Age Eight

It's my mother picking me up and nearly squeezing the life out of me that finally shakes me from my daze, "Oh my god, Ericka, are you okay? Did you see anything? You're safe now! Are you hurt?" The flow of parental babble helps me to ease back into the present.

Looking down at myself I find my jacket hanging off one shoulder, my backpack hanging off the other. In one hand I have a crumpled piece of paper that I'm clutching hard. I'm covered in dust, scrapes, nicks, and bruises, and my shirt is full of holes.

"I'm... fine?" I'm not entirely sure. Looking over my shoulder I see the school. The large hole in one wall indicates that something exciting has happened. When I try to remember though...

A gun scare? School shooting? In an elementary school that's unusual. But...

"She's fine, Ma'am." My train of thought is interrupted by another voice. I'm sitting on the back of an ambulance, one of many that has crammed their way into the parking lot of the school. "She's just in shock. It's not surprising given what happened." Many children are being tended to and fussed over by their parents, much like myself.

"What did happen?" demands my father. He sounds forceful for maybe the first time in my life. Besides it's obvious isn't it?

My eyes are drawn back to the large hole in the school wall.

"I can't really say, sir." The paramedic does a great job of remaining calm in the face of what's probably just one of many panicking parents they've dealt with today, "I only got here after the fact, and the investigation is still ongoing." He's probably just happy that he's not dealing with one of the parents whose kids have been brought out on a stretcher, or under a sheet.

Or one whose kid is missing.

It's a school shooting...why are kids missing?

I blink again, trying to remember what happened. There had been an alarm? No, the sound came first. Gunfire my brain insists, even though I can't summon up any details. I do shudder in dread when I try though, so maybe that's for the better. I remember running... which is wrong. You're supposed to lock the door to the classroom and shelter in place, unless you absolutely have to move. But I was running. I think I tackled somebody? A boy in my class out of the way of something...

The memories are fading like a dream, the only things that stay are that there had been a school shooting. I ran. And... that's it?

Is that wrong? It doesn't feel wrong. Just incomplete.

I'm put in the car and buckled in, my parents worried conversation is reduced to nonsensical noises.

I'm so tired.

The next thing I know we're at home. Which is wrong. It's Tuesday, which means gymnastics, and boxing. It's been that way for almost three years, why are we at home?

"Honey?" I blink looking up at my mother, "Can you let go?" I look down at myself again. My jacket is gone, as is my backpack, and my mother is trying to pull the paper out of my hand, "I'll put it on your desk so you won't lose it." It takes effort to unclench my hand. I can almost hear my bones creaking, they're so stiff from gripping the paper as hard as I can for so long. But I manage to loosen my fingers enough for the paper to be pulled free.

Once that's done, there's a shower, though I don't think I did much of it myself. Then I'm put to bed, and asleep before my head hits my pillow.

###

I wake up and my everything hurts. It's like the first day I'd done gymnastics, or boxing, or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu... any martial art really. The only difference being that these are all muscles I'd become familiar with previously.

Familiarity doesn't make it suck any less though.

With a groan I pull myself upright and look around my room, blinking. The sun is way too high in the sky for it to be my usual wake-up time. Habit leads me through my morning stretching/workout routine. I'd gotten it by mixing things we do as warm ups in gymnastics and stuff from a book on yoga I'd found. The routine goes much slower than normal and I spend a lot of it wincing and groaning as I stretch sore muscles. When I finish I feel much better, though. The exercise doesn't do much for the scrapes and bruises, but my muscles feel miles better.

Trying to remember the day before still makes me shudder in dread, so I shy away from trying to dredge up more detail. Instead, I head down stairs to figure out what's going on.

Oddly enough, both my parents are home. At ten thirty in the morning no less, according to the clock. The moment I'm noticed my mother descends on me in a cloud of barely suppressed parental panic.

"Ericka!" She catches me up in a hug which I return more out of habit than anything else. "How are you feeling?" she asks, pushing me back slightly to look me up and down.

"I hurt," I comment and immediately regret it as I see the panic become somewhat less suppressed, and my father starts moving towards us in something of a hurry, "Like really sore." I continue quickly to try and calm them down without lying to them, "Like I overdid it in Brazilian jiu jitsu again."

That seems to calm them down some. "That's good," my dad says, looking over mom's shoulder, "You're looking better. You were pretty out of it last night."

