All Hailey could tell was that she was flying.
The exact mechanics of it were something that she didn’t understand, but she could feel the feeling inside of her powering that ability.
Dave moved up beside her when she hovered in the air and looked back at the window she’d flown out of to see the officer inside staring at her, his mouth open in shock.
“Was this what you were trying to do when you were ‘training’?” Dave asked, sounding like he was annoyed for some reason that Hailey couldn’t explain.
“Not exactly, but probably close enough,” Hailey answered, not caring enough to try and find out why Dave was annoyed.
After all, it’s not like she cared what he was feeling as it wasn’t like she knew how to treat a talking stuffed animal.
“Well, before you do this for very long, we should probably figure out if you have limits when it comes to flying.” Hailey hadn’t considered that, but at the moment, she didn’t care.
Maybe it was a side effect from the feeling of being able to fly, but she was just giddy with the sensation.
Even hovering in the air was almost euphoric.
“Keep up with me if you can,” Hailey taunted Dave, not caring if he could keep up with her.
However, as she started to fly away, she’d just passed over the fence of the abandoned factory when the feeling from inside that seemed to power her ability to fly disappeared and she fell straight down, landing face first on the sidewalk.
“Owwww!” Hailey groaned as she rolled onto her side, wondering what the universe had against her nose.
Dave flew down by her, and rather than giving her an ‘I told you so’ tone, he seemed almost concerned about her.
“Are you okay?
That looked painful.” Hailey could only chuckle as she thought about it.
While she hurt her nose, again, she couldn’t say that it hurt as much as she’d have thought.
Though, with the police cruiser sitting next to her, she knew that she couldn’t stay there long.
The police would be coming back soon enough and she didn’t want to get caught this way.
As it was one thing for them to catch her because they cornered her but it was entirely different if it was because she hadn’t even been paying attention to her surroundings when they caught her.
“Doesn’t matter.
We should probably get going,” Hailey remarked, slowly getting to her feet.
While she didn’t hurt, when she started moving, it felt like her entire body was sore.
She wasn’t sure what the reason was, just that it felt like her body was complaining like when her legs would complain after running for a while or when her arms would complain after they got tired.
Hailey wasn’t sure what the reason for that happening was, but she did her best to ignore it as she limped away, hoping she’d be able to put enough distance between the police cruiser and herself before the police officers returned to it so she could easily get away from them without them continuing after her.
“Guess you were right,” Hailey muttered to Dave as she moved along, her body complaining less as she kept moving, even though it was clearly still unhappy with moving.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Dave said.
“It could just be that you’re not used to it and so it wears you out more than either of us had expected.” Hailey nodded, glancing back at the police cruiser as she was about to turn down another street.
“Think we should keep going there or should I find somewhere else to train?” “Well, it’s not like you made much noise when you were training.
With how you were worried about noise, I’d expected you to be trying to practice fighting or something that would make a lot more noise.
If you’re going to be as quiet as you were with that, then you could easily do that in your room at your house.
I mean, it’s not like you were doing anything that would wake either your sister or your father up.” Hailey opened her mouth to say something but quickly thought better about it.
If Dave thought Jamie as her sister, then she wasn’t going to say anything about that.
It wasn’t important anyway.
“I guess maybe I was more worried about what would happen if I could shoot those crystals again,” Hailey replied, unsure about how much damage that could cause in her room if she actually got a volley off.
“Hmmm, good point.
Though, do you still want to go to that abandoned factory?
Or do you have somewhere else in mind to go?” “I think it’ll be fine.
I’ll just have to go inside when I do my training.
That way I won’t be visible from the outside like I was tonight.” “Alright, but remember, the police lost you so they might be keeping an eye on that factory in case you return there at some point.” Hailey chuckled.
“I seriously doubt that.
They probably think I was some delinquent who was just goofing off or something.
Besides, it’s not like I was actually doing anything to the factory so it’s not like they’d think that I’ll return there since they don’t know what I was doing there in the first place.” Dave shook his head, looking annoyed for reasons Hailey couldn’t explain.
“You might consider what you were doing training, but you should probably do some actual physical training as well.
Just in case your physical wellbeing is tied to your magical wellbeing.” “‘Magical wellbeing’?” Haiely echoed, wondering if she was supposed to follow Dave along with such a phrasing.
“What’re you talking about?” “Simple.
You lost your ability to fly suddenly and it looked like you hurt more than you should have gotten when you got up and started to… uh, limp away.
So, what if by building your physical endurance, you’ll be able to use your magic to fly more?” “Why do you think flying was me using my magic?” “Well, were you able to fly before?” Dave asked, his knowing tone irritating Hailey more than she felt it should.
Though, it might be because she knew he was right about that point.
She just wished that it wasn’t so annoying.
Though, as she thought about flying, she suddenly realized that she hadn’t de-transformed yet.
“Okay, turn around, Dave.” “I know, I know.” Hailey waited until Dave had turned around before taking a deep breath and letting herself return to her proper body.
The body that she’d known for pretty much all her life.
The body that she couldn’t help but wonder if she still liked more than the one she got when she transformed into a magical girl.