Barriers and Brawls

An Academy Blues Side Story

By Daishi Prime

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Autor's Note: this begins later than the prior Side Stories, during the week after Kyoto.

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"Allison, Noah, can the two of you please remain behind?"

Noah froze at Lotte's request, then shrugged and nodded, "I'll catch up," he told Ichigo. The other boy nodded, and continued following the rest of the class out of the workroom. Turning around, Noah walked back to Lotte, curious about what she wanted. She knew about his project with Ichigo, of course, but if this was about that, she would have asked him to remain as well. While Allison stalked over, arms crossed on her chest and face cast in a frown, he took a bet, Either she has a project for Allison and I, or she wants us to help with the next class. Two to one it's option number one.

"Allison," Lotte began, once they were alone, "I know you're working hard, but your shields simply aren't firming up the way they're supposed to."

And the winner is… Noah thought, being very careful not to say anything. He had the best shields in the class, though not by as wide a margin as he had when they first learned the spells.

"I'm getting better," Allison protested, "I haven't had one collapse in weeks."

"Collapse on its own, no," Lotte allowed, "but you're having trouble holding them up under pressure and distraction, which is a serious weakness. I think it's partly a mental matter – you are, to put it bluntly, an aggressor. You focus on attack, rather than defense, which causes your defenses to suffer. It's a problem, and it's going to affect your grades if you can't improve before finals."

Allison's frown deepened, "Can we schedule some time after classes to work it, sensei?"

Lotte grinned, and half-fell sideways, catching herself with an arm over Noah's shoulders, "I'm glad you asked, Allison! And thank you, Noah-kun," she paused to pinch his cheek, "for volunteering to help her! Commendable sense of class spirit!"

"Um, I haven't volunteered for anything," Noah countered weakly. While he had no problem helping, getting dragooned into it, especially with someone as justifiably frightening as Allison, was an unpleasant idea. She might blame him for it, after all.

"Yes you have," Lotte replied, "you stuck around after all."

"Because you told me to, sensei."

"But class was over, so you didn't actually have to do what I said anymore." Noah was very tempted to remember that argument for later use, but thought better of it. Lotte was just as likely to hue to the opposite opinion as to the one she had just stated.

"Oi, I meant you and me, sensei," Allison replied, "no offense to the bean-pole, but you're the practical magic instructor."

"Hey! I'm not that thin, Ally!" Arguing with Allison was generally a bad idea, but Noah saw no reason to let her get away with insulting him like that.

Her brilliant green eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, finally focusing on him, instead of on Lotte. "My name is Allison," she ground out, "and you'd best remember that if you ever want to have children."

"Whatever, Wilderness Girl," Noah shot back. "You want me to use your name, use mine."

"Children," Lotte cut them off, "play nice. Allison, I want Noah to work with you because he has an affinity for force effects. His shields are the most effective of anyone in class, and I think he can help you figure out what you're doing wrong. I have several ideas, but testing them will take weeks. Instead, Noah-kun should be able to figure it out in a couple sessions, in time to help you firm up your shields for finals. At the same time, he has the best shields in class, which means of all your classmates, he can most safely help you practice the assault techniques Signum just started teaching you."

"Wait...," Noah turned that over faster than Allison, "you want me to show her how to shield herself, and then to be her punching bag?"

"Essentially, yes," Lotte nodded with a grin, then her face turned serious. "Look, I know you two aren't best buds or anything, and you've both got your pride riled up, but there are very good reasons for this. Allison, you need to get your shields up to a usable level, and normal class work combined with your after-school efforts isn't helping. Noah, you're coasting through the shielding lessons, don't try to claim you're not. The classes are not pushing your abilities as far as they could go as fast as they could go. I don't have the time in class to help either of you as much as you need me to. I could take an hour after class to help Allison, and another to help Noah, or I could have the two of you work together for those two hours. You'll get as much done as if I took each of you for separate hours, and you'll be able to fit the sessions in around your other projects more easily. I'll leave it up to you, though... an hour with me every week immediately after class, or two hours a week as you schedule them, with each other. I'll stop in once in a while, but it'll be a self-study program all the way."

Noah shrugged, trying and failing to slip out from under Lotte's arm, "I'm up for either one, Lotte-sensei. Allison?"

She glared at him for a moment longer, obviously having hoped he would make the decision for her. When he just shrugged, she snorted, "fine, bean-pole it is. At least I can hit him when he's annoying."

"I'm hurt!" Lotte finally let Noah go, straightening up and putting her hands on her hips, "I've never said you couldn't try and hit me."

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"So, how you wanna go about doing this, bean-pole?"

Noah rolled his eyes, but let the moniker pass. Allison had refused to call him anything else since Lotte gave them this project the day before. Now, finding her in one of the smaller workrooms leaning against a wall, hands shoved into her pockets, he just replied, "Well, Wilderness Girl, since the primary goal's working on getting your shields up to snuff, let's see one."

"You've seen 'em in class plenty of times, haven't you?"

Another Heaven-ward roll of the eyes preceded, "but I've always been focusing on my shields, or those of whoever I'm grouped with. You and I aren't usually grouped together, Ally." Expectation allowed him to catch her slap before it hit his shoulder, deflecting it high, but he back-pedaled rapidly, in case she decided to try a follow up.

