As it turned out, I did not in fact bumble my way into a new incident on the way to the classroom. In fact the most interesting thing to happen to me over the course of the week was finishing up Fangs over skies. A title that had nothing to do with the plot except for the airship that Jesini had ended up captaining.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, but sky pirate werewolf girl fighting the evil empire including her psycho ex-boyfriend was not it. Not that I hadn't enjoyed it. I had, and looked forward to seeing the book get butchered in the inevitable big studio movie adaptation. Which was on its way if the trailer for the adaptation of fangs over hearts was any indication.

In more positive news, I had ended up not getting a hat. I had tried on a few with the goggles on and the outcome had always ended up being a sense of it being too much.

So when I opened the door to the art room one Friday after school, I did so with a bare head.

"Alright Zach, what did you want to show me?" I walked into the art room and saw Zach drawing at a canvas.

Yeah as it turned out, Zach did things other than reading. In fact he was mostly an artist, just one that tended to play, read, and watch other media to give him ideas of his artwork.

"I wanted to show you this," Zach said as he turned the painting around and I saw what he had been working on the last few days.

It was a scene from Fangs over hearts, specifically the part where the three werewolves set out for the first time. They're standing on a narrow bridge over the canyon. Eril was leading the way with Jesini and Rowie following behind. Fittingly, the stone under Rowie was crumbling while the ground under Eril looked a bit… paler then the rest, like it had been corrupted.

Or maybe that was just me projecting what I knew happened in the story onto the painting. Either way the only one who didn't look like they were in any danger was Jesini which was fitting.

"Look's nice," I nodded. "Said the person with no art knowledge,"

"I don't need the critique of an art critic," He explained as he leaned back on his stool, making me worry that he was about to fall over. "I need a fangs over… what even is the name of the series in general?"

"I think I've heard it called the fangs over trilogy," I clarified for him as continued without missing a beat.

"I need a fangs over fan's opinion," He pointed at the painting. "All I need to know is if you look at this and say 'I want to put this on my wall'. By the way if the answer is yes do you want it?"

"Yes now…" I stopped mid-leap and thought about my actions like I was supposed to. I backed up and gave Zach a suspicious glare. "Why are you trying to get rid of this painting Zach?"

"Because my dad said if I brought one more painting home he was going to lose his mind," He explained as a frown came over my face.

"Does he not like your paintings?" Zach looked at me in confusion before laughing.

"No he's okay with me painting. In fact he's so okay with it that he let me cover 90% of our walls with my art,"

"I think I'm starting to see your dad's problem," I said blankly. "How many paintings cover your walls now?"

He turned his back towards me to look at his painting, his hand son his sides. After a second or two, he tilted his head back at me.

"I don't know, how many breads have you eaten in your life?"

"You monster," I grunted. "Fine, I'll submit to your demand,"

I carefully grabbed the edges of the painting and lifted it up.

"…Hey Zach?"

"Yeah Rita?"

"How am I supposed to take this thing home?"

"I have no idea," He admitted as I set the painting down.

"How do you normally take your paintings home then?" I asked.

"Well I normally get picked up by my dad," He explained as he looked out the window. "He's usually here by now though. He should have called me to let me know he was about to get here though,"

And just like that, I head the chorus of a snappy pop song come from Zach's pocket. He reached into it and pulled out his phone, filling the room with music in the process.

"Hey dad… Okay… Okay," After a little while of this he hanged up and put his phone away. "Looks like I'm taking the city bus today,"

"Something happen?" I asked as he sighed.

"Just some trouble at my dad's job. It doesn't happen often, but it's a pain when it does," He told me as we both looked at the painting again. I wracked my brain when I came up with something.

"I know. I can hand this to Uncle Nick for storage," Zach looked at me like I had grown a second head.

"Going to need a bit more context for that one,"

"You've never been to Uncle Nick's storage vaults?" The blank look on Zach's face was all I needed to know. "It's business in town. Due to some weird legal shenanigans that I don't care enough to understand, Uncle Nick owns pretty much the entire basement underneath the building where his shop is. So he separated the whole thing into units and started renting out the spaces as storage,"

"Aren't most storage spaces like big buildings or something?"

