Trigger warning: bullying and homophobic slur. Just one. Damn, its like I'm really trying to tick everything off the list. my stories are not for the faint of heart.
Chapter 4:
Hawkins Indiana, August 14, 1983
Veronica had spent the last three weeks getting to know the town. Marianne was actually a lawyer, the best in the county she claimed. Veronica was inclined to believe her. The first time the young Slayer had seen the woman strut down the hallway in a dress suit she felt like she was seeing a different person entirely. Marianne had gone from The Sound of Music to The Devil Wears Prada. She looked a lot like Meril Streep had in the movie with her short hair swept elegantly to one side. She radiated strength and competence.
She had spent quite a bit of time in her office the last few weeks, making phone calls, doing paperwork and lawyering in general. She had had to leave the town a couple of times to visit clients or go to court. She was never gone more than a day and for some reason she trusted Veronica alone in her house by herself.
It was a lot of trust to put in a stranger, let alone in the hands of a young teenager. Veronica wasn't one to intentionally cause trouble anyway, plus she was pretty sure she'd really have to try hard to find trouble in a small town like Hawkins. It was a small town where everyone knew everyone and there was hardly any drama besides a little neighborly dispute every now and again, maybe a lost dog or two.
Marianne also made sure to let her know that she had asked the neighbor across the street to check up on her while she was out. Marianne had been gone three times in three weeks, and all three times a neighbor did indeed come over to see how she was. The first two times was a woman in her early forties, a Mrs. Buckley. Just that afternoon she had sent her daughter over. The older teen had done little more than scanned her eyes along Veronica as if checking for physical harm before tossing a "Well, you're not dead," over her shoulder and heading back to her own house. She didn't even give the girl her name. Veronica didn't blame her, she looked like she had just been woken up, her short hair in disarray and dressed in an oversized t-shirt and gym shorts.
Veronica explored the town, visiting the library more than a few times. She'd also had Marianne drop her off in town and bought herself a bike on her third day in Hawkins.
She had tried to get to know her neighborhood on her second day there and soon found that other then the little strip of residential area she lived in, about ten or so houses up and down Kerley, she was surrounded by nothing but woods and farms. So she had dipped into her personal funds to buy herself a bike.
Over the years she had built up a good amount of cash as an emergency fund. She had gathered about two hundred dollars in cash via her pickpocket spree when she first arrived in this universe, the police that had picked her up hadn't searched her nor had they mentioned her little crime spree at all. She steadily grew that fund, she had been a paperboy for a local newspaper back in Akron, she had traded homework for cash wherever she could, and she had mowed more than a few lawns while living in Indianapolis.
She had had about four hundred dollars stacked away and she had used about a hundred of that to buy herself a brand new BMX bike. She had specifically wanted a BMX bike because they were sturdy and made for off road and she had a feeling she'd need something that could take damage incase something happened. She also liked the fact that the frame was all black and that the tires were lined in a nice shade of teal. She had used the thing to ride into town and back and she did not regret her purchase.
On the nights where Marianne was away Veronica would leave the house and spend the night in the woods. The forest separated the residential strip of Kerley and Cornwallis from the fairgrounds. Train tracks ran through the woods but as far as Veronica could tell they hadn't been used in years.
She would pull on her boots, throw on a jacket, pack a backpack and make sure her trusty knife was strapped to her leg. It was almost always on her person, unless she was in the shower or sleeping it was strapped onto her body somewhere. She tucked it under her mattress at night and it stayed there until she dressed again in the morning.
The night before she was due to start school she decided to go for a "midnight stroll." She made her way out of the house and into the woods, headed toward the abandoned tracks. The moon was high in the sky, first quarter, and bathed the path in an erie blue-green.
Any decent Slayer was always aware of the moon cycle and though there weren't any werewolves or other cyclic creatures around it was a habit she hadn't dropped. Veronica still occasionally patrolled the cemetery as well, she hadn't visited Hawkins's yet but she had in Indianapolis and Akron. No vampires either, just her and the regular dead dead. She didn't expect there to be anything out there besides maybe some shady people. She just felt comfortable amongst the headstones, it was nostalgic.