Allison glared, but staid leaning against the wall. "Fine, here you go."

She brought up a shield, and Noah watched closely, trying to get a feel for how she did it. The shield, a simple planar barrier, spun up, stretching out to a little taller and wider than Allison, an indistinct haze of reddish-yellow. It firmed up, just as he expected, then as soon as she 'finished' and reduced the power flow to just enough to maintain it, the whole thing became hazier, its distortion more pronounced. When he reached forward to run a finger along it experimentally, the whole thing shivered once and collapsed, causing Allison to wince. "Yeah, see, thing is, you can't touch it, or it falls apart on me."

Noah nodded absently, trying to determine what he had seen. "Do it again, but this time, don't thin out the power flow. Keep feeding it."

"Yeah, funny thing about that... it's sorta like a baby. You keep feeding it, it'll keep growing."

He shot her a glare, "I know that, Allison. Don't let it grow any more than you have to, just keep the flow at the same level." Allison grumbled something under her breath, but did as he asked, generating a new shield. This time, she kept feeding power, and while he did not sense her making any effort to contain its size, he did not wait as long to test it. Before it was larger than a police riot-shield, he reached out, and started running his fingers over its surface.

He had found, in experiments with Ichigo and Marcel, as well as in Lotte's class, that he not only had a facility with creating shields, but he could get a... tingle... off of them, a sense of what was going into them. He had to have physical contact with the shield, and Lotte had shown it was simply enough to block him, but Allison had no way to know anything about that. He could sense what was going into her shield, how strong it was, where it was strongest or weakest, how much energy was going into the shield itself and how much was just being wasted.

In Allison's case, he was unsurprised to find that most of it was being wasted. When she could no longer sustain the push, Allison settled back to normal, tying off the flow, and her shield immediately destabilized, becoming nothing more than a pretty distraction. "Well, there's your problem," he muttered, pushing a spread hand through the shield. "You're not stabilizing it. It's like... what you're making isn't so much a shield, as a flexible pipe. So long as you keep up the flow of power, it acts like a shield, like a pipe'll act like a pillar when the water-pressure's high enough. But stop the flow of power, and there's nothing holding the shield together."

"Bullshit," Allison countered, causing him to blink at her in surprise. Not that he'd never heard the word, but... no one around here used that language. "I build that thing exactly the same way you do. Imagine a wall, pour the power into it, firm it up, tie it off."

Noah nodded along with the last couple, "yep, that's how we're supposed to do it, but that's not what's working for you. I think, Allison, that you've got a problem where I've got an advantage – do me a favor, not a shield, this time, but..."

It took him another twenty minutes to explain what he and Ichigo were working on, the move-able platform of magic, even if they were only up to the 'platform' stage. It was similar to a shield, but subtly different, requiring certain stability and structure beyond most shields. One attempt by Allison proved exactly what he was thinking.

"You can't do force effects," he told her. "I'd get Lotte-sensei to confirm it, but yeah, you can't do force effects."

"Oh, come on, shields are more than just force effects," Allison countered, "how the hell is plain old force going to stop the communications spell, like your shields can? Or a teleport, or anything that doesn't have a physical component?"

Noah just shrugged, "sure, shields do a lot more than force effects, but they're all built on that basis. The basic physical shield is like a house's foundation. You can build a house without one, but it'll fall down in any sort of breeze. You aren't building that foundation, so... again, like the pipe... without the flow of magic keeping it together, it collapses."

"So how the hell'd Lotte miss that?"

"She didn't," Noah said, then sighed as she growled at him. "Look, she's trying to do things, 'kay? Teach you how to shield..."

"And you how to do it without relying on your specialty," Allison cut him off, eyes narrowing. "Risky of her, leaving us to try this on our own, isn't it?"

"Maybe," he agreed, "then again, maybe not. We've been here for months, we've seen the worst Laura can come up with, we've all had things blow up in our faces. Maybe she thinks we know enough, and are cautious enough, to do a little experimenting on our own."

"Such as how the Hell am I supposed to build a shield without a foundation?"

Noah nodded, agreeing with her semi-dejected tone. "I'm not seeing a way around that. Shields have to be strong enough to stand up to whatever hits them."

The two of them stood there for a few minutes, debating the idea, trying to think of a way round it. Noah was, as he had said, stumped. Everything he knew about shields said they had to be solid and stable, built on the sort of force effect that he excelled at. So he focused most of his thoughts on how to show Allison how to accomplish what was, for him, an instinctive thing. So the two of them pondered in silence for a while, trading off pacing and waiting.

Noah was startled out of his own circling thoughts when Allison suddenly swore again, and kicked the wall hard enough to wince. "Something wrong?"

"So damn stupid," she muttered, then glared at him, "What're we trying to do?"

"Teach you how to build a solid shield."

"Wrong! We're trying to teach me how to protect myself from magic. Who the Hell says the shield has to be 'solid'?" He could only blink at her, confused, until she threw up her hands, and resumed pacing, "look, you like comparisons and all, so here's one. What's the biggest advantage of the enemy you can only see in the mirror?"

That was a confusing question, so he actually had to think about it for a minute. Oh, right philosophical question, he realized, and told her, "He's you, so he knows everything you're capable of."

