It's kind of interesting, seeing other cultures when you get off of your home world. I once was on station at a place that thought pickled intestine was fantastic. Me, I couldn't stand the stuff.

-Captain Sun Wu Chen, A Company, 23rd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division, 4th Army Group of the Mekong

I actually studied urban planning before I contracted. It's really annoying, sometimes, when you show up at a place for defense and the streets make no sense whatsoever. It does make defense a little easier though, because the squid are more confused than we are.

-Lieutenant Colonel Anne Dempsey, 12th Combined Arms Regiment, 7th Magical Division, 9th Army Group of the Euphrates

Emma's time ticket for her finger regrowth eventually came up. Ayane needed to get back to her unit, so the two said their goodbyes on the rooftop.

"Stay safe out there," said Emma. She was still not cheerful enough to smile, but was looking much better.

"You too," said Ayane, flicking her braid over her shoulder with a wave. "See you around Emma."

Ayane leaned backwards and dropped off of the hospital. It was a cliched thing to do, but Emma thought it still looked pretty cool.

The regrowth of Emma's fingers went smoothly, aided by a tired and frazzled looking magical girl medic. It occurred to Emma that they were probably running on a few bites of food, relying on magic to keep going. Emma made sure to thank her medic before she left for the motor pool, to catch a ride back to the front.

The motor pool was busy, with vehicles pulling up and leaving in a near continual stream. Emma made her way towards a light reconnaissance drone that was ferrying troops back out to the battlefield.

"Emma!"

Emma pinpointed the shout and brightened. "Rebecca! Varsha!"

Rebecca and Varsha's battalion had been in charge of holding back the attack. It was good to see that they were relatively alright. The latter had a bandage on her left leg. Rebecca supported her on one arm. Both wore their costumes and looked tired, but happy to see Emma.

"The 48th did some good work today," complimented Varsha as Emma jogged up. "Thanks for the support."

"Of course," said Emma with a grin, before sobering and nodding at Varsha's bandaged leg. "What's happened there?"

"Hand cannon got me," said Varsha with a shrug, waving away the injury. Rebecca sniffed unhappily.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," said Rebecca, giving Varsha a boost onto the drone's top. "Another way to put it would be losing most of your major muscle groups in your leg."

"Well, yes," said Varsha, adjusting the skirt of her dress so that it wouldn't blow up into her face during the ride. The dress was styled in purple and black gothic lolita. Frilly, but tastefully so and not overdone. "Still," she continued, "a couple of drones helped me back to the lines, where I got picked up by medical, so no harm done in the end."

"Just stay safe, please," said Rebecca, hopping onto the drone with a flutter of trailing dress tassels. Her costume was glittery and sequined, dropping straight down from her shoulders. It was accompanied by a feather-tufted headband and silk gloves.

"I.. I will," said Varsha, taking Rebecca's hand and tugging her down. The two of them were now sitting next to each other, holding hands.

Emma raised an eyebrow as she climbed up. "I take it you two figured some things out before the drop?"

"Uh, yeah," said Varsha, nodding with a slight blush. "We did."

Rebecca merely smiled and said nothing. Emma suspected that something more than just "figuring things out" had occurred.

"Well congratulations," she said, sitting down beside Rebecca as a few more girls jumped on. The drone accelerated forwards. As it picked up speed, they switched to telepathy to combat the whistling of the wind. "You two'll be okay, in the field?"

"I think so," said Varsha. "You don't go into this sort of thing not knowing the risks, after all."

"That's good."

They fell silent. On a balcony, a small squad of magical girls looked down upon the convoy of combat and support vehicles. One of the demon control squads, no doubt.

"You know, it's a little sad," said Emma, looking up at the small group and nodding at them. "The new girls contracted so early, and they're already going straight into battle."

"It was like that back in the beginning of the war," said Rebecca with a small sigh. "I knew a girl who contracted. There one day, gone the next. It almost made me refuse the offer."

"Why'd you contract then?"

"Well, I guess it was a bit spur of the moment," said Rebecca with a laugh. "You know how it is, right? You're given a choice, so you take it and run with it."

"I guess," said Emma. Her gaze had wandered off to the left, back in the direction they had come from. "Hm… I guess actually, it was kinda weird. My sister was almost encouraging."

"That is kinda weird," said Rebecca. "D'you know why?"

"Well yeah, Anna was resigned to it and assumed that I'd just do it, even if she didn't want me to," said Emma. "I mean, we basically talked it out, but…."

