Chapter 10-
Of Pie and Unexplained Phenomena
The door opened silently. The two girls walked cautiously in, looking around for danger or mini-Lavi. Charlotte gently closed the door behind her. She was in a short corridor that ended into a bright, larger room. Voices came from it, and they sounded busy and rushed, although muffled so that she couldn't hear specifics. Charlotte started down the hall, but stopped as she saw something very strange about a foot ahead of her. She stepped back a bit, and saw what looked like a very thin white line close to the floor. Bending down, the inspected it more closely. It was fishline. Or, in this instance, a trip-wire.
She followed it to the right wall, where the wire was attached to what she assumed was a trap.
"Asamoya? Could you come over here?"
"What is it?" Asamoya knelt down beside Charlotte.
"Are you very good at disabling traps?"
"I've never tried."
"Well," Charlotte said, "I propose that we learn really damn quick."
The girls poked and prodded at the thing for a few moments, and inadvertently set the thing off with an errant poke.
"Oh, shi-…"
There was a boom, and the world went fiery, then brilliant white, tinged with blue.
Charlotte, meanwhile, had thrown her arms over her head in a futile attempt at protecting it. She peered up through her fingers, and saw that she and Asamoya were encased in a rapidly melting barrier of ice, produced solely by Asamoya.
"Um…" Charlotte said, watching the icy barrier in amazement. "Asamoya… I think the fireball's gone…"
"I know," she replied rather softly. After a moment, the rest of the barrier melted into a very large puddle.
"That was amazing."
"Thanks," she replied. "I usually can't do something that big, but I think it's good that I made the effort."
"Um, yeah, I'd say so too," Charlotte said. "Considering, of course, that that fireball would've burnt us to ashes before we'd gotten pie."
"Heh. Yup," the half-Mystic said. "Gotta have that pie."
"Well, it's just down there," Charlotte sighed. "They can't have put any more traps in this corridor. It's too darn small."
They walked the rest of the way (very carefully), and peered into the larger room. They found it filled with stoves, ovens, and other appliances. Copper pots and pans hung from racks and were suspended from the ceiling, gleaming in the light that came from an undefined source. An army of people bustled around, most of them cooks, some of them maids or messengers. The two girls walked in carefully, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. They were immediately jostled on all sides by the frantic work of the kitchen staff.
"Watch it!" a purple-haired cook cried, re-balancing a tray precariously perched on one of her hands. She rushed past as Asamoya dodged out of the way, only to bump into another cook who was stirring something large and fragrant.
"Ow!"
"Move it!"
"'Outta the way!"
"Push off!"
After several moments of frantic dodging, the girls reached a relatively calm part of the kitchens. Charlotte looked to the left, and saw, somewhat to her surprise, a few tables set up in a corner. She tugged on Asamoya's sleeve, and they sat down. Then, within the space of a few seconds, (and, if they had noticed, just like in the game) a cook rushed up to them.
"What'll it be?"
"A slice of cherry pie," Charlotte said.
"Key lime for me," Asamoya added.
"All right," came the reply, along with an eyeroll. Pie wasn't exactly a top priority. The purple-haired girl left, and returned shortly after with two pieces of pie. These two pieces were the paragons of pie-ness- the cherries were a deep red and submerged in their own not-too-sweet sauce, and the key lime was moist and wonderfully flavorful. The pieces were devoured with the ravenous fury of those who really deserve their pie.
The purple-haired girl then set a piece of paper on the table. Charlotte looked at it blankly for a moment, then realized what it was. She picked it up.
It was a bill.
"That'll be fifty gold," she said. "Cash or shall we put it on your tab?"
The girls looked at her in blank stupidity, looked at each other, and said simultaneously,
"Tab."
Then their eyes widened to astonishing (and probably unhealthy) levels as they saw someone walked up behind the cook.
"Here. I'll pay it."
The figure sat down opposite the girls, dropping the money in the waitress's hand as he did so.
It was Magus.
The girls stared in disbelief. Here was their Magic teacher, sitting opposite them in the off-limits kitchens, casually ordering a café mocha. He was infamous for a foul temper and for not hesitating to pull a fireball on a lusting student. Now he seemed… civil. Almost chivalrous. If they didn't know his actual vaguely grumpy and not-so-vaguely sarcastic character, they'd have felt perfectly at ease in his company. They did know and they weren't comfortable.
"I must commend you on your admirable use of ice magic, Miss Asamoya," he said casually. "And you, Miss Albshire, for noticing the trip-wire. You don't know how many students Marle has had to resurrect because of a careless step."
The waitress (with some apparent anxiety), returned with Magus' café mocha.
