on my best 1000 yard stare. Check. "One of those things was a uh… detailed analysis… proving that Purity had a kid." Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Check. "With pictures." Nod head, eyes unfocused and widening in 'recollection.' Check.
"She did?" It's Missy that takes the bait rather than Ruth, but I'll allow it.
"Yup! Or at least that seemed to be the consensus. Apparently, she put on a little weight right before vanishing from the public eye for almost a year and then, when she finally popped back up again, she had, and I quote, 'Mommy Milkers.'" I pause to let Aisha giggle while Missy and Ruth make faces. "But as far as my divorce theory goes, that's just 'cause she still hasn't been seen in the same place as Kaiser since. I mean, admittedly, I don't really know they got divorced 'cause, like, I don't know if they were ever actually married or not but I want to have Purity be Rune's 'Evil Stepmother that she only realizes was totally looking out for her the whole time after the divorce' in my story so-"
The bell rings and I basically made my point so I don't bother continuing when it finishes.
"Keep your worksheets, everybody." The substitute announces. "Y'all are gonna turn them in to Mr Vernon tomorrow. If you didn't finish your worksheet, that's your homework for tonight."
Hopping down onto the elevator-disc, I continue telling Taylor about my day while I float the quartz ant farm and the stone plate holding the bags of sugar down after me.
"We were almost late to Parahuman Studies!" I'm being whiny. I know it. But I'm doing it anyway because what's the point of being turned into the protagonist's tween girl of a younger sister if you aren't going to embrace the role?
"And then!" Planning ahead this time, I grab a bit of the leftover quartz and [Stoneshape] it into something resembling a cloudy light bulb while Taylor climbs down the slide-turned-stepladder herself. Hopefully the mental association will help. "Then Ruth made uh… whatshisface, the boy that usually sits next to me? I don't think I've ever actually talked to him?" I shrug. "But yeah, she made him move so she could sit there and then she. Just. Kept. Talkingto me about it!"
"I can't imagine what that's like."
"She almost got us both detent- Huh? Why- Oh. Yeah. Shit." I sigh. Hearing me talk about my friends at school is probably awkward for my involuntary-outcast of a cousin. "Sorry. We can talk about something other than school if you'd rather?"
"That's not-"
"It's fine." I shrug it off. Not like we don't have plenty of other things to talk about.
For now, deep breath in… and out. Picture a lightbulb illuminating a room and-
"So… You know who Purity is?"
[Ward]!
My world turns white with the fury of a thousand camera flashes, and then goes dark as I reflexively shove the 'lightbulb' away from my face.
"...Ow."
"Are you okay?"
"Nope! [Treat Wounds]! Ah, that's… mostly better?" I still can't really see, but the giant sunspot in the middle of my vision is rapidly fading despite the spell's feedback claiming it barely did anything. "Yeah, the spots are clearing."
"I take it you didn't mean to make a two hundred watt flashlight?"
"No, no, I totally did. I mean, I was going for more of a lamp or ceiling light than… well, this." I wave the portable spotlight I seem to have made back and forth a few times before holding it up to show Taylor. "I definitely didn't mean for it to be quite that bright or so… focused." I blink a few more times just from the memory. "Or, you know, for it to be aimed right at my face." I point, probably completely unnecessarily, at where the tightly focused beam of light is coming out of the part that, on an actual lightbulb, would get screwed into the socket. "Mostly because I didn't expect all the light to come out of the bottom."
And it's not even coming out straight down either, but slightly off center and at a funky angle.
Actually… looking closely, the light almost looks like it's twisting or spinning in place. Kinda like how Purity's- Ah… Note to self: Special [Ward]s are finicky enough without trying to hold a conversation while working one.
"So, you know who Purity is?" Taylor repeats her earlier question, almost as if hearing the direction of my thoughts. Which, to be fair, I'm only like 90% should be impossible given that I turned [Telepathy] off to conserve mana but Queen Administrator is… well, Queen Administrator.
Not wanting to contemplate that line of thinking any further, I shove it into the back of my mind and answer my cousin. "Yup!"
"And you aren't going to tell anyone?"
"Nope!"
"Why not?"
"Officially? Because that's how the unwritten rules work."
"...Right." Taylor scuffs her shoe on the disc, frowning mulishly. "And the actual reason?"
