Sunday, I'm surprised to find myself without a hangover. I deliberately made no plans to go anywhere today, just in case, so I spend the morning alternating between spending time in my room with Chibi Destiny, eating breakfast with my parents, who have a lot of questions about last night, and sitting down to draw and design properly for the first time in what feels like months. Destiny trots around on my desk, handing me pencils, erasers and such when I ask for them like she's my tiny assistant, and we watch a TV show she's gotten really into lately. A sitcom where a guy talks a lot about philosophy and a woman does nothing but fuck up and try to learn. It's honestly pretty funny.
Jeanette:
'Sorry. I'm okay'
The text is from Jeanette, rolling in around ten. I hurry to text her back, assuring her I'll be right where she is the moment she needs me, but she leaves me on read again. At least I know she's seen the message, so as much as I worry, I assure myself she'll be okay and get back to my work. A few months ago, I decided to start making a new outfit for Chibi Destiny. It's good practice on sewing techniques and won't take up a lot of material since she's so small. Plus, it'll let me test my theory about whether changing her clothes also changes my uniform after I transform!
On my laptop I've got reference images of petticoats, renaissance coats, corsets and what looks like fencer's outfits from various fantasy series. I figure if this is how I can design my own uniform, might as well make it a style I like that fits with the way I fight. The design was done pretty quickly, and the patterns I needed came together in a few afternoons along with measuring her tiny body, an activity the both of us thought was actually pretty fun. Today, I just have to finish sewing the bits together, clean up the stitching and help Destiny put it on. With no real plans, it should be plenty doable.
Some time after noon, with a sandwich on the desk beside me, I decide to text Eden.
Destiny:
'Hey Eden... So last night was fun, right? When did you get home?'
It takes her a while to respond back, but that's fine. I've got things to keep myself busy in the meantime.
Eden:
'Heeeey Destinyyy! Yeah, it was great. I stayed until everyone else had gone and tipped the staff, so I was home at around 2.'
Destiny:
'Yeesh, that's kinda late! Did you manage to get sleep when you got home then?'
Eden:
'Yeah I woke up about an hour ago... So about last night...'
My stomach fills with both excitement and dread at what could happen next, but I try not to text back immediately. I wait like five seconds instead. That's plenty of time, right?
Destiny:
'Yeah, uh. What about it?'
Eden:
'We should talk. In person, I mean.'
Destiny:
'We probably should, yeah. Tomorrow, after school?'
Eden:
'At the Lunchroom?'
Destiny:
'Yeah, that works'
Eden:
'It's a date~'
That last message gives me hope Eden and I are both looking for the similar outcomes, and it gives me a little pep in my step as I get to work finishing up Destiny's new outfit as my activity for the rest of the afternoon.
At school the next day, I keep trying to track down Jeanette. After all, Destiny said she'd be there, and over the course of training in the use of my powers with her, I've developed enough confidence in her to believe her when she says something so definitively. Asha joins the hunt at lunch too, and we spot her sitting on her own in the corner, looking honestly a little disheveled, but by the time we make it there, she's gone and we can't find her again. "Chibi's in your bag, right? Couldn't she help you find our girl?" Asha asks once we're alone.
"I mean... Maybe? We've never tried pinpointing someone's exact current location, so I'm not sure if it's even possible."
"Yeah, obviously not. Could you try though? Whatever's up with her, she needs us and it's clear she won't stop avoiding us unless we force her."
"Shit, you're right. Okay, keep watch, tell me if anyone's coming," I say and pull Asha into an empty supply closet. I take Chibi Destiny out of my bag and explain the situation to her. She's already heard it all, but I want to make sure she understands the gravity of it all. With her help and guidance, I eventually manage to open my sixth sense to the tapestry. This chapter is updated first at novelping dot com.