She had patrolled with Faith a few times in Cleveland. As a head Slayer Faith wasn't required to patrol anymore, the Minis took on the graveyards and the ones with more experience took on the wiggy cases that littered the Hellmouth. The Slayer just enjoyed an occasional dusting and tagged along when Veronica was scheduled.
Veronica's actual patrolling partner had been Andrew.
Most of the activated Potentials had been older, already in their teens or twenties. Most hadn't been trained by the council as Veronica had but they took to the training and strength relatively easily, at least the ones who had decided to join the New Council. The younger girls were all put into a training camp where they were taught the basics of being a Slayer and about the supernatural in general. Veronica though had been training to be a Slayer since she could walk and talk.
She didn't need anymore teaching, nor did she want it.
So she had been grouped with the older Slayers who all either patrolled solo or in pairs. The others thought she was too young to patrol by herself, but none of them wanted to go with her either. That was fine with her. She didn't particularly like any of the Potentials that had come from Sunnydale anyway. Fighting The First alongside each other had not warmed her to them either. So she was stuck without a partner, she had bullied Andrew to go with her the first time.
She had tugged him by the back of his shirt and dragged him into Giles's office for approval. They said she couldn't patrol alone, not that another Slayer needed to accompany her. Giles had reluctantly agreed that she was indeed correct in that assessment. She had pulled the nerd out of the room and out to a cemetery before Giles had even finished his sentence.
He had complained about being hungry and cold all night. The following night she had thrown him a satchel full of his favorite snacks and a fluffy sweater and had asked him to go with her again. Andrew had smiled and said yes. That night he complained about being bait, but he still showed up the following night anyway.
It had become their thing. They walked along the tombstones and he chatted on about his nerdy stuff and Veronica patrolled. Eventually she came to enjoy his nerd talk. It was why she always patrolled these empty cemeteries with a small smile on her face. She knew that she wouldn't encounter anything there but her own memories. It was easier to visit them in the cover of darkness where no one but the dead could see.
She frequented the graveyards a lot when she lived in the group homes, in the foster home only when she was sure she wouldn't be caught.
She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries.
The only reason she hadn't visited the one in Hawkins was that she was actively avoiding it. Something about that one boy made her premonition pull-or whatever it was- go crazy. She hadn't been ready to deal with that yet. But Veronica realized that tomorrow she would be starting her first day of school, and so would that boy with the bowl cut.
She couldn't really put it off for much longer. Hence the trek into the woods. She had some things she needed to figure out.
Veronica had reached a point in the forest where the trees had blocked out the light of the moon. She quickly cast a spell.
She summoned a ball of light, wisps of magic in shades of yellows and golds and ambers flowed from her open palms. Between her hands the magic from each palm drew together forming a tight ball of light. It floated an inch above her hand and was the size of a baseball. The strands of light coming from within swirled and moved as though there was some unseen current within.
The spell was silent. It was one that she had used often back in her home dimension, the words had been memorized quickly. The Latin had been essential to her casting before. Invoking the magic in the dead language had been important, it focused the ambient power of the earth's natural magic. Magic in her world had been almost sentient, it heard the spell, read your intent and did what you asked. Here, in this new universe, her magic was different.
She learned that words didn't matter. Neither did elements, natural object, or rituals. She used to have to pull much of the power behind her spells from the things around her, from nature or Higher Beings. Now that there seemed to be no evidence of any of those natural magics existing, she had to power her spells on her own. The power within herself was surprisingly potent. Her intent and her bending her own magic to her will was enough to get things done. Veronica's powers came almost effortlessly. Small things were as easy as a wave of the hand or the snap of her fingers. Bigger things required a bit more energy and focus but she was now able to do things she couldn't have before.
