“You are chewing at some point in between swallowing your breakfast, right?” The amusement in Deveron’s voice was apparent, as he sat at the table in Crossroads’ cafeteria. The place was almost empty this early in the morning, though there were a few scattered groups engaged in their own conversations throughout the room. Enough to give the place a very slight hum of whispers. Excited ones at that, which was understandable given what today was.
The only other occupant of the table, Flick, looked up from her tray and snorted at him. “Hey, some of us think we should be ready to meet the people we’re supposed to mentor.”
Today was the first day of the school year. After a long, fairly uneventful summer (shocking basically every person involved) of splitting her time between the island and the Atherby camp where her father was living, Flick was finally ready for her second year as a Heretic. Or so she told herself. With everything that had happened over the previous school year, who knew what sort of trouble would present itself this time around. But she had been doing plenty of training in the off-months. Everyone had made certain of that. Especially given the fact that her birthday was rapidly approaching, with Fossor’s threat hanging over everyone’s head.
“Oh believe me, I was ready,” Deveron shot right back at his sort-of stepdaughter. “You think being that big of a douche comes naturally? I--hey, stop nodding, damn it, I had to practice!”
Snickering after taking another bite of her breakfast, Flick gave him a look. “Oh, yeah, sure.” Nodding sagely, she added, “I bet you had to take like a month of acting classes to be that much of a lazy dickwad.” She grinned around her fork as another comment popped into her head. “Did you play some improv games? Only instead of ‘yes and,’ it was ‘I don’t wanna.’”
Deveron coughed to hide his amused snort, shaking his head at her. “The point is, they’re not gonna be here for a couple more hours, and Virginia has them first. You’ve got plenty of time.”
“That’s what you think,” Flick informed him. “Valley wants me to meet her down in the gym right after this. Something about me not being able to hide behind mentor duties when it comes to staying in shape. I’m pretty sure she’s gonna push all of us even harder now.”
“Yeah, she can be pretty intense,” Deveron agreed, chuckling under his breath. “But that’s how you know she cares about you. And she really cares about you.”
The blush had just settled on the girl’s features before Sands and Sarah arrived, taking seats on opposite sides of Flick. Sands set her tray down and took a bite before speaking up. “I still think you should have to do this tour thing yourself, since you skipped out on it last time. And who was it that covered for you… oh yeah, us!”
“Sorry,” Deveron informed her unconvincingly, “Gaia has me working on something else today. But good luck with your whole thing. You guys sure you’re ready for this?”
Sarah spoke up with a firm, “Yes.” She exchanged a quick glance with her sister before adding a bit more quietly, “We’re ready for both parts.”
Both parts, in this case, referred to the overt mentoring they would be doing for the first year students, and to the more subtle work of identifying those younger students who might be receptive to learning the truth about so-called ‘Strangers.’ They wouldn’t be moving too quickly, of course. It would take months before they would be certain that one student or another was in the right frame of mind to turn away from the hardcore Crossroads teaching. But in the position of mentors and advisors, they would have all the opportunities they needed to find those particular students. They just had to be careful.
It was just like the early years of the first rebellion, back when they had been operating secretly right on Crossroads grounds. And this time, they wouldn’t have Liam Mason expose them and force the whole ‘quiet’ rebellion to become very loud. His daughters were very much not him.
Not that Liam was around that much at the moment anyway. He was still trying to convince Larissa that they could work things out, even though she told him she needed time apart and that she had changed too much over the course of her exile. She left what she had been up to and exactly how she had changed vague, of course. She didn’t let her husband know how she really felt about non-humans and the entire Crossroads/Heretic situation. The sad part was that she didn’t trust him enough for that. And it was that realization, understanding that she could not trust her husband, that made her decide she had to separate from him even so soon after coming back. It was a horrible feeling, yet one that Sands and Sarah both understood.