"Do you remember anything?" Mom is looking pretty concerned, probably wondering if I'll need therapy or something.

"I remember..." I shudder at the feeling of dread and mentally shy away from thinking about the event itself, "I remember you getting there while I was getting looked at. I kinda remember the car, and I know you got me clean and into bed..." I shake my head, "That's it."

Both of them let loose sighs of relief, "You're sure?" Mom asks, "You seemed a little upset at the beginning."

I nod, "I'm... trying not to think about anything before that," I admit, "But as long as I don't think about it I'm fine. Can I go to gymnastics and jujitsu?" My mom hesitates, likely she doesn't want to let me out of her sight. "I want to see Sarah," I push, "She'll be really worried if she's heard what happened."

"They did say that getting back to a normal routine as fast as possible would be good for her," my dad points out when mom seems to be wavering still. That seems to do the trick though, as she gives another sigh, frustrated this time.

"Fine. If you take the rest of the day slowly, and you don't have any other problems before it's time to go, you can go," mom finally caves. I bounce and cheer and immediately regret it. "And you promise to take it easy in class," mom admonishes me, earning a sheepish nod.

Bouncing like that had hurt.

I spend the rest of the day with both of my parents. Normally this would have been a nightmare, but apparently the scare has unsettled them enough that they are both unwilling to focus on anything but me. This includes all the things that would usually drive them up the wall about each other.

So instead, we have breakfast. We walk in a park, in what I'm pretty sure is a subtle attempt to see if I'm really as physically well as I claim. I already have a reputation with my parents and trainers of ignoring or downplaying injuries that would keep me from my training.

We even go to see a movie. A film about toys coming to life when nobody's looking. That's a lot of fun, and mostly appropriate for my physical age. I'd seen it before in my last life, and the differences between my old world's version and this one are interesting.

The biggest change is that the space ranger action figure is female. I figure it has something to do with how many more female supernaturals there are than male. Which means, statistically, more of the supernatural badasses are female as well. Even if the mundane world isn't aware of this, that sort of thing would have an impact on cultural subconscious biases.

I'm also proud of them for not having even a hint of romance between the cowboy and space ranger characters.

In the end though, I manage to convince my parents that I'm not too much more injured than I claim to be, and they let me go to my after school classes. The moment I walk in the door to my gymnastics class I'm hit by a black haired missile that takes us both to the ground. I manage to fall well at least, and end up with Sarah straddling me and talking a mile a minute.

"Oh my god are you okay? Mommy was talking about what happened at your school! She said it was really bad and that you shouldn't go back there but that wouldn't be a problem because the school would be closed for a long long time and you'd probably need to go to a new one and I told her that you should come to my school because then we could play all day as well as just after school..."

I finally manage to get a hand over her mouth. Which she immediately starts licking, but I ignore that. "I'm fine, Sarah. At least mostly. Just a little banged up. I got more hurt falling out of that tree last summer." I'd broken my arm, and hadn't that been an annoying set back in my training. Got really good with my left hand though.

"Well, that's good," she says as she finally manages to pull my now very damp hand away from her mouth. I wipe it off on her pants, "You'll tell your mommy that you should come to my school right?" Ah, the priorities of eight year olds. I'm not dying, so the next most important thing is securing more hangout time.

"Yeah, I'll tell her." Sarah is fun, and I could stand to play with her more. Most of our play doubles as training anyway.

"Girls." Both Sarah and I look up at the gymnastics coach, "Sarah, get off of Ericka." My friend pops to her feet like she's made out of springs, "Ericka, I heard what happened yesterday. Are you sure you're well enough to participate? Or are you just going to watch." Her tone makes it clear which she thinks it should be. She glances over my head at where my mother is hovering. Normally she leaves me in the care of Sarah's parents, but not today it seems.

"I'm good!" I insist, trying to project as much energy as I can, and bouncing to my feet like Sarah had. Ow, bouncing still hurts. All I get for my trouble is a raised eyebrow, "Good enough to try at least." I amend in the face of clear disbelief. Sarah, bless her tiny heart, is nodding next to me, backing me up. With a sigh, the coach gestures for me to join the rest of the girls and starts class for the day.

Honestly, I'm not one hundred percent, and it shows in my performances in both gymnastics and Jiu Jitsu. I'm incredibly sore in some really odd places.

But I manage to get through the day and home again, falling asleep just as easily as I had the night before. When morning comes I'm at something of a loss once I finish my morning routine. The school is closed and, like Sarah had said, likely to stay that way for some time. My training won't start until the normal after school time. Sarah still has to go to school so she was busy.