"Hey, don't over think it," said Varsha. "You're getting support from your family. Be grateful."

"You're right," said Emma, lying back on the drone and stretching. "What about you, Varsha? Why'd you contract?"

"I wasn't going anywhere in my life," said Varsha, shrugging with her free hand. "My colony was a forgotten dump in the ass end of nowhere. A lot of us were planning on just getting jobs in the mines doing whatever, but I saw a chance and I took it."

"Huh. I guess your parents didn't like it much?"

Varsha laughed sardonically. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Trying to confiscate my soul gem is another."

"Shit."

"Right?"

"But you got out anyway," said Rebecca. "What'd you do, sneak onto the ship?"

"Actually, yeah," said Varsha. "I couldn't get a ride, so I went out the window ran all the way down. Made it just in time too."

"That's crazy," said Emma, shaking her head. "I don't have all that many friends, but at least mine came out to say goodbye."

"Yeah, well, you Earthers have something called 'free time'," said Varsha. "Out where the economy doesn't provide for your every need, we have this thing called 'working' that we do."

"Oh, shut up," said Emma, grinning in amusement. "We do work too. My friend Ayumi's working in Zeus Research Institute."

"Yeah, but she never had to hold open doors for spending cash," said Rebecca. "Which is what I did. So demeaning…."

Emma shrugged. "Well, we never needed spending cash, so…"

Varsha and Rebecca glanced at each other pointedly. "Our point exactly," they said in unison.

Emma bade farewell to Varsha and Rebecca when the drone reached a point in its route that was walking distance from Public School 7S. Emma was in no terrible rush, as they weren't likely to be deployed for another twelve hours. Preparations for the next squid attack progressed rapidly, being largely automated. The only question was how many of her troops would be back before the squid hit the lines.

"Emma, welcome back," said Ingrid, sending Emma the message mentally over the battlenet. "I wanted to talk about Bridgette."

Emma's mood darkened immediately. "Did she transfer out?"

"Yes." Ingrid appeared surprised. "You knew?"

"I guessed," said Emma. "We talked."

"It did not go well, I presume."

"No, it didn't," said Emma, climbing the school's front steps. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fair enough," said Ingrid. "I am working on combat assignments in the command center in the basement. You can come take a look if you wish."

Emma considered. "...Well, I guess I have nothing better to do," she said eventually. "And I did want to learn more."

"I will see you soon then," said Ingrid.

"Yeah, let me grab a drink and a bite to eat," said Emma, turning for the school's cafeteria. "See you soon."

The cafeteria was surprisingly full, with Emma's platoon converging for lunch.

"How's Charlie doing, have you heard at all?" asked one of Emma's corporals from B Squad to another, as they all stood in line for food. The one benefit of a military presence was the availability of vastly greater power generation. Small fusion generators were installed every few kilometers in pillboxes and bunkers or, in this case, in a school. The cafeteria had been equipped with a synthesizer unit and speakers for soothing jazz music. Not that the music helped. But it was a nice touch. "He took a pretty big hit near the end."

"It sounds like he's fine," said the other corporal. "They managed to get him into surgery pretty quickly, so he should be up and about soonish. Maybe just a few days if an MG gets around to healing him up. Did you get the secondary munitions already?"

"Yeah, they're loaded into our IFV," said the first. "You wanted concussion rounds, right?"

"Right, thanks," said the second.

"You're still weird for using them instead of HE rounds," said the first.

"I have my reasons."

"Um, wouldn't concussion rounds be better in CQC?" asked Emma, breaking into the conversation.

"Eh?" The two corporals turned to look at her, neither having noticed her standing behind them in line.

Emma smiled sheepishly. "Er, sorry," said Emma. "I couldn't help but overhear…"

"No, no, it's fine Lieutenant," said the first corporal, who Emma now found out was named Corporal Shun. "I guess you have a point about CQC. Since there's no fragmentation or shock wave, it's a little less dangerous."

"What you're also forgetting is that squid clearly operate on an inertial system for balance," said the second, named Corporal Magnusson. "Disrupt that and you've got an easy kill."

"Vertigo is a bitch, this is true," said Shun. "But we're not going to be fighting at those ranges, so I don't see your point."

"Air strikes, Sunny," said Magnusson. "CAS Magi can lay waste to anything that can't get out of the way. Or our Lieutenant here-," Magnusson gestured at Emma "-and her friends can do something about it. The point is that we don't have to blow them away ourselves, as long as we can set up the kill."

"I'd rather not," said Shun blandly. "Considering that we only have the one Lieutenant. Good work out there, by the way."

