Dear Diary,

I never really thought about how much energy I must burn when doing Mana Shaping; I've been absolutely laying waste to every meal dropped in front of me, and like I mentioned a while back I figured I'd start putting on some nice padding soon enough. Then I got up this morning and discovered I needed to cinch my belt down a notch tighter than normal. Not only that, but I had to shimmy my thighs into my pants, not because of the junk in my trunk, but because my frighteningly defined thighs barely fit into them. Almost as bad, my shoulders strained the stitches on my jacket, even when I left it unbuttoned.

I mentioned that to Marie when she knocked on my door to wake me up, and she immediately grabbed my jacket and stripped it off me. Right then and there she pulled out a stitch ripper, some thread, and a needle. Right in front of my eyes she pulled the shoulder stitches and re-stitched them. They looked a little iffy to me, but she said, "Better." She then proceeded to open my armoire and scoop out all of my jackets. A glance at me and she pulled the shirts and pants as well, then motioned for me to strip down.

Rolling my eyes, but smiling as I did it, I stripped out of my blouse and pants, leaving me starkers since I'd worn my good underthings yesterday and still hadn't gotten used to sandpaper in my privates. I mean, I didn't have anything to be ashamed of now. That kinda weirded me out; I figured I ought to at least have a tiny bit of a pouch to let me pack away so much food. I kinda wish I could get a look in a mirror; I'm not, like, super narcissistic, but I figured it might be cool to see myself in super good shape, right?

Anyhow, it took Marie like two minutes of stitch-witchery to loosen up the shoulders and thighs of my uniform enough that barring something crazy happening, they'd last until I tossed them in the laundry. I figured she'd do her thing while she had them hostage down in the laundry.

So I sauntered down to breakfast feeling good; I hadn't realized how much my tight clothes had been bothering me. When I got to the ROTC table in the Dining Hall, a couple of the braver gobbos had grabbed seats; the others didn't seem to mind, so I let it go and tore into my breakfast. The second tray the maids brought to our table they dropped right in front of me, and when the lid came off, the distinctive aroma of sriracha filled my nostrils. I'd never been much of a sriracha girl back in the world of Eastside, but I needed to get my spice on, and sriracha scrambled eggs jumped up and down on the spicy button without letting up. I noticed another smaller tray of the same stuff delivered over to the gobbo table, and they tore into it with mixed results. Still, by the time I left the Dining Hall, all of it had gone down one hatch or another, so I figured it was a hit.

When I got to Remedial Mana Shaping, the teacher already had my desk set aside from the others, with some kind of weird contraption made of swiss-cheesed pipes and vacuum tubes set up right in front of the desk. Once I settled into my desk, they set up my personal bubble, then explained, "I put that together over the weekend. It should detect any excess radiation, magical or otherwise, within the bubble. Since the only source within the bubble will be yourself, it should allow me to determine the danger level of your pyrotechnics."

"Thanks! Do you mind if I try some new things today? I've been thinking about how to get my Status shaping down to where I might be able to get it as a Skill the way the Marshall wants us to."

They thought about it for a moment, then shook their head. "Only after you've shown me you have the basics of Assess Health and Stabilize."

I nodded, held up my left hand in the position for 'Assess Health', then arc-welded my way through the pattern for the Spell. I got a nasty little squork sound when I completed the Spell, and nothing but gray static on the window where Status would normally give me my stats. Mana Shaping nodded and said, "reasonably good form, excellent speed for someone of your experience. Now, Stabilize?"

I frowned. "I'm sorry, but..." I took a moment to psyche myself up, as Carruthers had just arrived in class, the second person to trickle in early. "I can't see Mana flows. I mostly just watched Sister Siobhan's hands for Assess Health."

That got raised eyebrows from the teacher, followed by puffed cheeks blowing out a breath. Carruthers grunted what I guessed was laughter, but I ignored it. The teacher just looked at me for a bit, then said, "so you've made this much progress without the ability to naturally see Mana?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Well. How fascinating. I think I can help you a bit." They waved a hand through my bubble, and I heard the faint popping sound of the Spell going down. They stepped closer and recast the bubble with themselves inside, then held out their hands. "I sorted out how to do this while testing the detector there. I can't do this too much without risking harming you, but I can at least let you see the flows once or twice." They proceeded to make a kind of glowing cat's cradle of Mana between their hands, finishing by placing their thumbs into the center of the cradle and, from what I could see, just pouring Mana into the center. "Normally, you'd use your thumbs to press the Mana into the target, and the framework would allow it to bolster their own natural healing processes enough to, well, Stabilize them."

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"What happens if you do it to someone who isn't bleeding out? Would it hurt them?"

