A Second Generation Whateley Academy Adventure

Sprite 2: I Think I'm A Clone Now

by

Amethyst

(Thanks to Domoviye and Fiddlerfox for assistance)

Part Five

The Tunnels - Clubhouse
Thursday, November 24th, 2016 – Lunchtime

That Thanksgiving, I found myself in our little clubhouse with Shannon and Pastel, eating lunch together. With Shisa having already left for Boston, it was just the three of us present from our little quartet, and lunch was the best time for us to spend a bit of the holiday together. Pastel would be having dinner with some other kids from her cottage, and I had plans to spend dinner with the Twins. As for Shannon, we were probably lucky to have him join us for lunch.

This whole girl puberty thing of his was hard on him, and he seemed to be getting more depressed and less social by the day. I’d think PMS, but I was pretty sure he didn’t have the right bits for that. Besides, having experienced periods and such myself, I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy, let alone my best friend.

Still, seeing him this way so often was frustrating. I wanted to be able to help him, and sometimes, just bitching about our situations together seemed to do so, but some days his moods were worse than others, and this seemed to be one of those days. Maybe he had some kind of Thanksgiving emotional baggage he wasn’t telling me about, and it wasn’t really my business if he did, but I was pretty sure that he planned on spending the lion’s share of this long weekend either in his dorm room or the club room, getting lost in a book, or perhaps several.

I mean, that was fine if it helped him to cope with things, but was it coping or an escape? I wanted to be able to do more to help him than just being someone who had as much reason to bitch about life as he did, but what he needed more than anything was to know that somebody gave a shit about him. That was why I had arranged this holiday lunch, for his sake, to show him that at least two people give a fuck about him.

Honestly, I didn’t truly care about Thanksgiving one way or another. I had already missed Thanksgiving up in Canada, and while I did wonder what an actual Thanksgiving would entail with my adoptive family, it wasn’t like I had any great holiday traditions from my birth family that I cared to repeat. Thanksgiving in the Mason household had always been more theatre than holiday, after all. 

It was a day when we got together with extended family or some of my father’s business contacts, my parents pretended to actually give a shit about the family and me, and I played the role of their well-adjusted and well-behaved son. So, yeah, as holidays went, it was torturous, but so was every holiday that I had to spend with my parents. A happy holiday for me was always one where they were away for business or something.

Yeah, so this was more for my friends than me, even though I did have some things to be thankful for this year. I wasn’t with my birth family anymore; I had a good adoptive family, and despite my best attempts to screw it up, I had some friends, and my future might not be so bad. It almost made all the shit that Blythe had put me through worth it. Almost. I still could have done without all the trauma and shit, though.

Anyway, I was a little lost in thought as we ate our lunches. Pastel and Shannon both had a plate of turkey and all the fixings from Crystal Hall, so we were doing this right, while my much tinier plate hosted a single cranberry, a little dollop of mashed potatoes with a few drops of gravy, a similar portion of stuffing, and one of those chicken drumettes, like you’d get in an order of hot wings. The latter was turkey-sized for me, and even with my super metabolism, I probably wouldn’t be able to eat all of it.

I was snapped out of my daze by Shannon teasing me. “I didn’t think you’d be eating something like that, you know, since you have wings and all. Aren’t you worried that you might be eating a relative?”

On the one hand, I was happy that he had managed to at least look like he was shaking off his foul mood and was actually engaging with us instead of silently brooding. On the other hand, “Dude, are you calling me a chicken?”

Shannon scratched his chin, a pensive expression on his face. “Well, I was thinking turkey, actually. It makes you think, though. If somebody has turkey GSD, would it be wrong for them to celebrate Thanksgiving?”

I didn’t respond, and I let him go down that mental rabbit hole while stuffing his face for a moment or two before I felt the time was right for a bit of payback. “Hey, Shannon,  you… uhh… dropped something in your cleavage.” His eyes widened a bit and shot right down to glance at his breasts. “Ha! Made you look!”

My friend looked up from his tits to frown at me, “Hey, why'd you pull that with me? Pastel is sitting right there!” He waved a hand around furiously to indicate the girl in question.

Yes, this was much better than all of us just sitting here and quietly eating. So, completely unashamed, I grinned up at him and pointed out, “Well, duh, because you actually have cleavage. And payback for the chicken comment.”

“Hey! Fuck you! Shouldn't you be out somewhere exchanging teeth for quarters?” Pastel shot back almost immediately.

I made it look like I was actually considering that for a moment before turning my grin toward her. “Nah, we both know I'm the type to knock out teeth and take the money, Patchwork Princess.”

Pastel’s return salvo was as quick as it was unexpected… and weird. “Watch out, or I'll help the Dylans snort you, you Winx Club reject.”

“Ewww, gross!” That, and a full-body shudder, was my instant reaction to the visual that comment put in my head. I wasn’t about to let her win this round, though, so it only took me a moment to dislodge the mental image and snark back at her, “Well, I suppose you have to change things up, though, if they've already tasted the rainbow.”

“Hey now, don't knock it. How do you think I get the best shit for free? Rainbow Bright ain't cheap,” she gleefully countered, getting a laugh out of both Shannon and me.

That set the mood for the rest of our lunch together, as we all traded quips and laughed together. It probably would have been better if Shisa were there as well, but it was fun, and it was nice to see Shannon smiling and laughing, even if it probably wouldn’t last for long. We spent a couple of hours just hanging out together like that before eventually breaking off to do other things.

That evening, I had dinner with Polly and Peter, and we hung out together and talked in Crystal Hall for a couple of hours before Peter decided that he wanted to go to his lab to work on something. That was when we all decided to split up and do our own things for the rest of the evening. In my case, that meant going out to The Grove to visit my Fairy friends.

When I arrived, all the Fairies in the village seemed to be in good spirits, partially due to the takeout box that my friends had earned for their work cleaning the clubhouse for us. They had all been eating very well over the past couple of days and had stored what they could keep for the winter months. So, I guess it wasn’t too surprising that they were all in a good mood.

Seeing their reaction to the simple takeout box of food that I was starting to take for granted, I promised myself that over the winter months, I would try to bring a care package of food from Crystal Hall to the Fairy village every two weeks to pad their food supplies and give them the occasional treat. These were my people; they made me feel I belonged, and I was going to do what I could to take care of them. I knew that Rose Blossom was bringing out care packages whenever she could since she needed to eat a lot more than the others in the village, but I wanted to do my part, and it wasn’t like I would be going out of my way to bring something from Crystal Hall if I was coming to The Grove anyway.

That evening, for the hour and a half I spent out in The Grove, my group of Fairy friends gave me my first lesson on the Fairy language. It was Alora’s idea, and she made a sort of game out of it so everyone could be involved. They would show me something or have me interact with something, and then they would tell me the English word, followed by the Fairy equivalent. I was suddenly very relieved to have the vastly improved memory and acuity that came with this body.

We continued to play our game as we left The Grove, and I led my Fairy friends back to the campus and the closest entrance to the tunnels. It was still a little over an hour before curfew, and I had convinced them to come and meet Shannon. He had been so down in the dumps lately, and I thought that if anything would cheer him up, it would be meeting real Fairies instead of a mad science reject like me. I didn’t say that last part out loud, though, since I didn’t want them all to know just how fragile my ego truly was.

So, a little under an hour before curfew, I found myself travelling through the tunnels toward the club room with my Fairy friends. I figured that if Shannon was going to be anywhere, he would probably be there, reading and avoiding the other people in his dorm who might still be here at the school rather than at home with their families. It was getting closer to curfew, though, so we would have to hurry to get to the clubroom before he left.

As we moved along the tunnels, my lessons in the Fairy language continued. Well, as best the others could manage to do so anyway. There was a lot more for them to point out and tell me the words for while we were still in the forest, but there were still things like basic directions and stuff. Whenever we made a turn or the tunnel we were in branched off into multiple directions, they would make sure to reinforce the Fairy translation by speaking them aloud and then having me repeat them.