"Tche, idiot," she shot back, "If you can only see him in the mirror, you can only hit the mirror. Damn American military – 'if we can see it, we can kill it.' They don't like to admit it, but the other way's true as well – if they can't see it, they can't kill it. The trick isn't me figuring out how to do what everyone else does, it's figuring out how to use my advantages to get the same result – protection."

"You're thinking of camouflage," Noah realized in dawning comprehension, "stealth, misdirection, instead of opposition."

"More the first two," she countered.

He sighed a little, "Well, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help with that. Force effects are my thing."

"Oh, you'll help, bean-pole," she said, giving him an almost feral smile. She held up one hand, glowing with energy, "I'm kind aggravated right now and want to burn off some energy. It's time to see just how strong those shields of yours are."

Noah looked at her fist, then at her face, then back and forth a few more times. Oh, God, this is so going to suck, he thought, as the raw power around her hand became evident.

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It took the two of them seven more sessions, spread over three weeks, to make real progress. For Allison, the difficulty was learning how to take the field she could create, and shift it from stopping dangerous levels of energy to bending normal levels. For Noah, the problem was in not using the force effects he was used to, trying to emulate how Allison was making her shields, then trying to duplicate her efforts at a cloak.

They were taking a break from it two weeks in, sitting in the library trying to find out who had already come up with this idea and how they had gone about it, when he finally could not keep from asking a question which had bothered him almost since he had met Allison. It had also bothered several other students, but no one had quite had the gall to ask. Over the weeks of enforced cooperation, he had come to realize that, for all her prickly personality and evident temper, Allison was surprisingly easy to get along with, if you phrased things the right way.

"You know," he said, leaning back in his chair to look across the table at her, "I've been wondering about something for a while now."

"You wonder about a lot of things," Allison replied, not even glancing up from her screen.

"Allison Caeghlin," he said slowly, pronouncing the name very precisely. "I looked it up, at least where it's from." She sighed heavily, and looked up, but waited for him to continue. "Ireland. Thing is, other than the red hair, you don't look Irish."

"I'm not," Allison told him, "as any idiot can tell from my accent and home address."

"Someplace in the western U.S., right?"

"Northern Arizona." She sighed again, crossing her arms, "you're going to keep asking, aren't you?"

Noah shrugged, giving her his most winning smile, "Hey, I'm curious."

"Also stubborn, pushy, intrusive, noisy..."

"Oi, oi, alright already," he said, cutting off the litany before she could really get started. "In all seriousness, if you don't want to tell me, say so."

"I don't. But you're going to wonder, and so is everyone else." She slid down in the seat, resting her head on the chair-back to stare at the ceiling. When she started speaking again, her voice had a different accent, running words together oddly, "Daddy's Irish, born in Dublin-town. Fer some stupid reason, his parents moved to the bloody U. S. of A. when 'e wus a lad. Daddy's a carpenter, does pretty-work an' the loik. Came out to the Res to do some work on some public buildings, real good wi' his 'ands. Honest to, scored a lotta points wi' the people, not bein' pushy er tryin' ta cheat us. Tha' go' him more work. Momma took a shine ta 'im, an' her family approved, so here I am."

Puzzling out what she said was difficult. Her changed accent had not been the worst he ever heard, but what it did to Japanese was indescribable. He managed to get the gist of it, but still had to ask, "Who are 'the people' you mentioned? Your mother's?" A glance at her skin told him, "You're an American Indian, right?"

Her immediate response was to kick him under the table, none too gently in the shin, causing him to yelp in pain and jump half out of his chair. "The proper term," she growled, accent shifting back to normal, "is Native American, though even that's too damn broad. My mother's Navajo. Except for the hair, I look like her. Name's from my father's side, too, his grandmother's name."

"What about your accent? I've never heard someone shift accents like that."

She shrugged, "Daddy insists on spending a month a year in Ireland, 'renewing his roots'. Any time I start thinking in Irish, I pick up the accent again. 'At's where I learned ta fight, scrappin' in Dublin. Daddy's showin' me some more." She paused, then gave him a questioning look. "Fair's fair, bean-pole, where're you from?"

"Nowhere so colorful," Noah shrugged. "Manila brat, born and raised. Technically, I guess I'm Spanish, since that's where most of my ancestry traces, but my family's been in the Philippines so long no one remembers anything else. And trust me, we remember back centuries. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a disappointment, actually. My father's side have been fighters since forever. Fought the Japanese in the War, fought the Americans before that, the Spanish before that, each other before that. Heck, my grandfather insists it was one of our ancestors who offed Magellan." He shrugged again, "me, closest I want to get to fighting is soccer. Not that there's much difference, if it's being played right, but still. I would like to get some traveling done, but my family's a bunch of stay-at-homes. They think anything outside Manila's a life-altering epic journey, or something."

"Only reason I've been anywhere's Daddy," Allison said, leaning forward to resume their research. "I'd prefer to stay on the Res, fewer reminders of the bloody English."

"English? I thought Native Americans had it in for all whites."