"Ah, thanks," said Emma. She could feel herself blushing. "You guys did well too."

"You weren't paying attention to us at all, were you?" asked Magnusson. Emma went more red. "Yup, classic rookie mage."

"Don't make fun of the Lieutenant, Magnusson," said Shun. "She's still your commanding officer, you know."

"Er, right, sorry," said Magnusson. "Hope you weren't offended, Lieutenant."

Emma shook her head, unused to the deference. "No, no it's fine," she said. "I, uh, feel kinda bad about it, actually, so I should be apologizing to you two."

"Don't worry, we can take care of ourselves," said Shun. "You keep your head in the game and let Chief Jones worry about the platoon."

"I will," said Emma with a nod. "You're still part way my responsibility though, so I hope you don't mind if I check up on you whenever I get the chance."

"As long as it doesn't get you hurt," said Shun. Magnusson nodded. "We've dealt with losing one officer, we don't want to deal with it again."

"Alright," said Emma. They was a brief silence, before she spoke again. "Uh, so you guys are B Squad, right? Team 4? How're things looking for you?"

Magnusson shrugged. "There's not much to do but deal with it," he said. "We've got plenty of ammo, but now that we've got just you, it's going to be difficult to access it."

Emma stifled a pang of guilt. "Well, maybe you can piggy back off of some of the incoming units? With the high troop density, there should be some overlap."

"We're hoping for that, yes," said Shun, entering his order into the synthesizer and waiting for it to finish making his meal. "But you learn quickly to never trust a hope, so we've been thinking of contingencies when we get the chance."

"What have you come up with?" asked Emma.

"Well, the standard fall back is to call in CAS while we wait for a drone to send up the ammo," said Magnusson. He stepped up to the synth as Shun transferred his plated food onto a tray. "We should also be able to move between emplacements easily enough, so Chief Jones is supposed to be sending up drones to stock the pillboxes."

"Did we get any bunkers built at the leading edge?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, I think we did," said Shun, leaning against the wall as Magnusson's food was prepared. "Thanks for softening the squid up for us, by the way. Really helpful, since we didn't need to worry about shields as much."

Emma blushed again, but smiled and nodded. "It wasn't a problem, you're welcome." She waited while Magnusson transferred his food to the side and gave her space to place her order.

"Steak and kidney pie?" asked Magnusson, raising an eyebrow at Emma's selection. "What's that from?"

"It's British," said Emma, tapping enter and waiting for the food to be produced. "I'm from London, didn't you notice my accent?"

"Yeah, but that can come from your family, not your origins," said Magnusson. "For example, Shun's got some weird Asian accent-" he jabbed his thumb at the relevant soldier "-but he's actually from Brazil."

"Oh," said Emma. "That's a good point, actually. Where are you from, Magnusson?"

"I'm from Utah," said Magnusson, picking up two forks and handing one to Shun, who thanked him.

"Where's that?" asked Emma, carefully removing the hot pie from the synthesizer and putting it onto a tray.

"It's in the old American Southwest," clarified Magnusson. "Lot's of places to ski, if you're into that."

"I have no idea what that is," said Emma, not bothering to look it up. "Well, mostly no idea. It involves snow, right?"

"What have you been doing with your life?" asked Magnusson, aghast.

"Football, then Logistics," said Emma blandly. "Going from having a life to no life makes it difficult to care about things."

"Where'd you study?" asked Shun, nodding in the direction of an empty table.

"Mitakihara," said Emma, following behind Shun, with Magnusson taking the rear.

"Oh? Interesting place to live?"

"Not really," said Emma, shrugging. "Everyone seems to think I know the Mitakihara Four personally."

Shun huffed in amusement. "Well, maybe people your age and younger. The fandom amongst our age group is much smaller."

Emma nodded. "Makes sense."

"Must get annoying, everyone asking you about it."

"A bit," said Emma, shrugging again as they sat down. She picked up her spoon and plunged it into the pie. "Where are you from in Brazil?"

"Rio de Janeiro," said Shun, mashing a piece of meat on his plate with his fork. The broken up piece was quickly scooped up and consumed. Continuing, he said: "Near the sea, actually. Went to the beach a lot as a kid. I guess you don't really know about surfing either?"

"Nope," said Emma. "I was planning on going into football as a career, so it kind of consumed my life."

"Why'd you go into logistics?" asked Magnusson. "If you liked football so much, seems random to switch out."