"Oh, thank you."
"Um…" Asamoya said, turning slightly pinkish, "Thanks?"
"Of course," he continued, "you really aren't supposed to be around here. Kitchens are completely and explicitly off-limits. I'm sure, however, that this was a perfectly innocent mistake." There was a certain amount of delicately placed stress on that sentence. It gave the girls the impression that to say otherwise was a very stupid thing to do, indeed.
"Right," Charlotte said. "A complete accident."
"And, of course, you did not go to a certain student of the psychic persuasion to inquire about the location of the kitchens, either."
"Never would've dreamed of it, Professor."
"Indeed," he took a sip of his mocha while looking at them with a disturbing gaze. It said in very clear language, 'I know exactly what you're up to, but you're humoring me right now so I just might let you live if you continue to do so.'
"I think I might forget about this incident," he said. "Selective amnesia has never been my fortè, unfortunately. I may require some… assistance… in forgetting."
Ah. So it's going to be like thatCharlotte thought, and was terminally tempted to say this out loud.
"What kind?" she asked, instead.
"Nothing of much difficulty," he replied casually. "I would simply require you to be very watchful, and turn in an extra 'essay' to me. Nothing difficult."
"You want us to spy?" Asamoya cried. "On other students? No. No way. I rather play hockey with Mini-Lavi."
"It can be arranged," Magus replied amiably. "And you, Miss Albshire? Would you like to play hockey with the Minis?"
"Um…" Charlotte said, looking from Asamoya to Magus and back again. She didn't want to betray other students- they could be just as bad as the Minis, and there were definitely more students than Mini-Lavi- but she didn't want to cross Magus, either. People who crossed Magus never got a chance to repeat the mistake.
"Er… well, I…" she dithered, stalling for time to come up with something that wouldn't get her killed or worse.
There was another surprising entrance by a slightly more homicidal character.
Miss Cerberus.
Oh shit… Charlotte thought as her stomach sank down around her feet. I'm dead. We're dead. I should've taken my chances as the spy.
As Cerberus walked in, the crowd of cooks parted, leaving a clear path for her to go down. As she passed, they swarmed back over like the Red Sea after the Israelites.
"Cerberus," Magus said, all hint of amusement gone from his voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Look, you can talk with your little recruits later," she said. "I have to talk with you. Now."
Magus looked slightly puzzled, but stood and followed Cerberus to a spot in the sea of cooks. The cooks themselves left a little patch for them to stand in, and drowned out the conversation with their calls and orders.
Meanwhile, Cerberus was very unhappy.
"Magus, we have one hell of a problem," she said.
"What kind of problem?"
"One that could turn out to be very bad for us."
"Us, as in…"
"We who are not students."
"Explain."
"We had a few infiltrators into the Staff Section," she began. "No big deal. The Lavi got to them before they went far."
"All right."
"The problem started when we found one face-down in a pond. The other two were killed in, at least according to the Minis, what was self-defense," Cerberus explained. "From what I gathered, the students- those ones, at least- had very strangely powerful magic. Enough to hurt Magis, and he's magic-resistant. How might this have happened, eh?"
"You shouldn't be asking me," Magus replied. "I only require basics out of them. Ask Spekkio. He gave them the magic in the first place."
"It's not Spekkio's!" Cerberus cried. "I know Spekkio's magic! This ain't it! Besides, we've got a worse problem then some hyped up students, even if they're part of the problem!"
"What? For gods' sakes, just say it!"
The sudden smashing of a tray of dishes drowned out her reply. By the slightly stunned and worried look on Magus' face, however, it could be discerned that it was very distressing news.
"You can't be serious…" he murmured. "That can't be right. It must have been a mistake."
"Try it for yourself if you don't believe me," she said, biting on her bottom lip. She only bit her lip like that when there was plenty to be worried about.
"It's probably just a flux," Magus said, rubbing his temples. "Such things happen on occasion. It should blow over soon."
"Blow over? Being a little bit... no, never mind, I won't say it."
"Good. We've got enough Irony hanging over us for being in a small continuum," he said. "Let's not egg it on."
"Yeah…" she muttered. "Yeah. I really hope you're right, Magus. I really do."
"You should get some coffee," he said, spinning her around by the shoulders. "And then go back to your office and, I don't know, sort applications or something. Plant a few more traps. Something to take your mind off this. I'll get to the bottom of this."
Cerberus let herself be pushed towards the door. "All right…" A cook had already brought her a large mug of her own special coffee.
With Cerberus gone and presumably busy, Magus returned to the table.
