I walked a bit behind Lucy and Galorna, looking around for any 'crime' happening nearby. There was none, as it was 9AM on a Monday morning, and we were on the main road. The two ahead of me were chatting about an anime they were watching together, and not paying too much attention to their surroundings, but I didn't blame them. It was our first 'official' patrol of our new territory, so it was mildly important, but honestly, due to the low amount of patrols prior to us taking over (and us being in a generally outdated part of the city) there weren't usually people around here too often. We passed the corner story I'd gotten the food at for the party and I remembered that I still needed to buy more snacks if I wanted to have the girls over this Wednesday like I'd planned.
"Her, I'm gonna pop in here and pick up a few things, k"?" I said, interrupting their conversation
Galorna looked confused "We're on patrol, we're not supposed to be going shopping..."
"Well, we got bagels earlier, right?" I pointed out
"I think that's different, we got bagels to eat while walking around, carrying bags of groceries while looking for crime is unprofessional." she pointed out.
"I guess so..." I muttered.
"Hey, I need to get food too," Lucy said "I've been ordering out every day Saffron hasn't cooked for us, and that can't be healthy."
"Well, we can stop in here on the way back, but for now, we need to be on the lookout for crime." Galorna said, shaking her head.
I looked around, seeing a guy standing next to the building, smoking a cigarette.
"Hey, you! Stop loitering!" I said sarcastically
He flipped me off and shook his head "That's how you new heroes are gonna be? Just out here harassing us?"
I sighed, annoyed at him. "No, I'm just- sorry, I was making fun of my teammate, I don't care what you do."
He glared at me, but didn't say anything else as we walked past.
"That was pretty rude. He was just minding his own business." Lucy pointed out.
"Yeah, well... Whatever." I said. I looked down at the tea I'd gotten with my bagel. It'd gotten cold a while ago, and it was starting to taste bitter. "I need a trash can, let me know if you see one."
"There's one over there, outside that pink building." Lucy said, pointing.
Pink building? I looked up, and saw that sure enough, there was a small warehouse painted bright pink with purple highlights. It looked garish and flashy, but there WAS a trash can in front of it.
"Huh, I wonder what business that is," Galorna said "we don't have public trash cans in our section yet, so they must be providing it themselves, that's nice of them."
"I'll check when I throw this away, let me see." I said, heading that direction
I crossed the street, and dumped my tea into the road, dropping the cup and teabag into the trashcan after. I looked at the building, it had a small glass door covered in patterned paint, and a roll up door with tinted windows on it; there was no branding, no hours of operation, nothing to indicate that this building was anything more than a public art exhibit.
"I think it's privately owned?" I called back to Galorna
I heard a chime, and I glanced back to see the door had swung open, and a human witch had peeked out. She looked like a character from an old cartoon, but not quite in a good way. Her hat was pink, rounded at the top with a lavender bow on just above the brim. She was wearing a pink cape over a white button-up and lavender pleated shorts, with white tights coming up her legs, ending halfway up her thigh, just under the hem of the shorts. Her chunky brown loafers completed the look of 'I wanted to look like a character from a kids show', bringing it all together.
"Hey, you're Angel Rouge!" the witch said, excited "And that's Sable and Saffron!" She pointed across the street.
"Uh, hi, you are?..." I said politely.
"Oh, I'm Warrior Mage Blinding Crystal!" she said "But you can call me Crystal! Or Kiri, if you like, my identity is public."
Ah, the fake magical girl team the GGDS told me about, ok.
"I'm guessing you're one of the other magical girls in the area?" Galorna asked as she and Lucy joined me on the curb.
Crystal beamed "Yeah! We're not the first heroes to be un-chosen, but we ARE the first team to made up of only un-chosen members! Come inside, I'll introduce the girls!"
The four of us stepped inside and I stifled a frown. The interior was a work in progress, it'd very clearly been an auto mechanic's shop before these people moved in, and the layer of black dust on everything let me know they'd focused on making the outside of the building look nice first. Still, it'd only been while since they were approved, so I'm sure they'd have it fixed up soon. She led us through the reception area into the garage area, which was broken into two sections, and was brightly lit and open, looking naked without shelves of car parts or lifts in it.