We still needed to be quiet and cautious, though. While many of the students were away from school for the holiday, there were still quite a few who were spending Thanksgiving at Whateley for some reason or another, but I didn’t want anybody but people I trusted implicitly knowing about my Fairy friends, so we needed to be careful to keep the others out of sight. Not that I was too worried about that. We would probably hear anyone coming down the tunnels long before they heard or saw us, and there were places they could hide or conceal themselves with illusions and such if it became necessary.

We did encounter a group of three students, two with dog-based GSD, around halfway to the club room, but we smelled the pot smoke and heard them talking long before we saw them. With that advanced warning, we were able to sneak past them without too much trouble. They weren’t paying too much attention and were too stoned to focus on us while we made sure to stick to the ceiling of the passage above them.

Unfortunately, when we got to the club room, Shannon wasn’t there. Either we had missed him, or he had gone to his dorm room after eating dinner to enjoy some privacy while Sky Dude was away for the holiday. I was a little disappointed that my surprise for him hadn’t worked out, though, and resolved to set up a meeting with Fairies for him for another time as I made my way back to Hawthorne with my Fairy friends and then said my goodnights before they returned to The Grove.

The Grove
Friday, November 25th, 2016 – 9:16 am

Ms. Reilly gracefully flowed through the forest ahead of me as she led me through The Grove.  I wasn’t quite sure why we were out here in the morning, but maybe she needed my assistance with one of the rituals for the World Tree while Becky was off visiting her parents. Why else would she have knocked on my door at eight thirty in the morning on a day when teachers and students were all supposed to be enjoying the holiday weekend?

Honestly, I would have expected her to still be visiting with her family while she had the chance. I had asked about it too, but she told me she was reluctant to be so far away from the World Tree for much longer than she already had been and that she had some very important duties to take care of today. Then she told me to hurry, get ready to do some work, and to meet her at Crystal Hall for breakfast.

So, now I found myself following my advisor through The Grove, though, much to my surprise, we didn’t seem to be heading toward the World Tree. I could sort of sense where in The Grove the great tree was growing, and not just because of the essence it gave off. It was like my sense of The Grove was getting better the more time I spent there, and I was developing a sort of internal map of the place.

I was somewhat bewildered when Ms. Reilly finally stopped us in a pleasant little clearing and placed the small backpack she’d brought with her onto the ground. Then she turned to give me that radiant, confident smile of hers and inquired, “Do you know why I brought you out here today, Vanessa?”

I considered the question for a moment before shaking my head. “I thought you may have needed help with a ritual for the World Tree, but you didn’t take me there, and you mentioned something about having important duties to take care of today.”

“Yes, very important duties,” the gorgeous Sidhe agreed with her gentle smile. “For instance, I think it’s about time that I start giving you some one-on-one magic lessons. Becky told me that she thinks you’re almost over your hobgoblin issues, and that you’re starting to get the basics of runic magic down, so I want to start setting up the groundwork for more complex magical workings, such as that teleportation spell that I promised to teach you.”

As cool as that was, and as much as I was looking forward to learning that spell in particular, I was a little taken aback by my advisor’s response. “Umm… not that I’m complaining, Ms. Reilly, but don’t you have more important things to do than spend the morning teaching me cool magic stuff?”

“Vanessa, you are my student and will be my assistant soon as well. That means it’s my job to teach you and ensure that you reach your potential, which is why I will be spending the entire day today teaching you the groundwork of several spells that you will need to know as my assistant,” Ms. Reilly admonished. Then her expression turned a bit more serious as she added, “First, though, I want to talk to you about the trip you’re taking to Berlin tomorrow."

Oh, shit. Of course, she knew about that; she was my fucking advisor, she probably knew about everything that involved me at this school. Was she going to tell me I couldn’t go? Was she mad at me for not telling her about it? “I… uhh… didn’t plan on it,” I admitted, unable to look her in the eyes. “My friends asked me to go, and Polly needs me… she doesn’t have anyone else but me and her brother and…”

A finger patted me gently atop the head as the Sidhe’s voice softly instructed, “Calm down, Vanessa. I’m not angry with you for wanting to support your friend; I would do the same thing in your place. In fact, I did more than once when I was a student here, and it taught me to always be prepared for trouble. Mistress Mechanica and her daughter are still at large, and part of the reason you were sent to school here was to keep you safe from them, and they aren’t the only possible danger out there for you. You’re five inches tall and obviously not human, and that could make you a target out there for groups like Humanity First.”

“I know that… I just…” I trailed off, not quite sure what to say when there was so much that should be said, and I was too damn scared to say it aloud. I needed to pay Peter and Polly back for everything they’d done for me. I needed to show Polly that at least one person besides her twin gives a shit about her. I needed to show that I wasn’t the shit excuse for a friend that I still feared I might be.

Ms. Reilly continued calmly speaking as if I hadn’t just interrupted her, pulling some sort of small package out of seemingly empty space. “Which is why I want to make sure that you’re prepared before you leave the school grounds in the morning.”

“Uhh… what?” I asked, not quite sure if I had heard her correctly.

My teacher seemed to flow, almost like liquid, into a casual cross-legged seated position in the grass and placed the small package on her knee. “Since I was worried about your safety out there, I asked Cecilia to put a rush on this, using your measurements, on Wednesday and placed some minor protective enchantments on it, as well as one to keep you warm in colder weather. The enchantments aren’t powerful, but should provide some protection from magic and physical attacks in case you don’t have your PK Shell on for some reason.”

At her urging, I inspected the bundle of green and brown clothing that hummed faintly with magic and changed into it. It was patterned after some of the dresses that I had seen some of the Fairies wearing, backless and shoulderless, in a style that made me think of the classic Tinkerbell dress, but with a plunging neckline that showed off all my cleavage. And I had no idea how my voluminous chest wouldn’t be exposed by the chest-covering bits falling off the first time I bounced a little. The dress was short too, barely covering me to mid-thigh.

It was dark green in color with some little brass accents, and made primarily from silk, though there were some accessories in dark brown leather and a green matching the dress to go with it as well. There was a belt with some pouches, bracers to cover my forearms, a choker, and something like wide belts for my upper arms. The bracers and upper arm belts even had tiny pockets on the inside. They weren’t big enough to hold much at my size, but I could probably fit some of my Fairy-sized spell slips in there for emergencies. Finally, there was a pair of knee-high leather boots that were similar to those I had worn with my Pirate Fairy costume on Halloween.

“Is this… a costume?” I asked uncertainly.

Ms. Reilly let out a musical laugh. “If you want to use it as one, I won’t stop you, but I was more concerned with keeping you safe while you’re off school grounds. I thought you might be more comfortable in something that resembles what the other Fairies wear as well. Here, you should put this on as well and try to wear it all the time.”

Something else appeared out of thin air, and I spotted the slight glint of metal in her extended hand. Landing on her hand to inspect it, I discovered a very simple silver-hued drop pendant on a silver chain, but Fairy-sized. I could feel magic on it as well, but I wasn’t quite sure what kind.

“That doesn’t feel like more protection charms,” I thought aloud.

“That’s because it’s not,” the Sidhe concurred. “There is a durability spell on the chain, but the pendant contains a spell that will allow you to store things in an extra-dimensional pocket, like the one I use to store my weapons and other things that I might need at a moment’s notice. The pocket isn’t nearly as large as the one I use, but it should easily be large enough to store your personal belongings, even larger things like your laptop, without too much trouble. This should allow you to keep your MID and anything else you might need close at hand. To use it, you just need to touch the pendant, inject a little essence, and touch the object you want to store with the pendant. To withdraw an item, inject a little essence and think about the item you want, and it will either appear before you, or you can reach into the pocket dimension and pull it out manually.”

“That sounds… umm… valuable,” I hedged.

“It was one of the spells that I was going to be teaching you, but it will take you far longer than the time we have today to learn even the basics of it. I decided that since you will likely need your MID and other personal items tomorrow, and it would be impractical for you to carry a regular-sized purse or wallet everywhere you go, I should give you a way to use the spell before your trip tomorrow. I will not let you leave this school unprepared for possible trouble,” Ms. Reilly said sternly, though there was a warmth to her tone as well.

