"At 8:34 PM on Tuesday, a Familiar was killed before it could spawn a Witch. We suspect-"
"Chell, I know." The white-haired young woman tapped the keyboard with swift, spindly fingers without looking up at her scout. "You don't even need to say it anymore."
"Yes, my Queen."
"You don't need to say that either, unless I feel like it." There was a pause in the air, and the girl peered up over her laptop. "I didn't say 'stop giving the report.' Keep going."
"Yes, m-yes. Uh, Christopher is out of commission."
"Really? That's a shame, I figure he would have lasted longer." She stretched out, setting the laptop aside for a moment and flexing her feet on the bed. It was nice to spend time in a hotel room, and it just took the right amount of hacking to ensure the hotel staff knew she was staying with her mother. Certainly a young girl wouldn't be in the hotel room by herself. "Anything else?"
"High chances of a Witch manifesting tonight." Alex, her scout, shifted from one foot to the other, as if waiting for permission for something.
She just ran a hand through her bangs and sighed. "It's not your turn tonight. Sorry, but I'm nothing if not fair."
That seemed to disappoint Alex, who slumped his bony shoulders and rubbed the bridge of his nose, but quickly regained his soldier-like composure. It seemed all show to her, but if that's how he wanted to act she wouldn't nitpick. "Anything else?"
"There's a new recruit."
"Oh? Hmm." She pulled up the laptop again. That at least presented a momentary challenge, or at least the illusion of one. "Who are they?"
"It's a he. I saw him with...Chell."
She blinked, and then stifled a chuckle. "Oh, of course. Naturally that was bound to happen again. Did you catch a name?"
"Wheatley...something or other."
She snorted, sitting cross-legged on the bed with the computer in her lap. "How unwieldy. His parents must have hated him. Still, can't be too many of those. I can run a search on him." Any excuse to antagonize her rival brightened her day.
"Also, we think the oracle-"
"I'm bored with this now. Get me a hot chocolate from downstairs." She reached over into her purse and pulled out a few wrinkled dollars which she shoved into Alex's hand. "And next time, if any news involves Her, tell me about it first right away."
He bowed, another gesture which earned an eyeroll from her. "If I might ask, My Qu-Uh, Glados, why are we so worried about her? You said with her attitude, she'll be lucky if she lasts-"
"Hot chocolate." She pointed at the door, snapping. "It's not going to get itself while you probe into my affairs."
"...Yes, Glados." He turned around and left, and she sighed in relief, freed from his monotonous drone. Fresh recruits were always interesting. There were information searches to run, school files to hack, statistical research to run based on the data she could find. Her findings were rarely inaccurate.
After all, she was a scientist.
Hey, sport! Meeting's running late. I got a good feeling about this one! Sorry I won't be back until late again. There's leftover lasagna in the fridge from a conference lunch.
-Uncle Cave
Wheatley was sure his uncle had used the exact same note before, except he'd written 'lasagna' instead of 'half a panini' or whatever else had been there. He'd gotten used to coming home to an empty apartment in the lower-rent area of the theater district. At least he finally had his own room, now that Cave had cleared out what the would-be businessman had called his second study. 'Cleared out' was perhaps a generous term, as while he had a bed and desk, half of his closet was still full of storage bins loaded with miscellaneous paperwork.
His uncle just wasn't used to having someone else around, that's all. The schedule of a man trying to start a business was one of meetings with bankers and potential financers. Cave was married to science and parent to science, with no expectation of being saddled with a foreign teenage nephew. Wheatley tried not to take it personally.
Instead, he sat on his bed and told the walls about whatever kind of day he'd had, as if his uncle was home listening at the dinner table. It was therapeutic in a way. Saying something out loud kept him from dwelling on it inside, where it might rot and fester like an infection. Usually he'd be telling the walls about plays he forgot to try out for, or classmates making fun of his accent because they were jealous, or about all the girls he was going to ask out someday. Today's story was a bit more interesting, and he would have thought it all some kind of waking dream, if it weren't for the way the blue egg shimmered and cast light around his room as it sat on his desk.