"This is the base!" She said proudly. "We're all going to be donating a third of our paychecks to fixing it up until it looks like a real HQ!"
Lucy looked around. "Hey, I like how tall the ceiling is, that's cool."
"Yeah, we're planning on putting in a second level, for beds and stuff." a new voice said. I looked over to the other section, seeing a dryad walking out of the door to the other section, tying a top on around her ribs. She was shaggy, branches and what looked like vines growing off her limbs like overgrown hair, the foliage on her head looking similar to grey-green dreads that covered most of her face. She was wearing very little, just the tied top, and cutoff shorts, no shoes or accessories.
"Oh, this is Mourner!" Crystal said, pointing. "She's a weeping willow, so she can grow fast and use her branches to whip people, she's really good at it!"
"It's nice to meet you, Mourner." I said politely. I didn't see how a regular dryad with no extra powers could pass the certification test at a C rank, but if she could, I had to be impressed.
"Hey, everyone out, the competition's here!" Mourner yelled over her shoulder into the other room.
"No, we're not anyone's competition, we're looking forward to working with you, actually!" Galorna said, unsure of herself
"Aw, she's just being dramatic, it's fiiine!" Crystal said "We want to work with you too! Magical girls are the BEST, which is why we registered as that instead of a standard team!"
"So, is that why you're dressed like that?" I asked "Is that your team's uniform?"
"No we each make our own uniforms, we- oh!" she perked up. "Here's the others!"
I glanced over at the other 2 members that'd walked in and jumped, gasping. One of them was a literal cockroach, her proportions stretched and twisted into a humanoid shape, with an almost human face other than the spines and cheek ridges, all black and brown and shiny. Her mouth split vertically and horizontally at the same time, sharp needle-like teeth poking out from under, with a clicking set of mandibles overtop the opening. Her 'skin' across her whole body was shiny and segmented, broken up with dull green lines, and covered in sharp bristly spikes along the backs.
She had two sets of arms, both bent at impossible angles, and her legs had too many sections, bending backwards at one point before ending in clawed, splayed 'feet'. Her 'shell' started around her neckline, the joint hidden by her stringy, greasy black hair, and continued across her whole back, ending around her butt. It fluttered slightly, letting me know there were wings inside, but at this size, I doubted they were functional. Her antenna curled around her face and twitched as her wide, impossibly large eyes watched us with too many pupils forced into the irises.
She was wearing a short, tattered grey skirt, a necklace with a heart on it, and several chunky bracelets on each arm, the plastic and cheap metals clinking with each movement. It took me a second to realize she was technically topless, as you don't usually expect a roach to wear any kind of clothing, but aside from a slight curve in her carapace, she was featureless up top, so I didn't think anyone could be offended by it.
I struggle to remain calm, insects were one of my biggest fears, and to have one walking around at this size, twitching its parts and watching me, I could feel my heart rate going up.
"Oh, Amaryllis, you forgot your mouthpiece again, you're scaring them." the second new member said, pointing back through the door. The lack of a 'mouthpiece' wasn't why I was on the verge of freaking out...
As 'Amaryllis' left, I was able to tear my gaze away and look at the other member, and was equally confused, if not far less disgusted. She was... artificial, in some way. Her body was made up of mismatched parts, mechanical or similar, with her torso and thighs being smooth pink plastic of some kind, and her lower legs being more rugged yellow construction grade limbs. Her left arm was raw gears and wires, moving and clicking constantly, ending in a clumsy three handed claw, and her right hand looked like one of the higher grade prosthetics I'd seen models use in photoshoots. She had large round pipe-like objects sticking out of her upper back, two on both sides, the same tone and shade as her torso.