"Yeah but it's pretty useful to have one in the middle of town. My family has on his vaults rented out so I can put the painting there and then go pick it up with my parents tomorrow,"

"Wait did you just say vault?"

"Oh yeah he calls them vaults. Want to come see? It's on shopping street so its close by,"

Zach thought it over for a bit before finally nodding.

"Alright, lead the way. Besides, I've never really been to shopping street before,"

I looked at Zach carefully and looked his face over for any sign of falsehood. Shopping street was one of the most popular spots in town for children, teens, and adults alike. It was so popular that even a formerly almost friendless introvert like me liked it. And now in front of me was someone who had never been there before.

"Okay then," I hid my smile. I got to show someone around shopping street today, lucky me.

Uncle Nick's storage, yes that was the real name of the shop, was on a part of town called shopping street. It was a pedestrian street with no cars or trams, lined on either side with shops and restaurants with apartments above. Two lines of trees on either side of the road gave some greenery and shade. And overlooking it all was an old clock tower at the end of the street. I was pretty sure that you could get up there and see the whole street from up there, but I'd never tried to go up there.

There was also a tiny amusement park operated by the city right next to the street behind the row of buildings. It only had a small handful of rides and it was usually pretty empty on most days. I honestly had no clue how it was still open.

As or Uncle Nick's storage, it right at the entrance of the shopping street. It was early afternoon on a Friday and the foot traffic was at its worse. We were lucky that the school was close to the street in the first place or we would have never made it here with the painting.

"Uncle Nick?" I called as Zach held the door open for me and I walked in with the painting in my arms. "It's me Rita,"

"Oh, Good aftenoo…" Uncle Nick froze mid-word as he spotted Zach. Or maybe he had spotted the Painting. It was kind of hard to tell since the painting was blocking my sight of him.

I still knew the man well enough to guess what he looked like though. A mane of white hair on a round wrinkled face. A pair of old spectacles hanging off slightly pointy ears covering his blue eyes. I was ready to bet money that he was wearing some sort of tweed suit too.

"Hello Rita, who is this?" Oh so he noticed Zach first.

"This is Zach. He's the one who made this painting that I want to put in the vault," I told him while slightly shaking the painting for emphasis.

"I see. Right this way then," He said as he motioned for us to follow him downstairs. Zach helped me carry the painting down two flights of stairs until we were on the second of four basement levels.

"Here we are Vault 204," He said as we stopped in front of a metal wall with a rotating vault handle in front of him.

"You know when you said vault, I wasn't expecting an actual vault," Uncle Nick chuckled at Zach's words as the old man put in the combination before giving the handle a spin. Once he was done, he stepped aside and let me walk into the vault.

Despite the whole vault aesthetic, we didn't really keep anything valuable down here. We just used it as extra storage. Case and point, most of the space in here was taken up by bland blue colored storage boxes. And If I had to bet, I would guess that more than half of them were filled with either Christmas or Halloween decorations.

Speaking of, we were going to need to come back here soon anyway to start getting out the Halloween stuff. My parents started decorating the second the month part of the date read 10. And those decorations stayed up until at least a week after Halloween.

I set the painting down on top of one of the many blue containers. I quickly checked to see what was written on the side to make sure that I hadn't put the painting on top of Christmas stuff.

Yep there it was the word 'Halloween' written in black marker.

"I think we're done here," I told Zach and Uncle Nick.

"Okay then, let's head back up then," Uncle Nick led us back up the stairs as Zach looked around.

"This place is cool," He said as we reached the first floor.

"What can I say, I know my aesthetics," Uncle Nick laughed. We gave him our goodbyes and walked out into the shopping street.

"So what now?" Zach asked as the sun hung overhead. "It's still pretty early and I don't have to be home for a while,"

"Well you've never been around the shopping street right?" I asked as Zach nodded. "Why don't I show you around a bit?"