"Purity doesn't just magically stop being a flying Blaster 8 when she takes off her costume to feed her daughter. And Coil would absolutely find a way to fuck with her arrest so that as many people as possible end up dead just to mess with Director Piggot."
Taylor groans. "And we can't just bother him at home because he'd use his stupid power to have never been there."
"Bingo!" I snap my fingers and point at her. "But," I add as I bring the disc to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. "If it makes you feel any better, I do at least have an idea for how to get Purity to yeet herself out of the bay."
"You do?"
"Yup!" I nod. "I mean, it's something like item umpteen bajaillion and one on the list of shit we can't do until I get [Teleport] but…"Last edited: Mar 15, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:SomeoneBlue, Degenerative Wilson, lurk and 58 othersAetheronMar 15, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 14 View contentAetheronFlinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.Mar 15, 2025Add bookmark#18A/N - Whoops! Skipped 13 while crossposting things. Scroll up one post to what used to be 14 to find it if you haven't already read it when you see this.
Eyeing the XP bar on the box, I crack my neck both ways and get ready to catch myself. Once more into the breach dear me! Be the me who was already standing!
[Blink]
Blink level up!
I land feet first on the bed.
…It worked!?
It worked!
Finally! I do a celebratory wiggle. Only took me what? A week to get from 5 to 9?
I mean, okay, yeah… that is absurdly fast to go from minor adjustments to full repositioning and yet… ugh… it'll be another week to get from 9 to 10. Another week of doing almost nothing else with my mana.
No! No moping. This is still huge, I forcibly remind myself. I can blip properly now! Up to ninety meters no less. That's basically an entire football field's worth of peace out if anyone tries to bother me.
Refusing to let the geometric cliff that is Fibonacci sequence XP requirements get me down, I take an extra moment to jump around in victory.
Be the me who was laying down!
[Blink]
WUMPH!
Okay… Note to self: Next time, maybe make sure to specifically think about being horizontal on the bed, rather than at head height above it.
[Blink]
Standing.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Much better!
…Be the me who was doing a handstand?
[Blink]
Woo! This is- Oh shit! Falling!
[Blink]
Wumph.
"Curse you, Gravity! I'll get you yet!"
"You figured it out?"
I look over to see Taylor has managed to not only sneak into the room while I was distracted by my own happy giggling, but made it all the way to her dresser.
"I did!"
"Cool. Showers all yours."
"Woo! But first, check this out!"
[Blink]
I reappear in the air maybe a centimeter away from Taylor, arms and legs already starfished out in the perfect position to Koala her. Which I do immediately. "J- urk!"
Taylor, sadly, fumbles the catch, toppling us over…
Fell for 24 HP damage!
…and then landing on top of me.
Crushed for 13 HP damage!
…Worth it!
Hmmm…
Tapping my pencil against my notebook I realize I don't actually know the names of most places in Brockton Bay apart from The Boardwalk, the Trainyard, and Downtown.
Oh! And the Docks. That place where I, you know, live now.
"Hey, where's a good place to ambush a Wards patrol?"
No one responds, so I glance up and find my deskmates all staring at me.
"Fuckin' what?" Aisha laughs.
I roll my eyes, waving my notebook at them. "Where's a reasonable place to have a Wards patrol be when Rune attacks them."
"The Boardwalk?" Missy offers.
"Already used that one. Twice, I think?" I frown, flipping back a couple of pages. Did I actually specify where- Oh, yeah. That says Boardwalk right there. "Yup. Twice."
"Uh…" Aisha frowns. "They do school visits?"
"Oooh… yeah." I nod along. "I like that. Rune wouldn't even need to, like, steal their schedule to know where they'd all be- Wait no. They'd all be there."
"So?"
"So." I laugh, rolling my eyes at Ruth. "Rune can't solo the entire Wards roster by herself. "
"Why would she be by herself?"
"Because she usually works with Hookwolf?"
"Exactly!"
"Ruth…" I sigh as Ruth's face turns smug like she's won a point. "Would you bring your weirdass uncle with you on a date?"
"…Date?" Ruth asks. "I thought you said she was attacking them."
"Yeah." I nod. "To try and separate Kid Win from the others to… you know."
"Hold hands?" Aisha sighs, making a disappointed face at me.
"And make out!" I grin back at her. "But yeah, I figure she can like drop a dumpster on Clockblocker-"
"Wait," Ruth blinks. "So she just fucking kills him?"