I'm looking forward to having most of the day free for the first time in two years, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself. With a sigh I decide that I can get some Script and sketching practice in, so drag myself over to my desk.

Settling in, I pull my Script dictionary, as I call the large tome, into a good reference position and only then notice a crumpled up piece of paper set off to one side. With a frown I pull it over. I can't really remember what it is, or where it had come from for that matter. So I carefully uncrumple it and flatten it out, and freeze, breath catching in my throat.

Sitting there on my desk, right in front of me, is a devil flier. The pictures of naked girls in the corners seem a little unnecessary, but I'll admit they probably attract the usual intended target audience. But the thing that's claiming most of my attention is the circle printed in the middle of the paper, entirely formed of World Script.

As soon as I start breathing again I almost start hyperventilating with excitement. Since I had gotten the book almost a year ago, I have been wrestling with how to make the Script do anything. In fact, I was beginning to suspect that as fascinating as the Script is, it isn't actually magical in any way.

But here in front of me is a functional piece of working magic, and it's made from Script. I'm, in a word, giddy. It takes me almost ten minutes to calm down enough to actually start to make use of my new discovery, but as soon as I can focus again, I settle in and start to translate the circle.

This will be my Rosetta Stone, it'll give me grammar, structure, and if I'm very lucky, how to make it all work together.

###

It takes me almost all of my free time during the week to translate the flier. Which nearly causes me some problems with mom and dad as they are convinced that I'm depressed and traumatized, hiding in my room the whole time. Placating them takes some time, but is actually fun at first.

Then, as they begin to realize that I'm not in danger of imminent explosion, they start sniping at each other again.

Less fun.

Still, the flier has turned out to be every bit as informative as I hoped it would be. It's pretty clear, with an example in front of me, where I'd gone wrong trying to make Script work the first time. I had assumed that written magic like this would function like computer code. Precisely describe what you want to happen and what will set it off, and then it goes. As little extra and as precise as you can get away with, everything dry and explicitly clear. I also expected a lot of math to be involved.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

In fact, it's more like reading a short story. Descriptive prose designed to evoke emotion as much as a clear image of the desired result. I wish I had more examples to work with, but this is enough to get started.

I've always been better at storytelling than math anyway. So this is actually pretty good for me.

I can work with this.

###

I groan, slamming my head into 'The World Script'. It still isn't working. I've been tinkering for almost three months with the Script and how to organize it, based on the flier. School had started up again at the end of that first week. I did indeed request, and end up at, Sarah's school, though we are in different classes. Still, with this new project taking the place of a lot of my sketching practice, I have plenty of time for experimentation.

So far nothing.

I've tried different word order, both more and less specific Script symbols. I've tried writing from right to left, left to right, up and down, in circles, squares, stars. Once, in a fit of frustrated whimsy, I even wrote one in the Disney mouse silhouette.

I tried writing in poetry instead of prose. I tried being more descriptive, less descriptive. I even tried to imitate the florid prose of H.P. Lovecraft. Which in hindsight I'm very glad didn't work.

It's clear that whatever power others use to fuel magic, I don't have any, so I add an entirely new set of Script symbols that should draw on the power that I know saturates this world. At least that's what it should have done. Given I get the same zero result as all my other attempts, it even might have and I'm just doing something else wrong that I haven't thought of yet.

I flop my head to the side and end up staring at the devil flier. Maybe I need a larger sample size of actual effective examples of World Script. I might be missing some essential rule or standard just from lack of comparisons.

The problem is I don't know where to find more examples of World Script in use. Or even more fliers...

I blink, then frown at the flier. Come to think of it, I don't know where I'd gotten this flier. Somebody had to have given it to me, and that seems like the sort of thing that would stick out in my memory. If for no other reason than how nervous I would be coming face to face with the supernatural for the first time.

When had I gotten it? I can't really remember when it'd shown up. I hadn't put it on my desk, I know that much. Which means one of my parents had put it there.

Well, that brought an easy solution. I'm pretty sure that it hadn't been given to them directly. If either of my parents had seen the naked girls on it, I never would have seen it. And it had been crumpled when I found it...

I quickly dart downstairs and find my mother doing some form of work at the kitchen table. A quick interrogation later, which amuses mom greatly, I find out that she had pried it out of my hand after bringing me home from the school shooting. Since I'd held onto it so hard she had put it on my desk just in case it was important.