Ms. Reilly wasn’t stretching the truth in the slightest when she said that we would be working together all day, or when she said she wanted me to be prepared. For the rest of the morning, she introduced me to a new spell and made sure that I had it down so I would have some kind of protection in case things went sour in Berlin. It was a relatively simple spell, but one that used hand signs and an activation word, rather than runes on a spell slip.

I guess it was meant to be used in a bad situation to give myself some breathing room when I didn’t have time to grab a spell slip. The spell would let me create a concussive blast that probably wouldn’t seriously hurt a full-sized human, but it should knock them back a bit and give me a chance to either get away or grab a spell slip. It could be used very quickly, but it would still be more dependable than just casting spells on the fly, using only essence and an idea of what I wanted my magic to do.

For the remainder of the morning, we worked on that spell. Ms. Reilly was insistent that I not only learn the hand sigils and the pronunciation of the activation word perfectly, but that I learn the meaning of them as well, and why each was important to the spell. She insisted that knowing how spells worked was super important, especially in the type of ritualistic spells I would have to learn as her assistant. Knowledge supports belief, and belief and competence would ensure no magical misfires.

So, she explained how each step of the spell worked and had me practice until she was certain I was doing everything right each time and ready to cast the spell at a moment’s notice. Then she materialized a picnic lunch for us, and we talked more about magic as we ate. Once we finished eating, though, it was right back to work.

Since I had the new defense spell memorized, Ms. Reilly started teaching me the groundwork of the teleportation spell she had promised to teach me. It was not something that I was going to learn in a single afternoon, though. It would probably take weeks of lessons to learn everything I would need for that one spell, and I spent most of that afternoon just learning the theory behind the spell and getting familiar with the runes that would be required.

By the time we returned to the campus grounds to have dinner in Crystal Hall, I was mentally exhausted and had a whole new appreciation for how much work and learning went into becoming a proper magic-user. I was also glad for the preparations that my advisor had made for tomorrow. It would be nice to be able to have easy access to my MID and stuff, and for some reason, I was a little nervous about leaving Whateley, even if I was going with one of the teachers and two friends.

Berlin, New Hampshire
103 Mall Parking Lot
Saturday, November 26th, 2016 – 11:15 am

Blythe was practically giddy as she flew over the parking lot and toward the main entrance of the only decent mall in Berlin, New Hampshire. She would have teleported straight to the mall, but she had needed to talk to someone and make some arrangements before starting her little reign of terror. She wanted to be sure that her fun wouldn’t be interrupted by the MCO and wanted to know the moment that Aiden entered the mall.

That was where Witch Hazel came in, a woman she had just met with in a quiet little café down the street. She was an old supervillain acquaintance of her mother’s; they had worked together a few times, robbing banks and such, and she owed Mistress Mechanica a favor that Blythe had just cashed in. She was a powerful Wizard, and she was on her way to a bank across town, at this very moment, to make a large and very public spectacle of robbing the place to give the local MCO office something to do and keep their attention away from the mall for a while so Blythe could do what she came for.

She had also cast a spell, at Blythe’s request, one that would alert her whenever someone genetically related to her came within a certain range of her. The range wasn’t great, probably only enough to encompass the mall and parking lot, but it would let her know when Aiden was getting close so she could get the fun started. It would suck if she went to all this trouble only for him not to show up or be late enough that the MCO showed up to ruin everything.

Looking at it, the mall wasn’t nearly as small as she had feared when she heard it was Aiden’s destination. It looked fairly new and was actually much larger than she had anticipated. It still wasn’t quite on the same level as the malls she was used to in Calgary, Edmonton, or Vancouver, but it was far better than she expected for somewhere out in the boonies.  

After first reading the leaked itinerary for Aiden’s little trip, she almost feared it might be some sort of horrible joke, or that it would be a tiny strip mall with nothing worthwhile. How the hell would she have worked with that? Not to mention that she doubted a prissy rich kid like Aiden would even show up if that was the case.

She had wondered how the hell his new ‘friends’ had gotten him to agree to come shopping in this town, of all places, when they could have gone somewhere bigger and more exciting like Boston or Manchester. Was he so desperate for attention that he was willing to slum it? Still, Emilie said that he was due to arrive here sometime around noon, and the size of the mall made her think that Aiden might just show up here after all.

She had roughly forty-five minutes to plan out her little reign of terror in Aiden’s name before he was due to arrive. With that in mind, she adjusted the long wool coat and hat that concealed her wings and antennae and strode casually toward the building’s entrance to get started. Hopefully, by the time he arrived, Aiden’s reputation would be in tatters, and he would either have to come home with her, where he belonged, or face the MCO and police searching for the villain, Spite.

It was no less than he deserved for the way he had treated her, the way he had betrayed her, and made her feel like less than nothing. She would finally get her revenge today, though, and then things could go back to the way they should be. After this, he would have to stay with her, realize how much she loved him, and that they belonged together. Maybe… just maybe… he could remember that he loved her, too.

First things first, though. She could make him love her again once he was safe at home with her. She needed to get her vengeance first, make him hurt, teach him a lesson that he would never forget, make things between them even, and ensure he would never cross her again before she could think of their future together.

As she stepped through the arched glass doors of the mall entrance, Blythe took a mental inventory of what she had available for her mission and how she could use each item. Unfortunately, to make people believe she was actually Aiden, she would have to make anything she did look like magic, since that seemed to be one of Aiden’s powers based on the fight they’d had before she had to escape the farmhouse with her mother’s unconscious new body. Spinning the use of her mother’s devises, or even her size and gravity powers, as magic shouldn’t be too hard, though.

The shock sticks could look like a wand when she was Aiden’s size, so a little theatre could help to sell that image. Of course, she’d needed to increase the shock sticks’ output to the maximum setting if she wanted it to affect normal-sized people while she was Fairy-sized. At that setting, she’d only get about four uses out of each of them, and after using the first of them to make a few examples of her ‘magic’, she would have to save the charges in the second in case things went south. 

The teleport patch was already secured on her left arm, though she would have to save that for when she escaped with Aiden. There were only a few trips left in it, at the most, and taking both of them back to the safehouse in Vancouver might just drain the last of its power. As flashy and magical as teleporting might look, she wasn’t willing to risk her escape or being able to bring Aiden with her when she did.

The last of her mother’s specialized grenades would have to do the lion’s share of the work. She had four of the crowd control grenades, a single miniaturized EMP, a Glitter grenade, and a Mindfuck grenade. All the grenades had programmable timers that could be set anywhere from one second to hours before detonation, and could be armed from an app on her phone, which would hopefully make it easier to look like she was using magic.

The EMP grenade was simple enough. It would knock out any electronics in a twenty-five-foot radius that weren’t heavily shielded against electromagnetic pulse attacks. Blythe herself wouldn’t have to worry about the effect since her mother always made certain that her devises were heavily shielded.

The crowd control grenades would spew out a blood-red smoke that was like pepper spray on steroids and meant to debilitate entire crowds of people. The smoke burned the eyes, nose, and throat, and could sometimes cause trouble breathing, so she would have to make sure she was out of range when she set those off. She did not want to breathe that shit in, much like the Mindfuck grenade.

Because the Mindfuck grenade was even worse. The gas that the bomb released wasn’t visible to the naked eye and consisted of a very potent Devisor deliriant of her mother’s design. That shit made people see extremely realistic and terrifying hallucinations that would last for hours, and usually made those affected lash out at each other and anyone else nearby. It would be fun to watch and was perfect for causing a little chaos and making Aiden into a villain. The thought brought a smile to her face.

You would think that the Glitter grenade would be the least harmful of the four, but that wasn’t the case. That particular crime against humanity was as diabolical as it was annoying to clean up afterward. Blythe had thought it sounded harmless enough and set one off in her bedroom once, and her mother had been pissed afterward.

From what Mother had told her, the glitter that the grenade shot off in all directions when it goes off contains a shitload of nanites. Those nanites are designed to seek out and destroy any plastics and certain metals within a thirty-foot radius around the grenade, and then use those materials to create more of the insidious nanite-laced glitter. They worked so fast that you could see whatever they were breaking down dissolve in real time, and Mother had added safety features to keep them from getting out of control.