"And you know, I thought to myself, 'she could really use some help!' And being a gentleman and all, well, I decided to give it a try! The wish was a second thought, really, not important all. And you know what? I did really well, too! Oh, sure I need some target practice, but her and me, we make a good team! I mean, she walked away afterwards, but I'm sure she's just a little shy, aren't we all sometimes? Or you know, I tend to loom and we were both rather exhausted. In fact I still feel a mite drowsy, may go to bed early after I finish that essay…" The nice thing about walls was how they didn't roll their eyes and walk away no matter how much he had to say. At the same time, telling the story aloud, even the version he wished had been the case, somehow made it more real.
"Though I am a little put off by how she just walked away. Is this some kind of rite of passage thing? She leaves me on my own and so does the little fluffy thing. No instructions or anything. Did she just not want my help? And I mean, I don't know what I've gotten myself into, but…" But what? He found the words drying up as he stared into the glow of that gem, bubbling with some kind of liquid. "Guess I'd better find a safe place for you, shouldn't I, then…?"
He didn't see any shadows, not really. Maybe a little smudge swimming around there, but it was probably nothing. Besides, what was he to do about it now? "Sure, maybe I should have wished for Uncle's business to thrive so he'd be home more often, or maybe I could have even brought my parents back to life, or wished to be stronger, or...a little less gawky, maybe some muscle definition would have been nice...or having some money around once in a while...but! No regrets, right?" He rolled over onto his stomach on the bed, propping his dinner on a pillow as he ate it. "Kyubey's fault anyway, asking me and pressuring me like that. But she's...really, really cute, and well, that's...I mean it's not a BAD wish. Is it?"
He looked outside the window. It was dark and likely cold, but the rain had let up. Surely he could go for one more hunt and come back before midnight. Would Cave even know he was out late? And who was he to argue with Wheatley about going out at night? "Practice it is! Makes sense, no way to improve otherwise. And really, that way next time I can make sure she knows I won't be a burden! 'Oh, me? Not much, just killed another Witch. By myself. As a newbie. Nothing special.'" He mimicked polishing his nails on his shirt and making a nonchalant face before realizing he had no audience for it, and sighed. "Well, better get my coat. Last thing I need now is a cold…"
"Chell, is everything alright? Are you sure?" A woman with brown-black hair tied in a French braid frowned as she looked at her daughter's plate, barely touched.
Chell stirred the green beans with her fork. "It's fine. Sorry, Mom, just, you know. Rough day at school." The savory smell of chicken parmesan failed to revive her appetite. "It's no big deal, Mom, really." She managed to make herself eat at least a bit, working through the numb feeling that followed a Witch fight.
There was a third place set at the table again, empty as usual. Old habits died hard. On the little kitchen TV, a man confessed his love to a woman, half of his sappy dialogue cut out by Sophie's meowing.
Marie scowled and rubbed the back of Oreo's neck. "You already ate, fat old thing." Sophie rubbed her head against Marie's hand and made a gutteral purring sound. She looked down from the counter at Chell with big green eyes framed by white fur.
Behind her, in the window, another pair of animal eyes peered out at Chell.
"I'm actually not feeling so great," she half-lied with an apologetic little smile. "I'll wrap this up and eat it later if my stomach stops bothering me. Sorry, Mom." She stood up to take her plate to the counter, wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge, and gave her mom a kiss on the cheek before retreating to bed. "I'll see you later, Mom, okay?"
"Are you sure? Abuela's coming over." A thin, sad smile crossed Marie's face, and she sat back down at the kitchen table. "You'll at least come out to say hello to her, right?"
Chell nodded slowly. "It's just…" Words clogged like cotton in Chell's throat, and Marie took her hand.
"It's fine. It's rough on you too, isn't it?" Marie gave Chell a gentle hug. "The holidays are terrible when things like this happen. But we don't need him, right? We'll have a nice winter without him. Best revenge is living well. Just don't hide away in your room too much, or you'll miss it." She kissed Chell's cheek. That made it even worse, the perfectly reasonable explanation for everything. "If something's wrong, you'll tell me, right?"
"Of course I will, Mom." Forcing her smile, she moved to retreat back into her room.
Her room was a messy affair on her better days, with her hand-me-down sewing machine sitting in the corner silently guilt-tripping Chell for its lack of recent use and heaps of fabric strips here and there. She nearly missed stepping on a spool of green thread. Her books were strewn across her bed, the way she liked them. And as she half-expected, there was Kyubey, sitting on her copy of As I Lay Dying.
"I understand why you're mad at me." Of course he didn't, no matter what he said. She'd long since given up trying to argue with him; it just brought headaches. "You would prefer to work alone. And given your powerset, you're quite suited for-"
Chell tossed a pillow in his face and pulled the book out from beneath him. She was behind in her reading.