Veronica used her summoned ball of light to help guide her along her chosen path. When she reached the train tracks she let the ball of light absorb back into her palms. She pulled off her backpack, took out a candy bar. She opened it halfway, took a bite and stuck the thing in her mouth, holding it between her teeth as she unpacked the picnic blanket she'd packed. She laid the red and black quilt across the tracks and plopped herself down into a lotus position. She quickly finished off her Musketeers bar and emptied out the rest of her bag onto the blanket.
She pulled out a map of Hawkins she'd borrowed from Marianne, a couple of candles, some rocksalt and a pestle and mortar. Veronica was going to try her hand at alomancy. It wasn't something she had attempted before. She didn't particularly care for divination. It was usually just a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit, but even a broken clock is correct once a day, or whatever.
Veronica lit each candle by touching a finger to each wick. She set them around the map for lighting. The rocksalt she poured into the mortar, she ground it down into fine pieces. Alomancy was very similar to scrying, where a crystal was hovered over a map and was pulled toward magical hotspots. Think Charmed. Alomancy used ingredients with magical properties, usually salt crystal or ash. She would toss them into the air and hopefully be able to read something via the patterns it made.
That had been Veronica's original plan, but as magic was different here there was no guarantee that it would work. The salt had no magical properties itself, and there was no ambient magic to guide the particles either.
Veronica rolled up her pant leg and pulled out her knife from its sheath.
There was no magic in the salt but there was magic in her blood.
She brought the tip of the knife to the edge of her palm, right below her thumb, and dragged the blade through her flesh. The cut would heal by morning. Blood welled and she let it fall into the mortar.
She tied a bandanna around her palm and quickly ground her blood in with the powdered salt. She held the hand that wasn't bleeding over the bowl and willed energy into it. Heat waves poured out of her palm and into the bowl drying the mixture and leaving behind red powder, like the finest sand.
Veronica set the mortar down, scooping up a handful of the mix and held it above the map. She closed her eyes and let the sand sprinkle down onto the map, moving in a slow spiral in the air, she willed her magic to seek a similar energy.
When she opened her eyes and peered down as the grains began to pool together toward a single spot on the map.
In the middle of the woods.
Great. More trekking through the fucking forest. She felt like a fucking Hobbit.
Hawkins Indiana, August 15th, 1983
Will Byers walked his bike over to the racks in front of Hawkins Middle School. It was his first day of seventh grade and he was nervous. His brother Johnathan told him that the English teacher, Mr. Gursky, always had a pop quiz the first day of class based on the assigned summer reading.
He'd rode to school early in the hopes that he could get in some extra reading. He'd read the book over twice but he'd rather be safe than sorry. He parked his bike at the east racks where he and the Party always left their bikes. When he reached the usual spot he noticed there was another student already there.
Their body was still straddling the seat, boot cover feet straining on their toes as they hunched over to fiddle with something. A dark ponytail swished at their back as they huffed out a sigh. Music poured from a set of headphones around their neck. Fast heavy guitar, loud drums.
"Motherfucking piece of shit."
Will quickly ducked his head as though the words were aimed at him. He tensed his grip on his bike and slotted it in place. He chanced a glance at the girl still playing with something at the front of her own bike. He noticed it was a lock. Which was weird. No one used locks in Hawkins.
As though she could feel his eyes on her, the girl tensed and snapped her head back to look at him. Her brow was furrowed and her lips drawn in a hard line. Will met her brown, nearly black, eyes after taking in her features. She had wide almond shaped eyes. A round and slightly upturned nose, high cheeks and skin a shade or two darker than Dustin's. Will could feel himself starting to blush at being caught staring. Her face softened a bit.
"Sorry, I-" she cleared her throat. "I wasn't cursing at you. This lock just won't-" she looked back at her hands and tried once more. It clicked shut. "Got it!" She smirked to herself before looking back towards him, the smile faded. Her eyes stared at him intensely.