I'm frowning hard as I clomp my way back up the stairs. I don't remember getting handed the thing, or finding it on the ground, I don't think. So where...?

I shudder in dread as I try to recall that day, my thoughts shying away from the event almost on instinct.

I shake my head. No, I can't just keep avoiding this. No matter how much I want to. At some point during that day I'd gotten a devil flier, and I need to know how.

I flop down on my bed, straightening myself out, so that I'll be comfortable if this took a while. I'd never really stopped meditating as I grew older. I just did it less with other things to occupy myself with, but it's still the last thing I do every night before I go to sleep. Every night I can manage it anyway. Hopefully, several years of doing nothing but meditating and several more years of practice on top of that will help me now.

Now, start at the beginning.

I remember getting up that morning and doing my morning stretching and exercises. I remember breakfast and my parents sniping at each other over who was going to take me to what classes that week.

I remember the car ride to school.

I remember my first class, and my second.

I remember during my third class there was a sound. A gunshot? No it was... I shudder in dread.

There.

My eyes pop open, and I'm breathing hard. Right there is where I start having problems. So that's where I'll begin.

Calming my breathing, I settle in. My body falls into familiar rhythms, and I feed all extraneous thought and emotion into the image of a candle flame, until all that's left is what I want to focus on.

###

I sat at my desk towards the back of the room, the only elementary schooler taking notes. I had thought that school might be boring, having done all of this before. But really how much does anybody remember from when they were eight years old? I certainly knew the material, but at least part of that was because of how simple that material was. The review would help when I got to say, high school math. I didn't really remember any math from high school forward. Maybe I'd do better this second time...

My thoughts were interrupted.

By an alarm?

No...

A gunshot?

A roar.

My thoughts were interrupted by a howling roar. I blinked, looking up and towards the windows where the sound had come from. The room was silent for a moment, our teacher hesitating as we all tried to identify the unfamiliar sound.

We probably would have turned back to our lesson after another moment of silence. Instead the roar came again, this time accompanied by numerous explosions. We all paused and several of my classmates started to stand up to get a better look out the windows. The teacher started to raise his voice to call the class back to attention.

Then something huge crashed through the wall and smeared the teacher along the floor.

It was misshapen. Its legs bent in odd ways, as though they hadn't yet decided what kind of legs to be. They were welded awkwardly to a serpentine body, it's tail splitting into many. It looked like countless writhing snakes, each tipped with a crude bone blade or hook. Its head was decidedly toad like, save for the chameleon like horns on its face. One eye bulged outwards. The other eye was sunken deep under one of its horns and a ridge of exposed bone.

It moved with a speed unnatural to something that big and awkwardly put together. Moments after it landed on our math teacher it was on its feet again, its scales utterly indifferent to the impact with the wall.

Or the floor.

Or our teacher.

"Young souls." Its voice was a horrible rasping sound, layered dissonant tones that somehow grated together just right to produce speech. Its bulging eye rolled around the room before settling, its mouth cracked open filled with nothing but a slimy pink mass.

For some reason I thought of the Discovery Channel.

Without thinking, I flung myself into the boy standing next to me, still frozen from all that had happened in the last few seconds. Both of us hit the ground just in time as, with a crack, something flew over us. My efforts to save my classmates proved futile. The sound of a wet impact and bones breaking accompanied a short scream. The crunching sound that filled the silent room only moments after the thing's tongue retracted showed that it had gotten one of us in spite of my efforts.

"Yessss. This will give me the power I need," it wheezed. Whatever mechanism it used for speech clearly didn't involve its mouth, as that was still occupied with the child it was eating. "Why we stopped eating you morsels, I'll never know."

That protruding eye rolled again, searching for another target. Before it could find one, though, another figure charged through the hole in the wall. This one, while still large, was only eight feet or so tall to the monster's twelve or more, and was armed with heavy metal gauntlets. What really caught my eye, though, was the figure's bull head.

A fucking minotaur.

The classical Greek monster hit what had to have been a stray devil like a runaway train, sending them both out of the room through another wall. Screams began to fill the air as people caught up with what was happening. My own class either stayed where they were in shock, or collapsed in tears. I simply stared wide eyed. Nothing I'd seen in my last life had prepared me for the reality of what had just happened in front of me.

And that voice...

