School was back on the next morning, so Kyle and Jenny found themselves walking out that way again. They had a lot on their minds. Or at least Kyle did. Jenny was excitedly pointing out kinds of bird she'd never heard of.

“And that's a Bluejay?” Jenny asked.

“I think so,” Kyle said.

“Are there other colors of Jays?”

“I uh, I actually don't know.” Kyle scratched his head. “I only ever really heard of the blue ones. But it makes sense right?”

“Any idea what you want to spend your other nodes on?”

It took Kyle a moment to catch up to this change of topic.

“No idea yet,” Kyle shook his head. “I mean I don't even really know what the options are. Tanya seemed kind of frazzled by the whole thing.”

“She's strange,” Jenny said. “I think the part where she's angry isn't really her. Or it's not all her. I think she feels like she needs to act like she's angry for some reason.”

“I don't know,” Kyle said. “If I understood people my life would have been very different in this town.”

By the time they got to the school there were still people running around all over, from the gas company and fire department. The area where Kyle had blasted his magical lightning whatever was cordoned off with tape, and emergency workers were stomping all around it. Kyle heard some of their conversation as he headed into school.

“I'm telling you there's no gas lines here.”

“Then what the hell exploded Harry? Can you tell me that?”

“Honestly? Looks like a lightning strike. And this grass is looking at me funny. Like it....knows...things....”

“Check again for gas.”

“There's nothing on the detector.”

“Well something's gotten into your brain...”

Well that was worrying. Was it possible for the magic he used last night to do something to the ground? Kyle hoped he hadn't had TOO severe a magical effect on the school grounds and hurried into the building. Or at least he tried to, because what he actually did was slam right into Betty, knocking both of them to the ground.

“Oh no!” Jenny said. “Are you both alright?”

“I'm fine,” Kyle said.

“I am also perfectly alright,” Betty said distractedly.

“Betty!” Kyle said, finally registering who he was talking to. “I haven't seen you since the other night! You didn't answer your phone! What happened?”

“Oh I was...busy,” Betty said, her eyes darting all over the place.

“You sure?” Kyle pressed. Distracted was normal for Betty, but this was more distracted than usual. “You're acting a little...well, I just want to be sure you're okay.”

“Yes,” she said, looking around nervously. “Have you, by any chance, seen...a cat?”

“Lately? No,” Kyle shook his head. “What kind of cat?”

“That remains the worrying question,” Betty muttered. “No cat? No...cat shaped clouds? Or shapes like a cat in the brickwork?”

“No nothing like that,” Kyle said. “Why are you so worried about cats?”

“The question is why cats are so worried about me,” Betty said. “Or, more likely, I am beginning to go insane. We had both better hurry into class.”

“I'm looking forward to more chemistry!” Jenny said, punching the air.

As they ran into the building, none of them noticed the two spikes in the dirt. The spikes crumbled away as soon as the two of them had left, as if they had never been there. But before they did they looked exactly like the ears of a cat.

And that wasn't the only strange thing going on at school that morning.

Gloria “Goldie” Goodman was the school's third princess, and of a type with Ammeline. They both considered themselves unparalleled beauties, they both thought of themselves as modern royalty, and neither of them was shy about telling people. They were also both blonde, although Goldie kept her hair straight and long as opposed to Ammeline's thick, looping curls.

Where they differed was in their ambitions. Ammeline wanted to be a senator, maybe president someday, big and shiny and out there in public. Goldie thought that was stupid. The real power was in quiet success in the background. So while Ammeline had run for student council, and joined the fencing team, and generally made herself as public as possible in every possible way...Goldie had joined the chess club.

She was president, of course.

The chess club was exactly what she needed. It stimulated her brain, it looked good on transcripts and applications, and it helped her make the sort of friends who liked chess club. Many of them would be future accountants, lawyers, tax collectors. In short, people she could use. And while she didn't have any particular disdain for people she couldn't use, she preferred ones she could.

The chess club tended to arrive early, to get some extra practice in. With school starting they were just wrapping up morning practice when Evan walked in.

Evan Warnick. Known attempted peeping tom. Generally considered obnoxious, though kept in check by the other quiet kid. Carl? Something like that. An occasional nuisance if he leered too openly at her in the hallway, but generally not someone she took the time to consider.

“And how can we help you?” She asked, looking up from her game. “As you can see, we're practicing right now.”

She was expecting the usual reply to that, something about why do they need to practice when all they do is play board games. Depending on how rudely he said it she had a list of eighty seven replies stashed away in her head ranging from “oh it's actually much more complex than that” to “wanna see where I can shove this chessboard?”

Evan was the first person in five years she didn't have a prepared response ready for.