Her face looked like a porcelain mask, but emoted the same as a real face, and her metallic elven ears jutted up and out to the back instead of to the sides, like the art I'd seen made of fairies from before they went extinct. That, coupled with her small nose, which didn't extend out like an elf's would, made her seem alien, almost uncanny. Her 'hair' was in a bob, and was a hard shell of metal, shaped to curl under her chin and stay off her neck. I noticed with some embarrassment that she wasn't wearing any clothes. Although, she didn't really need any, being... some kind of robot?
"I-I'm Angel Rouge..." I offered, looking at the robot "It's nice to meet you?"
She looked us over. "I'm Maud, but my 'hero name' is Mod, it's nice to meet you too! The lady who had to step away is Amaryllis, but she goes by Panic Attack in the field."
"Panic Attack?" Lucy asked "So... does she have the power to make people panic?"
I knew she had the ability to make me have a panic attack...
"None of us have powers!" Crystal said proudly. "We're all just us! I use magic that I learned from my grandmother, Mourner uses her natural dryad growth skills, Panic Attack is fast and can fly a little and is very good at close up combat, and Mod was built to be a next-gen military robot, so she's got all kinds of useful tricks!"
"Wait, like, one of the drones you see going into the folds?" Lucy asked "I thought those weren't allowed to have sentience."
"We're not." Maud said. "That's why my creator was killed by the cops, and I was left unfinished. I was just a head, torso, and spare parts rotting in a warehouse until Amaryllis found me while out for food."
"So... Amaryllis... What- how- I mean, I don't-" I said, trying not to be rude, but desperate for answers.
"I was in Canyon City when the attacks hit." an artificial, hollow voice said. I looked at the door to see Amaryllis with a metal mask over her mouth, the words coming from a built in speaker. Somehow, it sounded more robotic than the actual robot's voice... "I was a shut in, I didn't evacuate in time, I didn't even know about the dimensional rift until after the leaking energy field had blended me with the roaches in my apartment. Couple other things too, but mostly roaches. I found Maud and fixed her up with whatever I could find, then we got out of the city and over the walls with her jets."
"Oh, fuck, you were IN Canyon City?" Lucy said, shocked "You stayed in canyon city? Holy fuck, I'm surprised you lived, that's badass."
It... explained a lot, that's for sure. I had thought she was an experiment gone wrong, or a mutation at best, but to have survived Canyon City... I wondered if her name was on the memorial, or she'd gotten out before it went up. I tried not to look directly at her as she walked up, but tried not to let it look like I was avoiding eye contact. It was a tricky balance.
"So... this is us!" Crystal said, posing "We'll be giving you support in the area, and that other hero who's around here too!"
"Well, I think it's more accurate to say "we'll be working together', I'm sure you're going to be just at important to the area as us, you're more than just our backup!" Galorna said encouragingly.
"We'd better be..." said Mourner under her breath
"Oh, while you're here, can we get some advice? We have a patrol tonight, after 6," Crystal said "we were discussing who should go out on it, we wanted two members out, and two here to rest up for tomorrow morning's patrol, how did you guys pick who to go out?"
"We just kinda took volunteers?" Lucy said "We didn't think about it."
"We really should have though..." I said, looking at them. "I mean, Saffron could patrol on her own, but even together, Cobalt and Verdant would have a tough time if there's trouble... You should have stayed home on this one, Sable, gone out later with the other two."
"We're just doing a general sweep for now, I'm sure it's ok." Galorna said "Anyway, as for your team," she waved to Crystal "I think pair an attacker with a tactical to start off, right?"
"We... aren't classified like that." Maud said. "We're all just 'whatever'. No powers, remember?"
"I think we should just flip coins..." Mourner said, shaking her head "We're tough enough by ourselves, any two of us is a good combo."
"Well..." I said, anxious to leave the room with the giant talking cockroach "You guys figure that out, it was nice to meet you!"
Crystal looked at me, concerned "Oh, are you leaving?... I wanted to show you my magic..."
"Well, we are on call!" Galorna said, backing me up "We'd love to meet up sometime though, you know where we are, and I'll get our agents to get in contact with you about any team-ups!"
"Well... Um, bye, then! It was so nice to meet you!" Crystal said, disappointedly waving.