"Nobody in Mitakihara plays," said Emma sourly. She blew on a spoonful of pie to cool it. "And my parents were against it. They're in colonial investment, right, so they decided that kids should be going into intellectual things to contribute to the species."

Shun and Magnusson shared a look. "That can't have ended well," said Magnusson.

"Well, I'm here aren't I?" said Emma with a sardonic glance. "You don't exactly contract if you're super happy with life."

"Still, keep in mind that you had it pretty good," said Shun. "Not every girl has the chance to live on Earth. It's pretty luxurious there."

Emma paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "I… yeah, that's true," she said eventually. "Sergeant Beckett was telling me earlier about his background. It just seems crazy to me, how someone could decide that others don't deserve the same things as them. Even if it's a capitalist economy, that doesn't mean you can't make things a little more equal."

"Well, think about it though," said Magnusson. "On Earth, you're sitting there with all your things provided for you. In the colonies, that's absolutely impossible, since where is it going to come from? The government has bigger issues to worry about, like keeping people alive, than worrying about whether you have any money for good quality of life."

"Yeah, but here though?" asked Emma, waving her spoon at the walls. "This is a core world, and yet the difference between the poor and the wealthy here is huge. How is that allowed?"

"Of course it's allowed," said Magnusson. "Just because it's a core world doesn't mean that people aren't going to try and take advantage of others whenever possible."

"But why would you even do that though?" asked Emma. "People can be mean, sure but this takes it to a whole new level."

"You underestimate human nature," said Shun. "Rio de Janeiro is now a core city in South America, but it used to have serious issues with income and crime."

"Seriously? I mean, Rio's a big urban center now, right? Covers half the coastline of Brazil?"

"Well, not quite half, but yes," said Shun. "But back in the 20th Century, the city was a lot smaller and divided into multiple parts. There was the main city, which was rich enough for the time, and surrounding it were the favelas. These were little urban sub-sectors, where the quarters were cramped and violent crime was high. The government of Rio de Janeiro had to basically invade its oown city with the military."

"That's insane," said Emma, surprised and a little shocked. "That- what? That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does," said Shun. "You have to have met someone who was a no good back stabbing bitch, right?"

Emma blinked. "Well, yes, actually," she said. "I mean, it was when I was twelve or thirteen though. I would have thought-?"

"-that people would grow out of it?" finished Magnusson. "Hah, no. It gets worse, because people get smarter about it."

"That's horrible," said Emma.

"It's why I joined the military," said Magnusson with a shrug. "Meritocracies have very little room for political bullshit, especially with an enemy like the squid to deal with."

"Same," said Shun. "I used to work in an art studio, producing sculptures, but by the Goddess, the amount of shit I had to deal with."

"Really? In an art studio?" asked Magnusson. "I mean, I was in import controls, so that makes sense, but aren't you guys all out to just do your art thing?"

"Pfft, no," said Shun. "Some of us are, but you've no idea how many artists are in it for the fame. When you don't have to worry about income, you're allowed to be selfish like that."

"My friend just got an internship at Zeus Research Center," said Emma. "Is she going to have to deal with this sort of stuff?"

"Oh, probably," said Magnusson. "Office politics are killer, especially in a competitive research institute like Zeus."

Emma frowned. "I hope she'll be okay."

"Is she contracted?"

"No."

"Then she should be fine," said Magnusson. "She'll get through it and come out stronger, and the next time she'll beat it."

Emma suddenly didn't feel like talking very much anymore. She nodded and busied herself with eating. Magnusson and Shun soon started up another conversation, something about megawatt scale laser beams.

"Well, I'm going to go see what I can learn from Chief Jones," said Emma, after a few minutes of quiet munching. "I'll see you two around."

"See you later Lieutenant," said Magnusson.

"Good luck, and stay safe," added Shun.

"Thanks," said Emma. "See you later."

Emma spent the next few hours looking over Ingrid's plans. Her TacComp was largely disconnected from the battlenet, so that she could concentrate. The planes were far better than anything Emma would have come up with. Intellectually, Emma was able to comprehend why Ingrid made the decisions she did. The experience gap, however, kept showing how Emma would have missed something there, or forgotten about the hill there, or simply made a poor estimation.

"Ugh," she said finally, flopping forward onto the table tiredly. "My head hurts."

"Studying does that," said Ingrid absently. "The water cooler is over there."

A mental nudge in Emma's perception made her glance in the relevant direction. "Thanks," she said, unslouching and scrubbing at her eyes. "I think I need some fresh air. How do you stay down here like this?"