"Yeah, come on." Aisha leans in. "Clock's funny. At least have it be fuckin' Shadow Stalker or something."
"Not like-" I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. "Like how people trap spiders under cups." I try to demonstrate by doing the paper covers rock thing with my hands. "Only it's, you know, a dumpster so it's heavy enough that he and Kid can't just lift it off of him." I turn to Aisha. "And no, because Stalker would just phase out of it."
"Oh." Aisha's nose scrunches up in disappointment. "Right."
…I guess that answers the question of whether or not she knows about Stalker trying to murder her brother?
"Right. So, she drops the dumpster on Clock and then flies off-"
"What!?" Ruth huffs. "She wins the fight and then runs away?"
"Yeah, so that Kid Win will chase her-"
"He wouldn't chase her." Missy laughs. "That'd be stupid."
"Well obviously." I acknowledge. "Even if he wanted to chase after her I'm sure Console would be-"
Aisha holds up a hand. "Who?"
"...Rune?"
"No, I know who Rune is." Aisha makes a 'duh!' face at me. "Who's Console? Did I miss a new-hero thing?"
"Oh, no." I shake my head. "Console is what the tour guide lady says they call their dispatcher people on the radio."
"Riiight." Aisha nods. "Okay, so Clockblocker was clam-jamming Rune and then..?"
"Oh, I didn't even think of that!" I laugh happily. "His name is extra perfect for being the reason Rune can't get Kid Win to chase her, isn't it?"
"...That wasn't on purpose?"
"No! He was literally just the only one I thought Rune could trap in a dumpster."
"Huh." Aisha shrugs. "Why does Rune want Kid to chase her, anyway? If Clock's trapped then they're already basically alone."
"Ah, well… I figure that if she's Kaiser's kid then she's basically going to be kind of an old timey princess about things so I'm giving her a 'baby, it's cold outside' vibe."
"What, like… the Christmas song?"
"Yeah, the girl in the song isn't really allowed to 'say yes' culturally so she's basically trying to say no in the least convincing manner possible and hoping the guy takes the hint or something."
"That's…" Aisha looks at the others who are also making faces. "Kinda stupid."
"I mean, yeah. Playing 'hard to get' usually is. Plus the song is from the, like, 40's or something." I shrug. "A lot of stuff from back then is messed up. Nazi's for instance." I smile cheerfully at Ruth as she flips me off. "Hence Rune, whose family is mired in that era in so many ways, trying to set things up so Kid Win will chase after her and then whatever happens after that… well that obviously can't be her fault."
Missy grins. "Except it doesn't work."
"Exactly! So eventually Rune gets frustrated, flies back over, beats him up, breaks his stuff, kisses him, and then flies away in a huff while he stands there wondering what the fuck just happened. Again."
"Again?"
"Oh, yeah, this'll be the second time she's done it to him."
"Okay," Aisha nods. "That's kinda funny."
"No no, the funny part is where the reason Kid isn't into it is that he has a massive crush on this girl Sabrina at school."
"...Sabrina? Who the fuck is- Oh." Ruth pauses and glares at me. "Fucking, really?" She huffs.
"MmmmHmmm!" I nod happily. "She and Kid Win make up two separate love triangles all by themselves. Two! Or is it a double-triangle? Is there a word for it when they share an edge…"
"Yeah yeah, whatever…" Ruth waves a hand in front of my face. "Did you really need to name her Sabrina?"
"Need to? No. And originally I was gonna go with something pretentiously German like Wilhemina or super southern like Annabelle but I didn't wanna catch flack for 'speculating on cape identities.'" I airquote, rolling my eyes before nodding at Aisha. "So I took her 'Sabrina the Teenage Nazi' joke and ran with it."
Ruth glares at Aisha and then at me but then shrugs, huffing. "Fiiine..."
"I'm… Glad you approve?" I shrug back. "So yeah, Rune is Sabrina, obviously." I start ticking off the character list on my fingers. "Purity is Hilda because I couldn't remember the other Aunt's name at the time. Hookwolf is Salem. Kid Win is Harvey, and, since I couldn't remember Harvey's dad's name either, Armsmaster is Archie."
"...Archie?" Missy asks, making me look up. Ruth and Aisha look just as lost.
"Yeah, as in Archie Comics?"