"Sure, lead the way,"

"Well first off is the pharmacy," I said as I pointed at the store right after Uncle Nick's storage. "It sells medicine over the counter medicine for surprisingly low prices. I actually bought some stuff for headaches from there a few weeks ago,"

"Isn't it illegal to see stuff like that to teenagers though?" Zach brought up a good point which I then ignored in favor of pointing out the next store.

"And over on the other side of the store is the metal worker. I'm pretty sure the guy has his own forge somewhere on the outskirts of town. He's the guy you want to see if you want some custom made metal stuff. My parents actually have a set of knives and forks with our names on them custom made by him,"

"That's kind of cool. Does he sell…?"

"Swords?" I guessed giving him a knowing smile. "Officially no, but I've heard rumors that if he likes you enough and trusts you to not do something stupid, he'll sell you decorative weapons," I explained before crossing my arms. "And by 'rumors' I mean that the sword on our wall came from somewhere and I'm betting that it's one of his,"

Speaking of weapons though… Lamia's fangs were a pretty handy set of daggers but they were kind of weak. Could I get the blacksmith to sell me something better?

A question that would have to be saved for another day. For now I had to show Zach around more of the shopping street.

I led him around a bit more, showing him the movie theater, some of the better restaurants and of course the two-floor bookstore with gaming center in the basement that I came to every time I went to the shopping street.

"Hey mind if we stop here for a bit?" I looked back at Zach who was standing next to the… ice cream shop.

My mind flashed back to Lamia's stats… yeah still weird to think about, and the big letters that said weakness under the snowflake. I hadn't eaten any ice cream or other sort of super cold food since getting my Persona…

"Sure why not. I'll wait for you out here," I told him as I walked over and sat down at one of the outdoor tables outside of the store.

"You don't want any?" Zach frowned as he stood in front of the door.

"Nah, I'll just wait for you here. It's not like ice cream takes long to make anyway," I explained as Zach shrugged and reassured me that he'd be quick and walked in.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. I still had some time until I really needed to head home. I could spend a bit more time around here…

I glanced up and groaned. I had the perfect opportunity to use the clock tower as an actual clock and I missed it.

Zach walked out a minute later with a milkshake in his hand.

"Are you sure you don't want one? I don't mind waiting outside while you get yours," He offered as I shook my head no.

"It's nice of you to offer, but I'm not just not in the mood for ice cream," I got to my feet and started walking towards the clock tower, motioning him to follow me.

We walked past the ice cream shop and made it one step when I glanced up at the clock tower. I saw a small flash come from near the top when suddenly felt the muscles in my leg give out. I blinked as the world went sideways and I started falling.

"Whoa," I stopped and felt someone's arm grabbing onto me. "Are you okay?" I looked up and saw Zach holding me up.

"I don't know," I told him honestly. "Help me stand,"

I used Zach as a support to help me steady myself. It was working fine with the first leg but as soon as the other hit the ground.

"And there it is again," My leg wobbled again as I put my weight on it. It was like the muscle strength was just gone. "Give me a bit?"

"Sure, take as long as you need," Zach shifted so that I could lean on him. I waited a little while, testing my leg a few times until it started working again.

"Well that was weird," I muttered when I noticed something white on the ground. It was Zach's milkshake, fallen on its side and with its contents spilled all over the floor. "Oh, sorry,"

"I don't think you get to blame yourself for this one," Zach pointed out as he slowly let me go, ready to catch me again if my leg started failing again. He looked at my leg and narrowed his eyes. "You have something on you,"

I looked down and spotted a bit of… was that ice? I bent down and flicked the ice off me as alarm bells started going off in my head.

"You know, it might be a good idea if I head home now," I said as I subtly moved so that Zach was between me and the clock tower. A bit callous for sure but he wasn't the one with the video-game style elemental weakness to ice.

"You going to need any help getting there?" He asked as visions of my mom getting the wrong idea flooded my mind.

"You can come along but please stay outside the building once we get there," I sighed. "If my mom catches me within 20 feet of any boy besides Robby she'll never stop bugging me about it,"

"Bugging you how?' He asked as we started making our way back to my apartment building.