We're at a big school, which means a lot of strings to sort through, but something about Jeanette's thread stands out. I can't tell if it's connected to the distortion I saw on it Saturday night, since that peculiarity seems to have gone away in the meantime, but she's easy enough to find. Tracing along someone's thread to how their future connects to the rest of the web, or backwards to see where they came from isn't all that difficult, but figuring out where she is at this exact moment turns out to be more complex, even if it doesn't actually require more power.
It's more about expanding my view of her string so I can see the intricacies of it, showing me each little fiber. That's where Chibi Destiny's guidance comes in. My first impression is of her state of mind, which feels fractured and disorganized. I bet with a little more time, I could probably piece together what's been happening that's got her all messed up, but I'm not sure we have the time, and there's a more direct path to helping her. After a couple of minutes I open my eyes again, short of breath. "Third floor bathroom, west wing. I think she's going to be there for a while. It's the one that's always empty. I use it all the time too."
We hurry as much as we can without drawing attention to ourselves, first heading to an emergency stairwell and using that rather than the ones that usually see more foot traffic. As we run down the mostly empty hallway, something nags at the back of my mind. Something I briefly glimpsed in the tapestry when I made contact. I ignore it, though. Getting to Jeanette before she flees again is more important right now.
I open the door to the bathroom in question and see Jeanette standing at the mirror, looking at herself for a moment before she looks over at us. Her hair looks unkempt and wild this close up, and she briefly looks like she doesn't recognize us. "Asha? Destiny?"
"Jeanette!" I exclaim and hurry into the room, only to be thrown forward by the force of the wall to my right crumbling when a fist the size of a van slams through, almost hitting both Asha and I. That's got to be the disturbance in the tapestry I noticed! Not yet transformed, my body is comparatively frail and I feel the bruises and cuts on my skin already, but having been in almost two dozen fights with smaller monsters by now, my instincts have gotten a lot better than they were last time a big monster attacked me. I hurry to my knees, assess the situation and locate Asha, giving her a serious look.
"Go! I'll take care of Jeanette." She knows exactly what I mean and hurries back around the corner we just came from to find a spot clear of people where she can transform. I can already hear other students at my school screaming and panicking, but I shut them out for a moment and turn back to Jeanette, reaching out a hand to take her by the arm, pulling her close to me. She's shell shocked, the poor thing.
"Destiny? What's happening? What's going on?"
"Hey, it's okay. I promised I'd always be there for you right? I'm gonna get you to safety."
"G-Good idea. Where are we going?" I'm worried about a lot more than just her physical safety at the moment, if I'm being honest. Whatever's been going on in her life, it's capital B bad. But getting her somewhere the monster can't get her is a considerably more pressing matter.
"To the courtyard on the other side of the school, and then the street. There's probably going to be emergency workers there soon that can take a look at you." We hurry down the hallway and toward the same emergency stairwell Asha and I took to get up here. Before we start heading down, I hear Asha - now in the form of Incarna - bellowing a challenge at the monster, quickly followed by the air-shredding sound of one of her preferred heavy weapons no doubt ripping a hole in the surprise foe.
Down, down and out, with my arm around Jeanette's waist I guide her across the courtyard, where I see ambulances and other emergency services on the side of the road, uniformed workers already taking a look at anyone who looks like they might have been hurt. It's only been a few minutes, but with most of the Knight squads having been based in this city, emergency services have learned how to be almost frighteningly efficient. I approach one of the emergency workers, a large muscular woman in a paramedic's uniform. "Hey, I think my friend needs help. She's being kind of incoherent and might have hit her head?"
"Hurry, bring her over here," the woman says, and helps me lift Jeanette onto a stretcher being used as a makeshift table. "I'll get her checked out. Are you hurt? Maybe you should go see one of my colleagues?"
"Just a couple of scrapes I think," I respond and squeeze Jeanette's shoulder. "Hey, Jeanette? Listen, I'll be right nearby. Please stay here with-"
"Heather."