I shook my head, refocusing. I was going to do something very stupid, but I needed to have a clearer idea of what I was getting myself into. Of what I wanted to someday cower in fear of me. So I watched as several more figures charged along the trail left by the stray and minotaur, and got ready to try and follow them.

The next one through was short, and almost as wide as he was tall. A long braided beard was tucked into a belt wrapped around his heavy plate armor. In his hands he carried a hammer almost as big as he was, and on his back was an axe, at least as big.

Following him came a pair of blurs that moved faster than my eye could follow.

Behind them came a group of four. A tall man that I suspect some would call handsome, dressed in fine leather armor and carrying a rapier that crackled with lightning. Next to him was a woman in an elegant white kimono, with pale skin, white hair, and leaving a trail of frost in her wake. Flanking them one step behind was a dark skinned woman wearing what looked like a whole seal skin, and a young girl floating along perched on a pestle and carrying a god damned mortar! Something I really didn't want to think about too hard.

This was a devil with a full peerage hunting a stray! I bet the pawns were trying to hem the literally damned thing in, or form a perimeter.

As the four of them moved through our classroom, the one wearing the seal skin paused looking us over, "My King?" she called.

The rest paused and the man turned back to her, "What?" He sounded impatient.

"What should we do about the children?" she asked, waving towards us.

Oh, I did not like the sound of that.

They were all looking at each other, so I took the opportunity to move on my fingertips and toes as quietly as I could towards the back of the classroom where there was a door into a storeroom. A storeroom which also had a door into the hallway that the minotaur and the stray would have ended up in by going through that wall.

The man glanced at us along with the rest and I dropped where I was as soon as they started to turn in my direction. I held my breath, I was almost there, but if one of them saw me trying to escape...

The pale woman, who I was pretty sure was the queen piece, glanced in my direction for a moment. She might have seen something, but she didn't say anything, so I decided not to worry about it.

After looking us over for a moment he turned to the rest of them again, dismissing us, "Put them to sleep, we'll modify their memories when we're done."

I was glad that I'd started moving as soon as they'd looked away, because I only just had time to throw myself through the door I was heading for, before the room was filled with a soft blue light. Even only exposed to it from the crack under the door, I wavered for a moment.

The floor was remarkably comfortable really.

A self administered vicious pinch to my arm helped me shake off the edges of the sleep spell. Pulling myself back to my feet, I crept to the door into the hallway and peeked through. The four of them were just exiting the hallway, following the path of destruction that the stray, and what I was willing to bet was a rook, had caused.

As soon as they were out of sight I sprinted softly down the hall to the edge of the broken hole in the wall. Leaning my head around the edge of the hole, I looked down the path of destruction the pair of devils had left. It traveled through three more classrooms and another hallway before exiting the school building the same way they entered it. Leaving them in the playground behind the school.

I moved carefully through the classrooms trying not to make noise. As I did though, I couldn't help but take in the damage. The walls destroyed were obvious, but the rest...

There were kids under the rubble from where the fighting devils had burst through the wall. One girl sat on the ground, eyes wide in shock. Her leg was bent forward at almost a right angle at the thigh, the rest of her leg crushed.

I think she'd been stepped on.

There were more than a few bloody smears on the floor or walls like what had been left of our math teacher. I tried as hard as I could to not look at them, but I registered that they were there all the same.

When I reached the end of the new tunnel through the school, I had to take a moment and empty my stomach into the bushes. This was exactly what I'd been afraid of when I woke up here that first day in the hospital.

Sure the devils in the anime made a point of how nice they were, but that they made such a point of it implied that other devils weren't. Most of them probably weren't, given how proud the Gremory were of being nice. It was a point of pride how different they were.

The fight was still going on when I caught up. They had moved from the playground equipment, leaving it totaled in their wake, to the open field where phys-ed classes happened. I crept closer, all the while wondering where my self preservation instinct had gone. A tree provided the best cover I could find, which wasn't saying much.

In the field, the battle raged on. The minotaur stayed in the stray's face, trying to keep the monster's attention like a good tank. The other rook, a dwarf I was pretty sure, spent more time hitting the ground than the monster. Of course, every time he did, the ground shook, sending the stray off balance as it's mismatched legs scrambled to keep itself upright. The other devils seemed to have no problems with the tremors, but I only stayed standing by clinging to my tree.

The two knights, one a horse with a burning mane, hooves, and tail, the other some sort of living shadow, harried the sides of the stray, distracting it at the best moments. Though they seemed incapable of penetrating the thing's scales.