“Your performance this year has been pathetic,” Evan declared. It took Goldie a second to catch up.

“I'm sorry what?” Goldie asked.

“I said you're pathetic,” Evan said. “A collection of brain dead morons who wouldn't know king's pawn from a hole in the ground. The chess club is a waste of valuable school funds which could go to a program with competent members.”

“We're third in the state!” Someone shouted from the back of the room.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“More like third-rate!” Evan said with a snicker at his own joke. “Furthermore you all dress like hobos and your mothers sleep with barnyard animals.”

“MY MOTHER IS A SAINT!” roared one of the club members, and Goldie held a hand out to keep him steady. Chess enthusiasts could be surprisingly volatile people. She checked around the room. Seven other members of the chess club besides her, and all of them about ready to beat Evan to death with a desk.

“Your name's Evan right?” Goldie asked through gritted teeth. “Is there a point to this, or are you just here to annoy me? Because if that's what it is you've succeeded, and you can leave now.”

“I am here to prove your pathetic inadequacy,” Eric said. “I propose that you are all so useless that I could beat every single one of you. And I don't mean alone, that would be too pathetic for words I couldn't even pretend it was a challenge. No, I mean that I could beat this entire chess club at once.”

“That's ridiculous!” Someone shouted. “Even grandmasters can't handle that many games at the same time!”

“They're right,” Goldie said. “The challenge is ridiculous. Have you ever even played chess? What you're talking about is impossible.”

“Oh really?” Evan grinned and pulled out a wad of bills. “Bet you fifty bucks? Each.”

They day went pretty normally, which Kyle found endlessly frustrating. Last night had not been normal, at all, and what he wanted were explanations. He did not want history class. Or even chemistry class. Which wasn't particularly fun for...a lot of reasons.

For one thing, Betty and Evan both weren't there. Betty's lab partner seemed hopelessly lost, and Kyle had a sneaking suspicion Betty had been doing most of the work all semester. Ammeline, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of her life as she moved her way through the experiment...which had, apparently, been perfectly fine left over and extra day.

“Hey Ammeline,” Kyle found a chance to ask her. “Are you doing okay?”

He hadn't talked to her either, but that wasn't as strange. Until Ammeline had declared Jenny her rival, Kyle had barely talked to her.

“Mmm? Oh you mean after the gas explosion,” Ammeline waved her hand. “Ahahahaha! Do you think such a minor impact would seriously affect me? Me?”

“So no weird effects?” Kyle pressed. “Nothing strange? No large hairy men showing up at your house telling you you're a wizard?”

“What are you babbling about?” Ammeline raised an eyebrow at him. “The only unusual thing around here is the extraordinary way I'm going to beat my rival in this assignment!”

“Now she's going to beat me with the chemicals?” Jenny lamented.

“This assignment...isn't...competitive...” Kyle said, but she was ignoring him already and working on her lab.

Kyle shared a look with Jenny, who just shrugged. He shared a similar one with Trevor, who he hadn't really had a chance to talk to. For the moment at least, Ammeline seemed unaffected. Maybe he was overthinking it. What were the chances his other friends had powers?

Of course there was still the worrying question of where they were. He was still mulling it over as class came to an end and they were packing up.

“Hey look, its Betty!” Jenny said, pointing out the window. “In those statues or whatever.”

“Statues? Oh, that's the old playground,” Kyle said, peering out the window. “There used to be a preschool back there, the high school and university bought the land when it shut down. But they never got around to putting away the playground equipment. What's she doing out there?”

“She's....bending over,” Jenny said. “Way, way over. Why is she doing that?”

Betty was trying to pick up a cat. That kind of thing isn't easy at the best of times, and these were not the best of times. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night, with a flaming cat in her bedroom. The flames hadn't seemed to catch anything on fire, but even Betty, with her calm exterior, had trouble dealing with an active source of flame in the room with her.

Her parents had thought the cat was adorable, and of course it had stopped burning long enough to meet them, get food, and then went back to Betty's room and set itself ablaze again. Then she'd gotten scolded for picking up a cat without telling them, when the family hadn't decided whether to get a cat or not yet.

Betty had seen, read, and watched enough to know not to make more than one attempt at telling people what was going on. The cats powers were a secret, apparently, and the only person it wanted to know was Betty. Why was something she would have to figure out later. And then the cat had followed her to school, which had been worrying enough, but sometime overnight during her fitful sleep it had stopped setting itself on fire.

Halfway to school, it turned into a rock and sank into the road. It had dived and leaped through the asphalt like a fish all the way to campus, and then it had disappeared completely. Betty had spent all day looking for it. She had a sneaking suspicion it had been playing with her on purpose. She'd finally found it in the old playground, but...

“Betty?” Kyle asked, and she turned away from what she was doing. “What's going on?”