"I wasn't. I-I didn't think you were talking to me." No one really talked to Will or his friends unless it was to throw insults at them. He'd tensed at the words as a reflex, used to them usually being directed his way.
He was a little intimidated by the girl, but he really hadn't thought that she was talking to him.
"It's fine." Will hiked his backpack up and quickly turned to leave. He mumbled a barely there "bye," and headed off towards the library where he would hopefully be able to get in a few chapters before first period began.
He'd just rounded the corner over by the back entrance of the school when he was shoved to the ground. His hands shot out to take the brunt of the fall, sending a shock of pain up his forearms a moment before pain bloomed across his backside as the rest of his body caught up.
"Watch where you're going, Freak!" James Dante stood over him, smiling as Will tried to pick himself up. He'd gotten a leg under himself when he was pulled backwards by his backpack. His feet dug into the ground, his hands struggled to find something to hold onto and clawed out dirt as he was dragged across the grass.
James had come up behind him when he was down. His hands gripped the straps at Will's back, pulling the boy along with the bag. Will let his arms slip through the holes. He was free from the bully's clutches but his bag wasn't.
"Where are the rest of your little freak friends? Finally stop wanting to hang out with a Fairy like you? Huh?" James swung the backpack across his own shoulder. He sneered down at the younger boy as he finally stood. Will dusted off his clothes.
"Just give me back my bag, okay?" His voice came out steady, and he was relieved. His legs were shaking where he stood, and his stomach was tied in knots. He didn't know what to do. "I'm s-serious." There went his cool.
"I-I'm s-s-serious." The older boy scrunched up his face, exaggerated a stutter, mocking the Byers boy. "You're starting to sound like Toothless." James lunged forward and Will flinched back. The move had been a fake. The bully threw his head back in a laugh.
James was the second half of the bullying duo that was James Dante and Troy Walsh. The Party just called them mouth-breathers. Troy was usually the one that started up with the teasing. He liked to toss out insults whenever he passed them. James though, James was the one who started the fights, the physical kind that left Will with bruises on his body that he'd hide from his mother and brother. He liked to try to single out Will by himself a lot. Will never really told the Party and he definitely never told his parents about how he was singled out.
"What's in the bag, Fairy? What's so important you need it back? Huh?" James began to unzip the bag, he pulled out a brown paper bag that had Will's lunch. "Bologna sandwich from Mom?" He slammed the lunch onto the ground and stomped his foot down the center of it before Will could even react.
Will was angry now. He lunged at the older boy, his short arms reaching for the backpack the bully held away. "Stop! Give it back!" Will was pushed back, a simple shove against his forehead threw him off, he hadn't expected that.
James tipped the backpack over, shaking it, and emptying it out all over the grass. "Oops!" He tosses the bag back at Will. "Sorry about that, Fag-"
He never finished his sentence.
A boot had come from the side, kicking James right across the face. The boy went down. Hard.
The girl from earlier, by the bikes, had stormed up to the guy and kicked him across his face. She did some kind of jump kicking out with one leg and landing on the other.
"You homophobic piece of shit!" She walked up to James while he was still down and kicked him again, this time in the thigh.
"Who the hell are you?" The bully rolled away from her and quickly got back up to his feet.
The girl however simply stepped in front of Will blocking most of him from James's sight, she was the same height as him and it didn't cover much. "I'm your worst fucking nightmare. That's who I am."
Will couldn't see the other boy over her high ponytail. The breeze had blown by and her curls ticked against his nose. He took a step back to take in the situation.
The girl- Will didn't know her but that wasn't a big deal in itself because he didn't know a lot of people at Hawkins Middle, just his friends and a few people in his classes. The girl stood lazily in front of him, her back was to him but he could tell that her form was totally relaxed. She wasn't tensed up for a fight, or out of fear, not at all.
James, from what he could see of him, had his hands up in front of his face like a boxer. He was ready for a fight. Will wondered if he would swing at the girl.