"Be kinda silly for me," Allison muttered back, "since I'm never going to hate Daddy. Besides, the Irish got it just as bad as the Navajo, and for longer. We've only had to put up with the murdering English and their American successors for a couple centuries, the Irish have had 'em for a thousand years and more. Admittedly, the Irish did better fighting them off, but they had experience and weapons advantages, and still lost. Besides, it's not so much hate as... dislike. The English know nothing of living, only of self-advancement and immediate impulses. Americans are even worse. What about you? Phillippines have been conquered a time or two."

"Sure," Noah agreed, "but we're free now. What, I'm supposed to hate America for freeing us from the Spanish? Or from the Japanese? Oh, I agree, Americans are too worried about the now, but that's true of everyone, Allison. No reason to go around condemning them, especially not for things done before any of us were alive."

That earned him a shocked glare. "Before we were alive?! My ancestors were marched across hundreds of miles of wilderness, against the laws of the bloody Americans, in mid-winter, without shelter or food, and you think that's no reason to condemn America?!"

He cocked an eyebrow at her, surprised by her vehemence. From the look on her face and tone of her voice, you would think she was speaking from personal experience. Which was, in a way, just plain insulting. "My great grandparents were enslaved by the Japanese. Two of them died on the Bataan Death March. My father's father was a kid during the war, and still fought, was still taken as a prisoner of war. You don't want to know what happened to one of my grandmothers." To her credit, Allison blanched at that. "Now, which of your grandparents or great-grandparents suffered the same? By your lights, I should hold Noriko, Ichigo and Toushiro responsible for what a bunch of militaristic assholes did in the name of their country sixty, seventy years ago."

He shrugged and bent over his own PDA, then continued, "it's not that I'm unaware of history, Allison, but it didn't happen to me, it happened to my ancestors. They have a right to be angry, and my grandparents still won't speak to anyone of Japanese ancestry, other than to curse them. Me, the worst thing that's ever happened to me was getting my butt handed to me on the soccer pitch. I'll get mad if someone tries to deny Bataan and the like happened, or to forget it, but getting mad because it happened? That's like getting mad at God for last year's typhoon. Past is past and can't be changed, only learned from."

Allison did not respond, but shoved herself out of her chair and stormed off, leaving him to wonder if she would ever talk to him again.

It was maybe two minutes later that Lotte plunked down in the chair next to him. "That got a little personal."

Noah looked up, then shrugged. "It's an outlook thing. I don't like people taking credit for things they didn't do, and I don't like people claiming to have suffered things they didn't." He grinned a little sheepishly, "last time I got belted was for 'putting on airs' because of my great grandparents fighting in the War, back when I was a little kid. If she'd gone on about how Navajo and Irish are treated today, sure, I'd've listened and given her the benefit of the doubt, since I haven't the foggiest. But getting worked up over what happened to her ancestors? Please. I'm not 'Jana, but I know enough of history to realize that everyone's been 'oppressed' at some point. My father pointed it out to me a couple years ago, when my soccer team went zip and fifteen, and it's made more sense ever since. No matter what, someone's always going to get the short end of the stick. You can whine about it, or you can work around it. The first'll get you sympathy from whoever didn't get the short end, the second'll get you a chance to reverse the situation. I know which one I'd prefer, and since she's here, she should too."

"Oh, I wasn't complaining," Lotte assured him, "just commenting. I'm impressed with you, though. Kids your age don't usually think about such things. Usually it's girls and games you kids worry about."

Noah blinked at her, and opened his mouth to object that of course people his age thought about history and the like. After all, he could point to several examples right there in the room. Then he remembered just what everyone at this school was like, and what his old friends back in Manila were like. Much as he liked them, he had to admit that most of his pals were more likely to argue soccer and girls than history. "Yeah, okay, can see that," he conceded, "but look at who you've got for other students. We're not really normal, Lotte-sensei, even without the magic."

"True, true, but you kids keep surprising us. I'm curious, though, isn't this little fight going to affect your project? I know you've made progress, but you're not done yet."

Noah could only shrug again. "Dunno. We'll find out after she calms down. Ally's got a temper, but I don't think she actually holds onto grudges too long. If she does, well, I'll figure something out. We've figured out enough between us that we can probably go the rest of the way working separately with you, or with someone else."

"Nope," Lotte answered, grinning at him, "you made your bed, Noah-kun. Now you get to sleep in it. You're working with her until this is finished, so here's hoping you figure out how to get on her good side again."

Noah thought about that for a second, then grinned back, "Well, at least she hasn't managed to get through my shields, yet."

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Allison avoided him all the next day, and the day after, which was somewhat disheartening, as he had intended to try and talk to her. Not to apologize, that would have required admitting he was wrong, which he did not for a moment believe. But he did want to see if they could at least still work together. Unfortunately for that hope, she completely ignored his presence, even when she should not have, such as during Lotte's class when the two of them were put in a group. She simply addressed Marcel and Natalia, never once acknowledging his existence.

The evening of the second day was supposed to be one of their practice sessions, and Noah arrived early, more than a little worried about whether or not Allison would show, and what would happen if she did. When she did arrive, she glared at him for a few moments before closing and locking the door, as usual.

"You have your view," she told him, without turning around, "I have mine. What was done to my people, both my peoples, has never been made good, and probably never will be. That is the reason I dislike the English and their descendants. But like I said, you have your view, I have mine. You ever bring it up again, and I will pound you into the floor. Understood?"