The first of those safety features was a sub-program that would cause the nanites to self-destruct if they left the thirty-foot range of the control signal transmitted by the grenade, or if the signal stopped being broadcast. The second feature was a secondary timer on the grenade. When the clock on this timer ran out, the grenade would broadcast a kill code that would stop all the nanites from functioning and render the glitter harmless.

As soon as Blythe was inside the mall proper and had found a quiet hallway leading toward the nearest restrooms, she entered the unoccupied handicapped washroom and shed her hat and coat disguise. There wouldn’t be enough room for the coat in the Mobius belt she was wearing, and she likely wouldn’t need anything that warm in Vancouver, so she discarded both garments in the garbage. Then, after double-checking the gear in her belt, she shrank down to her base size so she would match Aiden’s appearance.

Unfortunately, their clothes likely wouldn’t match, but she doubted that people were going to notice what she was wearing at her size, especially when they were too busy being scared out of their wits. Besides, the average person didn’t seem to notice anything about her other than she looked like a pink-haired Fairy with pink wings, though her wings could come off as rainbow-colored when the light hit them right. That was all that really mattered since Aiden was her clone, and other than those gold eyes he got when he manifested, they were practically identical twins.

With her disguise shed, Blythe opened the door leading back to the hallway and shrank down to Fairy size once she was sure nobody would see her doing so. Being only five inches tall was something she had begrudgingly gotten used to since manifesting, but not something she liked doing unless it was necessary, and she much preferred being normal-sized or bigger now that she could control her powers better. It was bad enough that she couldn’t keep her size-shifting active while asleep and woke up that size every morning. Even having powers, being so small made her feel vulnerable, weak, and small in more ways than just the obvious one, especially after how Aiden had betrayed and tormented her.

She brutally shoved those thoughts aside. She wasn’t that person anymore; she had gotten better with Mother’s help. Now she was powerful; she was in control, and she would make Aiden pay for what he did. He would learn his lesson, and then he would be hers again, like he was supposed to be.

Ironically, it was as she thought of Aiden being hers again that she felt it, a strange sort of pulsing pressure in the back of her mind. She could feel where it was coming from, the direction of the very same mall entrance she had entered roughly fifteen minutes earlier. A vicious smile curled her lips upward as she thought, “Oh, he’s early! It’s time to get started!” She really hoped that Hazel had gotten things started on her end for the distraction.

Flying up toward the ceiling as quickly as she could, to keep out of sight until she was ready for the mall’s residents to notice her, Blythe began to swiftly explore the mall, looking for her first target. When she spotted a Claire’s, she giggled madly and rubbed her hands together in glee. That would be perfect, fun, and oh-so-appropriate.

Practically all the products there would be made of plastic and cheap, low-grade metals, making the store the perfect target for the Glitter grenade to inflict maximum damage. The nanites would eat that shit up like crazy, leaving only glitter and regrets in their wake by the time the secondary timer on the grenade sent the kill code to the nanites. The store also looked small enough so if she placed the grenade right, it would not only destroy all the products in the storefront, but anything in the back storage room as well

She waited until the two employees inside were occupied before slipping inside the store undetected. The younger of the two employees, a blonde teenage girl, was piercing a tween girl’s ears while the older of the two, a raven-haired woman who looked like she was in her thirties, was talking to the girl’s mother and processing her payment. The latter was probably the store’s manager or assistant manager, and Blythe was careful to keep out of sight while planting the Glitter grenade under a display case near the register along the back wall of the small store.

It wasn’t easy returning the grenade to its full size after removing it from her Mobius belt. While things she was wearing or in physical contact with usually shrank or grew along with her when she changed sizes, affecting something without changing her own size was a lot more taxing and took much more concentration. She also needed to maintain physical contact, so if she wasn’t well hidden beneath the display case, she would have been a little worried about being spotted while she did her work.

Blythe waited until the mother and daughter were gone and the store was empty other than the employees before setting the timers on the grenade: five minutes before it would go off, spewing glitter and nanites everywhere, and three hours before sending the kill code to the nanites. That would be plenty of time to destroy practically everything in this store, including the wire display racks. With the timers set, she then slipped out from her hiding place with one of the shock sticks in hand and headed straight to the cash register, where the two employees were now chatting. It was time to cause some chaos and make sure that Aiden took the blame.

Berlin, New Hampshire
103 Mall Parking Lot
Saturday, November 26th, 2016 – 11:32 am

When Peter said he had gotten a teacher to bring us to Berlin and act as our chaperone, I didn’t expect it to be a teacher I was actually familiar with. Mr. Duchamp was my teacher for World History, and even though he could be a bit gruff and certainly didn’t coddle his students, I was relieved to have it be someone I actually knew. Being stuck in a car with a relative stranger would have made me feel weird, even though I spent most of the drive talking with the twins.

Since we were all waiting early for the teacher in question, and he wanted to avoid any lunch hour traffic, if possible, we set off a little bit earlier than originally planned. That, and avoiding the worst of the traffic, meant that Mr. Duchamp dropped me and Polly off at the mall a little over half an hour before we had originally planned. Not that we were complaining; Polly was excited and wanted all the extra shopping time she could get on this trip.

I couldn’t really share her enthusiasm. I was a bit moody during the car trip to Berlin and feeling a little bloated, but that wasn’t surprising since my period was due to start any day now. Still, I was trying to be a good friend and not do anything to bring down Polly’s mood as well; she had really been looking forward to this trip.

The mall looked massive from the outside, much larger than I would have expected for a town the size of Berlin, but then, everything looked huge to me since I became a five-inch-tall Fairy. “Whoa, that's a fuck-load of mall. I think I can hear my bank account crying,” I blurted out as we stepped out of the car.

“Yeah, isn’t it great?!” Polly enthusiastically replied. “And we’ve got all day to shop!”

She was exaggerating, of course. Mr. Duchamp had told us that he and Peter would meet us back at the mall’s main entrance at six thirty, so we hardly had ‘all day’ for shopping. Still, seven hours was a lot of time to explore the place and drain our bank accounts, even taking time out to eat lunch and dinner in the food court.

We had, of course, promised to try and stay out of trouble during that time, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath about that. That was the whole reason I was here, after all, to help keep Polly’s kleptomania in check and make sure it didn’t get her in trouble. And that wasn’t even counting the warnings about other trouble possibly cropping up.

Ms. Reilly’s warnings yesterday were still fresh in my mind, as were the preparations we had worked on. Polly and I were both obviously not baseline humans, and we were also small; my advisor had made a very good point there. So, I was half afraid that we might be targeted by H1 bigots who might think our size would make us easy targets. If that happened, I would protect us, but I promised myself that if trouble did find us, we wouldn’t be the ones to start it.

We would end it, though, and I was prepared for that. I was wearing the new Fairy outfit and pendant that Ms. Reilly had given me yesterday, and all the little pockets in the belts and bracers were stuffed with various spell slips, just in case. The pendant was storing my MID and phone, as well as my bank card and wallet/suitcase, which had my other important documents and all the cash that I had on hand for our shopping trip.

Not that I expected to buy much; I was mostly just here for Polly’s sake. Besides, none of the clothes here would fit me. I mean, I could always use the shrink ray on them, but they might not even fit me well after that. It was much easier and less stressful just to get Ms. Rogers to make clothes; that way I knew they would fit properly and look good.

Honestly, I doubted that Polly would find clothes that worked for her size either, not to mention her tail making things awkward. At a whopping three feet nine inches, clothes for teen girls were not going to fit her, and children's clothes probably wouldn’t work well with her stocky yet feminine build and chocolate-enhanced chest.  Still, we were here, so it was time to do this.

We headed inside the mall, and almost immediately, Polly spotted a chic clothing store targeted toward teenage girls that she wanted to check out. We spent about ten minutes browsing clothes that neither of us could wear, but just the act of looking and being able to talk with a friend about how certain items or entire outfits would look on each other seemed to make her happy, so I tried to get into it, or at least not spoil the mood. It wasn’t really my thing, and she deserved way better friends than a bitter, sarcastic Fairy, but I was her only close female friend; I was here, and I was willing to put out the effort for her sake.