Three even blanker looks great my statement.
"...as in the Publisher for Sabrina the Teenage Witch? From the, like, 70's? I think? Might have been the 60's". Either way, it was before Scion showed up so I know it at least still happened here.
Ruth blinks, looking like she's just had some sort of life altering epiphany. "Is that where that joke comes from?"
"Yes, Ruth." I sigh, dropping my head into my hands and feeling very old despite being all of twelve according to my character sheet. "Aisha's favorite joke about the girl you clearly idolize is basically a dad-joke."
"Hey!" AIsha protests. "I wouldn't say it's my favorite… it's not like she dies or anything."
Fortunately, the bell rings before they can do more than glare at each other.
[Husbandry 1], instant, touch, 50 MP + Variable
An animal's opinion of you improves.
Purchase [Husbandry 1] for 1 point? Yes/No
[Grow 1], instant, touch or close range, 5 MP
Cultivate a single plant, or induce plant growth in a sphere of diameter equal to spell level in meters.
Purchase [Grow 1] for 1 point? Yes/No
…Huh.
Those descriptions aren't even close. Is Husbandry not just Grow but for livestock?
But that's literally what animal husbandry is!
...Isn't it?
Ugh.
Erick really didn't know how good he had it. Or, okay, maybe he did. I don't really remember. I just… I wish I had someone I could ask about these things before I potentially waste a point!
It wouldn't even need to be an actual Registrar or anything, just having my own version of Al to explain things in general would be great. Fantastic even! Seriously, where's my incredibly tall exposition charact…er… Right, right…
I snort, glancing over at where Taylor is setting out today's sugar delivery for our ant farm. Or rather where she is, despite being too short to be an Orcol, basically acting like a giant bipedal crane to help the ants farm themselves. Which is… kinda morbid now that I think about it given that they only exist to turn sugar and leaves and stuff into more ants to feed to the spiders but whatever.
Speaking of Al though, I cast [Cleanse] again just in case. It hasn't been that long since I last cast it but relying on it's probably fine doesn't seem like a good idea when the fail state involves suffocating to death on dead air.
Plus, now I don't feel like I need to pee anymore.
…Wait.
Al was a Sewer Master. Or something like that.
Why was Al running sewers if [Cleanse] makes 'girls don't poop' an objective fact rather than a joke?
I mean, the Rads obviously. Those were super useful and I think he was rich because of it. But how…
Oh, shit– Literally!– 'Intestinal Rads' was a whole thing on Veird, wasn't it? Three guesses how that happened and the first two don't count. And I've been doing it, or not doing it I suppose, for weeks now!
I mean, I'm pretty sure intestinal Rads was only a problem if it progressed from the dust stuff that passes naturally to a, like, actual Rad which then... turns you into a Shade?
No, that was a whole thing you had to do deliberately with DD, wasn't it? Intestinal Rads probably just monsterizes you the normal way.
Ha. Yeah, it just eats your soul and turns you into an omnicidal monster.
Probably.
Ugh. I have no idea. I really only remember that Rads were useful for stuff like enchanting but that Erick was, like, super upset when his monster-dehydrating spell killed a few people by accident cause of the intestines thing.
I still can't justify risking it when it's just a matter of using the bathroom like some... normal person... every now and then.
Wait.
…oh no.
Fuck my life.
Rads are useful.
Not to mention that flushing magic glitter down the toilet seems… wildly irresponsible… when that glitter might potentially be able to monsterize whatever eventually eats it. And that's not even counting the part where the local director is a Nilbog survivor and would absolutely flip her shit.
"Something wrong?" Taylor looks over at me as I flop backwards on the dais with a groan.
"Yeah but… you probably don't want to know." Hell, I don't want to know and I'm the one who's going to need to poop in a bucket and then check for glitter every week or so now forever just in case.
Demonstrating the wisdom older siblings are meant to have, or possibly just having adapted to living with me, Taylor barely even blinks before going back to her work with a shrug.
On the bright side, I can potentially add 'feed the spiders Rads' to the list of things to try before I potentially waste a precious point on [Husbandry.]