As far as Liam was concerned, Larissa had become very devoted to being out on the hunt. Since she returned, she had gone back to being a full field-Heretic. Which she used as an excuse for that separation. She told him she had become a different person in the years they were apart, and that she still cared about what happened to him, she just… wasn’t that Larissa. She wasn’t the one he knew and had married. Going out on the hunt constantly gave her opportunities to sneak Alters to safety while pretending she had killed them. It was a dangerous line to walk, but hardly as dangerous as the years she had spent in Seosten space.
Sands and Sarah had been splitting their time between both parents, doing their best to pretend they didn’t know exactly why their mother didn’t want to be around their father anymore. Some part of them, buried as it might’ve been, still held out some wish that when it came down to it, he might finally make the right choice. That deepest part of the twins secretly and fervently hoped their father had learned his lesson from the mistakes he made before, or that he would simply choose to believe his own children and wife when he had refused to believe his friends all those years ago. They hoped he was different. But they didn’t rely on it. This situation was too dangerous for that.
And when it came down to it, they, like their mother, simply didn’t trust him.
******
Some time later, after the promised long workout with Avalon, Flick and the twins were walking together along the grass. Sands tossed a small rubber ball back and forth between her hands while remarking, “You know Ruthers tried to say you shouldn’t be a mentor?”
“Quelle surprise,” Flick retorted. “I wouldn’t be shocked if he tried to get me held back, or even expelled. Or worse, sent to him for one-on-one tutoring so he could keep an eye on me.”
“Who’s keeping an eye on you?” Shiori asked while jogging up to meet them. She was still holding a half-eaten muffin in one hand and yawned widely. “You guys get up too early. You know you don’t have to meet the freshmen for another twenty minutes?” She nodded toward Flick. “She doesn’t need sleep, but you guys aren’t that lucky.”
“We’re good,” Sands informed her. “What about you? You uhh, do realize you actually have to go to class this morning, right?”
With another yawn, Shiori shrugged. “I’ll be fine. But really, this is why I wanna get a size-shifting power so I can get more rest.”
The other three exchanged confused looks before Flick, already looking like she knew she would in some way regret the words, asked, “How will a size-shifting power help you get more rest?”
With a bright grin, Shiori sagely replied, “So I can make myself taller. That way, when I’m laying in bed, I can sleep longer.”
“Sleep long--” Flick stopped, hanging her head with a groan while the other girl snickered. “Oh, my god.” With that, she caught both sides of Shiori’s face with her hands, leaning in to gently kiss her. “Okay, okay, muffin-mouth. You should probably get ready for class. Unlike us official mentors, you still have to be there.” She stressed the word ‘official’ because, while Shiori wouldn’t technically be on the list of mentors, she would actually be helping the hybrid students who would be starting this year. For obvious reasons, that particular job couldn’t go on any actual records. For the moment, the majority of Crossroads’ staff remained unaware that the Heretical Edge was capable of turning half-humans into Heretics. Those new hybrids would need guidance and direction, explanation for what they were. Shiori, after everything she had gone through herself at the beginning of last year, wanted to be there for others.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Yeah, yeah,” the girl teasingly retorted before leaning into a second kiss. “I just wanted to wish you guys good luck.”
“Well,” Sands informed her, “in our cases, I think we’ll just accept a hearty handshake for good luck instead of that whole thing.” She gestured encompassingly at the way the two of them were embracing while grandly declaring. “We are not jumping into Flick’s harem.”
“I knew it,” Koren declared while stepping up to join the group. She could barely keep her expression somewhat straight while pointing at the girl in question. “I knew you were starting a harem.”
With a groan, Flick caught Koren’s finger. “First of all, niece, you know I still have my item sense, right? I know you were standing there long enough to hear the whole context of that quote.”
Grinning while her finger remained held by Flick, Koren casually replied, “I’m just saying, I’ve got my eye on you, Aunt Flick. And for the record, that’s not supposed to discourage you. In fact, if you get a third romantic partner, I win a pretty big bet. So have at it.”
Again, Flick’s gaze dropped as she muttered, “Oh, my god.” That blush deepened before she cleared her throat and looked up again, her gaze finding Shiori and the incredibly amused expression there. “I think I’m just fine with who I’ve got, thanks. There’s only so many hours in a day, even if I do barely sleep.” Her free hand reached out to gently cup Shiori’s cheek. “I’m happy just the way things are.”
