Celestial Worm Pt 6 (Patreon)

Part Six: Reaping the Whirlwind

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Karen Buckeridge, author of Ties that Bind.]

Janesha

Waking up in the lower bunk of a double bunk bed momentarily puzzled Janesha, until she took a split second to internalise and run through the last quarter-hour of her memory from the previous day. The process reminded her that she'd decided to attend whatever passed for 'school' on Earth Bet, so she could kick some righteous butt. Specifically, the collective wastes of oxygen, space and reality otherwise known as Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess and Madison Clements.

Two days ago, she wouldn't have cared in the slightest what one mortal did to another. Few celestials did. Mortals, after all, were as plentiful as grains of sand on a world-spanning desert, so concerning about any one of them was pretty pointless. But then she met Danny Hebert and his daughter Taylor. They had personalities. They were people. Real people.

They didn't treat her like mortals usually treated celestials in their midst. Instead, they treated her … The internalised version of Janesha twisted her lips to one side. Exactly how did they treat her? What was it about this pair that made her care so much? The thought of mortals influencing celestials was just stupid. Mortals didn’t live long enough to influence anything. But what else would she call it? Cousin Columbine always insisted every mortal mattered … but why?

She could always say it was the life debt. No one would refute her connection to Danny Hebert at least, but that was a cop-out and she knew it. If the debt was all that mattered to her, she’d make him the sovereign of a large portion of the world (if not the world itself), give him the required wealth to make it stick and go home. Again, she had a ready-made excuse for why she hadn’t already done this. The realm was owned. Somewhere in here, there was at least one celestial present that could screw with her gift, and a gift that could be negated with a thought was no gift at all.

The internalisation of herself sighed. That was just as much bullshit as blaming the life debt itself. The truth of the matter was … Danny wouldn’t want it. Not if it came from a celestial. She could sort of understand why he was so jaded against celestials. He loved his wife, and she died for no apparent reason. He wouldn’t be the first mortal to suffer such a loss. Hell, celestials suffered those sorts of losses all the time too. While those with an establishment field were generally immortal and unkillable and their unestablished blood relatives weren't about to die of natural causes, other celestials lived and died in under sixty thousand years, in fact. Contrary to popular belief, mortals didn’t have the monopoly on dying. They just did it a lot quicker. As a kind of consolation prize, only mortals could go on to an afterlife, whereas the light of a celestial just … went out.

Back to Danny though. He was pissed enough at her for enhancing his and Taylor’s physical capabilities. Using the stupid rules of the realm, Janesha had given him a humanised control of his new physique. That is, he wouldn’t break, crush or destroy things without effort. Too often, people thought super strength was a good thing, but not when you couldn’t turn it on and off as required. A grip that could crush diamond would spend an eternity trying to grip a door handle and apply just the right amount of pressure to open it without squeezing it to powder. And don’t get me started on the complexities of typing at a regulated pace. Between his speed and his strength, a certain red and blue dressed superhero from the comics would never have made it as a reporter in the real world.

But she had thought of that. For them. Because she … liked them?

Now that the thought was out there, she mulled it over. She did like them. She liked them a lot. Danny could be a bit of an overbearing dick at times, but she hadn’t exactly smacked him down for it, so who was truly to blame for that attitude? For a split second, she thought about stealing them from the realm. Just them. The two of them. The celestial in charge would hardly miss a pair of mere mortals … and she could …

She pulled that thought up with another sigh. She could do what? Turn them into her prized pets? Give them an extended lifetime in Mystal so they could live even longer in a place where their lives would be utterly meaningless to everyone but her? She liked them, because they had spirit. That spirit would quickly be crushed into nothing if she took them home. Even the celestial insects would turn their noses up at them.

Her third sigh was gutting. She’d have to leave them here. They belonged here.

Janesha speared her hair with her gloved fingers and knotted them behind her head. This was getting her nowhere. She needed space to think.

Unwinding her fingers, she turned away from the memories and made her way over to the imagination section of her mind. There, she recreated her sitting room back in Mystal, complete with her half-circle stretch lounge in front of a roaring fire. Then she brought into being a dozen different versions of herself.

For the next half an hour they argued back and forth about where she was at and what she should do about it. Frankly, the only thing they all agreed on was the fact that she owed Danny a life debt, which would be inhibited by the established pantheon here.

Growling in frustration, she cleared them all away. Then she leaned forward, pressing her forearms into her knees with her head bowed.

“Not a good pose for you, Sweet Pea,” a familiar voice said cheerily from over the back of the couch. “Anyone’d think you were beaten.”

Without lifting her head, Janesha closed her eyes and shook her head. “Who invited you, Uncle Chance?”