"I look forward to seeing you again, and I hope we can work together soon." Amaryllis followed up, her voicebox making the words sound flat and insincere. I tried not to flinch, and I think I was mostly successful.
We stepped out of the building and walked a ways away in silence. I waited until we were a block away before I spoke up.
"Ok, so that was horrifying, right?"
Galorna made a humming noise "Mmm, well... it was unexpected. I'm surprised the roach girl and the android were even allowed to take the test, legally I think they're not supposed to exist?"
"Well they can't kill someone for existing, and I thought they were all super cool." Lucy said, defensively. "They survived Canyon City?! Are you kidding me? That alone makes them cooler heroes than us."
"They're not cool." I said "They're a poorly put together collection of second rate misfits that'll get ignored at best, and actively scare people at worst."
"That's unfair, only uhh Amyrellis? was scary, the others were fine..." Galorna said.
"It's 'Amaryllis', it's a flower name, and no, the robot was scary too?" I pointed out "All the wrong parts, and exposed insides? I'm just saying, I vote we avoid them."
"I liked Mourner and Maud a lot..." Lucy said "I was looking forward to getting to know them."
"We don't even know her name, or anything about her," I protested "I'm just saying, we need to stay away from those girls."
"Rouge, you're being dramatic." Galorna said "We're going to get to know them better, and we will be working with them, we're in the same section of the city, you can't just decide you're 'not ok' with them."
I huffed. They creeped me out, they felt off, and I didn't want to be anywhere close to Amaryllis, ever again. I could just imagine her needle sharp teeth biting into my neck, her weird arms with the jagged hook things on the backs tearing into me, her twitching and chittering. I felt nauseous just thinking about it. I didn't even know if my powers would work on a bug, so I'd be at her mercy... Mod was ok, my powers absolutely wouldn't work on her though, and the whole team made me feel uncomfortable, like I was being judged or something. Regardless, they were too weird and too freaky to get any traction, so they'd just fade into the background, and end up being forgotten by people as a whole, just our backup patrollers. Speaking of...
"Changing the subject, do either of you know where we can find Seraphim?" I asked "I wanted to see where she's located, and see if I can get any contact information from her."
"Why the fuck would I know where your friend was?" Lucy asked, confused "You're the one who took her to the GGDS office, right?"
"I- well, I didn't stay to see where she's stationed..." I said, not wanting to admit I'd left in a huff after hearing her test score.
"Uhh, I think it's in our files, but I can't check them from my phone..." Galorna said apologetically. "I didn't think about checking up on her."
I pulled out my phone from my pocket. That I had. In this dress at least. Gods, I loved my actual magic dress, I couldn't wait until I could stop wearing the fake one. "I'll call Driz, she'll be awake by now, I'm sure."
I dialed her, and waited on her to pick up. After a few rings, a groggy, confused Drizti answered the call.
"Candy? W-what's the issue? Uuhg, hang on..."
I heard her slurp something, and get back on the line.
"I just woke up, is everything ok?"
"Yeah, sorry, we're all good, I thought you'd be awake already, sorry..."
"Mmm, I was up late arguing with some of the fans on my phone... They were saying some very nasty things..."
Yeah, social media wasn't treating her well at all, and I'm betting she was still under the weather from Saturday, too.
"Hey, listen," I said "we were wondering if you could maybe go to the main computer and pull up Seraphim's new place? We were gonna stop by while we're out, and try and find a way to communicate with her."
"Oh, sure, I can do that." Drizti said, more awake now.
I heard the sound of her power activating, and doors opening and closing. I waited, and before long, she read me the address the GGDS had given us for Sera's new HQ.
"Thanks, babygirl, you should go back to bed now though." I said "And maybe stay off the internet?"
"I would, but I've got over a hundred new things to check since I went to bed..." She said sadly "Maybe after I reply to them all I'll get a nap?"
"...Yeah, maybe so." I wasn't about to get into this with her right now, I had my own stuff to do.
We said our goodbyes, and I hung up.
"We're not too far, it's a few blocks over." I said, pointing.
"We're like, a couple blocks from everything in our section, honestly." pointed out Lucy.