Finally extricating her finger, Koren waved that off. “Sure, sure. I’m still gonna keep the marker for the relationship chart handy though. You know, just in case.”
“You know,” Shiori mused, “some part of me thinks I should be offended by this. But another part really wants to know just who you made that bet with.”
The others all focused on Koren for an answer to that, but before she had to either answer or make up an excuse, they were interrupted by the sound of a couple dozen students excitedly talking together in the distance. Of course, Flick’s group’s actual conversation was hidden behind multiple privacy spells, but they still fell silent while turning that way. The loudly chattering teenagers were being led by Professor Dare down toward the lighthouse.
“There they go,” Sands murmured, “the freshmen Bystander-kin.” She gave a low whistle thing. “What do you think they’re gonna be like?”
“We’ll find out pretty soon,” Flick informed her. “We should probably start heading that way. You know, so we can be there once they come out of the visions.” She paused, thinking about her own first moments as a Heretic, and everything that had come after. “It’s a lot to go through.”
“Don’t worry, Flick,” Sands assured her while patting the other girl on the back, “they’ll have us to talk to and help them out.” She paused, considering for a moment. “On second thought, having you as a mentor might make your team more likely to get into trouble.”
“Oh, yeah,” the blonde retorted, “and I’m sure your team will never, ever end up needing to be rescued from evil troll-monsters or anything.”
Sands gave a pointed sniff at that. “I’m just saying, we’ll see whose team gets in trouble first. I bet--” She fell silent as her sister covered her mouth.
“No more betting,” Sarah quietly insisted, her eyes centered on the backs of the younger students as they were led to the lighthouse. “It’s already dangerous here."
“Don’t worry, Sarah,” Flick put in, “bad things might happen this year too, but we’ll be ready for them.
“And we’ll make sure those new guys down there are ready to deal with them too.”
*******
After spending an hour or so leading the brand-new Heretics over the school grounds on a tour, including allowing them to check out their new rooms a bit, Flick and the twins got the group to eat lunch together and then released them to wander around and see things for themselves. The three of them would be walking back and forth across the grounds themselves, in plain view and ready to answer any questions which would inevitably arise. They did, however, split up a bit so they could be visible from more places at once. Not that they were hard to find anyway. With the other older students in classes, the grounds were pretty empty, aside from the exploring Bystander-kin, and the new students who had grown up as part of the Crossroads world.
Which left Flick standing near the line protecting the Pathmaker building, as Tabbris approached. The young blonde girl wore a version of the Crossroads pants uniform which was small enough to actually fit her, and a tiny cyberform creature perched on her right shoulder. It looked like a cross between a fish and a parrot, particularly considering the girl had painted it a mix of bright, swirly colors (mostly purple, pink, and blue) rather than leave it as the default silver. This, of course, was the ‘flying fish’ Columbus had helped build for her over the summer during his internship with Harrison Fredericks, the man responsible for the original creation of cyberforms to begin with.
“Hey, Tabby!” Flick greeted her, using the name the girl had originally introduced herself with. It was the name others in Crossroads knew her as. Of course, they also believed that she was Virginia Dare’s long-lost granddaughter, who had been abducted from the hospital after the death of her parents and raised by the ‘bodysnatcher people’ whom Flick and the others had reported being behind so many of the problems over the past year.
As far as the general public of Crossroads was concerned, Tabby had been one of that group’s prisoners, who eventually helped the students escape. They also believed that she was being used by the bodysnatchers to gain much of the access they’d had, thanks to her blood being so close to Professor Dare’s, as far as magic was concerned. Early in the summer, Dare and several other adults (who happened to know the truth) had ‘rescued’ her. Though, of course, not before Tabby had become a ‘Natural Heretic’ of the bodysnatcher people so her lack of Bystander Effect and other gifts could be explained.