"Heather. She's a good person, she's gonna help you, and I'll be right back. Then we'll go to my place, yeah?" Jeanette nods at me and then looks at Heather, seeming a little confused about what's going on. I give her another squeeze and look her straight in the eye, really hoping she'll stay. I want to. But I've got a duty and I need to go. Pretending to go around one of the ambulances, I then loop back and run into the courtyard where I find a secluded spot, already feeling the energy of my powers thrumming beneath my skin before I even get there. This monster almost hurt one of my best friends, when I was trying to make good for my own mistakes. This is personal.
"BLESSED BY THE DESIGNS OF DESTINY!"
The transformation comes quicker and more effortlessly these days, but still takes a couple of seconds to complete. I don't feel fit to burst with power the same way I did the first time, but I know it's all there anyway. I shoot up and out of the courtyard like a blue comet, barely noticing that my uniform has indeed changed to mirror Chibi Destiny's new one, I find myself next to Incarna in mere moments. She's driven the monster backwards a good dozen yards, and the other Knights have answered the call as quickly as I could probably expect them to. "What's the situation?" I ask mentally over the telepathic bond Aria establishes when we're all close enough to each other.
"Big monster. Humanoid. Came out of nowhere," Incarna responds before she lands on the school's rooftop, where she can use the more stable surface to help with the recoil of her biggest weapons. She might be shooting magic beams and projectiles, but parts of her powers still follow physics.
"I've done a quick sweep of the damaged building. No one seems to be trapped inside." That's Vida reporting in with, I guess, some good news.
The monster is, as expected and described, big and humanoid, with a lupine snout and long claws on each of its eight fingers. It's slightly hunched forward, and you can make out something that looks like fur rustling in the wind despite the creature being essentially made of darkness. Kind of looks like a big werewolf straight out of the movies, if I'm being honest.
"This one's faster than what we're used to fighting," Onyxia chimes in. "Incarna, keep doing what you do best, but try to make it afraid of your weapons and hem it in. Aria, I need you to help her with that. Trip it up with your telekinesis." Both Incarna and Aria send a non-verbal signal of approval, quickly getting to work. "Vida, can you sense any weak points? What about you, Destiny?"
"Actually, if you remember back to that romance series with the vampires and werewolves we watched a couple of months ago, you might remember people always went for the necks on the lycanthropes. The same goes here, as well as its belly," our healer comments. She can't turn off that fascination with romance movies even in battle. It's kind of cute, but with the Jeanette situation going on in the back of my mind, I can't help but find it a little annoying.
With the transformation giving me full access to my powers, viewing fate's threads is little more effort than closing my eyes and opening them again, so I'm able to do a quick scan of my own. "Silver's not gonna do it with this one I don't think. Kaida's fire's gonna be a good bet, though," I say, scanning up and down the threads connected to the monster. Its threads look... Weird, compared to those of other monsters. I can't pin-point it other than describing it as the same distortion I found on Jeanette's thread a couple of days ago.
They also vibrate with a cold, purple color not unlike the way the Knights' threads do in their own colors. Which admittedly is a little concerning. Our conversation is happening at the speed of thought thanks to Aria's gifts, but the monster is still moving fast enough that we have to swerve in our flight patterns to avoid its strikes. I'm too distracted and worried about Jeanette to pinpoint anything further, though. "Maybe we just beat it up a lot?"
"BURNING WRATH!" Kaida doesn't hesitate to leap into action, swinging her sword at the beast in order to make it defend itself and manifesting pillars of flame from thin air behind her, which slam, into the werewolf's belly. She dodges out of the way of one clawed hand, retaliating by thrusting upwards with her weapon, lighting the very tip of it on fire with a muttered incantation I don't hear right before it slashes through the creature's wrist, sending the big monster staggering backwards with a howl straight out of the movies.
"I prefer having a more concrete plan, but if that's all we've got, I guess that's what we're doing. I'll try to come up with something in the meantime." Onyxia sounds a little exasperated, but flies out to a flanking position where she can use her cannons to harry and distract the beast. "I'll think of something. Maintain positions and usual roles... Destiny, maybe you can do the same thing you did against Grimclaw?"