A/N- it belatedly occurs to me that I should specify for those who aren't familiar with "arkenthingy" that Jane cares so much about intestinal rads because it isnt just fatal… It's "if the rads build up enough they start clawing their way to your heart to eat your soul and turn you into a monster" level of bad albeit usually easily treatable if you remember to try at all.Last edited: Mar 15, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:Degenerative Wilson, Allon M., anirocks and 64 othersAetheronMar 15, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 15 View contentAetheronFlinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.Mar 15, 2025Add bookmark#24And… [Cleanse]!
Finally able to stop holding my breath, I float today's lightward attempt over with [Stoneshape] and shine it down into the bucket– Or I guess it'd be a chamber pot? –that I made for this.
Well… I think to myself as I peer in. It's not much, but it's official: I am enough of a fucking magical girl that I shit glitter.
Sparkly, faintly glowing, glitter no less.
…Or wait. Does that make me a Unicorn?
No, no…. Unicorns shit rainbows and show up to swinger parties by themselves. I'm definitely a Magical Girl. Even if I can't quite justify buying [Clothe] just to be able to do the Transformation Sequence properly.
I mean… Maybe if I combined it with-
No! What the fuck, Brain? No means no!
In fact, I call up my menus and commit the 5 points I'd been debating over adding to Focus just to remove the temptations. If nothing else, the extra 150 mana per regen-pool will help with getting Blink to 10.
Now, where was I? Oh, right, casting another [Cleanse] and then a [Treat Wounds] on myself just on general principle. I really need to come up with a more sustainable method of doing this that doesn't involve forcing myself to eat way too much Taco Bell followed by chugging laxatives because that was awful on both ends.
But! That's future-Jane's problem.
Current-Jane has !!SCIENCE!! to do!
Stoneshaping open the 'door' of this little bathroom stall that I added to the wall of our lair and carrying out the pot of glitter, I [Telepathy] my cousin.
=Taylor! I'm all done! Your spiders can come back out now.=
Standing very, very still as the horde of spiders pour out of the walls and split into two teams that each head over to one of the stone mannequins sized to match me and Taylor, I run through what I'm planning to do in my mind one last time looking for any evidence the good idea fairy is visiting.
1) Feed spider Rad dust.
Which, now that I'm thinking about it, kinda looks like pixie-dust ala Tinkerbell.
2) Spider monsterizes and either:
A) Remains under Taylor's control and becomes the earliest progenitor of Project Shelob.
Or
B) Breaks free of her control and gets dogpiled by the others while I smoosh it with stone.
Is there an option C I'm leaving out?
…I guess I could roll snake eyes, land on 'Saint Murphy Tax' and go directly to Shelob without passing any of the spaces in between?
Yeah… Why risk it?
Setting the pot down on the dais in the middle of the room, I evacuate to the elevator shaft and then shift some stone into the doorway until it's fully sealed apart from a view slot that has extra stone around it to close it with just in case.
=What are you doing, anyway?=
=Trying very hard to not be John Hammond.= Floating the dais up off the floor and then moving the pot under it, I turn the dais into a stone cage with most of the remaining mass at the top ready to squish a frenzied spider monster. Then I have the pot shift itself first into a cone shape to move all the glitter to the center and then flatten it out to become the new floor.
=...Who?=
=The old guy from Jurassic Park.=
=Jane… what are you doing?=
=Me? Nothing. You? You're having a spider go eat some of the glitter in the middle of the stone cage I just made.=
=Why?=
=Remember when we talked about making a Shelob?=
=Explain.=
=But that'll take forever!= And be super embarrassing for both of us.
=Jane…=
=Ugh. Fine! But for the record, I want you to remember that I tried to spare you the details about how the pixie-dust gets made!=
=...Huh.= I watch as the third test-spider spasms one last time before finally going still, leaving behind another misshapen corpse barely recognizable as belonging to a spider.
A misshapen corpse that is now, like the first two, roughly the size of my fist. Sure, my hands are pretty small and dainty, but still.
=And that one felt like it was starving too?=
=Yeah, but it was… weird. I don't think the feeling is coming from their stomachs if that makes any sense.=
=I mean, I guess it does? No amount of forced gluttony at normal black widow size was ever going to let it grow into… that… on calories alone.=
Taylor and I lapse into mental silence, presumably both pondering variations on the same question: How do we feed them more magic/powers-bullshit if having them stuff their faces with Rad dust isn't enough?
