Rafferty leaned forward, spearing another piece of debris with her blade. She lifted it carefully, and sent it flying toward one of the garbage cans with a flick of her wrist. When it dropped in, rattling against the sides, Rafferty felt more pride that she would have thought.

The large metal bin listed to the right, sunk six inches into the mud. They'd filled up four already, and this one was nearly halfway. There was always a lot of cleanup after a squall. Leaks to be fixed. Equipment to be repaired. Garbage strewn across the fields to be picked up.

Tons and tons of garbage.

Max had apparently decided that now was as good a time as any to get J Hall and B Hall back to work, so Rafferty found herself and the others, along with the girls from H Hall, clearing the west fields, each step a squishy mess.

Rafferty stabbed down at most of an apple, and missed, the blade sinking into the mud. She had time to think a single word

Balls.

before the handle sparked violently. Rafferty shouted, and dropped the sword, and tried to shake the pain from her hand. When the worst of it passed, she muttered a few unkind words under her breath, and snatched the weapon out of the mud.

When she straightened up, Seth was looking at her.

"You want to tell me why you're using a sword to pick up trash? And how you managed to hurt yourself doing it?" Seth asked.

Rafferty hated her backup blade. She hated that it was too short. She hated the grip on the handle. She hated the uncomfortable way it sat on her hip. But more than anything else, she really, really hated the sparking.

There was a flaw in its design. If you swung and missed, Blue sparks erupted from the handle. And it hurt. A lot. It was as if the Blue couldn't stay in the blade, had nowhere else to go, and since you had failed to deliver it to the intended target, it was going to go ahead and punish you for it.

She really ought to have taken it back to the Engineers, and let them fix it, but Rafferty hated the thing so much she hadn't bothered. She wasn't going to use it anyway.

About the only thing it was good for was picking up trash.

"It's this stupid blade. It sparks when I miss," Rafferty said.

Seth scrunched up her face.

"Can I try?" Seth asked.

"Really?" asked Rafferty.

Seth held out her hand.

Rafferty passed her the sword, wondering if she should warn Seth just how much it hurt.

Seth swung the sword through the air, and Rafferty saw the sparks after the blade stopped moving. Seth's eyes got big, but she choked down the pain.

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"Excellent," Seth said softly.

"Hey Kat, get over here!" she shouted to her hall mate.

Katrin arrived in a single, long jump.

She's probably happy for any excuse to give up on garbage duty.

"Swing this sword," Seth said.

"Why?" Katrin asked suspiciously.

"Because I said so. Are you scared?" Seth asked.

Katrin cocked an eyebrow.

"Here, look, it's nothing," Seth said, and swung the sword. Rafferty noticed her eyes go big, but once again she didn't make a noise.

"See, it sparks. It doesn't hurt or anything. Here," Seth said.

"I bet you can make more sparks than Seth," Rafferty offered, and she saw the corner of Seth's mouth twitch.

"What's wrong with it?" Katrin asked, eyeing the weapon as she turned it around in her hand.

"It's just stupid," Rafferty said.

Katrin stepped back, and swung the sword hard, with a flourish, intent on winning the spark contest. The Blue popped and hissed, and Katrin yelped, and dropped the blade.

Seth let out gales of laughter. Rafferty tried to hold hers back, but was only partially successful.

Katrin's wide, confused eyes quickly narrowed.

"Bitches!" she said, her voice a mixture of amusement and outrage.

"There's something else it can do," Rafferty said, and that got their attention. "We figured it out one day when we were a bit… tipsy."

On an afternoon the year before, J Hall had passed around bottles of dark beer, and indulged in a contest, hilarious at the time, to determine which of them could tolerate the most shocks from Rafferty's defective weapon. Quite by accident, they discovered that if you twisted your wrist, just a bit, immediately after the miss, the Blue would just sit there, in a ball, near the top of the handle. If you did it multiple times, the ball of Blue got bigger and bigger.

And if you should drop the blade, and release the ball… you got a heck of a bang.

Rafferty explained to this Katrin and Seth.

"Sheridan was the best at controlling it. She could swing it, like, eight times. At the end, she blasted Cody totally out of the north field. From like, the big rock, all the way past the second road, the dirt one," Rafferty said.

"No way," Katrin and Seth said at the same time.

The B Hall girls looked at each other.

"Not it," they said together.

"I'll do it. Babies," said Brianna, walking up to the group.

An argument ensued about which of them would get to launch Brianna, ending with Brianna snatching the sword and thrusting it toward Katrin.

"Go for it, boss," Brianna said.

Katrin managed four swipes of the blade, growing the ball of Blue to about the size of a grapefruit, before dropping it at Brianna's feet. Brianna shot nearly straight up into the air, until she was a toy soldier version of herself, high above their heads.

Tiny Brianna thrust her hands out to her sides, her gloves glowing blue, slowing her descent and controlling the fall. As Tiny Brianna became Less Tiny Brianna, Seth spoke.

"We should move."

The group scattered as Brianna crashed to the earth, spraying mud in a great, filthy circle. Rafferty ducked her head, mud landing in her hair with a splat. She flicked her hair, switching its color to a deep chocolate brown, so it would look at least somewhat normal.

When she looked up, a mud-streaked Brianna, still calf deep in the squishy field, was howling with delight.

They had everyone's attention now.

"Are we doing that again?" asked Blaspheme, dropping an armload of trash back on the field.

"No," said Cody. "No. No. No. No. NO. Last time my lip did this quivery thing for like three weeks after."

"I don't know. It was kind of fun," said Sheridan with a smirk.

Beckett came bounding over in three short leaps, her boots glowing blue.

"I'm in. I'm so in. Whatever this is, I'm totally in," said the H Hall skip.

"It's Rafferty's backup blade," said Katrin.

"It's stupid," said Rafferty.

They told her how it worked, Beckett yanking it out of Katrin's hands in her excitement. She got sparked a few times, but Beckett was a talented striker, and quickly got the hang of holding the ball of Blue at the top of the handle.

"Yo, Bolt, get the hell over here," said Beckett.

Bolton, one of Beckett's hall mates, wandered over. Bolton was the sort of person that you never saw with a hair out of place, even picking up trash in a muddy field. When she got to Becket, she folded her arms.

"Wanna fly? I hear it's fun," said Beckett, drawing out the last word.

"Not particularly," said Bolton.

"Well, that's too bad," said Beckett, stepping right up to Bolton. "But I guess someone shouldn't have missed their trick on the last mission and earned herself three demerits. I'm cashing in."

H Hall had long had a reputation as one of the Abbey's best performing halls, and they had a lot of their own traditions and vernacular. Rafferty had lived with them for years, and still didn't really understand what demerits were or how they worked.

Bolton sighed, and uncrossed her arms.

Nearly everyone was gathered now. Each time Beckett swung, and the ball got bigger, a murmur went through the group. She got up to six before she dropped the sword, and Bolton flew across the field like one of Sheridan's arrows.

"Damn," said Beckett.

"She is not gonna like landing in mud," said Morrison, another of the H Hall Hunters.

There were high fives, and hollers, and a discussion about who was going next.

"Um… guys," said Blaspheme.

There was an intense blue glow at the far end of the field. It was getting larger, and brighter.

"I did not know she brought her rings," said Beckett.

"Oh God, is she going to candle?" asked Cody.

"I'm sure she understands it was all in fun," said Sheridan. "Besides, she agreed—"

"No, we should run. Now," said Beckett.

And they did.