An excuse to take my frustrations out on something that deserves it? Say no more. With Twilight Point in hand, I rush in, going so fast that when I bowl into the back of the monster's raised hand, it smacks itself in the face from the sheer force of the impact. Backing off to avoid being grabbed by the opposite hand, I lash out with the needle, dragging its tip across the back of the large werewolf's wrist, hissing an instinctive incantation through my teeth "Bound By Destiny!" and watch as familiar threads sprout from the cut I made, wrapping around the monster's wrist to keep it open.
I'm vaguely aware of both Kaida and Aria fighting the monster in close combat by my side, but their exact actions are getting lost in the muddled ocean of everything I'm feeling, and just like on Saturday night, one emotion boils to the surface: Anger. At myself for not being there for my friend. At this werewolf for interrupting my attempt to mend a bridge before it breaks completely.
Stab. Dodge. Stab, sidestep, stab. Stab. Stab.
There's no technique, no rhythm. Not that I have the experience to have much of the former, but I'm not even trying, I just want to hurt this thing and I want to hurt it bad. It's not enough. Just poking holes and keeping its wounds open isn't satisfying. I have to do something more, something bigger. The answer comes in the form of a sense of my power pulsing at the back of my mind, building to a steady thrum before I know exactly what to do and fly back the equivalent of three steps, letting Twilight Point go to hover at my back, only to reach out with my left hand and wrap it around something big and unseen. No incantation necessary this time, just rage and magic!
"RRRAAAAH!" I scream, and just as it starts skewering the wolf-beast, a needle as big as its own arm, made from the same ethereal blue light of my threads, starts manifesting as I drive it upwards and forwards. Transformed, I can lift almost a metric ton, and I use every ounce of that strength to impale my enemy. Still not enough. I reach out with my right hand and mirror the move, driving a second giant needle through the monster's torso from the opposite angle. I'm getting ready to do it a third time when I feel invisible hands on my shoulders and around my waist pulling hard enough at me that even resisting with my flight, I'm still pulled backwards and up.
"Destiny, relax," Aria says in my mind when she pulls me back far enough to let me see her out of the corner of my eye. She then makes a gesture, and the moment after, our big lupine enemy trips and falls, further impaling itself on my needles before Kaida steps up and mutters an incantation that engulfs the beast in a pillar of flames so hot I can feel it even at a distance of twenty yards. When the fire dies down, only the tell-tale black smoke of a vanquished monster remains to tell the tale of our victory.
The short Asian woman has a concerned expression on her face as she flies over to where Aria and I float and I finally feel the psychic's telekinetic hold let go of me. The other three Knights also join us in quick order, and Vida hurries to inspect me, muttering something about recklessness. Apparently I got nicked and scratched by the wolf a handful of times without noticing, but it's nothing so bad it won't heal when I transform back to my civilian form. I can feel the chiding gaze from most of the Knights. I kind of lost it a bit back there, and I'm already embarrassed about it. You are reading on novelping(.)com, the official source.
"Look- I-" I begin my explanation, trying to head off any comments about my freakout, but before I can say anything, Incarna cuts me off.
"Monster's dead, so mission accomplished, right?"
"I guess. One small thing though: How did a monster of this size manage a surprise attack on a location frequented by two Knights almost every day? Incarna, weren't you supposed to patrol here last night?" Onyxia is obviously disappointed, but also worried as she looks at me.
"I did! There was no sign of anything. You can ask Kareh later, he didn't even sense a trail."
"Hmmm. That's worrisome. Maybe she's found a way to hide her agents from us," our leader mumbles to herself.
"Her? Who's she?" I ask, getting the exact answer I'm expecting when Kaida breaks in.
"Renata. We were meaning to tell you more about her soon, but this isn't the time or the place. Maybe Saturday needs to be a team meeting instead of a movie night."