I also kept an eye out to make sure nothing slipped into her purse or a pocket dimension while we looked around. I felt a little bad doing that, as if I didn’t trust my friend, but as we left the store, I reminded myself that this was a big part of why she had asked me to come. She trusted me to keep her in check, and I didn’t want to fail at being the friend she needed, like I had failed Blythe. I should have seen the warning signs; I should have found another, less hurtful, way to get her to keep her distance and keep her safe; I should have…

“No,” I mentally interjected as I realized my thoughts were starting to cycle in the usual downward spiral. “We both made mistakes, and she was already starting to show signs of obsession and being mentally unbalanced before I drove her away and into utter madness.” Damn, even my attempts to stop me from blaming myself had me blaming myself.

I needed to stop that and focus on the now. Polly needed me, and since she was currently distracted by the plethora of stores lining the wide path through the mall, one of us needed to keep our eyes open for trouble. I just didn’t expect that trouble to arrive so soon.

The second store that caught Polly’s interest sold anime-related merch and other cute collectables. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she led us to the stuffed animals; she had a huge collection of those in her room, after all. “Are we here to get some more for your collection?” I asked.

“No, we’re here to get some for yours, Vanessa,” she gleefully countered, “or at least get your collection started. I’ve seen your room, and except for the little house of yours on your desk, the place has nothing for personal touches, and I’m not sure if you even use the house.”

“I do so,” I grumbled. It was the only place in the dorm I could go to the bathroom without falling in, and I had to take my showers in there too. Honestly, though, I preferred sleeping or chilling on the pillow on my big bed rather than in the house; it was just so comfortable and cozy.

“Yeah, right. You probably just use it for the bathroom,” she retorted with a roll of her eyes. Damn, she had me dead to rights on that one. “That’s not important, though. What is important is that every girl needs at least one stuffed animal in her room to brighten up the place, and something you can snuggle in bed or when you need to hug something… Oooh, this is the perfect plush pal for a Pixie!”

The stuffed animal in question was a white unicorn with bright pink feet, mane, tail, and horn. It was a little over a foot tall, and she quickly snatched it up and practically shoved it in my tiny face in her excitement. “Polly, your pink and perfect Pixie plush pal is practically pointless,” I somehow managed to say without tripping over my tongue. “It’s way bigger than I am.”

“Yeah, but she’ll really brighten up your room, and she can stand guard on your bed whenever you’re not home. Now, let’s find you something you can cuddle,” she insisted. I was beginning to fear that I wasn’t going to have a choice in this.

Her first idea for ‘something to cuddle’ was another unicorn from the Beanie Boos section. It was still bigger than me at six inches tall, and mostly pastel pink in color, save for the bright gold hooves and horn and the rampant patches of pastel blue and yellow in the otherwise pink fluff. It was very smooshie and huggable, and kind of reminded me of Pastel, so I decided, “Fine, I’ll get it, but for a friend of mine, it reminds me of her. If I’m going to have something to ‘cuddle’ it’s going to be something badass, like a tiger or something.”

Polly did manage to find a tiger, much to my surprise. It was the same size as the other Beanie Boo and mostly white with black ears and stripes, and big glittery blue eyes. Even I had to admit it was kind of cute, and it was even more squishable than the pastel unicorn.

The only things in the store that Polly touched were the various suggested stuffed animals for me. When I turned one down, she carefully made a conscious effort to put it right back where she had found it. She was doing so well so far, but I knew we had barely started this shopping expedition, and she couldn’t always control her kleptomania.

It was while I was feeling proud of her and we were still browsing the store that I heard, “Momma! Momma, look! Itsa pizzie, jus’ like Tink an’ Silbermist!”

“Uh oh.” I had just enough time for a sliver of existential dread as I turned toward the sound and suddenly found my lower half in the grasp of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. If I had been flying higher rather than staying eye-level with Polly to talk and keep an eye on her, I never would have been caught like that.

The kid practically lit up when she had me in her grip, and I didn’t immediately poof into thin air or something. “Do you have pizzie dust?! I wanna fly, too, Mizz Pizzie!” With that, she lifted me over her head and began to violently shake me.

“Oh fuck, stop the ride, I wanna get off!!” I felt like I was going to hurl, my head was spinning, and the sensations that the rapid shaking was sending through my antennae were only making it worse.

From what I could see whenever Polly blurred briefly into my field of vision, my poor friend had no idea how to handle it, not that I could blame her. The mother was similarly stunned, not by her kid’s behavior, but because of what she was gripping tightly in her hand, namely me. Sure, I could probably escape easily using my PK, but I would probably end up hurting the kid in the process.

Yeah, the MCO would just love that. I didn’t want to hurt her for another reason, though; she was just being a kid. If I saw someone who looked like me when I was that age, I probably would have reacted similarly and been just as excited.

I could only think of one way out of this without hurting the poor kid, either physically or emotionally, though it wasn’t going to be easy when my head was spinning and I felt like I was about to blow chunks. Carefully focusing my attention on the girl currently shaking me like a magic 8-ball, I gently wrapped her in my PK and lifted her off the ground. It took a moment before the shaking stopped, leaving my head spinning, and the girl shouted, “Look, Momma, we’re flying!”

Thankfully, that gave me a few precious seconds to get my bearings and stop, or at least slow, the world’s spinning. I got a good look at her too; she was a cute little girl with blue eyes, blonde hair in pigtails, and she was wearing a light blue Disney Fairies t-shirt with Silvermist on the front. I guess the girl really loved Fairies.

When I felt like I wasn’t going to throw up on the kid’s hand or something, I gave her my best smile, the one I had been rehearsing for the Venus Inc. Girls with GSD calendar. “I’m Vanessa, what’s your name, sweetie?”

“Callie,” the little girl replied, eyes wide as I actually spoke to her.

“Okay, Callie, I’m almost out of pixie dust, so we can’t fly for long. How about once around the store, and then I’ll put you safely back on the ground with your mom?” Her shriek of excitement from that suggestion, so close to my head, damn near blew out my eardrums.

The cute kid managed to convince me for two laps around the store, not that it was a very big store. So, what if I was enabling her fantasies? She was a kid, and telling her that I was a mutant would have felt like telling her that all her favorite characters from Pixie Hollow, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus weren’t real. I wasn’t going to destroy a kid’s dreams or their belief in magic, especially when I was a real, live, magical Fairy.

Once we were done, I very gently lowered her to the ground beside her mother. Thankfully, after hugging me to her face for a long and uncomfortable moment, Callie let me go and excitedly began to recount the whole experience to her still-stunned mother. “That was sweet of you,” Polly said with a smile.

“Yeah, well, don’t let it get around. I have a reputation to maintain at school,” I replied, looking away so she wouldn’t see me blushing.

Polly didn’t say another word as we made our way to the register, where she placed all three stuffed animals we had chosen on the counter to be rung up. The poor salesgirl had no idea what to make of us, especially after witnessing the incident with the little girl. “Hi… umm… thanks for shopping with us. Will that… umm… be everything for you?”

“Yeah, I think that’s about all the ‘cute’ I can handle,” I replied with a quick glance over at Callie, who was still regaling her mother with her flying experience.

“Umm… that’ll be $53.95. How will you be paying today?”

Well, it seemed like the salesgirl had finally found her chill; too bad I was about to blow her poor mind again. “Debit,” I said, touching my pendant between my breasts, injecting a little essence, and pulling out a debit card out of my cleavage that was nearly as big as I was. The look on her face was priceless. Polly's too, since I hadn’t let her in on my new gift from my advisor yet. I almost broke out laughing there and then, but I managed to hold it in and keep a straight face as I said to my rat-like friend, “What? These big tits have to be good for something.”

That poor salesgirl was practically on autopilot as she processed my payment, and I returned my debit card the same way I’d extracted it. I mean I could have just let it vanish into the pocket dimension with no fanfare, but that wouldn’t have been as entertaining… for me. And it was very entertaining seeing the look on her face when I practically hugged my debit card and slowly pushed it between my breasts and into the hidden storage dimension with an audible shlooooorp.

