Loop Two - Chapter Eight

By all rights they should have been at that morning’s orientation.

Instead, the whole team was up at the crack of dawn and off to the cafeteria. Cassy was very much not in the mood for it, and she let everyone know until they stepped into the cafeteria and she was assaulted by the smells of breakfast.

“Oh, wow,” Jade said as she took in the buffet tables.

“I’ll punch in four orders,” Morgan said. “After gym we can head over to admin and get your stuff.”

“So, that’s today’s schedule?” Amber asked. “A big breakfast, then we do some training for a few hours?”

Morgan stepped up to the counter with the plates and started setting trays aside for them. “That’s what I was thinking. A few hours of training in the morning, then lunch. We gather all of your things, then more training in the afternoon?”

“Uh. Look, I’m down for a bit of training. I’m not that lazy. But training all day? With no breaks?” Cassy asked.

“We’ll have lunch for a break.”

“That’s what I said: no breaks,” Cassy replied.

Morgan gave her a flat look, but Amber jumped in before it could turn ugly. “I think you’re both somewhat right. Morgan, I appreciate the schedule. It’ll help a lot. But Cassy’s also right; we can’t train all day, every day. And no, before you say it, it’s not special because it’s the weekend. I’m down for daily training, but I don’t want to exaggerate.”

“You’re the one who... who suffered most from insufficient training,” Morgan pointed out.

“Yeah, I know,” Amber said. “And I do want to live, but not if it means that living is nothing but non-stop training.”

Jade leaned against the edge of a counter so she could reach a large spatula into a hot pan full of hashbrowns. “We could do interval things in the afternoons instead? I don’t know if Morgan had something special for training? Like a plan?”

“I’ll admit that I didn’t, not yet,” Morgan said. “I thought that we could do simple physical exercise today, learn our limits, then maybe do some combat training?”

Amber hesitated over the kind of eggs she wanted. They had different plates with different sorts. In the end, she picked up one of each and slid them onto her plate. Then, because Cassy’s plate wasn’t a stack yet, she piled some onto hers. “Try these, you’ll like them.”

“Uh,” Cassy said as she stared at her plate.

“Oh, and this ham stuff; it’s, like... smoked? It’s really good.” Amber grabbed a few slices after clacking the tongs together to test them, and slapped them atop of Cassy’s eggs. “And don’t forget some veggies. But, uh, yeah, sorry, I got distracted. Combat training?”

“I figured we could do three versus one?” Morgan said.

That snapped Cassy out of her staring contest with her breakfast. “Like, us three versus you?”

“Yes,” Morgan said.

“You’re real confident.”

Amber shrugged. “She’ll probably win. I’ve seen Morgan fight. It’s... I was going to say ‘not pretty’ but it’s only not pretty if you have to fight her. She’s fast.”

The team moved over to a table and sat relatively close together, or as close as they could manage with over-full trays before them. Cassy’s plate is still a bit on the emptier side, but it’s not as bad as it once was. Maybe we’ll manage to get her to eat a good amount by tricking her into it.

Amber was a little horrified by how quickly they cleared their plates. She was just thankful none of the people who had cooked their breakfast were around to see them shovelling food down while barely tasting it.

“I didn’t know I was so hungry,” Jade said as she leaned back into her seat.

“We’re... we’re not actually doing any sort of training after this, right?” Cassy asked.

“You’re a magical girl; you won’t lose your lunch so easily,” Morgan said.

“But this was breakfast,” Cassy replied.

Morgan glared.

Amber decided to skip on getting a second plate, and it seemed that her friends felt the same way. She did make sure Cassy finished everything before the group stood and dropped their things off.

Morgan led them over to the gyms. “We can start with a quick run around the track, I think,” Morgan said. “As magicals, you’ll be faster and stronger already, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become even faster with some training, and getting to know your limits and how you move with your new speed and strength will be invaluable.”

“Sounds boring,” Cassy said.

“It’s invaluable,” Morgan repeated. “If you were to fight now, you’d be stumbling and falling a lot.”

“How would you know?” Cassy asked.

Morgan spun around, her pace staying the same as she walked backwards. “I can see you walking. Jade and Amber too, though Amber isn’t quite as bad.”

Amber looked down to her feet, then watched Jade and Cassy walking next to her. They looked pretty normal. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s subtle,” Morgan said. “The way you shift your weight, there’s... I guess a tiny bit of uncertainty. Humans walk in a way that’s meant to prevent injury. It’s more about stability and balance. A magical girl doesn’t need to worry about spraining her ankle, so you can put efficiency of movement as your top priority.”

