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Chapter Twelve
“Reload, please. The electric bolts were cool, so one of those, and do you have anything that goes BOOM?” I put in an order for James to fill. ”Wait, how do I pay for stuff I destroy as a Magical Girl?”
“Actually, that was covered in the, ah, Accidental Compensation for Destruction Commission Act in 2029.”
“Really? The ACDC Act? The oldies band my dad likes?”
“What band?” James seemed genuinely confused.
“...Nevermind. So I won’t get in trouble for blowing up parts of the school?”
“It’s called collateral damage, and no, not unless it’s pointless or targeted destruction.” James typed for a second, I felt empty, and two magazines for my bow shimmered into being. The blue one clipped onto my hand crossbow, while the orange one went into a pouch on my uniform’s belt. “You’re at 4 out of 60 mana. Be careful, okay? Just cut across the gym and into the locker room.”
“What about my level?” I wanted those points. My mana wasn’t coming back anywhere near fast enough to cast Feu-Follet and summon up weapons and ammunition.
“Check on the survivors first, get your level second.”
I’d never seen the gym this dark. The striped, green-and-white bleachers had been extended, covering much of the hardwood floor. They formed a stair up to a line of thin, translucent windows that let a soft, weak light through. The windows and the green of the ‘Exit’ signs over the doors, powered by emergency power, were the only lights shed on the basketball court. As I walked, though, a yellow light poured in through a door near the ticket booth.
I ducked down and sprinted toward the plastic bleachers, sliding under them as a Type Four stomped its way onto the gym floor. It balanced on three off-white tentacles like a tripod while the fourth, damaged, arm curled up around the basketball hoop above. I peered through the cracks in the bleachers. It was the same Type Four that I’d run from before!
It hoisted itself up onto the backboard, two limbs wrapped around it and two limbs hanging down. Then, it started panning its yellow light across the room. I watched from my hiding place as the light moved back and forth from the ticket booth to the locker rooms and back, over and over.
“It’s exhibiting siege behavior while the Type Twenty-One builds up Macks to overrun the survivors.” James’s voice in my ear surprised me. I’d been focused on the Type Four, panicking that it was hunting me! “There may be a window for you to run to the locker room. Just be patient.”
I waited as the Type Four’s spotlight swept across the court, past the three-point line, and paused to peer into the locker room’s open entrance. In the light I could see a pile of vented steel lockers blocking the gap. At the bottom was a hole. Would it be big enough for me to slide inside through? The Type Four’s eye moved back toward the other side.
I started running, keeping low. I glanced over my shoulder as I got closer to the locker barricade. The Mack’s eye had reached across the room and was swinging back toward me! I dove for the gap, slid my head and arms through, and started crawling forward.
“The hell are you doing, girl!?” I stopped and looked up at the overweight man whose shin I’d just headbutted. He grabbed me by the arm with one hand and pulled me through the gap, the other holding a hockey stick over my head.
I froze. My heart pounded in my chest. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark bags under them. The flannel shirt he’d worn to my graduation had tears in it, he sported a couple of deep-looking cuts that’d been half-treated, and his thin gray-brown hair was greasy. His long beard was unkempt, and he stank like stress and whiskey.
I had found Robert Pendleton. I had found my dad.
“Luciole,” James said urgently in my ear, “whoever this is, you need to be Luciole, not Alice.” I gulped. How was I supposed to be Luciole? I thought back to Overclock’s interactions with the shelter guards. She was so confident, so sure of what she said. I didn’t have her training, but could I pretend to have her authority?
“I asked what the hell you were doing out there. You coulda’ gotten killed. You coulda’ gotten us killed! Fuck.” I climbed to my feet and dusted off my dress, ignoring Dad as he swore at me. He couldn’t know who I was - I looked totally different than the last time he’d seen me - blonde hair and gold eyes instead of brown, with a totally different outfit - but he’d swear at me more if I were Alice.
I set my crossbow against the makeshift barricade and put my hands on my hips. “I’m Magical Girl Luciole, mister, and I’m here to get you and the others in the locker room to safety before the heavy hitters show up on both sides! I need two minutes alone to regroup from getting in here. Go get me whoever’s in charge,” I snapped. My cheeks grew warm, and I was happy everything was so dark.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“‘Bout damn time SHOCKS sent a Girl to help us. You gonna watch the barricade?” I nodded and he walked into the darkness.
“Status block, please,” I whispered. Dad couldn’t know, not yet, but that didn’t mean not telling him didn’t hurt.
Basics
Name: Pendleton, Alice (Luciole)
Level: 3
Class: _____
Color: Red
Mana: 7/60
HP: 32/40
Statistics
Str: 3
Agi: 4
Vit: 6
Will: 12
Soul: 9
Points: 3
Sigils: _
Rank: _
Skills
Perk: Fogform
Spells:
Mana Surge: Feu-Follet
Operator: James (Firefox)
“Okay, three points. Let’s put two in Soul and one in Vitality.”