She at least put in the right amount when processing the payment, so she couldn’t be too traumatized. Stuffed animals are fucking expensive, but I guess I had bought three of them. I could have probably put those in my pendant’s extra-dimensional storage as well, but Polly offered to store them away for me. She did have far more space for that kind of thing, with extra-dimensional storage being one of her powers rather than having to use an enchanted item.

We had just left the store and had stumbled across one of those ‘you are here’ maps that most decently large malls have so we could decide which stores we wanted to check out. This mall really was huge; it had well over a hundred stores spread out over four floors, and a lot of them were really popular with teenagers. That was when a voice called out, “You two, the mutants! Stay right where you are and keep your hands where I can see them!”

I looked up from the map to see a mall cop approaching us, watching us warily, with his hand hovering over the holsters for the taser and pepper spray on his belt. Seriously? What the Fuck? Was this some kind of mutant profiling shit?

The guy was a heavyset Caucasian man, but not really overweight, and he probably worked out at least a little. I couldn’t really make a guess at how tall he was since there was nobody near him to compare to, and everyone seems huge when you’re five inches tall, but he looked like he was in his mid to late twenties and was dressed in a mall security uniform. He had kind of a square face with close-cropped, dark brown hair and a somewhat disturbing porn stache of the same color. The question was, why was he bothering us?

I was absolutely sure that Polly hadn’t absent-mindedly snatched anything without paying for it. I had been watching her since we stepped through the mall doors, just like she asked me to. Even when I was flying Callie for a couple of laps around the ceiling of the collectibles store, I had been keeping one eye on my friend.

I had to hold myself back from one of my usual snarky responses. For some reason, this dude was watching us like we were going to skin him alive and wear what was left of him as a hat, and going by the way his hand hovered over the holster on his belt, he had an itchy trigger finger for some reason. I did not want us to get into trouble in less than twenty minutes of arriving at the mall. Not only would the headmaster probably get pissed with us for causing a scene, but he likely wouldn’t allow any other trips in the future.

For Polly’s sake, I needed to use my brain here, rather than allow my moodiness and snark to get us into serious trouble. Authority figures and I usually mix like a lit match and gasoline; I didn’t like people trying to boss me around, save for Marie, Ms. Reilly, the Imp, and a couple of my teachers who had earned my respect. People trying to lord their authority over me, just because they had seen more mileage on the road of life, usually brought the snark out of me, but one thing I had learned from my parents was that sometimes it was safer to fake respect and cooperate. While I was growing up, it probably saved me more beatings and tongue lashings than I could count.

So, while my poor rat-like friend looked like she was about to panic, and was probably wondering if she had managed to steal something after all and been caught on camera, despite me watching her the entire time, I was taking deep breaths and trying to remain calm. If I made the wrong move here, Polly was the one likely to get hurt; she didn’t have a PK shell or a costume with protective enchantments on it from Ms. Reilly. “What seems to be the problem, officer?” I asked as calmly and politely as I could manage.

He wasn’t a real cop; all three of us knew that, but treating him as if he was a real cop would stroke his ego a bit, let him think he was in charge, and possibly de-escalate things before he did something stupid that we would all regret.  It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. He was still twitchy, and his hand didn’t leave the vicinity of his holster as he stammered in reply. “Y-yeah. You j-just keep those h-hands where I can see them, a-and no m-magic.”

What the actual fuck?  Why was this guy so twitchy? Was he just that scared of mutants? No, he wasn’t even looking at Polly right now, and her GSD was really obvious. All his attention was focused on me, which was frankly a little weird, given how tiny I was. “Hey, dude, let’s just keep things chill here. No need to make a big scene; my friend and I are just shopping, so why don’t you tell us what’s got you acting so hostile?”

“L-like you don’t know!” he snapped. “Y-you’ve been causing chaos all over the mall!”

“I have?” I asked, blinking in genuine confusion and turning a questioning glance to Polly, who seemed as confused by that remark as I was. Sure, I flew one little girl around a store a couple of times, but I wouldn’t call that chaos, or ‘all over the mall’ either. We’d only been inside two stores since we arrived, and he was focused on me, practically ignoring Polly, who had been with me the entire time. “Sorry to break it to you, dude, but we haven’t been here all that long; we’ve only gone in two stores since we got here, and my friend here has been with me the whole time.”

Was Polly going to have to vouch for me? That was kind of the opposite of the way that either of us thought this trip was going to go. Those thoughts were interrupted as he accused, “Bullshit. Y-you fit the description, and we f-found your MID at the scene of one of your crimes, Spite!”

Spite? MID? Why did I suddenly have a sinking feeling in my stomach? The similarity of the codename to my own and the fact that I fit the description was adding to something that simultaneously unsettled me and stoked my heart with a blistering fury.

Clenching my tiny fists tightly at my side as I hovered there beside Polly, I fought to keep my voice steady, calm, and at a volume where the mall cop could clearly hear me.  “Listen, dude, if you guys have an MID that supposedly belongs to this Spite person, then you’ll be able to describe her, right? And if I was her, and lost my MID, I wouldn’t still have it on me. So, why don’t you tell me what this ‘Spite’ looks like and I will very slowly get my MID to show you that it’s not me.”

Instead of going along with my suggestion, the mall cop drew the taser, his hand shaking visibly as he pointed it in my general direction, though I had no clue how he expected to hit such a small target from ten feet away. I wasn’t too worried about it hurting me, even if he somehow did manage to miraculously hit me at that range with a trembling hand. “N-no way, I’m not falling for that. It said you’re one of those W-wizards, so you can p-probably change how you l-look. Y-you’re five inches tall and look like a f-fairy, that’s all I need to know.”

I rolled my eyes and let out a long sigh. “Dude, seriously? You’re not even gonna let me show you my MID?”

“D-don’t move!” That asshole didn’t listen, and I stopped reaching for my storage pendant. He was too nervous, and would probably end up hitting Polly or an innocent bystander if he tried to fire that thing, especially with the crowd that this little scene was starting to draw in. He probably wasn’t used to thinking for himself and would blow a fucking brain cell if he tried. He used his free hand to reach for his radio and then spoke into it and to whoever might be listening. “This is Paul, I have the m-mutant right here.”

“What’s your location, Paul?” a masculine voice asked over the radio.

“N-near the main entrance,” Paul nervously stammered.

It wasn’t long before another pair of mall cops showed up to join my little welcome party. One immediately joined Paul in pointing a second taser at me while the other was an older man, in his forties or fifties, who I hoped was the one in charge of security around these parts. He took something out of his pocket and gave it a good once-over with his eyes before peering at me intently. The same voice from the radio earlier hummed thoughtfully before saying, “The one on the ID card has pink hair and wings.”

I, on the other hand, did not have pink hair and wings, at least, not anymore. That was fairly obvious to anyone looking at me. Just as my eyes had changed from pink to gold in color, and my pink hair and antennae had turned blue since I manifested in the cloning chamber, my wings had changed color over time as well. Now, rather than pink, they were a sort of gold color at the base that gradually faded into a bright green at the outer edges.

“The mutie p-probably used magic to change how she l-looks,” Paul countered, his taser still shakily pointed in my general direction.

I was too pissed to care about that. Pink hair and wings, the old man had said. Now I was certain of what was going on here. Blythe was trying to frame me, but how the fuck did she even know that I was going to be here today, let alone when? Was she tracking me somehow?

Once again, I had to take several deep breaths and control my breathing. Blowing up in this situation was likely to get people hurt, probably Polly, who looked really scared and confused with the two mall cops pointing weapons in our direction. “Or I’m being set up,” I suggested, though I almost growled the accusation. “Pink hair and wings? I think I know exactly who you’re talking about. She’s kidnapped and killed me once already, and wasn’t too happy when I escaped. Look, just let me take out my MID, or at least tell me what I’m being accused of.”

My hopes that the old guy might be more reasonable were, thankfully, accurate. He was willing to entertain the idea that I might be telling the truth, even if he was cautious about it. Those two assholes made it perfectly clear that if I made one wrong move, they would shoot… and probably miss me entirely and hit one of the poor people who had gathered to watch the confrontation. I had my PK shell up, so it might tickle me, but the people around us were not only more likely to be hit when they fired, but far more likely to be harmed by the tasers.