Noah was tempted to argue the point – not discussing something meant not learning from the debate, after all, but wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. "Understood," he agreed after a moment. "I found a reference to a 'full spectrum cloak', and think I may have figured out how to do it without a device, on the physical level at least. Do you want to give it a shot?"

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Christmas vacation came far too early for Noah. The hectic rush to pass all his finals, pack for two weeks in a much warmer climate, and make sure he did not forget something, made the last weeks before vacation a blur of twenty-seven hour days.

He and Allison managed to achieve a respectable form of stealth, though she was significantly better at it than he was, well enough that Lotte declared herself satisfied with their progress. Allison could manage to completely fade from vision, though not from hearing, and maintain the effect while moving. Noah could manage to make himself harder to see, but not if he was moving. It turned out his affinity for force effects made it extremely difficult for him not to include them in his defenses, and the Cloak of Shades, as Allison named it, required a completely free-form structure he had trouble managing.

Vacation itself was a wonderfully relaxing time, in comparison to the last couple weeks of school. No responsibilities, other than chores around the house, no tests or studying or projects, just two weeks of hanging out with his siblings and old friends. A couple pick-up soccer games, a group ride down to the harbor trying to out-pace and out-trick each other, it was almost enough to convince him nothing had changed. Except too many times what should have been painful falls, for himself and his friends, were saved by his magic.

His parents asked for a demonstration, uncertain themselves what he had been learning. That proved simple enough, and they were justifiably impressed. The stories of what had gone on – those he was willing to share, at least – impressed them even more, especially Yussef's, Noriko's and Laura's devices. They professed to happiness, and he mostly believed them, but there was a hesitancy to his mother's approval that stuck in his head. It took him the better part of a week to figure it out, and even then it was not until after Mass.

He was waiting in front of the church with a couple friends, when Father Intengan approached him, "Noah, may I speak with you?"

Not being one to object, Noah agreed, and the two of the walked around the side of the church, towards the small plot of ground between it and the cemetery set aside for a garden and walking area. "Your mother came to me this morning, before Mass, with some questions," the Father began, "and I wanted to talk to you before I answered her, seeing as you are at the heart of them."

"She's worried about the magic," Noah commented, understanding his mother's attitude the past days, then shrugged, "Have to admit, I have been on occasion as well."

"So you are certain it is magic?"

"What else can you call it? We accomplish effects not explainable by normal physics. We alter the world simply by exerting our will upon it."

"There are some who argue that great figures in history did the same." Intengan told him, settling onto a bench. "That our will is the only way we can affect the world beyond base animal activities."

Noah shook his head, "not like this, Father. Here, I'll show you." He had to enter into a light trance to manage it, but he managed to build a shield around the two of them and the bench, just a light tinge of blue between them and everything else. "This shield lets light through, air, but nothing more energetic. Sound, for instance."

Intengan looked quite calm, for someone unexpectedly finding himself in a shield for the first time. "This is quite impressive, Noah. I take it this means we'll have privacy?"

"Yeah, for a bit. I can't keep one this large and complicated up for more than a few minutes, but while it lasts it's just about impenetrable. You could shoot it with a Colt .45 and it wouldn't notice."

"You seem quite comfortable with this, for someone who professes doubts."

Noah thought that over, trying to figure out how to explain. "It's like... I've been working with this for months now, and in most respects, it's just like what one of my teachers said. Magic is a tool, no different from a shovel, or a hammer, or a car engine, or electricity. It's more powerful and more flexible than most, but it is still just a tool. The thing that's bothering me is... I'm not sure if this is all it will ever be. They've told us magic can be incredibly dangerous. Hayate-sensei can supposedly destroy a city in a matter of minutes. And I know that the Bible says 'suffer not the witch to live', or the something like it. So, yeah, I'm comfortable with what I'm doing now, but still worried that maybe I shouldn't be."

"Well, the Bible does say that, almost word for word. But, it does not really define a witch in so many words. Also, Jesus made it clear that we were each to use our God-given gifts to the best of our ability. The question then becomes, from where do you gain the ability to do this," he gestured at the shield.

"I can show you my linker core," Noah offered. "That's the source of a mage's power."

"Hmm, not what I meant. The question is, does this power you wield come from God, is it part of you as a human being, or something external to it. If it is a natural part of you, then all well and good, it is your responsibility to explore this. If it is not, then we have a problem."

"Then I think we have a problem, just not quite the worse one. I'm not sure where this comes form. According to my teachers, almost every living thing has a linker core, has the potential, they just don't access it. Yet, if we all have this potential, why can't I find proof that people have been using it in the past? What about the argument that how we use it determines if it's good or bad? I mean, even if the source is evil, if I use it for good..."

"Then you still use something evil. Oh, there is some gray area, times where this fallen world forces us to choose between lesser and greater evils. But there are lines no true follower of God can ever cross. I am not familiar enough with what you do, how you do it, to be able to tell you where this comes from. I am afraid, in the end, you are going to have to tell me."

Noah nodded slowly at that, understanding exactly what he meant. "All I can say so far, Father, is that nothing we've done is obviously evil. Almost the opposite, everything Hayate-sensei's been emphasizing is safety, control, responsibility. She's told us some stories about things she's seen, what can be done with magic, but always with the warning of what went wrong, where the limit was, and how to avoid it ourselves."