"Look," James lowered his hands a bit when he realized it was a tiny girl standing in front of him and not someone else. "I don't even know who you are, okay? Just get out of here before you regret it? You have nothing to do with this."
"Yeah, let me think about that." She brought her hand up to her face, her pointer finger held to her chin and her head shifted to the side. "It's gonna have to be a no for me, asshole." Her hand came down to rest on her hip. "How about you walk away, and I don't make you regret it."
"Can't you ju-"
"Nope." She popped the "P" dramatically. "Not going to happen. Beat it, or get beat. Those are your two options." She huffed out a sigh. "Look you have ten seconds to leave or I start swinging."
She held up a hand and ticked off a finger.
"What now Byers? You gonna let a girl fight for you?!" Will was going to let her fight for him. She seemed a lot more capable than he did. She continued to tick of fingers. "You really are a little girl, you damned Que-" her hand had only ticked off five, not the promised ten, when she closed her open hand into a fist and rammed it into James's nose.
There was a loud crack.
The boy yelped, his hands came up to cup his now bleeding face. He glared at the girl from above his hands. "You're going to regret this!"
"Well, how exactly are you gonna make me regret kicking your ass? Are you going to tell a teacher?" She took a step towards him. "Tell them the new girl beat you up before class? A girl who's four inches shorter than you and barely weighs over a hundred pounds. If the teachers believe you you'll never live it down when the rest school finds out."
She looked back at Will. "I think you could do that right? Let everyone know how the big bad bully got his ass kicked by a girl."
She raised a brow at him when he didn't answer, making him spit out a quick "yes." She took another step towards James who had at this point curled in on himself.
"There's nothing you can really do without making yourself look bad. 'Cause you're damn sure I'm going to tell a teacher what you were doing that made me fight you in the first place."
She stepped right up to him and grabbed a fist full of his shirt. She whispered something to him, something he couldn't hear. James stumbled back, still clutching face as she shoved him back with both hands.
"You're going to regret this!" He headed into the school's back entrance.
"I'd like to see you try!" She called back after him. "Man that felt good." She did a little hop and rolled her neck around, shaking her arms out in front of her. She turned towards Will. "Did you see that Crane Kick? Classic."
Will was frozen in place and had been since the girl had flown in from seemingly nowhere. "What?" She'd stopped jumping around and took a really long look at him. He had to stop himself from fidgeting under her gaze once again. "Who are you?"
"Veronica Her-um," she coughed and cleared her throat. "Veronica Lehane. I just moved here from Indianapolis."
"Oh." He couldn't really think of anything else to say to that. He just kept playing the fight over in his head. "How did you do all that?"
"Hmm?" She'd been distracted. She dropped to her knees and started to help pick up his things. Will quickly followed. "What? The fighting? I, uh, took a couple of defense classes from Faith back home." She'd stopped moving, her hand had tensed around one of his notebooks.
"Faith? Is that your sister? I have an older brother Jonathan, he's taught me a few things but nothing like that." Jonathan had tried to teach him the basics. Protect the face. Hands up. Thumb tucked under the fist not in it. "I wasn't very good at it."
He'd thrown a punch at his brother when prompted and nearly sprained his wrist. He was really skinny. He'd had no power behind his punch, but what little power he did have just ended up hurting himself. His mother had gotten mad at Jonathan. He wasn't allowed to show him anymore.
"No." Her head was low, her eyes on her hands as she neatly piled up his supplies. "Um, kind of. She was someone that took care of me when my guardians died. I'd already knew how to fight, but she made a point of showing me the Crane Kick. It's from a movie."
"Did she come here with you?" He'd finished dusting off his bag. He'd have to stop by the bathroom or the water fountain to see if he could clean off some of the grass stains. Maybe this Faith could teach him a thing or two about fighting.
"No. She's gone." She handed him back his notebooks and binders. He took them from her and placed them in his open backpack. She sat back on her heels and sat there watching him put his things away. He kept seeing her fist connect with James's face in his thoughts.