"Well, it's a section, so... it's 20 blocks by 20 blocks, so it could have been kinda far, if it was on the other side of the section." Galorna pointed out
"It's kinda close to the middle, it looks like... we'll pass our building, actually, kinda." I said "A few streets up, but I think they flanked us with Seraphim and the Un-Chosen?"
"Shit, they really do consider her a full team by herself then, I guess." Lucy said in an impressed tone.
"Ok, whatever, can you transform so we can fly over there?" I said to Galorna, mildly annoyed
"I'd rather have boots on the ground for our first walkthrough." she said "Really understand our area, we can do fly-overs another time."
"Ugh, look, there's a dumpster, there's graffiti, a few faded fliers, there's a boarded up building, there's a clogged storm drain, there's a scary alley that looks like someone's waiting in it to murder us." I pointed stuff out as we walked "This is our area, it's just an empty, run down, mostly abandoned part of the city. The road our building is on? The one that leads to city center? That's the only road with anything worthwhile on it."
"That's the road with the bagel place, yeah." remembered Lucy. "Hey, the grocery place isn't on that road though?"
"There's a lot of work to do here, yeah, but once we're here constantly, people will feel safe, and they'll come back." Galorna growled "I know it's a shitty part of the city, I'm sorry we can't have a giant building in the square like the Queens, but this is what we got. Do you actually want to do your job, Rouge?"
I flushed. Not really, I wanted to get famous, get popular, and stay out of danger.
"Of course I do!" I protested "I was just saying there's nothing here, not even like, people selling magic goblin herbs or anything."
"I thought those were legal now, anyway?" Lucy said "Shit, are they not? I might have to delete a couple posts..."
"They're legal, they always were, for goblins. They're just legal in general now, it's fine." Galorna said "Rouge, I know none of us are the best at this yet, but I think you need to stop making everything feel so... I don't know..."
"Urgent?" Lucy offered
"...No, but something like that." Galorna said. "You just seem to want something, so bad, but I can't figure out what, or why. I thought you wanted to be the best magical girl you could be, you were great at the meet and greet, but you feel hard to get close to, and you keep pushing, but no one is pushing back, just please, calm down."
"What do you mean 'pushing'?" I said "I'm just trying to get through all this, I'm not in an ok place right now."
I was pushing? No, she was pushing. She needed to just shut up and let me do my thing, not poke at me, not try to figure me out, just leave me alone, and let me do things my way, and it'd all work out.
"You come off strong sometimes..." Lucy murmured "And you do maybe keep people away from you a little."
That was it, time to use my trump card.
"Yeah? Well maybe I try to keep everyone away because if I touch them they die." I said, loud and angry. "I have a full grown man in my fucking mini fridge who'll never get to live life again, and you wonder why I keep people away?"
"...I- fuck..." Galorna muttered "Ok, yeah. I'm pretty torn up about that night too, but I get it, at least I can still touch people, I get it."
I decided to drive the point further. "You know I'm still a virgin?" I said coldly "I'll never know a lover's embrace, I'll never have a real kiss, just a dumb prom kiss from some guy I was only pity dating."
"...Maybe if you used a plastic bag, you could-" started Lucy
"Sable, hush, not the time." Galorna said softly. "I'm sorry Rouge, I was putting too much weight on your actions and not enough weight on your situation. I'd love to help you get through this, any way I can."
I was glowing inside, the guilt at using my 'condition' to get away with being called out for being a manipulative, selfish bitch clashed with the knowledge I'd gotten away with it, and it mixed into a shitty pool of satisfaction. I wallowed in the feeling of being a bad friend, letting the self pity and loathing fill me up, hot and burning inside. I thought about Drizti, so sweet and kind, and how I barely let her in, about Alele and her obvious crush on me, about Lucy and her gender issues I was pretending didn't bother me, and about Galorna, who was just trying to be the best team mom she could be, and I thought about how I wasn't a part of their group, I was just a faker, a pretender who'd slipped in and used them, and my eyes filled with tears. Why was I so shitty? Why was I being shitty now? I knew it, I wanted to stop, could I stop?