At least the old guy allowed me to extract my MID and show it to him, though his fellow guards kept their weapons trained on me the whole time and I didn’t make a show of it as I had earlier with my bank card at the collectibles store. I’d had to have a new MID made recently, and not just because of the changes to my appearance since the original picture was taken. My Wiz rating had been increased after my powers testing at Whateley, and there was other information that the MCO wanted added to my MID during MID interviews last week as well, like my air displacement sense, which I was still a little pissed off about. My new MID read as follows:

Code name: Sprite
Ratings: Wiz (Fae Class): 3, Ex: 2, PK: 3
Faerie-class, natural mage, chaos weaver: Extreme caution advised. If civilians present, de-escalate at all costs.
Techniques: Air Displacement Sense, Flight, PK Cannonball
Weak vs Cold Iron
Backup / Team Affiliation: N/A

I wasn’t too happy with the line underneath my ratings either. Not only was it in a bright orange text that matched the border on the card, but Chaos Weaver? I mean, what the hell? It seemed like racism against Fairies to me, especially since they had insisted upon it after they found out that I was genetically a Fairy mutant rather than one of the Human variety. Well, at least it wasn’t a deadly force authorization.

The old dude looked over my MID, and as he handed it back, his brow was furrowed, probably from that bright orange warning. Hopefully, he would take the advice and try to de-escalate. I took the opportunity while he was thinking to make things clear. “You see that PK rating? Well, that means that the shit you guys are packing probably isn’t even gonna tickle me, even if they could hit me. I could also just fly off anytime I feel like it, and you guys wouldn’t be able to do fuck all about it, but I’m here… cooperating, so I want you to think about what that means. I’m not the fucking bad guy here, so tell me what she’s been doing that I’m being accused of.”

Either I got through to him, or he was taking the warning on my MID to heart. Apparently, Blythe had been busy, starting around the same time that Polly and I had arrived at the mall. With this timing, there was no way in hell this was a coincidence, and the only things keeping me from giving in to my rage and flying off to find her were the facts that this was a big mall, she was as small as I was, and I had no clue where she might be hiding.

So, I listened to a summary of the chaos ‘Spite’ had been causing around the mall over the last twenty-five minutes or so. It was basically a laundry list of villainy that I was probably meant to take the blame for, zipping between floors and stores seemingly randomly after each strike. By the time mall security responded to most of the locations, she was already gone and hitting her next spot, and they couldn’t keep up with her.

First, she had robbed Claire’s; she emptied the register, knocked the two employees unconscious (probably with the same type of devise she had used when she first kidnapped me), and ‘cast a spell’ that quickly started spewing glitter everywhere and destroying the store’s merchandise. I suspected that this spell was probably another of her mother’s devises, and that she was using the whole magic shtick to frame me.

Other incidents included another robbery at one of the big box electronics stores, where she rendered the majority of the products useless with some sort of EMP ‘spell’, and chaos erupted in another store when people started going crazy and attacking each other, allowing her to make off with more money. Something was bothering me about this whole thing, besides it being a massive frame job to make me look bad. “Where the hell is the MCO when you need them?” I grumbled ironically, which was not a sentence I thought I would ever be saying.

Seriously, Berlin wasn’t all that big a town, and I knew that there was supposed to be an MCO office here; we’d been warned about it and to stay out of trouble. It was the old guy, whose nametag labeled him as Dave, who answered that question, and he didn’t sound very happy about it. “They’re busy with something big across town. We’re on our own with this until they either finish or free up some people to help out here.”

“Of fucking course,” I muttered. I had a feeling that wasn’t a coincidence either, and while Dave seemed willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, the other two assholes were keeping their weapons trained on me, waiting for an excuse to try to shoot me. That was brain-numbingly stupid, of course, but they didn’t want to believe a word I said. That is, they didn’t until their radios crackled with an incoming transmission.

“This is Robbie, the damn little Fairy is back! She’s here in the main food court, and it’s practically full right now…. She’s doing something… some sort of red mist… *cough* *cough* Oh God, it burns!” With that, there was a cacophony of coughing and screaming in the background, and the radios went dead.

Paul and the other younger guard stared at me, as if trying to process whether I could use magic to be in two places at once. I didn’t give a fuck about either of them at the moment, though. I knew where Blythe was, and she was not going to get away this time. I turned to Dave and asked, “Which way is the main food court?!”

“It’s at the center of the mall, here on the first floor. Keep going down this hallway, and you can’t miss it, but you can’t…”

The directions had barely left his mouth before I took off like a shot, ignoring the rest of whatever he had been about to say and whizzing past the other two stunned mall cops and down the main hall, further into the mall. I was dimly aware of Polly’s voice calling out, “Wait for me!” but right then, my focus was on Blythe. Yeah, it was probably some kind of trap, but she was here, right now, and this might be the only chance I would get.

It was pretty damn obvious from what Dave had told me that her obsession with me had sent Blythe well into crazed supervillain territory. This time it wasn’t me that she was torturing, though. She was involving innocent people this time, people who had nothing to do with us and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were getting hurt because of me.

That thought only pissed me off worse, and I was already seeing red as my mind flashed back to everything that had happened when Blythe and her mother kidnapped me. They had stuck me in this body, made sure I had no way out of it, and intended to keep me as some sort of pet. They had killed my real... original body right in front of me. Sure, in some twisted way, that had freed me from my parents and my old life, and my life was better now in a lot of ways, but it was the worst kind of violation. They had planned to take everything from me and leave nothing but a life as their captive pet, and I was going to pay those crazy bitches back and bring them to justice, starting with my former best friend.

I was pushing both my wings and my PK to their limits to get to the food court before Blythe could fly off again, so I managed to get to my destination in only a minute or two. The hallway opened into a large, circular food court with the food kiosks lining the outer circle. The space inside the circle was filled with tables and the occasional tray stations for putting used trays away for pickup and cleaning and disposing of garbage and recyclable waste. Then, at the very center was a large, picturesque water fountain. The ceiling was high here, and balconies from the second and third floors provided a view of the fountain and the people below.

Normally, it was probably a very nice place to have lunch, but not right now. Clouds of red smoke obscured many of the tables from my sight, and the sounds of coughing and panicked screams seemed to echo through the cavernous court. While the smoke was beginning to settle and dissipate, the damage here had already been done, and I didn’t think there was anything I could do to help these people. They needed proper medical attention; hopefully mall security would get on that by calling 911 or something.

Since she was currently as small as I was, it took a hot minute for me to spot Blythe. I should have just followed the sound of crazed, maniacal laughter, because there she was, hovering high above the wisping red smoke, laughing her tiny, demented ass off at the suffering she’d caused the people below. My heart skipped a beat, my breath stuttered, and I clenched my fists tightly at the sight of her. Yeah, it was time to take her down, but first, I needed to clear people out of here, so nobody got hurt worse than they already were.

There were a lot of people hanging around the outer edges of the food court, gawking at the scene, both people who had been far away enough from the red smoke to back away, and the people who were working at the food kiosks. Assholes, just letting those other people suffer. I quickly reached for a spell slip hidden inside my costume and slapped it to inject essence and cast the spell.

Thankfully, this was an easy spell with a relatively low essence requirement, and it would be very useful in this situation. It was a spell to project my voice and increase volume for a couple of minutes; Becky had taught it to me because she thought it might be useful for someone as small as me if I needed to get attention, like right now. As soon as the spell took effect, I called out to the food court at large, “The smoke is starting to clear! Don’t just fucking stand there watching! If you can watch, you can fucking help! Cover your mouths and noses and drag anyone unconscious or hurt away from ground zero! If you’re in the smoke and can move, clear out toward the edges of the food court where there’s no smoke!”

Even as I shouted those words, I worried about Blythe bailing as soon as she heard my voice. I shouldn’t have worried, though, because having me here was probably exactly what she wanted. Her laughter ceased almost immediately, and I saw her head turning toward me as she rapidly scanned the area for my presence.