Actually, on that note: =Meh. We're out of pixie-dust anyway. = I spin my [Stoneshape] aura back up and start returning the room to normal. =We can try again next weekend.=
Just as I'm about to move the stone blocking the doorway back to where it started, I pause, eying the spider corpses suspiciously.
Weren't plenty of monsters on Veird well past 'clever girl' levels of smart?
Fortunately for my sanity, the spiders don't spontaneously spring to life and go on a rampage as I make a point of having the dais squish them flat and then rotate a few dozen times to grind them into a paste.
"I'm who you taught me to be." I sing quietly to myself, counting out the beats on my fingers. 7.
"Why isn't that enough?" 6. Damn. "Why can't that be enough? Nope! Still 6."
Hmmm…. Maybe if I change the first like to 'I'm the me you taught me to be?' No, that's 8.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out lyrics for a song. Or, failing that, at least get these two lines to be the same length."
"Oh..." Aisha stares at me for a moment.
"Yeah it's… not going well." Slumping forward I rest my head on my desk. I can't even Google the lyrics because even if I'm right about the song I half-remember being by American Authors, they don't seem to exist here. Or, I suppose, in fairness to Earth Bet, it also might just be that they don't exist yet in 2011. Not like I can Google that either.
"Okay, but… Why?"
"Oh. Well, I wanted Harvey's crush on Sabrina to have something more to it than just, 'oh no, she hawt,' so… I'm trying to have a scene with her singing a song that would resonate with both of them, you know? And beyond the-"
"Rune sings?"
"Yeah." I glance up and find Ruth staring at me with raised eyebrows. "In a band with- Well, no. Technically, Sabrina sings and Harvey likes to watch-"
"I bet he does!"
"Watch her band practice." I stick my tongue out at Aisha. "Ugh. Maybe I'll just have the scene be Harvey walking in on Rune struggling to write the damn song instead of singing it? That way I only need a few lines rather than-"
"Waiwaiwait!" Aisha's perks up. "Rune sings?"
"Yeah. I literally just said that." I pause, side eyeing Aisha who seems suspiciously happy about that. "I mean, again, it's Sabrina who's in a band with her friends-"
"Rune has friends!?" Aisha cuts me off in an impressively faux shocked-disbelief tone. "Ow!" She pulls her legs up from under the desk, glaring at Ruth. "Bitch! I will fuc-"
"Aisha!" I put my hand over her mouth to shush her as today's sub frowns in our direction. "No swearing in front of the grown ups!"
"She kicked me!"
"Yeah… She's kind of feral like that."
Hit for 1 HP damage!
"I am not feral." Ruth protests, despite having just proved my point.
"Uh huh…" I make a point of only barely glancing her way before turning back to Aisha and theatrically rolling my eyes. "Seriously, just wear your shin guards like the rest of us."
Aisha snorts, peeking under the desks. "You're wearing shin guards?"
"Nah." I hold up two fingers. "I have two classes with her so I went with full on steel toed boots for my PPE." I pull one of my legs up and Vanna White at the glory that is my Stompy Boots before staring pointedly at Ruth. "And I will start kicking back if you keep it up."
Ruth glances at the sub and then flips me off.
"Rude!" I laugh before turning back to Aisha. "As you can see, city living is clearly having a positive effect on her already. I'm sure it'll sand off the rest of the edges from whatever barn her horde of brothers raised her in eventually."
"Fuck you." Ruth huffs. "I don't even have any brothers."
"You don't? Then why-" I pause, frowning. "...Not gonna object to the barn?"
Ruth shrugs. "My parents have a farm."
"Oh!" I perk up. "That's cool. Where-"
Aisha covers my mouth with her hand, shushing me. "Go back to Rune singing in a band."
I can't exactly be mad at her for it, I literally did the exact same thing to her a moment ago, but I don't let that stop me from licking her hand in retaliation.
"Jane!" Aisha snatches her hand back. "She licked me!" She looks over at Missy for sympathy, but our resident Ward is actively ignoring us to do her worksheet.
"Gross." Ruth says, despite smiling at me instead of- "You don't know where it's been."
Right. Of course.
"Hmmm, tastes like…" I make a show of smacking my lips and trying to look thoughtful as I debate what will offend Ruth's delicate racist sensibilities the correct amount but… "Uh, yeah. Nevermind. I can't actually think of anything that isn't, like, super mean or wildly inappropriate and Aisha's cool so…" I shrug at Aisha. "Yeah, let's just go back to Rune singing in a band. Or, well." I gesture grumpily at my still blank page. "It'll probably just be a cover band because it turns out songs are hard."