"Oh... Candy..." Galorna whispered "It's ok, it's ok, I got you..."
She'd noticed my tears, and assumed they were for my loss of human contact, which they were, in a way, but I'd lost that before I even got my power. She rubbed my shoulders, being careful not to touch my skin, and tried to say comforting things to me. The fact that I was 'tricking' her into thinking I was upset about my power even more than I had been before made me cry harder, and I felt even worse. I clung to the feeling of rot inside, and for a second, considered messaging Forica to take down the photos, to just let me fade away, but a chill went through me at that, even in this state, I was still desperate to be popular, to limit my hero work to "selling merch and inspiring little girls".
"Uh, I'm not great at this stuff yet, but like, I think you're cool, I didn't mean to be mean..." Lucy said awkwardly "I'd keep people away too, if I did what you do."
"I-I'm trying to get closer" I sniffled "I was going to have another party on Wednesday, I want to be closer to you all..."
I really, really, did. I didn't want to feel so alien and outcast, but I couldn't help but seeing myself as an outsider for some reason. I saw them as equal parts rivals and teammates, and that just wasn't fair, especially after what I'd realized at the dinner, about the 'demographic choices" that got them on the team.
"Let's just finish up our patrol, we'll go see Seraphim, and head back to the base, ok?" Galorna said "And I'd love to see you host another party, that was a blast."
"Uh, me and Galorna watch tv almost every night..." Lucy said "Maybe you and Driz or Alele could start a show?"
"Hero names, Sable." reminded Galorna "It'll be harder now with our patrols, but you could do something like that, yeah." she said encouragingly "I'd invite you to join us, but we're already over a season into our show."
"Y-yeah, it's ok." I said, wiping my eyes. At least I knew magical makeup couldn't smear from crying... "I can figure something out. I'm sorry I lost it there."
"You're going through a lot, you're ok." Galora said, taking her hands off me. "Now come on, let's go see your friend, ok?"
We walked in silence towards the area Seraphim was supposed to be in. I felt good, I'd cried it out, and I was pretty sure I could stop being so much of a bitch, I hoped. I really, really needed to work hard on it though. I'd been mostly closed the whole time I'd been here, and opening up to anyone other than Drizti was going to be hard. I needed that connection though, the team needed me, kind of. Maybe not as much as they needed the rest of the group, but I was the one who was drawing in the largest audience, and-... Fuck, there I went again. I needed to sit at home and think things over a lot after this.
Before too long, we stood in front of a stand alone building, an abandoned house by the looks of it. I walked up to the grey, peeling door and knocked. There was a loud crash, and the sound of running feet, and the door burst open, Seraphim standing in the doorway. She was wearing a kind of white tunic instead of her usual robe-skirt thing with the holes and slits, and her face was un-bandaged. She looked me up and down, and her nostrils flared as she hissed in air, her third eye moving seemingly at random.
"Candy! You've found me once more, and you're in distress, how can I help avenge you? Who hurt you and made you weep?" She said, peering around me at the others waiting on the sidewalk.
"N-no, I was just- I was having emotional problems with the other girls, I'm ok now." I explained. "Can we come in? We wanted to talk."
She looked back over her shoulder, then shook her head. "No, I have already set up the altar, and it's blasphemous and dangerous to let non-believers into a church. We can speak here."
I looked past her into the darkness, other than the light of a computer- one most likely given to her by the GGDS, there was nothing visible, just the slight sound of something wet dripping slowly, and... low, heavy breathing?
"Ah... yeah... That's fine. Look, we were just looking to get your schedule, and exchange info for team-ups or emergencies. You didn't answer me about CirNet last time, but-"
She lit up "Yes! I have a document for you!"
She ducked behind the door, letting it swing open slightly, letting the light in. Red vines and branches spread across her floor, leading to something just out of sight. I felt a sense of sickening allure, and leaned in to get a better look.
"No heretics in the church!" Seraphim said firmly, stepping in front of me to block my path and my view. "Here is the document I was told to give you."