"I usually do not," said Ingrid as Emma got up. "Most commanders I have worked with were more experienced and did not have a massive invasion force to deal with. Even so, if Lieutenant Adler was still with us, I would be helping."

Emma resisted the urge to snipe at Ingrid while pouring herself a cup of water. She'd gotten herself into a bad position this morning, then gotten one of her subordinates nearly killed. She had no place making tactical suggestions yet.

"What would she do?" Emma asked instead.

Ingrid paused, her face unreadable. "…Lieutenant Adler would play conservatively. She would position the platoon on Hill 63, 51, and 48, and count on the light infantry to provide the bulk of the defense. We would effectively provide fire support, and stay out of the fighting."

Emma paused and reviewed Ingrid's notes. "You have the platoon farther forward than that."

"Yes," said Ingrid. "I disagree with Lieutenant Adler on defense. It is my opinion that the shock value of our platoon is much more useful than our fire support capabilities. The positioning we have allows us to move forward and backward as needed."

"But puts the troops in more danger."

"Somewhat," granted Ingrid. "But the flexibility of the position allows them to retreat as necessary. Unless we are ordered to stand our ground, we should be fine."

Emma frowned, opened her mouth to speak, paused, then reviewed Ingrid's contingencies. The plan Adler would have followed was one of them. "Oh."

Ingrid nodded. "You should go topside. You will need all the rest you can get."

"What about you?"

"I will be fine, I have done this before."

"But you said-?"

"In the Light Infantry, I mean," clarified Ingrid. "Thank you for the concern, but shoo."

Emma sniffed, not entirely believing her, but nodded. "I'll see you later then, Ingrid."

"Good bye, Emma."

It was mid afternoon. There were ten more hours until the attack was projected to hit. This could change any time, and meant that several retreating Light Infantry and Militia divisions were already making their way into the valley and digging in.

As a result, the school was awash in personnel. A lot of Militia were setting up shop in the area, intending to use the school as a sort of aid-station-slash-stronghold. Emma supposed it made sense, but really, she would have appreciated a heads-up from Ingrid about this.

Dodging soldiers who saluted as they walked past, Emma scrolled through her huge backlog of notifications. Most of it had been coordination requests, taken care of by Ingrid while Emma was studying. The remainder was status updates, including a notice that rain was predicted that evening. More surprising was a call request from Emily.

With nothing better to do, Emma returned the request and waited for Emily to pick up.

"Yo, new girl," said Emily, appearing in a window on Emma's right. "Good, you're back up. Head on over to the football pitch, Alanis wants to do some group training. You should have it on your calendar, but I called you anyway."

"What, no 'hey Emma, how's it going'?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow as she exited the building and oriented towards the marker on her HUD. "I could be traumatized, you know."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," said Emily. She grinned. "Still, s'good to see you're not completely fucked in the head. Now c'mon, chop chop, we ain't got all day."

She logged out before Emma could retort. Emma was left with an odd taste in her mouth as her boots tapped across the rooftops.

The area around the football pitch was trampled down from the spectators. The pitch itself was scraggly and craggy, the grass dry and beginning to die wholesale. It should have been maintained by the municipal authority, but clearly someone had decided this particular pitch didn't matter.

The other three mages of C Company were gathered around the center of the pitch, transformed and in varying states of boredom. Alanis had managed to amuse herself with juggling arrows, Qing Duo was taking a nap, and Emily appeared ready to try and shoot Alanis' arrows out of the air with a water streamer. Fortunately, Emma forestalled this by calling out the moment she was in sight.

"Emma, hey!" waved Alanis. Her tail swished back and forth as she spun an arrow in her right hand. "Finally, what were you up to?"

"Trying to learn about deploying platoons for combat," said Emma, landing with a small puff of wind. "What's up?"

"Well, I figured we have a few things magically we wanted to work on," said Alanis as Qing Duo blinked awake. "So I figured, why not make it a team building session?"

Emily and Emma glanced at each other, then simultaneously gave Alanis a flat stare. "Seriously?"

"I think it's a good plan. Magic is largely governed by emotion and imagination, after all," said Qing Duo, fluffing her sleeves to get dust off them. "We'll be able to help each other, or use each other as test subjects."

Emma and Emily shared a look again. "I don't like this plan," said Emma.

"For once I agree with the new girl," said Emily, jabbing a thumb in Emma's direction. "I'm kinda afraid of what she'll think up."

"And it's too difficult to concentrate with her being an ass all the time," said Emma at the same time, gesturing at Emily.