The two bishops and the ice woman, who I had pegged as the queen, were working on something together. It involved a lot of spell circles and some intense concentration. Through all of this, the King just sort of posed off to the side with a very smug look on his face.

Only a few moments later the magic users finished what they were doing and, as one, turned and gestured at the stray. Water welled up from the ground turning the field into a muddy swamp. At the same time vines grew like a time lapse video up the monster's legs, winding around its body and then pulling it down into the muck. No sooner was it thoroughly embedded in the mud, than the entire mess froze over, leaving the stray trapped.

The rest of the peerage had cleared the area as soon as the ground started to dampen. Now they waited off to the side as their King strolled forward, his cloak flapping dramatically in the nonexistent breeze as he performed showy flourishes with his still sparking rapier.

Who the fuck was he showing off to?

Not his peerage certainly. The rooks never took their eyes off the stray, and the pawns weren't here. The bishops just looked bored, and the queen actually seemed to be rolling her eyes. I suppose it could have been the knights, but neither of them had facial expressions as far as I could tell. So who knew?

"Well now, beast!" He sounded like something out of an eighties superhero cartoon, "You are now well and truly caught! By my cunning plans..." Oh god. He's monologuing. This guy's peerage is way more competent than he is. I wonder where he got them? The fact they hadn't collectively turned him in for a better model just reaffirmed my determination to never find myself trapped in a peerage. "Well monster? Have you anything to say for yourself before justice is done?"

The stray eyed the devil in front of it, then... croaked? Ribited? It's throat puffed up, and it let out a sound that resembled the noise a frog makes the same way a blast furnace resembles a candle. The sound rippled through the air, producing a visible shock wave that sent all the devils flying and shattered the ice it was trapped in, along with my tree. I was peppered with shards of wood and knocked from my feet, landing on my back and hearing nothing but a high pitched whine. My entire front felt bruised, and I was covered in scratches and scrapes from the wooden shrapnel.

Yet all I could think of at that moment was mom lecturing me about ruining another shirt.

"Young souls." And that fucking voice was clearly audible anyway. It took me a moment to figure out who the beast had to be referring to through the ringing in my head. By the time I realized I should be running it was already too late. Free from the ice it sprinted at me, its gait an odd stumbling thing with it's mismatched legs, and it still moved faster than I could really react.

By the time I knew what was happening it was already looming over me. It twisted its head sideways and leaned down to snap me up in a single bite. Panicking, I did the only thing I could think of.

I punched it as hard as I could right in its bulging eye.

It snapped its head back. I didn't really have the strength to hurt it, but a poke in the eye is a poke in the eye. As it turned out, I didn't really need to do anything more. Before it could recover the minotaur hit it in a full charge. The rook hit the thing right in the middle and took it with him as he continued to charge, until a few yards further on, he rammed it into the ground hard enough to send up an explosion of dirt. The second it held still for even a moment, a six foot long spike of ice flew over me like a ballista bolt and took the stray right in the neck.

It thrashed and bled as the minotaur held it down. The wound in its neck evidently kept it from croaking again. Then the flaming horse was there dropping off the dwarf, who ended the monster by using his large axe to take its head off.

I stared wide eyed at the dead stray. The entire event was humbling.

I knew that I had a long way to go before I could throw down with even the weakest supernaturals. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to do that much until I got some magic of my own, given the massive gulf in base physical stats.

But knowing that, and seeing a rook shake the ground with a hit...

Or a knight move faster than the eye could follow...

Or see ice come out of nowhere and used as a god damned siege weapon.

I was glad that nobody had called down a lightning bolt out of the clear sky. I wasn't sure I could have handled an artillery strike from god on top of everything else right now. Though given the one floating around on the pestle, I was kind of assuming that they just didn't feel the need.

I was brought out of my stunned state by the arrival of the bishop wearing the seal skin. She tried to say something to me. But when I just stared blankly at her, she knelt and reached forward to cup my ears. I felt water for a moment, and then there was a pop and the world had sound again.

"There you go, my Queen. She can hear again. I didn't heal anything else as that would take more time," the bishop said, looking up and to the side. I followed her gaze and found that I'd somehow missed the ice lady standing right next to us.

Was I in shock? I think I was in shock.