“Do need that cat statue for your big project?” Jenny asked.

Betty looked down at the solid steel cat she'd been trying to lift off the ground for the past thirty five minutes. She sighed and collapsed back on the ground, crossing her legs beneath her and taking a couple of deep breaths.

“Is this part of the old playground equipment?” Kyle asked, walking up to the cat. “It looks too detailed. You can make out individual hairs.”

“It would be smart not to get too close to that,” Betty said. “I do not yet know it's personality.”

“Personality?” Kyle blinked, taking a step back from the cat.

“This may be difficult to explain.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “And then again, it might not. Kyle, are you keeping any secrets from me?”

“What kind of secrets?” Kyle asked.

“Secrets about the true supernatural nature of the world,” Betty said. “And your own participation therein. As well as Jenny's skin tone being pinkish-purple, and how those factors effected the incident last night being publicly described as a gas explosion.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Those secrets.”

“So there is something supernatural going on,” Betty said. “Well, that was already confirmed. But maybe you can explain things to me. Why does this cat keep doing strange things? Do you know this cat?”

“No,” Kyle shook his head. “No I don't know anything about a cat. I suppose I owe you...”

Something brushed against Kyle's leg. The solid metal cat had gotten up and was rubbing itself against Kyle's leg.

“...an explanation,” Kyle finished. “I never should have listened to Tanya, I should have told everyone what happened right away.”

“Tanya Myrdin?” Betty cocked her head. “Ah. Yes. Her being involved in this makes sense. For now though, I am attempting to control this cat.”

“Well the cat is...”

Gone. The cat was gone. Absent. Departed. Left. Vamoosed. Screwed off. Sayonara, adios, arrivaderchi. Pfft.

“Where'd it go!?” Kyle asked, lifting his foot from the sudden puddle of water on the ground.

“I do not know,” Betty said. “You distracted me. But it has been doing things like this since last night.”

“No it's still here!” Jenny pointed to the puddle of water. “It melted.”

The puddle of water sprouted a pair of watery ears and a tail like a flowing river. Then it shot across the ground like a fish darting through a pond, heading towards the school building. Betty hurried off to chase it, Kyle and Jenny hurrying along behind.

“Tanya!” Evan said, waving to her in the halls. “Tanya Myrdin! Just who I've been looking to see!”

“Why?” Tanya narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She was aware of Evan's reputation, though she'd mostly avoided him. “What do you want from me.”

“To talk about...genies.”

She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the main hallway, glaring at him.

“Why Tanya, so forward! I suppose you won't mind if I reach out and...”

“None of that!” Tanya snapped. “Not now. What are you talking about? What do you know?”

“I know that a normal person can't memorize every possible chess gambit in a single night,” Evan said. “I know I didn't used to have a perfect photographic memory.

“I also know that weird stuff started happening the same day a strange new girl showed up. Topless. In my best friend's house. A girl I saw with purple skin last night. I saw you and Kyle throwing powers around like something out of an anime, too. And I know that the voice in my head trying to tell me it's all a dream sounds a lot like you.

“So magic. Gotta be. Genie makes the most sense to me because Jenny said she was from the middle east, and a girl with funky purple skin from the middle east you just kind of make an association right? If I ask Kyle we're gonna get in an argument, because I'm pretty pissed he kept this from me the whole time. But maybe there's a good explanation, and chances are you know what it is. So I'm starting with you.”

Tanya glared at him.

“Mental enhancement,” she sighed, stepping back. “Dammit. Somehow or other you connected a node to your brain. A pretty powerful one.”

“Well you know,” Evan said. “I was all stressed out the night after the phony gas explosion. I needed to...concentrate.”

“Ugh,” Tanya shook her head. “Why couldn't it have given you a stroke?”

“A stroke?” Evan said, suddenly alarmed.

“Mental enhancement is the hardest way to connect a node. Most people who try on their own give themselves seizures and die. But no, you had to connect it properly...”

“Nodes,” Evan said thoughtfully. “Interesting. I take it nodes are how this super powers stuff works. I bet you've got a great set of nodes.”

Tanya stared at him flatly.

“I am so very glad you weren't there yesterday,” she said. “But yes, it's safer for everyone if you get an explanation. Two of you. I just have to hope nobody else who was there last night had dormant nodes.”

A puddle of water with ears and a tail splashed down the hall way beside them.

It was followed by Kyle, Betty, and Evan.

“I don't think hoping worked,” Evan told her.

“That was a Five Elements Cat,” Tanya said. “What is a Five Elements Cat doing in the school? Oh why do I even bother to ask anymore. This is too much to be a coincidence. Damn it all, Kyle Anderman, what did you wish for?”