I looked at the sheet of printed paper she'd given me. It was weirdly dirty, but it came from the GGDS, and it explained her schedule, her CirNet profile, and let me know she'd been assigned an agent who I could contact, as apparently Sera herself refused to use a computer.
"Ok, so... I text this person, and they call you?" I asked "Couldn't I just call you?"
She looked at the paper and frowned "I do not have a calling utensil, the machine receives the calls, and I speak to it."
"The machine?" I asked
"The one that glows, and tells me a countdown to my next quest, yes."
She must mean her computer, it sounded like they'd put it into some kind of baby mode and set it to auto answer calls once they realized she had no idea what it was.
"So... I can't call the machine then?" It'd be very annoying to have to call the GGDS, then be transferred over to her every time we needed her for something.
"That is something to ask the person, I'm not aware." She said, sounding vaguely embarrassed at her lack of knowledge.
Maybe I could help her learn technology in my spare time, have her over and train her while- I pushed the idea out of my head for now. I needed to focus on my team, not this lady.
"Ok, um, I'll call then, and figure it out. So do you have a patrol soon? Or...?"
"The next quest is..." she looked behind the door "...in two hours. Then I'll take to the skies and slay anyone who tries to harm the sanctuary of my domain!"
"Ok, so, don't slay them, just like, beat them up? Slaying is usually frowned upon." I said. Was she really planning on killing people?
She frowned "Even the cursed ones?"
I shook my head "I have no idea what a 'cursed one' is, but no, please don't kill anyone."
She pointed at Galorna "She is a type of cursed one. A rare one to be fair, but I can still smell her cursed blood."
Ohhh, she was racist. "Nnnnno, people like that aren't cursed, they just look different, people used to think they were evil, but we found out they weren't actually, like over a hundred years ago."
She hummed "Well, I'd never met a cursed one before I came here, so... I will defer to you. I will not kill any evil people, even if they're cursed."
She didn't quite get it, but as long as she wasn't killing...
"Ok, whatever. I gotta get back to my quest, but I'm sure I'll see you around, ok?"
She gave me a sharp toothy grin. "Very well, I'll see you in the skies, then!"
I gave her a thumbs up and headed down the stairs.
"Oh, Candy?" She called out
I turned around "Yeah?"
"You mentioned having issues with your team... Please be careful, where I'm from, sisterhood is the most important thing, the most valuable treasure to cherish."
I nodded, and walked back to the others. 'Sisterhood'. Made it sound like she was from a cult or something instead of just a weird church. Actually, thinking about it more...
"Hey, how's your friend?" asked Lucy, jarring me out of my musings "I saw her pointing at us, did she want to meet us?"
"Uh, no, she's just new to the area, and hadn't seen anyone like Saffron before." I explained. I wasn't lying, I was just avoiding a tricky topic, that still counted as my trying to get closer, right? They'd like me even less if they thought I was friends with a racist.
"Ah, ok, that's fair." Galorna said "We should have her over sometime, I want to meet her, from what I've heard, she's pretty cool." She looked at the sheet of paper in my hands "Did you get her info?"
"Yeah, she can't use a computer or phone for some reason, so... she gave us a printout of the schedule, and a number to call so someone can get in contact with her if we want to talk."
"That seems annoying, I'd just fly over here..." Lucy said "Why can't she use a phone or whatever?"
I shrug "I don't know, she's from 'far away', and doesn't understand a lot of stuff. Anyway, it's been like, four hours since we got those bagels, can we get a snack or something? There's a tea shop around here somewhere..."
"Absolutely, and I'm impressed with you two, holding your transformations that long!" Galorna said "You can de-power any time though, it's up to you."
I thought about my pockets; my phone, my mints, my earbuds, my wallet, the gun I still hadn't turned in yet... There was too much useful stuff that's be stuck in hammerspace if I turned back.
"I'm good." Me and Lucy said at the same time, for totally different reasons.
We made eye contact, and started laughing, it wasn't funny, but it felt nice. I left the smile on my face as I led them back to the main road, I was already doing better, right?