"Thank you, Madalyn," the queen said, and knelt down next to me as the bishop stood up and left to go do... whatever she was supposed to. "Why did you follow us, child?" Her voice was gentle and she actually looked concerned.

"Ummm..." I blinked at her, still stunned. She was really pretty. Don't say that, "I wanted to see what happened." The truth, if simplified almost out of recognition.

She gave me a look. The same look my mother gave me when I did something she thought was stupid. Usually in the pursuit of moving my training forward faster. So, pretty much like this actually, "That was very foolish."

"Yeah, I got that about the time the tree exploded," I told her as I tried to sit up. God damn it mouth, don't smart off at the pretty lady that can make us a popsicle until we can make her work for it.

Holy fuck, I hurt.

After a moment she decided to help and propped me up against what was left of my tree so I could stay sitting upright. Her hands radiated a kind of soothing cold that actually numbed some of my pain.

She tried to look stern, but the way her lips were twitching made me think she found me amusing, "Well. Regardless of how wise the decision was, the way you went about it, especially having the presence of mind to strike the stray devil, was rather impressive." She sighed then, "I suspect that you will continue to get yourself into trouble like this given half a chance." Well, she wasn't wrong. Getting into 'trouble like this' was pretty much my life plan. "It would be a shame to waste such potential, and I find I like you. Here." She reached into a sleeve and produced a sheet of paper, "Insurance. So you might get aid the next time you find yourself in over your head."

I took the sheet of paper from her mostly on autopilot. My mind was still going over what I had seen, in a sort of stupefied fascination. Later, it would be to find things to help me focus my training, but for now stunned staring was all I could manage.

That lasted until I actually glanced at what I'd just been handed.

It was a devil flier. Arcane circle, naked girls and all. What was really important though, was that the circle was made of World Script.

My breath caught in my throat and I almost choked on air.

This! This is what I needed! If I could derive structure from this working piece of magic...!

"Yes." I jumped and glanced up at the ice woman who was grimacing, "The decorations are more than slightly tacky, but sadly I had no say in designing them. And you are a bit younger than our normal clients, but even so..."

"My Queen!" The king was striding over looking less than happy, but was still talking in that dramatic eighties cartoon voice. His cloak was still dramatically fluttering as well, "Why do you waste your time on these worms?"

The Queen's expression, formerly warm and slightly amused, turned flat in a blink. Her jaw clenched, she turned to the other devil, "My King." I've never heard a voice that was literally frosty before, but I could actually see my breath in the air as the temperature dropped, "I was acquiring a new client and potential..."

"Let me take care of that for you," he smarmed at her solicitously. He wasn't actually listening to a word she... Wait, what did he mean take care of?

His hand gripped my chin roughly as my head was jerked around to look at him. The moment I met his gaze I knew I had made a mistake. My heart rate shot through the roof and my breathing sped up. The ice lady was saying something but all I could think was that I had to keep the flier. It was my key and I couldn't lose it. I gripped the paper as hard as I could, even as the world went fuzzy and then faded away.

###

I jerk upright on my bed, sweating and hyperventilating. My eyes are unfocused and my hands tremble in fury.

They fucked with my head. They fucked with my head! They! Fucked! With! My! Head!

Everybody has a berserk button, and this is mine. I hate being manipulated in any fashion. But messing with my mind? Removing my free will?

I shriek in rage and slam my fist down onto my desk as hard as I can. Murder is clearly the only option. I'll just have to set a trap with...

My attention is almost forcibly jerked to my desk where I still have my fist planted. My knuckles have split, spattering my homemade attempt at a World Script spell with my blood. From where my blood landed light spreads outward like ripples in a pond, faintly tracing the Script symbols and moving in chaotic patterns through what I had written. The light jumps and flickers along, until the sputtering light reaches my attempt at a Script to draw in ambient power, to make up for the magic I don't have. Then the symbols flare brightly and the entire thing goes up like flash paper, just as my door slams open. My mother bursting into my room to see why I'm screaming.

She lectures me about lighting fires in my room and injuring myself. But honestly I'm not listening. Part of it is that I'm still quietly seething over what has been done to me. Fucked. With. My. Head! But mostly I'm thinking about what I've just learned.

So as mom shifts her tirade to why I have a piece of paper with an occult circle and naked girls on it, I suck on my bloody knuckles and smirk. I know how to activate the Script now and even from the few seconds of seeing how the light moved through my poor attempt I already had so many ideas on how to make it better.

Finally, goal one is making actual progress.