"She sounds like a good woman, a good teacher," Intengan agreed, "and I would emphasize those points myself. Safeguard those around you, control yourself, and take responsibility for your actions. To that, I would add, guard yourself against evil. Until you are sure where this comes from, what it's maker's intent is, guard yourself and those around you. Though, I think I can reassure your Mother as to your spiritual safety."

"We can never be sure," Noah asked, "can we?"

"That, young Noah, is the price of being human, and being righteous. You must always and ever doubt yourself and those around you. When you stop doing that, you cease listening to God, and stray into pride."

On one level, it was not a comforting conversation. Noah had, in the half-formed way of un-expressed doubts, hoped that Father Intengan would be able to reassure him. At the same time, it was a reassuring conversation – knowing that he had been doing the right thing, that he was not facing immediate condemnation, was oddly comforting.

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Noah had expected Lotte's passing them on the cloak would end his and Allison's sessions. But the very first day, before he had even finished unpacking, she was knocking on the open door of his room. Of all the girls, she was the only one who seemed to have no trouble going into the Boys' Wing without warning, though she was death-incarnate to any of the boys who thought to take the same liberty.

"You free Tuesday afternoon," she asked, "I think I may have figured out a way to actually make a shield."

"Ah," standing over a suitcase with half his clothes spread out over the bed was not how he preferred to talk to anyone, let alone a girl, so it took a second for him to reason out a response. "Um, sounds good."

"Tuesday. Don't make me track you down, bean-pole, I got in too much hunting over vacation as it was." Then she was gone, just as abruptly as she had appeared, leaving Noah blinking in surprise.

Nevertheless, that Tuesday the two of them resumed working on her stealth spells, and his shields. While they did not work as hard on that as they had before vacation, one afternoon a week instead of two, it nonetheless became a solid part of their routine, and they began making surprising progress. He made progress on the stealth effects, though he still fell short of what Allison managed before vacation, and to his surprise, she managed to create a credible shield, finally.

Allison's idea on creating an actual shield was energy-intensive, complicated, and a total bear to control, but actually worked in an odd-ball manner. She essentially borrowed Noriko's 'petals', but instead of making them out of shields, made them out of pure energy, setting them to orbit about herself at high speed in a complicated interlacing pattern. Any incoming attack would not so much be stopped as intercepted. The only problem with it was, she had to be in complete trance to control the individual pieces, and the amount of energy involved pushed her right to her limit. Noah could manage a little better, mostly using less energy by using actual miniature-shields, but even he found it draining.

They were working on it again a month later, in one of the mid-sized workrooms, when Shamal's panicked sending reached them, shocking Allison out of trance hard enough she almost fell over, despite being seated. "What the Hell?"

"You heard her," Noah countered, shoving up from where he had been seated, "we've gotta get out of here, fast."

"We're not going to be able to," Allison countered, causing him to pause. She stood up herself, more slowly than he had, dusting her pants off. While almost all the girls had opted to have some of the nominal boys' uniforms on hand, Allison had never once worn the skirt of the girls' uniform, and now she demonstrated yet another reason why, as she fished things out of the pockets the pants had, but the skirts lacked. "Paratroopers," she continued, checking over what looked like a can in her left hand, "landing on the entire campus. We go up now, we're hostages, plain and simple."

"We can't just sit here!"

"The Hell we can't," she shot back, "we're secure, there's only one way in or out, and they're gonna have a bear of a time digging us out, if they even realize we're in here."

"But what about everyone else?!"

Allison shrugged, "they're going to have to fend for themselves. We're two people, Noah, who just got landed on by an army. Literally. Remember what you said about, 'what happened to your great grandparents'? Well, go a little further back, and you'll see something like this happening to my ancestors. Only more often, and without as much chance of fighting back."

Noah frowned at her, a combination of fear and excitement giving him a case of the shakes. "Which is exactly what you're saying we shouldn't do."

"You and me, no," Allison shrugged, "but do you really think these mental midgets are going to slow Laura or Noriko down? This'll be over in under an hour, and we'll go up, take stock, and see what's what then. We go out there now..."

A click at the door, and the feeling of the workroom's shields disengaging cut her off, and both of them spun to face the door. It opened fast and hard, pulled by someone outside to reveal nothing, then a head ducked around from the side opposite the hinges, before vanishing again.

Noah had no idea how they got the workroom door open, and immediately realized it did not matter, not yet. As the head reappeared, followed by a body wrapped head-to-toe in dark colors and carrying a shotgun, he backpedaled, bringing up his shields almost by instinct, mind flying off in too many directions to form a coherent plan. The first man was followed by three more, one lacking the arsenal of the first three.

All three armed men covered Noah, which was a more than intimidating experience, while the fourth, standing just inside the door, spread his hands wide. "Son, relax, we're here to get you out. We don't want to hurt you, but it's not safe for you to stay here."