"Good idea. Team, dismissed," Eden says with a lazy swipe of her hand, and each Knight begins to fly away. Asha gives my bicep a little squeeze and shoots me a look that tells me she'll be nearby. Eden calls out to me, flying by my side as I slow down and wait for her. "Hey, what happened back there? Kaida's supposed to be the reckless one." She's trying to be a little facetious about this, to ease my embarrassment.
"Yeah, I- Sorry. Asha and I have this friend who's in some kind of trouble, Jeanette, and we haven't been able to get to her for a while. We finally cornered her, and then this monster attacked and interrupted us. Coupled with some residual anger I still have at some boys who also interrupted my phone call with her at your party, I guess I kinda snapped."
Eden nods and flies close, giving me a hug that's somehow both soft and tight. "I get it," she whispers while holding me. "In the future, maybe talk to the rest of us about stuff like this before it gets overwhelming, yeah?" I simply nod into her shoulder and hug her back. "Do you want to postpone our talk a little? Maybe to Wednesday?"
"That might be a good idea. I left Jeanette with the EMTs, so I really gotta go check on her."
"Of course. Go, we'll catch up later. Text me, okay?"
"Yeah. I look forward to Wednesday," I mumble, smiling softly back before I let go of her and float back down to somewhere secluded in the courtyard and transform back into my civilian school uniform.
I run back to the area with the emergency workers and find Asha frantically looking around. "Where is she Des? I don't see Jeanette anywhere." I look around, quickly spotting the paramedic, Heather, I left our friend with and run over to her.
"Heather! Hey! Uh- The girl I left with you? Jeanette? Where'd she go? I thought I told her to stay." The muscular woman looks at me for a moment, but she quickly recognizes me, even in spite of the chaos of what's been happening today.
"Right, her. She talked nonsense for a bit, fiddled with her phone and told me she was being picked up. Since she had no major physical injuries and we were getting more and more wounded students coming in, my help was needed elsewhere." I sigh, feeling a certain frustration at the core of my being, but thank her for her help nonetheless, and let her return to her work.
"So she's just gone again? And where to this time?" Asha asks, voice slightly panicky and as obviously frustrated as I am. I'm already pulling out my phone to text and call her, but even after we've both tried several times, we're not getting any response. Asha gives me a look and even before she asks, I already know what she's hoping.
"I dunno, I can try. But if she's not near here, I might not be able to find her even with Chibi Destiny's help."
"Well then we need to hurry before she gets too far. Let's go!"
We find Destiny along with my backpack in the ruined third floor bathroom. The moment she sees us, she stops peering around the corner and literally starts jumping with joy, arms stretched wide. "Destiny! That was amazing! You've truly started mastering instinctive control over your powers! I'm so proud!"
"Thank you, but we really don't have the time for that right now. We need to find Jeanette like we did earlier, before she gets too far away to track accurately." The little doll seems a little miffed that her celebrations have to be cut short, but she understands and hops onto my hand as I offer it. We quickly find an empty supply closet and I put her down on one of the empty shelves.
"Alright. Close your eyes and dive in with me," she says and holds out a hand, and I put mine down next to her before closing my eyes and letting her guide my sixth sense once more.
A minute later, I open my eyes and stare at the doll in horror. Even with her yarn face and button eyes, she also manages to convey fear. Asha stares between us, failing to understand the silence.
"So? Did you find her." My Squire and I both hesitate.
"She's... Gone. Her connection to fate doesn't exist anymore." Even as I say this, I realize I'm not entirely sure I know what it means.
"So she's...?"
"I- I don't think so. Dead people leave behind the threads they connected to other people. Jeanette's part of the tapestry has just... Disappeared. She's not even connected to the two of us anymore."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"I have no clue Asha. I really don't." I look over at Chibi Destiny, who usually has an explanation for almost everything.
"Don't look at me, this hasn't happened before. It's not supposed to be possible. Girliepops, we're in uncharted waters."