"Why'd you do it?" This was something that had been bothering him in the back of his mind. "No one has ever stood up to them before."
"Does this happen a lot?" She'd avoided the question. Her voice was hard when she asked her own in return.
"Not really. James and his friend Troy, they like to pick on my friends and I. I don't really know why, but they're a year older than us so we don't even have any classes together. It's usually not this bad and I'm usually not alone." He was lying.
Maybe she could tell that he wasn't telling the whole truth because her eyes stared into him a while before he spoke again. "He won't tell a teacher, but he'll tell the other kids that your a freak or something. No one will want to talk to you. They'll either be too afraid of James and Troy, or they'll think your a freak too."
"That's okay. I'm a bit of a lone wolf anyway. I don't care what a bunch of people I don't know think about me." They were silent as they finished packing up all his stuff.
"I don't like people who hurt others for no reason. I don't like bullies." She reached over and picked up a book they had both missed. It was his Dungeons Master Rulebook. He'd been planning to bring it to Mike, so they could play the new revised version of the game. She brushed off some dirt from the pages and smoothed her hand across the cover. "I guess you could say I'm like a, uh, Paladin who's sworn an Oath of Vengeance."
"You know D&D?"
"Yeah, I know D&D. Um, here." She handed him the book and rocked back onto her feet in a graceful movement. "I have to check in with the office and get my books and stuff. But I'll see you around." And with that she was gone.
And Will was left by himself unsure of what he thought about the whole situation that just went down. He'd noticed that other students had flooded the yard while they'd been talking. He picked himself off the grass when he heard his name being called.
"Hey, Will!" He turned to see Mike and Lucas already walking his way, and Dustin parking his bike at the same rack where he'd left his own.
"Hey!" He ran up to them, swinging his backpack across his shoulders. Dustin caught up with them too. "You guys will never believe what just happened."
"I'm sorry I still don't believe you."
It was lunchtime and the Party had stopped by their lockers to switch out their books for their lunches. Will didn't mention how James Dante had destroyed his. He just told the others that he wasn't hungry when he exchanged his books for the ones he'd need for his later classes.
Dustin was the only one who didn't believe Will when he told the others about what had happened. Mike believed in Will wholeheartedly and Lucas sort of believed him, he thought Will had exaggerated the skill level Veronica had displayed. Dustin had denied the whole thing. "It was believable until you said she liked D&D, now I know you were just imagining the whole thing."
They'd gathered around a table near the back of the school, close to track field. Everyone else usually gathered in the cafeteria or the basketball courts. So they were mostly alone, there were a few groups spread about but none of them would bother the boys. None of them were Troy and James's group.
"I'm not lying!" He really wasn't. "She came in and totally kicked the crap out of him. You saw him in the hall after second period! He had a swollen nose and everything!" James did have a swollen nose. It was also starting to bruise around one side by his eye too, and his nostrils had been crusted with dried blood.
Lucas decided to chime in at that point. "Yeah, I saw that too." He nodded his head sagely before taking a large bite out of the sandwich he'd brought for lunch.
Will's stomach growled as he watched his friends eat. "I think we'll have to see her for ourselves first though." He talked with food in his mouth, it all came out muffled and distorted but Will was used to this habit of his by now. He understood.
Will had been disappointed earlier when he and his friends had spent the beginning of their first period looking for a new girl that would never arrive. She wasn't in any of their other classes either.
Mike had suggested that maybe she was in the year above or below them. Will thought that she was probably in eighth grade. She was tiny like him, but something about her seemed older.
He'd kept an eye out in the hallways between classes but he hadn't seen her again.
"We'll just keep an eye out, right guys?" Mike had voiced Will's own thoughts. He was good at that. "And we just have to make sure we get to the bike rack early. Incase we don't see her before school ends." He looked directly at Will then. "You did say she parked her bike near ours right?"