Son? What about... he glanced around, and realized that Allison was gone, vanished into her cloak, apparently as soon as the door opened. The pause to talk, and the realization that they had no clue he was not alone, gave him enough time and confidence to get his thoughts under control again. The training in self control, and the practice from Yussef's class, moved the fear to the back of his mind, and let him think. Door's still open, someone's holding it, he decided. I bet Mouth over there, who was still trying to talk him into dropping his shields, is the one who popped the lock, so we take him down in here with us...

The problem he ran into almost immediately was that Allison, for all the time he had spent working with her, was not one of the guys. With one of the guys, he would have a fair idea where they were, what they were going to do, and so forth. With Allison, all he knew was that, when she saw an opening, she would take it. He was fairly certain she would not abandon him, which meant... the one in the door. She'll take him down, close the door against anyone outside, and then we only have these four to deal with. Which leaves me distracting these four. "Hey, I don't know who you think you are," he told the intruders, dropping into a poor imitation of a martial arts stance, "but you picked the wrong school to jump."

They proved to be rather unwilling to be distracted. The two soldiers on the wings dropped their shotguns on the slings, and pulled out small pistol-like weapons Noah was unfamiliar with. They started walking wide, but the one in the middle, now labeled 'Shotty' in Noah's mind, just pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening, even twenty meters away, and Noah felt the shot hit his shield, felt it hard enough to stagger back a step.

He could not maintain his full shield and counter, and he had to do something. So he improvised, dropping his main shield in favor of three smaller ones, at greater distances. Two he managed to physically hang on the end of the pistols aimed at him, a third on the end of the shotgun. They were weak, but would probably deaden any shots fired at him to the point where they were ineffective. Once those were in place, a bare second as Lefty and Righty moved further in their respective directions, he turned his attention to offense.

The two pistols came up, and he saw both triggers pull. The results were a surprise, as his mini-shields were hit by twin darts, and promptly dissolved under a hail of electrical power, channeling part of it right back into the pistols. The two weapons smoked, and Lefty and Righty dropped them with surprised exclamations in a language Noah did not know. But they gave him enough time to form a new shield, a simple cylinder ten or fifteen meters long... snaking right between each attackers legs. A mental twist pulled the twists together, and the four men hit the ground in untidy heaps.

At the same time, he saw a flicker of movement in the door, heard a shout, and then the door slammed closed, and he felt the locks resetting. Allison faded into view, swinging a narrow length of metal in her right hand, a smirk on her face as she leaned against the closed door. "Gotta love mace," she told Noah in a surprisingly cheery voice, "easy to use, easy to hid, kicks like a mule. Idiot outside had goggles, but nothing over his face but cloth. Hit him right in the upper lip sent the spray straight up his nose. There're two more out there, and another team down the hall, but I don't think they'll be getting in here."

"You shouldn't have done that, Miss," Mouth muttered, struggling to his feet. The other soldiers were quicker, all of them now armed with shotguns. Mouth continued, "that man was here to help you, same as..."

"What, like the bloody English helped my ancestors with blankets for the winter? Or maybe like they helped with Ireland's potato famine? Please," Her smirk twisted into a dangerous grin, "You're here to rock and roll, and I'm more than happy to oblige you."

"Got your back, Ally," Noah told her, dropping his prior shields for two more. One he put between himself and the room as he backed into a wall, the other he put in front of her, ready to shift to any direction she was not moving.

The rod in her hand started swinging back and forth, taking on a white glow. "Who's first?"

"Take the boy," Shotty ordered, "I'll get her."

Lefty and Righty turned towards Noah, but before they could move, Allison did. She laughed aloud, and charged straight for Shotty. He braced to meet her as the other three moved wide to cover her, and Shotty fired. Allison's charge was faster than Noah had expected, so he could not maintain the shield at the half-meter distance he was used to, so the bean-bag actually seemed to hit her, without slowing her in the slightest. A second shot had a similar result, and then she was too close, and Shotty, swung the weapon around, trying to catch her in the jaw with the end of the pistol-grip.

As she closed, Noah saw Mouth gesturing, and realized that, as he had suspected, the man was some sort of mage. A glance showed Lefty and Right focused completely on Allison, so he dropped his personal shield just long enough to shape a buster spell of pure force. Visible only as a vague distortion, it shot from his hands and slammed into Mouth's helmet hard enough to stagger the man. By the time he was upright, however, staring in surprise, Noah was once again behind his shield, and Allison was too close to Shotty for any magic.

Allison ducked under the high blow, sliding in the last meter, while whipping the rod in her hand around in a long vicious arc, which finished with the bulb at its tip hitting the side of Shotty's knee with a flash of released power. He grunted in surprise as his knee bent violently in a direction it was not meant to, sending him to the floor. Even as he fell, he tried to tackle Allison, but she spun away from him, bringing the rod around again to slam into his side, just above his kidney. To Noah's discomfort, she did not stop there, but as Shotty hit the ground, followed him down and hit him four more times, always someplace vulnerable, always someplace painful, and following it up with a shot of mace to his mask.

When she stood again a few seconds later, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she backed up, she was not even breathing hard, just flushed and grinning a little wider. Looking at the three remaining, still bouncing and shifting like a hyper-active boxer, she asked with obvious anticipation, "who's next?"

"I'd suggest dropping your weapons and lying on the ground," Noah told them. "She's usually pretty nice to start with, but gets more vicious the longer she fights. Over-excitement, you see?"