"That was rude! Anyway, he Contracted of his own will. Whether or not you influenced his decision doesn't really matter in the long term, does it? He was vulnerable to Contracting, and would have made a wish one way or another. I can always tell."
William Faulkner was not doing a very good job of distracting her from Kyubey. She grit her teeth and turned the page as loudly as she could without tearing it.
"Believe me, I wouldn't Contract anyone who didn't have at least some potential. And why not use one of my best local magical girls as a positive example?"
"You use me," she spat out, but there was no response. Sure enough, as she peered over the edge of her book, she found the bed empty of all but assorted workbooks and pens.
She felt a buzz against her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, frowning. She wasn't going to read it. She was just going to delete it, and...
So I heard you lured another sap into Contracting so you can get them killed. Congrats. –G
Yes, it was her. Of course it was her. If it wasn't a text message, it was email. If it wasn't email, it was a scrawled note in her locker. For someone who spent an awful lot of time holed up in various hiding places, Glados got around.
Chell stuffed the phone in her pocket, but it chimed again. Four pages of Faulkner went by before morbid curiosity won.
Really though, I looked up his school records. You're not exactly robbing the world of a Rhodes scholar here. I can see him having a good future after securing a Bachelor's of Science in Mediocrity. Not like Caro-
She deleted the message as quickly as she could, even as another came in. Glados had lightning-fast fingers.
Remember when my best magical girl teamed up with you and Rita and you got her killed? I just thought I'd remind you of that. She was a real loss to the world. Caused by you.
Deleted. Chell shut off the phone and left it on the nightstand, curling up on her bed. She slowly reached for her backpack to pull out her algebra and history notebooks. The last thing Chell needed to do was to miss more homework assignments because of her.
"Practice, right..." Wheatley was already starting to regret sneaking out. Of course, it could hardly be called sneaking out if no one was there to see him leave. Sure enough, the rain had been the sign of a cold front, and he pulled his jacket tightly around him, breathing on his free hand for warmth. The other held his Soul Gem, glowing blue and serving as a flashlight of sorts. It was egg-shaped just like Chell's, but while hers had been marked by vertical curves of metal, his was decorated with horizontal rings.
"So, are they all different, these things?" Wheatley had to admit he was glad when he noticed Kyubey following him again. There was something a little odd about the creature, but he was company and actually knew something about the situation. "I mean, are they like our thumbprints? What happens if I lose it, can I get a replacement?"
"I would strongly suggest against misplacing it," Kyubey said, trotting after Wheatley until the boy reached down and set the creature on his shoulder.
"I wasn't planning on it! This is what marks the new me, after all. The new me who does interesting things like fight...whatever those are. And save people. And...oh bloody hell, someone's coming! Um, hide in my...you won't fit in my hood, will you?"
Kyubey stood his ground. "They can't see me, remember?"
Wheatley relented, covering his Gem with one hand and hoping it would pass for some kind of light. He avoided the gaze of the person lurching past him, a middle-aged man in a torn suit who barely seemed to see Wheatley. "Huh. Must be drunk. And in the middle of the week! Shameful, shameful..."
When there was no response, he reached behidn him and realized Kyubey had vanished again. "Man alive, that little thing! Really doesn't like to stick around, does he? What's he got to do that's so important now, eh?" He politely stepped around the swaying man, giving a little salute. "Careful there, mate! Lots of weirdos out at this hour. Go get a drink of water or something, yeah?" He would have led the man to a police station, he supposed, but the Gem was blinking in a way that suggested radar. There were monsters to fight.
Moments after Wheatley had run off, something emerald green streaked past the chilly road, too quick to be seen. It scooped up the man seconds before he would have thrown himself into the pit dug by the construction crew.
"Dammit, man," Rita Park muttered as she set the man down against a wall, having stunned him out of his trance and into unconsciousness. "This is the second time this week we had to bail your ass. Go watch a happy show or something. Get out more." The cops would pick him up and assume he was under the influence, and he'd probably believe it too.
"Couldn'ta saved someone hot this time, huh." She dusted off her hands on her green Puella Magi dress and adjusted the wide-brimmed hat that came with it. "No, it's 'unshaven middle aged guy' day. Eugh, he smells like aftershave. And now that idiot newbie's gonna get there first."