“I agree with the Soul points, Luciole, but I’d go with Agility instead of Vitality. Your accuracy with that crossbow could use some help. It would also help you avoid injury.”
“If you’re sure I can stay alive out there, then let’s do it. Agility to five and Soul to 11!”
“All done, Luciole.”
I blinked away the status block and watched the Type Four from behind the barricade. It wasn’t doing anything, just hanging there and sweeping its light around the room. Eventually, it hopped down, piercing the floorboards, and stomped out.
“It’ll be back. Damn thing always comes back.” Dad grumbled. “Look, Miss, the boss is busy taking care of a few little kids or something, but you can go in and see him yourself. I’m gonna stay here and keep an eye on things. Been doing that a hell of a lot.” He reached for a bottle tucked into one of the lockers, unscrewed it, and took a long pull.
“Thank you,” I said and started weaving my way through the dark passage. Something burned ahead of me, a flickering light in the otherwise pitch-black locker room. When I got inside the locker room, my eyes started watering uncontrollably. My nose wrinkled against the smell of Scimitar body spray. The place reeked of it, like someone had emptied a can into a locker as a joke. A hanging phone provided a spot of light over someone in the middle of the floor, sitting next to another person, who just lay there.
“Miss, glad you’re here. Rebecca Navarro-Rodriguez. I’d shake, but I’m not clean.” I stared at the 40-something woman sitting on the ground for a second. Her Sunday outfit was soaked in blood, but most of it was dry, and her hands and dimpled face were cleaner than her clothes. She grinned sheepishly and stood up. “You should see the three guys I patched up. I saved two of them, but the third needs better care than I can give here.”
“Luciole. It’s…good to be here. Are you in charge? I need to know…one second.” I held up a finger and subvocalized to James. “What do I need to know?”
“How many of the survivors can move on their own power, how many can help those who can’t, and how quickly they can be ready to go.” James rattled off. “This place is defensible for the next hour, and after that it’s a deathtrap.”
“I need to know when you can have everyone ready to move. We’re going to go out through the gym - I’ve cleared the art wing already, so it’ll be safe once we’re there. My Operator says we have thirty minutes. Can you be ready to go by then?”
“That’s not what I said!”
“I think so,” Rebecca said. “Three of us would need help, and none of us are making it through the gym unless the machine out there goes away. It’s killed two people already - Arthur saw some wide, round machines carting off the corpses. Flat-backed things with short arms, but slow. The Mack in the gym, though…we won’t survive it with the wounded.”
“Type Nines are a resource gathering Mack. If they’re being produced, the Type Twenty-One is getting ready to harvest. We may have less time than I expected.”
I thought about the Type Four’s spiked tentacles tearing the door apart. About the robot looming over me, its red eye fixated as it reared back to kill me. About running from it with Overclock and only barely surviving. I shook my body out, took a deep breath, and breathed it out slowly like Sora said when she’d tried to teach me meditation.
“Okay. Here’s the plan, Mrs. Navarro-Rodriguez. I’m going to go fight the Type Four - that’s the machine that’s out there. You get everyone ready to leave. As soon as it’s busted up, we’ll move out into the art wing and from there, to the main hall. The stairs are just past there, on the left side of the hall for us. Get there, get everyone in the airlock even if I’m not with you, and you’re safe. Questions?”
“I guess not. Let’s do it. Okay, people, Miss Luciole is going to clear a path for us. We’re leaving in 15 minutes! Leave behind anything that’s not important, and take care of…” Rebecca’s voice faded with the light as I walked out of the Scimitar-scented locker room back to the barricade.
Dad was sitting there, watching. “It’s back again. Never more than a minute or two between leaving and coming back. Dammit, I could leave. I’d probably make it.”
“No, you can’t leave. Not yet. Rebecca’s getting everyone together to make a break for the shelter, though. Why don’t you go in and see if you can help?” I walked past him and took a knee next to the gap in the bottom of the locker pile.
Then I stopped. Dad needed something, and I could provide it. “Before I go, do you know a Mr. Pendleton or Miss Ito? I had a message for either of them, from, uh, Alice.”
For the first time since I slid under the barricade, Dad made eye contact with me. “She made it? She’s not caught up in this shit?” He reached toward the barricade and grabbed his bottle. Screwing off the lid, he continued. “I’m Rob Pendleton. Sora Ito didn’t come here. What’s Alice have to say?”
“Alice says…” I started, caught myself, and started again, “she says she made it to the shelter, and not to worry about her. She’s a big girl now, and she’ll be fine. All grown up, even. She says you just need to get yourself to the shelter too. That she misses you, and to…to remember that she loves you.”
I hugged Dad, and after a moment, he awkwardly patted me on the back. It wasn’t like hugging Dad, not really, but it was something. Even if he was drunk, even if he yelled at Jazzie and me, and even if…everything…he was my father. “Alice also told me to give you that. I have to go, but I’ll be back soon.” I crawled out of the tunnel, the sound of my dad’s quiet sobs of relief fading as I went to do battle with the waiting Type Four.