I stared at the foreboding entrance to my new school with a heavy sense of unease. My family had always had a slight empathic ability, so it was a bad sign. Still, I hoped I could survive the period I'd be at this school. My dad moved around with his job a lot, so he thought he was only going to be here for about a year. I could survive a single grade in high school at a bad school.

I'd arrived a little early, so I went in while the halls were still mostly empty. As I passed the lockers, I noticed that the grey tint of suffering focused around a particular locker. I really hope all the unease wasn't from a single person being bullied. And from the looks of things, it'd been going on for months at least.

I went and got my information from the vice principal in time to go and see who came to the locker. I didn't have to wait very long before a skinny girl wearing a baggy hoodie and a determined face. As she opened her locker I watched three girls approach from behind her with malicious looks on their faces. I stepped past them quickly and went up to the tall girl.

"Hello! My name is Miriam, what's yours?" I asked with some forced cheer.

"Um. Hello. I'm Taylor." She replied warily, glancing over my shoulder at the approaching trio.

I could sense the moment she thought that I was just trying to bait her into a reaction. I opened my mouth to reassure her, but one of the trio behind me tackled me into the locker. Or at least they'd tried.

I might not be filled out, or very muscular, but I'd been practicing martial arts as soon as I could, and exercised daily. The end result of the tackle attempt was me ducking under he lunge, and tripping her face first into the locker. Everyone in the hall turned towards the loud crash, probably expecting it to be Taylor on the ground with a bloody nose.

I decided to play up the innocent new girl act, even if it probably wouldn't help. Everyone would know what I could do soon enough. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Tripping you was just muscle memory, seriously!" I said while putting on a worried face. I helped the girl up part way, before pretending to drop her. Right on the nose again. Totally on accident. She looked like she might've hit her head a little hard off of the locker, but that wasn't my fault. I looked over my shoulder at the other two girls of the trio. "Don't just stand there, help me pick her up!" As I turned back, I winked at Taylor. When the duo got close, I backed away, pulling Taylor with me.

Hopefully I could help Taylor out.