"Oh, come on, bean-pole," Allison complained, frowning at him, "You've gotta lemme have some fun. I want to see how long it'll take me to cripple someone."

It took the two soldiers almost ten seconds to decide to cooperate. They had seen both these 'kids' take shotgun blasts without a twitch, seen their commander taken down rather violently by the girl, and were locked in a room with the two. Lefty moved first, taking his right hand away from the shotgun's pistol grip, then holding out both hands to his sides. Righty followed, and a moment later Mouth also put his hands behind his head.

"On the floor, kneel down then lay face down," Noah ordered. The three complied, and once they were down, he established small lengths of shield behind their knees and necks to hold them there. "Now, let go of your weapons and put your hands behind your heads. You have restraints?"

"Zip ties," Allison commented, having been searching Shotty while Noah handled the others. She held up a cluster of white plastic strips, then pulled three out. In short order, she had Shotty, still groaning in pain and trying to curl up in a ball, zip-tied – ankles together, wrists together, and a third tying ankles to wrists. She tossed the cluster to Noah, "Get the other three, I'll keep an eye on them."

Noah picked up the packet from where it fell short, and did just that, starting with Mouth. Noah figured the man was the most dangerous, since he could still cast spells, but all he did was ask, "How the Hell did you kids get so powerful? You haven't even been here a year! Shields, bullets, physical enhancements, it's impossible!"

Noah snorted. "Hey, just 'cause your teachers had no idea what they were doing doesn't mean ours don't. God in Heaven, if we're more than you can handle, you should be thanking your lucky stars you didn't take on Yussef or the other two."

Once all four were secured, and hauled to wall next to the door, he and Allison settled down at the back end of the room with the collected weapons. Noah no longer had any doubts as to the wisdom of waiting in here. Even if someone else managed to get into the workroom, he figured he and Allison could handle them, especially now that they had three shotguns and what she called a taser. He discounted Mouth's pistol, as that was loaded with real bullets, and neither of them was willing to go that far.

"So," he said after a couple minutes of silence, "that was pretty rough, what you did to that guy. He's still not coherent."

"Probably won't be walking again," Allison admitted, "not without surgery. That sort of knee hit usually rips the tendons up something fierce. It's something Daddy taught me. He really doesn't like the idea of his little girl getting in fights, but since it keeps happening, he figures I should know how to do it right. According to Daddy, the only way to 'do it right' is to win, which means making sure the other guy doesn't get up again. Plus, it's an intimidation thing. I've seen it before. You take down the leader hard and vicious, you'll scare his troops into backing off."

Before he could reply, he felt a tingle of magic, and heard Marcel, "Noah, you there?"

Noah held up a hand, then shaped a reply, "Hey, Marcel, I'm here, with Allison. We're locked in a workroom."

"Right, I'm at the cave Shamal told you about. Most of the class is with us. Say put, we're still figuring out what to do."

"We'll be here," Noah agreed, "just let us know when it's safe to come out." He cut the spell, relayed the information to Allison, and felt remarkably better. He had confidence in his teachers and his classmates, but confirmation that most of them were safe was worlds away better than mere confidence.

"Hey, Noah," Allison said after a minute.

"Yeah?"

"Thank's for getting my back there. I don't think I'd've been able to take these punks on my own."

Noah shrugged, "You're a friend, Allison, and a classmate. Isn't Hayate-sensei saying we're supposed to protect people with what we learn? Gotta start somewhere, and if I can't protect my friends, how can I protect anyone else? Also, I'd have even less chance against these guys. Remember, I'm pretty much all defense." He paused, thinking, then, "I'll make you a deal. You ever want someone to watch your back in a fight, give me a call. If I ever need someone beat down, I'll call you. Deal?"

She laughed, then stuck out her hand, "you got a deal, bean-pole."

Yussef, naturally, interrupted them, "Noah, status please."

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CrimsonDX: Megan's shape-shifting was fun, it's always been one of my favorite aspects of any sort of magic. As for were-creature forms, that's her goal, but I haven't decided yet if she can pull one off. That strikes me as significantly more complicated than a straight shift, as there's no pre-existing version. So... maybe.

TheWhiteMonk: Thanks, glad you liked the chapter. I was surprised to hear how much you like my characters, I keep worrying too many of them are turning out the same.

Kell Shock: I first found the word in White Wolf's World of Darkness, actually. In their game Werewolf, there's a supplement for Asian versions of all their changing-breeds, called Hengeyokai. I have to admit, I wasn't real impressed with the D&D version after that book (but I don't like most of D&D's approach to the Eastern mythological traditions). The change is not particularly noticeable, unless the observer's familiar with Megan's forms (she always takes the same version of a form, like all animals have unique fur markings). Aria did not notice because, in my opinion, she would be too trusting of her sister, and because Megan learned how to shift a lot faster than she should have. Hayate, in contrast, was kept up to date on Megan's progress, and is more sensitive to subtle magical flows like the shift, and to Megan's half-successful attempts at telepathy.

Aurica: Glad you enjoyed it (though my personal favorite's still the first chapter:). I held back the AB chapter with the attack specifically to post with this story, so there would be an explanation. I should have posted the above chapter at about the same time, but only had it outlined.