"A cover band? Even better!" Aisha's eyebrows go up and down. "Does that mean she's gonna sing a cover of that other song you-"
"She better not!" Ruth glares at Aisha and then me.
"Nah." I laugh. "Rune wears the cherry chapstick."
"Oh, okay. So Rune gets kissed by… uh…" Aisha frowns, nose scrunching up in thought. "...Vista?"
"Vista?" I have to hand it to Missy, she keeps a good poker face even as Ruth's attempts to murder Aisha with her eyes turns derisive. "Seriously?"
"Also, ewww." I add for good measure.
"Ewww?" Aha! I got Missy to react! A little. She looks offended for a moment there, I swear. Also a little hurt and betrayed and now I feel the need to explain. Ugh.
"Hey!" Aisha also protests, backhanding my shoulder lightly. "Vista's cool."
Ruth sneers. "Vista's a-"
"Vista's, like, ten." I hiss, trying to cut Ruth off before she can make things worse with Missy.
"-little bitch." Ruth finishes anyway.
"Vista's not ten, she's twelve!" Amusingly, between being outright insulted and being aged down, Missy picks my comment to huff at. "...At least!"
"That's not better!" I roll my eyes. "I mean, okay, yeah, I guess it is. But Rune's like… fifteen? Sixteen? Whatever. Either way, half plus seven is more than twelve!" I huff, turning back to Aisha and trying to move the conversation back to less dangerous territory. "But more importantly: No, Rune can't be gay."
"Of course she isn't!" Ruth glares at us as if daring us to say otherwise.
Aisha, of course, opens her mouth to, I assume, do just that but then has a visible 'aha' moment and looks over at me instead. "Oh, right, right… Because she and Kid Win are peeing on each other."
"That's not…" Slumping down, I bang my head against my desk.
Hit for 2 HP damage!
Huh. That is surprisingly cathartic when it doesn't hurt for more than an instant. I do it again a little harder.
Hit for 3 HP damage!
I start to do it again before realizing this can't be healthy. HP to spare or not.
"First of all!" Picking my head up, I decide not to give Aisha the reaction she's- Too late. Okay, not give her any more of the reaction she's so clearly looking for with her antics and just skip right over the whole peeing thing. "Bi-people do exist. But no, Rune has to be straight or it fucks up her whole character development arc."
"Her what?" Ruth finally stops glaring at Aisha long enough to glance my way.
I sigh, forcing myself to sit up again. "The entire point of this is to have Rune to slowly, inch by uncomfortable, unlubed, personal-revelations-inch, realize that the Empire isn't… well, you know, any of what it claims to be, least of all a family. It's just a bunch of terrible fucking people that she wants nothing and less to do with, some of whom happen to be related to her. Rune being gay, or bi, or whatever would cheapen the whole thing by making her an outsider to the Empire's ideology. It'd be like… giving her an excuse to leave. I want her to choose to be better even while still being the perfectly blonde haired, blue eyed, straight edged, whiny bitch of an imperial princess poster child."
[Blink]
Blink level up!
Wumph.
Laying on the bed, exhausted, sweaty, and with a pounding headache from being OOM, I call up the box just to stare at it for a moment.
Blink X, instant, 25 MP
Instantly move from your location to another within
I mean, yeah, it's not my first. Meditation claimed that title when it hit 10 yesterday but that's, you know, Meditation.
This little blue box though? I think I might have gotten this one framed and hung it up on the wall if that was, you know, a thing one could actually do with what might as well just be a particularly vivid hallucination. I guess I could type it out at school and then print it? Yeah… I might get a weird look from the teacher but that just means the day ends in Y at this point.
But now… I pull up my shirt to bongos a drumroll on my abs as I run the search for [Teleport] in my menu.
Teleport 1, instant, 250 MP per person
You and
Purchase [Teleport 1] for 1 point? Yes/No
Ahem! I clear my throat and then take a deep breath. "YES!"
A/N - The song Jane is struggling with is 'Luck' by American Authors and the actual lyrics are a 7-6 beat. Jane is just being forced to endure a portion of what it took for me to figure out what the words I only half remembered were so I could Google the name of the song I was thinking of when I originally came up with this scene.