"Didn't you say you were giving him a head start?" A cheerful voice piped up behind Rita, and a yellow-haired girl in a pink jester outfit perched on one foot. "Is that what you're doing here?"
"Nah, here I'm just savin' the innocent." Rita grinned and tipped her hat at Alice. "Now I'm givin' the dumbass a head start. Let's see..." She tapped her foot for a few seconds. "Okay, headstart over. Let's get ourselves a Witch!" Grabbing Alice's hand, Rita took off again, faster than anyone should be able to do so.
She couldn't help but 'buzz' Wheatley along the way, sending the boy spinning before he even knew what had hit him.
Wheatley thought at first he'd been hit by a car, but he wasn't in a terrible amount of pain and he hadn't seen any cars passing. They were on a relatively quiet back street. Then he wondered if he'd been mugged by a very speedy assailant, but upon climbing back to his feet he realized everything was in place.
"Well, it must have been a very rude person on a bicycle," he mused.
"What do you think it tastes like? Can I eat it?"
Rita made a gagging sound as she swung from one birthday candle to another, landing in a puddle of frosting. "Sure, you wanna eat a chunk of Witch? Be my guest. Me? I just wanna blast it to kingdom come." She lifted her green-booted foot and shook it. "And I never wanna see black forest cake again."
The Witch, whatever it was, clearly liked cake. Its Labyrinth was centered around a tower of chocolate cake studded with walnuts and oozing cherry filling that looked a bit too much like blood. Rita hated Labyrinths that looked like food. A Witch had already ruined soup for her once, and after facing a certain Familiar she never wanted to look at apples again. It was like running through mud up that spiraling tower, though Rita's speed and chain whip made the job a little easier. Alice was just jumping from outcropping to outcropping, occasionally tossing her giant boomerang at anything in her way.
The Familiars chasing them were cockroaches, of all things. "So this is what, the Witch of not keepin' your kitchen clean." Rita snorted as she encountered a wall of the clicking, hissing things, each slightly larger than herself, and summoned her whip again as it crackled with green lightning.
"Come on, you know you wanna! Take on the Adventure Girl. I live for this."
"Okay. Never...want to look at cake again. Going to...associate it with cockroaches. Bad association to make with desserts." Wheatley pulled himself up to the top of the cake 'tower,' bruised, battered and dripping cherry goop in his hair. He'd managed to trap a few cockroach Familars with his crystal, but he'd decided it was most effective to hide from as many as possible and sneak by when he could manage it. Sometimes this method even worked.
"Fine, sure, but you're the Witch, yeah? That's you? Not...exactly what I expected, I admit..." It was a lot smaller than the tree-Witch had been, a tall candle dripping hot, bubbling wax all over the cake and peering out at him with an eye in its flame. It made a sputtering sound like sparks before lunging right for the nearest target, which was naturally him. That was when Wheatley realized he didn't exactly have a plan for fighting a Witch alone.
"Crystal stuff, come on, crystal stuff! Do that-that thing you did before! Is there a magic word? There wasn't before! Come on! Got to be something!" He held out his hands, but nothing happened, as the Witch leaned its spindly body at him and slammed into him with brute force, sending the boy rolling across the top of the tower and nearly falling off. He held onto the edge with whatever grip he had left, about to haul himself back up when a flash of green blinded his vision.
"Whatsa matter, buddy, BURN OUT?" The voice was loud and brash, clearly female, with a Texan accent that sounded just a touch exaggerated. As Wheatley pulled himself back up onto the platform, he saw a dark-haired, Asian magical girl in green standing right in front of the Witch, lightning crackling around her. Her outfit suggested a ballerina, save for the rather out-of-place cowboy boots and wide-brimmed hat.
"Nah, that's not quite right. How about, 'Partin' is such SWEET sorrow?' Yeah, that's what I'll say when I finish this one off. Or, 'Hasta la PASTRY, baby. Or-" The Witch bore down on the green cowgirl, but with a strange blur of movement she was standing just to the right of it, laughing. "That's right! Can't catch me, can ya? Bet ya wish you had arms now. Hey, Alice!"
On cue, a huge boomerang cut into the side of the Witch, slicing out a chunk of its wax body. It started to melt into itself as another magical girl, this one pale, blond and clad in pink, caught the boomerang with one hand and landed next to her apparent partner. "Are you really that worried about a catchphrase, Rita?"