That whole thing also, of course, helped explain why she was close to Flick. The two had supposedly been in a cell together while held captive by those enemies. Having an older girl to latch onto for the first time had given Tabby the encouragement she’d needed to help everyone else escape. And now that she was free, that attachment had only strengthened.
It was a fairly convoluted story, yes. But it explained their closeness, provided a reason for Tabbris to have the powers she did, and allowed her to walk around on Crossroads as herself. She would be attending special tutoring classes given by those very few adults Gaia and Dare trusted to know the whole story, but insisted on wearing a version of the school uniform anyway.
Meanwhile, her actual mother, Sariel, was living at the Atherby camp and working on researching ways to either prolong the truce with the Seosten that had been established over the summer (thanks to giving the Empire what they needed to reopen a way into Tartarus), or protect the planet from them in some other way. Gaia and Gabriel Prosser had created a link between the headmistress’s office and the camp so that people like Tabbris and the Moon twins could pass through to visit their mother (and father in the case of Vanessa and Tristan) whenever they liked. And so Flick could visit her own father, of course. Having the easy doorway made everything much more convenient, even if it did have to be hidden away in Gaia’s private rooms.
“Hey, Scary.” Flick greeted the cyberform perched on the other girl’s shoulder. Being the authority on fish that she was, Tabbris had already known that there actually were fish known as ‘parrotfish.’ Which, of course, looked nothing like fish with parrot wings, and certainly couldn’t fly. Still, the name existed. Their scientific name was Scarus frenatus, which Tabbris had adjusted to ‘Scary Fren/Friend’ for his name. Even if only the second part of that fit, considering how incredibly friendly and cheerful he was. To the point where, even now, he gave a bright, enthusiastic chirp and flew off Tabbris’s shoulder to hover in front of Flick’s face until she lifted her hand for him to land on. Then he preened, clearly expecting to be petted.
With a chuckle, Flick obliged while looking back to her little sister. “So, what do you think of the new kids so far?” She knew that the girl had been checking in on things through their connection as the tour went on.
Making a show of tilting her head first one way, then the other, Tabbris offered, “I dunno yet. That tall guy with the spiky green hair was Rory Dunn, right?”
“The troll hybrid, yeah,” Flick confirmed. “We’ll have to talk to him later. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know exactly what he is yet, just that he’s always been strong and hard to hurt. But that’s gonna start escalating really quick. Especially now that he’ll be in real fights.”
Tabbris started to nod, before abruptly blurting, “Scary Face!”
It was a test. Not for Flick, but for Scary Fren. The cyberform immediately leapt into the air and spun around, his body shifting and transforming while the wings, along with the legs and talons, split off from the main body entirely. While Tabbris stood patiently, each wing wrapped itself around her outstretched hands to become a pair of protective metal gloves. The legs and talons became sharp claw-blades that could extend from under her wrist. Meanwhile, the rest of the fish-parrot’s body flattened itself out and stretched across her face to become a bright, almost terrifying-looking mask. Their eyes lined up so she was seeing through his like lenses. Lenses which could, at any point, project beams of either super-hot or super-cold energy. The talons attached to the underside of the gloves, meanwhile, could shoot outward like grappling hooks, which were capable of sticking to any surface so the girl could pull herself that way. Or pull other things (and people) to her.
Despite the fact that her grin was hidden behind the mask, Flick could hear it in Tabbris’s voice as the girl cheerfully exclaimed, “See?! He’s even faster at changing now.”
Smiling, Flick reached out to brush a hand over the terrifying-looking mask covering her sister’s face. “You’re definitely both getting better at that. I take it the adjustments Columbus made to the neck and head strap are helping?”
Tabbris’s head bobbed rapidly. “Uh huh, he’s not too tight anymore. Right, Scary?”
There was an answering chirp from the mask itself, and Flick chuckled. “Great. Cuz I’m pretty sure we’re gonna be glad you have your own weapon before too long.” That said, she settled a hand on her sister’s shoulder and turned to look out over the grounds, at the assorted pairs and trios of new students wandering around in the distance to check out their new home.
“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say this year is going to be even more ridiculous than the last one.”