They paused. "Not... exactly." They sighed, shook their head, then shrugged. "You know, I think everyone ought to experience Stabilize, just so they understand why some patients react poorly. Would you like to do so?"

I figured someone who went to all the trouble to invent a magical Geiger Counter just to make sure my Mana Shaping wouldn't kill anybody else wouldn't do anything really harmful to me. "Sure."

They leaned over and pressed the glowing pattern to my chest.

If you've ever licked a nine volt battery and felt that weird tingly sensation, you've got the beginnings of how Stabilize felt. If you've ever stuck anything metal into an electrical outlet, you definitely know how it felt, except that involuntary muscular twitch happened right over my sternum. In short, it stung like a bitch and left my chest aching a little, the way it does after a really good workout, or maybe closer to a really good stretch. "Ow," I muttered.

They smirked. "See what I mean?"

I nodded. "Yep. Uh, would you mind staying here while I try Assess Health again? I got some weird responses, I think because I couldn't aim it at anyone in the bubble."

They nodded. "Certainly."

I popped off another Assess Health, and this time got a screen with what looked like a bunch of medical diagnostic information. Heart rate, blood pressure, 'overall health', 'fatigue level', and a bunch of other less comprehensible stuff filled the window I'd created. I ignored all that, focusing on one particular entry right at the top of the list.

Name: Willie Roberts

I dismissed the Spell and smiled at Roberts. "Thanks, Mr. Roberts, it seems to be working," I said, only to be met with a pained wince. "I'm sorry, did I do something wrong?"

He shook his head. "I'm rather... unfond... of being called 'Mister'. I actually prefer to be referred to by my position, so 'Teacher', 'Instructor', or something similar is fine. 'Doctor Roberts' if you absolutely must."

I nodded at them. "Okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."

They smiled. "No offense taken; I don't think I've ever mentioned it to this class. Now, can you show me your Stabilize?"

I'd been a big fan of cat's cradle back in Camden; a game that requires nothing but some old string or rubber bands? A bit pricey for us back then, but between half a dozen of us we could normally scrounge enough for one or two people to play while the others watched. I whipped up the cradle I'd seen the teacher make and filled it with my thumbs. "I don't want to test this on you, but I really want to know it works. Should I test it on myself?"

That got a guffaw from Carruthers, and if he'd seen the instructor's rolled eyes and evil smirk, he'd have run when they waved the bubble away and said, "Carruthers, come over here please."

He did, and when he got close enough for me to reach his chest with my hands, Doc Roberts nodded. I lifted my hands and looked Carruthers in the eye. "You ready for this big guy?"

He just chuckled out something like, "yurp," and I pushed the center of my Stabilize into his chest. Apparently I'd put a bit more into it than the teacher had, because he went spread-eagled standing there right in front of me, standing on tiptoe and shuddering for a good couple seconds before stumbling back onto his heels with a colossal fart.

"Ow."

"Yeah, it stings, don't it?" I chose not to comment on his flatulence. I had some class, after all.

The teacher smacked their hands together and said, "Good enough. The detector seems to be working, and you didn't seem to let off much raw Mana at all with your Stabilize or your Assess Health, but I'm going to re-establish your protective shield just to be safe."

I hid my sigh and just said, "okay. Thanks, teach."

They smiled and put me back in my bubble.

I spent the rest of the morning tinkering with my Status spell. Specifically, I'd worked out that it didn't matter which thumb I pushed my Mana wire out of, so I tried other body parts. First the back of my hand, then the side of my elbow, and finally ditched my arms entirely and forced the arc-welder brightness of my Mana wire out from my left cheek, then through the triple circle for Status. I'd done the whole thing with my eyes closed, the actinic wire still visible through my eyelid. When the wires snapped together and dimmed, I opened my eyes to see a teeny tiny version of my dual Status screen hovering about half an inch in front of my left eye.

Beyond and behind that, the teacher stared me straight in the eye. "Is... is that a Status Spell?"

I nodded, the screen hovering right in front of my eye until I pushed it up and to the side with an effort of will. "Uh, yeah?"

"Remarkable," they breathed with an air of reverence. "Cadet Diaz, I find myself in the odd position of demanding that you stop experimenting without informing me first. Not something I ever envisioned myself saying in a Remedial Mana Shaping class, but here we are."

"Uh, sure. Why?"

"Because before you do, I'll be putting a much more extensive shield around you. Your current shield is designed to ground out raw Mana rather than allowing it to endanger your fellow students. If you're going to be doing completely unsupervised and unsanctioned magical research, I think you'll need something rather stronger than that."

I looked at them, confused on multiple levels. "If it's so dangerous, why aren't you telling me not to do it?"

They smiled. "Because I recall that same injunction never slowed me down in the slightest."