Disclaimer
Worm was created by J. McCrae aka Wildbow
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was created by Masaki Tsuzuki.
I just mashed their two worlds together.
They are both pretty awesome, you should really check them out.
(why would anyone read fanfiction when they haven't seen the original work)
Punch, one, two, jump back, high kick, sweep, roll out, punch two, one, two, dodge left. The moves flowed seamlessly, a deadly dance of foot and fist, elbow and knee, blade and baton. The winter air whistled softly with each move, frost crunched lightly underfoot in the pre-dawn light. The pace slowed, and with a deep breath and a bow to her imaginary opponent Taylor ended her early practice session. She'd been spending more and more time practising since, since it happened. Self defence her father called it. He'd stopped practising almost completely since Annette, her mother, his wife, died.
It had been Annette who'd introduced the family to martial arts, or Strike Arts as she'd called it. Brutal, meditative, full of hard strikes both armed and unarmed, but always ready to move, to flow from motion to motion, always focused, inwards, the motion of muscle and bone, outwards, from the ground beneath to the sky above, the motion of the wind to the rustle of leaves. The Trio had stepped up their game, again. They'd backed off after The Locker, after the school had been forced to take notice, not that it stopped anything, or any of them got in trouble. Taylor shook her head gently. A prank gone too far, kids being kids, no witnesses. She wondered if the school would have taken more notice if she actually been locked inside that, that filth.
But years of training had kicked in. Sophia's shove deflected easily, grasping hands turned aside. Sophia was the easiest of the Trio to deal with, always shoving, attempting to trip, physical intimidation that always just fell short of the mark. She half wished Sophia was a boy, then it'd be easier, a fight wouldn't be judged as harshly. But then, it hadn't helped Danny so much. Her father had spent three weeks doing community service after he'd broken up a drunken brawl. One of the men had money and influence, she'd spent a week with social services as a result. No she, as a trained martial artist, was expected to avoid confrontation, that fighting would result in expulsion or suspension at the very least, and given that Emma's father was a lawyer, it would probably be worse.
Of the other bullies, Madison fit somewhere in the middle. Annoying, irritating but, again, nothing that would excuse fighting. Her "pranks" tended towards childish; juice spilt on her seat, glue on her table, spit-balls. Disgusting, but nothing that couldn't be waved off as a "harmless prank" by the teachers. Emma was the worst. Years of friendship, of sharing hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares, had given her everything she needed to hurt, and humiliate. It was never physical with Emma, nor did she need to ruin her homework, or damage her possessions. No, Emma could cut her with nothing but words. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will surely kill me. But even as the Trio ramped up their bullying campaign, it became easier to deal with them. The isolation at school didn't hurt as much, the "pranks" were more easily avoided, and Emma, Emma was running out of hurtful words. She'd repeated herself earlier this week. It was almost pitiable, like a dog chasing it's own tail back and forth, biting and yelping in pain, only to start again moments later with the same result.
The backyard had become her gym, moves and sequences became faster, more fluid, natural. She'd been working on some of the moves her mother had done, half remembered motions copied, experimented with, turning memories into actions into Art. Backflips, cartwheels, moves that wouldn't have been out of place in a wire fu film. Stretching out as she started around the house, moving smoothly into a slow jog, once around the block, before picking up speed as she turned towards the boardwalk, her hair streaming behind as she raced the rising sun. With dawn starting earlier each day it made an effective training regime.
The sky was painted red and the sun just coming over the horizon when she reached her chosen endpoint, a fried food van that served as breakfast for many of the working class of the Bay. The vendor gave her a hearty wave. She'd been ending her outward leg here often enough to be a regular. A cup of tea sat on the counter awaiting her, a few coins took it's place as she walked back and forth to stay loose for her run home. "Danke". She took a meditative pose, balanced on the back of a bench, barely two inches wide, eyes closed as she breathed in time with the pulse of the world, the steady thrum that had been her constant companion for as long as she could recall, focusing on it, drawing it in, and holding it close, just as her mother taught her.
This was something the Trio couldn't take from her, something that no one could take from her as long as she lived. She waved to the former dock workers she recognised as she started home, a small grin playing at her lips.
Soon she'd be setting Winslow behind her too. The transfer papers hadn't been hard to get, nowhere near as hard as Principal Blackwell implied. All it took was going around her. Arcadia had wanted her before, on her academic merits. All the local schools had wanted her, the maths prodigy who'd been taking high school level classes in middle school. They remembered who she was, even if Blackwell had seemingly forgotten.
She hadn't wanted Arcadia back then, back when being close to Emma had been a good thing, they'd planned to go to college together, share a flat off campus, be at each other's weddings. Childish dreams of friendship forever. It had been for those dreams she'd endured that first year at Winslow, hoping that Emma would come to her senses, that friendship would overcome whatever adversity had been set against it.
This year she'd given up hope of having her friend, best friend, back, and started making enquiries about transferring out, first to her homeroom teacher, Mrs Knott, who passed her to the administration office, who brought in Principal Blackwell, who shot the idea down within moments, in a bored manner. Everyone wanted to go to Arcadia, it's where Wards went to school, it got the most funding and would open doors to many top ranked Colleges across the country.
That might have been the end of it, had The Locker not happened. It showed a pattern of escalation that made Taylor uncomfortable, one that would leave her having to defend herself with force, ruining an otherwise spotless record. No, she'd gone around Blackwell, dug out the information Arcadia had sent, and now here it was, her escape, her chance to shine. She just had to stay out of trouble for the rest of the year and then she'd be free of them.
She was beyond them, above their petty attempts to bring her down. There was nothing they could do to hurt her now, not anymore. The best revenge is life well lived, and she would have hers in spades.