She found me a lot more quickly than I expected, almost as if she knew exactly where I was, now that she was paying attention and not laughing about the chaos she was causing. I could practically feel the manic smile that I was certain now covered her face as a chill ran down my spine and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. My mind flashed back to waking up helpless, being trapped in that cage, at the mercy of Blythe and her mother…

Oh fuck… I… I could barely focus on anything but those memories playing through my mind in a seemingly endless loop, and a bitter taste of a terror I never knew I could feel overwhelmed me. My heart was suddenly racing as if it was trying to break out of my chest; I was trembling, and my breaths came in staggered gasps that had me fighting for air. I wanted to run, to get the hell out of here, hide, and make sure that she would never have that power over me again.

“There you are, Aiden! Are you having fun? I set this all up just for you, you know. You belong to me, and now I’m taking you home.” Blythe’s gleeful exclamation snapped me out of whatever the fuck that was. Some kind of panic attack? Her voice was far too close; somehow, she had gotten close enough that she was hovering right in front of me while I was freaking out inside my skull. She had also shifted to her maximum height of eight and a half feet, and she was reaching for me.

Her words reached me, igniting a blinding rage that burned that brief terror to ash. That crazy bitch hurt so many people just to get to me, and now she thought I was going to just surrender and let her start torturing me again? Fuck that and fuck her. I’m Vanessa Fucking Gordon, and I belong to no one!

My hands were going through the hand gestures that Ms. Reilly had taught me yesterday, and I was directing essence before I could even fully realize what I was doing. Then I spoke the word that would release my newest spell. “Saerendal!”

The concussive blast that I released sent Blythe’s large, hovering form flying back ten feet, though it didn’t seem to hurt her that much. It did give me some breathing room, though, enough for me to get a quick look around at what was going on below us in the food court as I tried to calm my heart rate and steady my breathing. People were starting to help others out of the smoke, though it was clearing quickly now and was little more than crimson wisps at this point.

I also got a good sense of where people were gathered and which areas were clear. With the latter in mind, I slammed into Blythe with all the PK force that I could summon, bringing us down to ground level, where we crashed into a Starbucks with enough force to send chairs flying and shatter the table Blythe impacted into little more than splinters. “Bitch, get used to disappointment,” I practically snarled in anger. “You’re not taking me anywhere, but I’m gonna make sure someone drags your crazy ass off to an MCO lockup for what you’ve done to me, and the people here today.”

For a moment, the expression on her face looked genuinely hurt, and not just from the meteor-like impact with the food court floor. It quickly distorted into raw fury, though, as she got up from the rubble, clutching her right side and breathing haggardly. I must have hurt her there, maybe cracked or broken her ribs. Good, she fucking deserved it.

Still, she wasn’t down and out yet as she took a swing at me and shouted, “What I’ve done to you?! That’s rich coming from you, Vanessa! You made my life miserable!”

That had my eyes going wide, and I barely managed to flit away from her fist in time. My PK shell probably could have taken the blow, but I didn’t want to have to push my powers any more than I absolutely had to in case this fight dragged on. What concerned me even more, though, was her use of my name. She knew my new identity! That, and the fact that she was waiting here for me today was adding up to possibilities that I didn’t like at all.

Yeah, I’d hurt her, but I hadn’t intended to, and I felt horrible about it every day. She was actively trying to hurt me and make me miserable, and that was the difference between us. I couldn’t even be sure if she realized how twisted her mind had become. So, as I kept dodging her attempts to swat me out of the air, I angrily snapped back, “You got your fucking revenge! You killed me and stuck me in this body with no way out, and it’s still not enough for you! I wasn’t fucking bothering you; I was just trying to live my fucking life, and now you’ve come at me again!”

“You don’t have a fucking life! You’re a clone, a cheap copy, and you belong to me!” She stopped swinging, and suddenly I was struggling to stay in the air as the gravity around us dramatically increased.

My wings weren’t going to help here; I diverted my focus from flying naturally to using my PK to keep me aloft and dodge her renewed attacks. I was grunting with the effort as I slapped back with, “Well, I’m not the only one, bitch, you’re a clone too!”

Her eyes went wide, and she staggered back a couple steps, still clutching her right side. No! You’re lying!”

“What’s the matter, Blythe? Didn’t mommy-dearest tell you?” I taunted, digging in the newly opened mental wound I’d caused. “I had a ton of tests run on my genes after I escaped you crazy bitches, and there were some samples of yours and your mother’s DNA in the farmhouse too. You’re a clone of your mother, a fucking experiment! The only reason you were fucking born was to advance her research into getting a Sidhe body for herself!”

“N-no! It’s not true, I…” She staggered back a few more steps, as if my words were a physical blow, just in time to avoid something large and heavy crashing into the floor under her increased gravity, shattering the tiles and leaving a small crater. It was an anvil of all things, with ‘ACME’ printed on the side in bright red letters.

Blythe was so startled that she lost control of both her altered size and the increased gravity. “Is that… an anvil?! That could have killed me!” she shrieked.

“Yeah, it was a gift from the Imp, and there’s more where that came from!” Polly happily supplied from where she was standing about ten feet away. “Let’s take this villain down, Sprite.”

Okay, well, that was unexpected. Still, I was going to roll with it, so I gave my small, rat-like companion a grin and then said to Blythe, “Say hello to my little friend.”

It didn’t get quite the reaction I was hoping for because Blythe was just staring at me for some reason, completely stunned, like she was actually seeing me since the first time we started fighting. Well, falling anvils narrowly missing a person do have a way of making a person re-prioritize, I guess. What I wasn’t expecting was the nature of her new priorities.

“What in the hell have you done to my body! Did you dye your hair and wings somehow?! And what’s with the fucking boob job?! And now Mother can’t even fix you! You did this just to rub it in my face, didn’t you?!” she ranted, in another ear-piercing shriek. Honestly, with the way she was glaring at my much larger chest, I wasn’t sure if she was angry or jealous. Yeah, given that last comment, probably jealous.

Okay, that was enough; it was time to end things. “This isn’t your body, it’s mine! I’m not some fucking cheap copy of you, and I don’t belong to you either!” I tackled her, and as soon as we hit the ground, I started punching. She immediately shifted size again, though, and while my tiny PK-assisted fists were causing her to yelp and grunt in pain, she reached out to try to grab me in her fist as she got back to her feet. I could sense her fist coming and dodged her grab, and she let out a scream and started shaking as Polly shot her with a taser that looked suspiciously like the ones the security dudes had been wearing.

Blythe looked more pissed off than hurt by the weapon and pulled an item from her belt that I remembered intimately. It was the same devise she had used when she kidnapped me and when she wanted to knock me out cold for funsies. I quickly cast my new concussive wave spell, not on Blythe, but to send Polly skidding across the floor and out of Blythe’s weapon’s range as she swung it toward my friend. Then, once Polly was in the clear, I cannonballed into Blythe again and started punching, knocking her right back to the ground. I was still wailing on her when she desperately slapped something on her arm and vanished.

“Fuck! She got away!” I screamed in fury.

It was a few minutes before I managed to calm myself and take in the scene around me. Thankfully, the smoke was gone, I had managed to keep the fight away from any innocent bystanders, and it looked like security and paramedics were arriving to handle things from here. Polly’s anvil was gone; only the small crater it had left behind remained to hint that it had ever been there.

Polly was just waiting and watching me, probably waiting for me to chill out after my post-fight tantrum. I couldn’t blame her, honestly; angry Fairies are scary, and my powers are dangerous if I’m not in control. I let out a weary sigh and asked my friend, “So… uhh… how much of that did you hear?”

“Enough,” she replied with a casual shrug.

I winced at the response. I didn’t like lying to my friends about my background, and Polly deserved the truth, especially after coming to help me with Blythe when I had taken off and left her behind with those trigger-happy guards like the asshole I was. I wasn’t sure where to even start. I flitted over to land on her shoulder and quietly stammered, “Well… umm… the truth is…”

I hesitated, and Polly didn’t miss a beat. The small, rat-like girl nodded her head and said in a croaky voice, “Begun, this clone war has.”

To be continued…