"All right. I've got a proposition to make," he said. "We have… a situation. At this point, we need a few people to keep an eye on the students from a more internal point of view."
"I told you already, we won't spy," Asamoya said stubbornly. "We won't spy on our friends."
Magus sighed in exasperation and propped his head on one gloved hand. "Look, when I say 'we have a situation', I mean it's something that a lot of people will get into a lot of trouble for. Don't make yourself one of those people. And, from what I can tell, Charlotte doesn't quite agree with you."
Charlotte's face had been one of startled horror as she listened to Asamoya.
"You agree with me!" Asamoya said. "Don't you, Charlotte?"
Charlotte nodded dumbly, not exactly sure of what she might be getting into.
"I would sue my face for slander if I were you," Magus said to her. "Putting aside your ridiculously placed moral obligations… if you do this favor for us, we are prepared to offer a compensation for your actions."
"So now you're going to bribe us," Asamoya said flatly. Charlotte was wondering where she had gotten the courage to talk like that to Magus.
"What would change your mind?"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Miss Asamoya," the mage said.
Asamoya recovered spectacularly. "I want to know what's going on. Oh, and I want free pie. And no random mauling by Minis."
"You drive a hard bargain," Magus said after a moment's consideration. "But, in light of the situation, I suppose I could divulge such information. However, you cannot repeat this to anyone. The consequences will be dire if you do so."
"Fine," she said. "Just spit it out."
There was another crash, this time from a rack of brass pots coming loose from the ceiling. They banged and clattered loudly until the last one rolled to a stop.
"Oh." Asamoya said. She looked very worried. "That's very bad."
"Of course it's very bad," Magus replied irritably. "And it explains quite a lot, wouldn't you say?"
"It explains my ice barrier," Asamoya said. "But the part about…"
"I don't know," he snapped, obviously put into a very ill mood from that line of questioning. "I'm going to test it soon. I have Cerberus' word on it, and I trust her not to panic at trifles and false alarms."
Charlotte blinked. "We have class."
"Do we get a sort of diplomatic immunity by taking this? You know, sort of a lightened homework load in light of the situation?" Asamoya asked. She was going to get all she could from this bargain. "After all, we'll need to cover a lot of ground, get into social cliques, it could take a good deal of time…"
"Don't push it, student," Magus replied acerbically, but he quickly checked his temper. "I'll see what I can do. But don't hope for much."
She shrugged. "All right. But get back to us soon. And I definitely want all the information you've got on this. I don't want to be left out of the know."
"Reasonable enough," Magus replied with some testiness. "But that's all. Next thing you'll be wanting rooms in the Staff Section…"
"Um…Asamoya…" Charlotte whispered, tugging on her sleeve. "We've got class…" She was ignored again.
"Negotiations are officially over," Magus said. "And you have class to get to, as Miss Albshire has been attempting to point out for some time. I hope you two can run very quickly." He grinned, and it was not very pleasant.
"Shit!"
The girls burst from their chairs and rushed out, Asamoya in terrified panic and Charlotte in a surreal, I-knew-it-would-happen-like-this form of calmness.
"What have we got?" Asamoya asked as they skidded past the Christmas tree that rose out of the floor.
"Um… we've got Swordplay and Fencing 101, in the field in front of the Academy, in…um, thirty seconds. Twenty-nine, now."
"Buggery," Asamoya said. "How're we supposed to get there fast enough? We're on the opposite end of the damn building!"
Charlotte smacked her upside the head. "Forget it!"
"Oh. Right," Asamoya said, rubbing her head. "I'll never get the hang of that."
Both girls closed their eyes and hoped they wouldn't hit a wall. In a second's time, they were running on grass.
"Hey! That's handy," Asamoya commented. They were all of ten feet from the group of students surrounding Crono and Frog. They loitered at the edge of the gathering, hoping to avoid any unfortunate stampedes on Crono.
After a few moments, there came a soft metallic noise somewhat like 'shhhhshnk', and a gasp from the fangirlish crowd. Charlotte and Asamoya pushed through them a bit to see what had happened. They were vaguely disappointed to find that Crono had done nothing more than draw his katana without any flourish at all.
"All right," he said rather amiably. "I think we can start class now."
All right, so no one was wet and there were no Egyptians. 'Not like the Red Sea' would probably be a more accurate description.
Not like that, you sick, twisted person.
A/n- Hey, this didn't take me too long, eh? Anyway, all you readers, there's still plenty of time to enroll in the Academy! There are also a bunch of mini-Lavi and a plethora of Moving Pillars hanging around, so feel free to ask to adopt one- you get a spiffy little image to proudly (or not) display wherever you feel like it. Ciao!