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“Didn’t know that,” Amber said. She bounced a few times as she walked. She did feel lighter as a magical girl than she’d felt as a... normal girl. Was it that big of a difference though?

“Can’t we skip all the running around stuff?” Cassy asked. “It’s hardly as if I’ll need to move much to kick uptight’s butt.”

Morgan veered off to the side, and Amber blinked. The gyms were very much not in the direction they were now heading.

“Um,” she said.

“If Cassy wants to fight first, then that’s what we’ll do,” Morgan said with all of the bored patience of a parent about to give their child exactly what they’d asked for.

This is going to be interesting, at least, Amber thought as she kept up with Morgan. They slid through a wide alley between the student club buildings, and then crossed the bridge over to the north side of the campus.

Morgan beelined to the same building where they’d had their first combat lesson—or where they would be having that lesson in a couple of days.

There was a small screen on a podium just inside, and Morgan paused there to tap in a few things. “You’re already on the roster,” she said. “That makes it easier. Come, we have room three.”

Room three was a large, empty hall with padded walls and a wooden floor that made Amber think of a basketball court. The ceiling was also padded, big cushions hanging off of the steel struts above. The lights were all squeezed into the corners and edges of the room.

Morgan stepped up to the middle of the room, her arm shooting out to the side even as she walked and her rapier appeared between one swipe and the next. When she turned to face them, she was fully dressed and equipped as a magical girl.

“No need to worry,” Morgan said. “I’ll use the flat. Now, come on, change.”

“Is she serious?” Cassy asked.

“I think so,” Jade said. She tugged at her scarf which unfolded and wrapped itself around her. Cassy began her own little dance, eyes sparkling with excitement, and Amber sighed as she started her own transformation.

“Okay, I think we should just take a moment to plan this out,” Amber said.

Morgan’s going to be really tough to take out, especially since we basically have no teamwork to rely on. I don’t even think the others know what they can do.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Cassy said.

“No, wait!” Amber said.

The fight started without any sort of fanfare. One moment Morgan was standing a dozen metres away, the next she was flipping upside-down in midair as Cassy twisted gravity around.

Amber swore and flung some knives ahead of her. She threw them back-end first, straight arcs that wouldn’t stab Morgan. Not that she had to worry.

Morgan spun in mid-fall, stabbed the end of her sword into the ground and arrested her fall. Her twisting motion continued, the tip of a foot catching on the guard of her sword even as she coiled up and knelt against the handle, basically crouching vertically before them.

“Oh, shi--” Cassy started.

Amber threw a second brace of knives at Morgan, but the girl casually summoned a second sword from thin air and slapped them away with motion so quick Amber couldn’t see more than a blur.

And then Morgan shot towards them.

Cassy squeaked and flew backwards, almost ramming into Jade, who stumbled to the side.

The shorter girl cast her arm out, scarf shooting forwards and opening wide like a net.

Morgan slid out of the area of Cassy’s magical effect, tapped the ground with her hand in a slap that sounded like a gunshot, and flung herself to the side and out of Jade’s reach. Her shoes squealed against the floor, and she knelt down into a runner’s stance a moment before firing off towards them again.

Amber flung more knives at her, but she ducked and weaved out of their way as she sprinted towards Cassy.

Cassy took to the air, clinging onto her broom for all she was worth.

Morgan jumped, and in a blink she was in front of Cassy, a half dozen metres in the air and spinning around.

The back of Morgan’s hand snapped out and, with a meaty smack, impacted the side of Cassy’s face so hard the other blonde was sent flying into the nearest wall with a dull thump.

Morgan landed, and Cassy’s broom clattered to the ground next to her.

She turned towards Amber and Jade.

“Can we surrender?” Jade asked.

“No,” Morgan said as she started walking their way.

Amber tugged out two knives and held them before her. Not going to use my time powers here. I’m going to get beaten either way.

Amber discovered that she was very right about being beaten. Morgan cut in close and casually pushed aside any attempt Amber made to cut or stab her. Even recalling all of her thrown weapons to stab Morgan from behind only had the girl widening her eyes for a split second.

Morgan got tired of playing with her food, because the next thing Amber knew, she was waking up on the floor with the world spinning around her.

“Did we win?” Cassy asked from her position in the corner imitating a pile of dirty laundry.

***