Will found himself nodding.
"Then we meet her there." Mike went back to picking at his own food.
Will was about to open his mouth and ask if he could have some of Mikes chips when he was suddenly kicked in the shin. Dustin was sitting in front of him. So he was the culprit.
"Hey!" Dustin waves his hand around in Will's face.
"What?!" Will smacked the boy across the back of his wrist. And shoved his arm out of his face.
"Black pants, dark red sweater, and boots!" Dustin then pointed over Will's shoulder. "We don't need to find her, she's walking towards us!"
Will whipped around to find that Veronica was indeed walking towards their table with a lunch tray in her hands and her backpack hanging from one shoulder strap.
"Stop pointing, you idiot!" Lucas, tugged Dustin's arm down, but Will was sure that she had already seen anyway.
"What do we do?!" Dustin yelped.
"I don't know. Maybe not act like total spazzes?" Mike looked over at the girl too but then just went back to eating.
"Right. Right. Eat. Ignore the girl that just beat the shit out of James Dante. Sure." Dustin went back to his pudding cup and was really subtle about not looking at the girl as she approached. Smooth.
"Hey." Veronica had reached their table at that point. Will greeted her back with an awkward wave. She gave a quick half smile in response, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. She eyed his friends warily.
"Veronica these are my friends." He pointed them out as he went. "Mike, Lucas, and Dustin." They each gave her a wave and some greeting or other. Dustin leaned into the table with his elbow, he rested his head in his hand and gave the girl a wide gummy smile and an eyebrow wiggle.
Veronica's lips twitched a bit but she didn't actually smile in response. She nodded at the group before turning to face Will himself. "I didn't get your name earlier either."
Mike leaned into Will, so Veronica could see him too. "He's Will." She nodded in thanks.
"Well, Will. I remembered how that asshole ruined your lunch so I thought I'd bring you this." She bent down to slide the tray in front of him. On the tray was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a carton of orange juice, and a cup of pudding. "I went with the safest choice. They were serving some weird looking thing that was supposed to be meat, I think." She crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back.
"You didn't have to! No, I can't take this." He pushed the tray back her way. "You should eat it." She stopped the tray with a single finger.
"I know I didn't have to. I wanted to. And I already have a lunch. So keep it, or I'll just toss it in the trash anyway."
"Thanks." He pulled the tray back in front of him. He didn't like charity. His friends knew that sometimes his mother struggled with money and that he couldn't really afford to buy certain things. They always tried to get him to let them pay for things but he didn't let them often. He may have been poor, and weak, but he had to have some kind of pride to his name.
He was really hungry though so he accepted the tray.
"No problem. I'm gonna head off and go find a spot to eat, but I'll see you guys around."
"No don't go!" That was Dustin, Who no doubt wanted to grill her on her supposed fighting skill and D&D knowledge. Everyone turned to look at him and he sunk down in his seat at the stares.
"Yeah, it's no problem. You can sit with us if you want. We have room." Mike as the de facto Party leader was the one to extend the invitation. Will looked up at Veronica with a bit of hope in his eyes.
"Thanks for the invite but no thanks. I'd like to get in a bit of alone time." She looked to Will. "Lone wolf. Remember?"
Will watched her leave, but she paused first and turned back to them. "What character class are you, Will?"
"I'm a Cleric." Will wasn't sure why she wanted to know. Veronica stared at him for a second and nodded her head as if his answer had meant something more important than what he'd said.
"See you later, Will the Wise." She made a little gesture with her hand as if casting a spell. She pulled on the headphones she'd had hanging around her neck. "Let me know if you need a Paladin's help dealing with anymore stray Kobolds." And then she made her way into the track field and up the bleachers designated to the opposing school, all the way across the other side of the field, away from them. He couldn't see what she was doing, only that she'd sat under the shade of a tree by the benches. All the way at the top.
The party was silent in her departure.
"Okay so I was wrong, she does know her D&D."