"Hey, I can play nice!" protested Emily, poking at Emma with a water streamer. "See, I'm playing nice right now."

Emma was unamused and blew a gust of wind at the streamer. The water spiraled out of control and smacked Emily in the face.

"Yeah, yeah, because you clearly are going to kill each other at this rate," said Alanis with a roll of her eyes. "C'mon, it won't be that bad. Just, go to opposite ends of the field or something. Me n' Qing Duo will stay in the middle."

"Ah, fine," said Emma, heading off to the left. "Have fun."

"Yeah yeah, you too" said Emily, going to the right.

Alanis and Qing Duo stood for a moment, watching them go.

"So you're sure they're not having angry sex?" Alanis asked sotte voce.

"Mostly," said Qing Duo with a raised eyebrow.

"Hm. We should set them up."

"Maybe later."

Emma sat down with a huff and stared mulishly at a clod of dirt. Emily was still really annoying.

"Pfwah," she sighed, before flopping backwards and staring up at the sky. "Whatever. It could be worse." It was more productive to just get to work.

Emma pulled at her magic, raising her arms and bleeding magic out to saturate the air. A blue corona appeared on her palms, diffusing gently outwards until the space above Emma was tinged a gentle blue.

Emma paused and sniffed the air. It wasn't very humid today, but maybe she could get something to work. Licking her lips, Emma began to move air.

Storms could be generated in a number of ways, the most violent of which occurred in the presence of wind shear and updraft. Emma was not entirely sure how to do this, but she did know it involved pushing air high into the atmosphere and cooling it below the dew point.

Unfortunately, Emma didn't have the power to make it high enough from ground level. What she could do, however, was make winds going in various directions. Before starting, she took a moment to look up a schematic of a cumulonimbus supercell. It appeared she needed to get some sort of swirling thing going, before chilling everything as it was pushed upwards.

It couldn't be that difficult, right?

Lying on her back, Emma started by creating a steady wind going to her right, pulling in air from outside the bubble of magic and pushing it through to the other side. Once this was stable, she started making a stream wind going from her head towards her feet. The two spinning winds formed a horizontal vortex. Then she pushed, sending the spinning wind spiraling upwards. The key now was to somehow cool the top of the magic cloud as the wind swept through.

Emma blinked as she realized she hadn't particularly thought this part through. Well, magic was linked to her imagination, right? Poets always described wind as being particularly cold, so maybe…?

There was a perceptible change in temperature at the top of Emma's magic cloud. She couldn't feel it, of course, but someone with a thermometer could measure it. The temperature dropped, quickly going below freezing and forming a haze of water vapor. Emma held her hands in place, pushing her magic to go faster and colder. The incoming air moved rapidly to the top of the growing fog bank, rolling and tumbling and…

...turning into a cute, puffy, white cloud.

"Dammit," said Emma, letting her hands drop with a sigh. The cloud drifted away, dissipating as it heated back past the dew point. It was funny, she could pull off a tornado easily enough, but making anything else even vaguely dangerous was apparently beyond her.

"You alright?" asked Alanis telepathically. Emma glanced over.

"I'm fine, just annoyed," said Emma, watching as Alanis fired five arrows into the air in quick succession, then stared at them very hard. Nothing happened for several seconds, before each arrow fizzled, then lit onto dark green fire.

"Well, at least that was useful," Alanis said as she dismissed the arrows. She turned back to Emma "You had something pretty powerful going there."

"If you call blowing hot air powerful," said Emma. She got up and manifested a vortex sphere, bouncing it on one foot. "I'm having trouble forming storm clouds."

"Can't you make a tornado though?" asked Alanis, pulling out another set of arrows and letting fly.

"That's the irony of it, isn't it?" asked Emma, spinning and kicking her sphere into the air. She dismissed it before it hit anything.

Alanis paused as she stared hard at the arrows again. This time they popped with a bang, startling Qing Duo and Emily. "Eh, well, wind things," said Alanis as she waved sheepishly at their flustered team mates. "I don't understand weather, so there's that. Why don't you try learning more?"

"About cloud formation?"

"No, weather."

"What the science behind it?"

"Sure, what's the harm?" asked Alanis. "I mean, at worst you'll make yourself into a mage who can dick around with weather patterns, which is pretty amazing in and of itself. If you're lucky, you'll find out some way to summon hurricanes!"

Emma frowned. This did not appeal to her, but she couldn't think of a better idea. With a sigh, she said:

"Ugh, more studying."