"What good's a fight without a catchphrase? You ever see an action movie where they're all business and no talk? No, cuz that's BORING." Rita took off again, dashing with incredible speed up the body of the Witch, producing a green chain-whip around her which she brought down right through the body of her prey as she landed, splitting it neatly in half. That seemed to do the trick, as the Witch spewed wax in protest before its flame went out and the Labyrinth itself vanished with the smell of burnt sugar.
"That...that's my Witch," Wheatley protested, though he doubt they heard him and he didn't have the energy to move against them. He realized he was technically still on his hands and knees, and stood up, dusting himself off and turning red. "I mean, it was my Witch."
Rita eyed him for a second, and then laughed. "Yours! Yeah, sure buddy. You had dibs." She nudged Alice. "Told ya it'd be funny if we waited for him to get his ass kicked first."
"HEY!" Wheatley pointed at Rita, wounded ego fueling a second wind. "That's just unfair! And cruel! What if it had eaten me? What if I was eaten by a candle while you two just watched and ate popcorn? I thought you, uh, we were heroes!"
His grandstanding didn't seem to impress Rita at all, who walked right up to Wheatley and somehow managed to look down at him even though he was taller. It was something in her gaze that did it. "You such a hero, next time don't walk right past a victim in trouble, Beanpole. That zombie-lookin' guy? You know Witches eat 'em, right?"
They did what? Wheatley felt the color drain from his face, and he cleared his throat. "Oh, uh...well, of course I knew that. I just figured that...I mean, I didn't, um, in my careful calculations..."
Rita just snorted and turned away again. "Newbies. Am I right, Alice?"
"Are you right that he's a newbie? I don't know. Are you a newbie, Mister?"
"Stop calling me that!" Somewhere along the line, Wheatley's second wind had dwindled to a slight breeze, and he was suddenly aware of how tired and sore the fight had left him. He let his transformation revert, and Rita smirked.
"Newbie, got it. Look, I'm gonna give you this because you're kinda cute, as far as doofy guys go." Rita slipped a piece of paper into his hand, and he opened it up. It was a number.
"...Oh!" His mood improved immediately. "Is this your...?"
Rita stared at him for a moment and then laughed, a full guffaw with hands on hips. "See, Alice? Everyone wants me. Nah, that's the number you text if you wanna get in contact with the Queen."
Bravely withstanding the pain of another crushing blow to his ego, Wheatley looked back down at the number and wrinkled his forehead. "Wait, Queen? We've got a Queen?"
"She calls herself that, anyway. You wanna know anything about anything, give her a text. She'll meet with ya for a consultation. How do you think we got that good?" Rita examined her fingernails as she let her own transformation revert, revealing a baseball cap, jacket and old jeans. "I mean, I was an expert from the start, but even I benefited from a few pointers. She's a...kind of a scientific sort, I guess. You know, nerd powers. You should know, you look like a nerd."
"I am not a nerd," Wheatley mumbled as he adjusted his glasses, and slumped. "Oi, fine, I'll look her up. And...figure out how to get home from here." He hadn't thought about that. "To the Theater district..."
"Just straight along 21st Street and take a left. Seeya, Nerd." Rita waved over her shoulder and ran back towards Alice. "So, you got the Seed, right? The Queen, she doesn't really like late payments..."
Exhaustion hit Wheatley in full once he no longer had anyone to talk to, and he leaned against a wall, looking at his Soul Gem again. It was a bit clouded, but not so bad when he squinted. He could always catch another Witch and get one of those Seeds to clean it tomorrow after school. As it was, he was supposed to have finished an essay he'd no doubt have to slam through in the wee hours of the morning, and he'd forgotten to eat dinner.
"Trickier than I thought, this magical stuff. She made it look easy, too. Shows what a pro she is, I guess! That...that girl in the orange." He dug his hands in his pockets as he slumped back off. "Good thing if anyone mugs me I can just go all superhero again, yeah? And where the devil did Kyubey go anyway?"
"Go away."
"That's a strange reaction to have. Aren't you curious as to what I am?" Kyubey sat on the edge of a bed, peering at its inhabitant.
"Fact: I'm dreaming you. This is a stupid dream. You're a Pokemon. Espeon, #196."
"...I don't even know what that is."
The boy peered at Kyubey through bleary eyes, and then slammed his head back on the pillow. "Fact: I need to have more logical dreams."