The back of the couch dipped as the youngest of the Mystallian Elder Court stepped over the couch and slid down the back until he sat beside her. “You know I don’t need an invitation to stick my nose in where it’s not wanted.” His elbow collided with her ribs, with enough force to make her wince. “Come on, Sweet Pea. Give me a smile, or Operation Harass-The-Shit-Out-Of-My-Sulky-Niece will commence in earnest.” He nudged her again. “Don’t say you weren’t warned. Three…Two…”

No matter how hard she wanted to stay pissed, the corners of her lips curled against her wishes and she opened one eye to glare sideways at him. His boyish looks and cheeky expression belied his age, making him appear only a few years older than her. He had the same black hair as the rest of his siblings, though his eyes were molten gold, like Aunt Clarise’s. “I hate you,” she said, in a tone that showed it to be an outright lie.

Chance threw his hands up and barked out a laugh. “Hey, it must be my day to channel my inner Clarise, because I can tell you’re absolutely full of shit, young lady.”

Janesha chuckled. She couldn’t help herself. “Fine, you asshole. You win.”

Chance sobered. “Not yet, darlin’,” he drawled, the molten gold in his eyes hardening just a little. “Something’s eating you enough to subconsciously bring me into your dreamscape. Logically, that means you’re at a moral impasse. One that you already know the answer to from a celestial standpoint, which is why you haven’t brought out your mother or one of the other elders to ask their advice. You want someone who thinks outside the box. So maybe you need to tell me what that box is, and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

Janesha could have reset the situation and given Chance all the information he needed, but it felt good to talk it out. So, she started right at the beginning where Thor had thrown her out of Asgard in a hissy he-fit and went all the way through to when she went to bed the night before. Chance never once interrupted her.

“Wow,” he said, sitting back on the couch once she was done. The fingers of his left hand played with his bottom lip—a tic he shared with his siblings when something bothered him. “You've certainly gotten yourself into a hell of a pickle, haven't you, Sweet Pea?”

“I'm doing okay for myself,” she argued defensively. “I found a realm that nobody else even knew about.”

“You have,” Chance conceded. “And for a mortal world, it’s pretty interesting that it coincides so closely with your cousin’s. But that’s both the point and the problem, isn’t it? It's a mortal world. One that’s already been claimed by another. Why do you care so much about what happens to them?”

Despite knowing this was only a simulation of her favourite uncle, everything about the situation was so close to the real thing that she suddenly felt a twinge of homesickness. To distract herself, she ran her fingers through her hair again. She hated being put on the spot, and nobody did it better than Chance. “Well … they're my friends …” Her voice trailed off, knowing her excuse was weak but not knowing what to do about it.

Chance rolled his eyes and sighed, then leaned back on the sofa, spreading his arms out to the sides. Under his direction (because it sure as shit wasn’t hers) the sofa shifted, splitting in half and reforming into two armchairs which came to rest facing each other. This made it harder for Janesha to look away from him, which was exactly what he wanted. Could she circumvent him and put it all back? Sure. She was after all, the only one in here. But subconsciously, she knew she needed this.

When he spoke, his voice was full of warmth and understanding. “This is why we don't let you kids go out without us, Sweet Pea. They're called mortals for a reason.” He gestured eloquently with his hands. “They won't live forever. Most of them barely make it to a century or three, and when they wither and die, it'll break your heart. You know this. It’s why you should never have let yourself get too attached to them, baby.”

“I didn't mean to!” Immediately, she regretted her outburst. “I didn't mean to,” she repeated more quietly, focusing more on his chin then his eyes.

She saw him lean forward and knew what was coming even before his finger slid under her chin to lift her face. “Up here,” he said, using two fingers to signify his eyes. When she complied, he removed the finger from under chin and sat back again. “So, what do you plan to do now, Sweet Pea?”

“I can’t just walk away! There was a wild talot in the celestial realm here, and Danny saved my life when we came across into the mortal realm!” She stared into the recreation of her uncle's face, reiterating that point. “Even if I didn't like Taylor, I still owe him that debt.”

Chance sighed and lifted his left foot, balancing it on his right knee. His fingers tapped out an odd rhythm on his shin. What he didn’t do was try to directly refute her words, which was as good as admitting he didn't have a good comeback. This wasn't to say that the real Chance wouldn't, but nothing she knew about him allowed for a viable response. When he spoke next, it was to change the subject. “You’re going to have to wrap this up fast, Sweet Pea. No matter which way you look at it. If the real version of me isn’t already hunting your ass down, I soon will be. Your great-grandmother isn’t going to be fucking around on that score, either. As soon as she realises you’ve cut out into the Unknown Realms, she’ll bring me in on it. And you won’t escape my luck for long.”

Now, it was Janesha’s turn to sigh. “I know. But I’m not leaving until I figure this all out.”

“Hold on to that delusion, darlin’,” he drawled again, this time buffing his fingernails against his uniform doublet and inspecting their shine. Then he looked over the hand at her and added, “You’ve got till we find you. After that, we’re all going home, and your ass is going to be grounded for an eon at least.” A wry grin crossed his face as he finished with, “And don’t expect to be sitting down during that time either. You’ve got one hell of an ass-kicking coming your way when we find you.”

Janesha rubbed her thumbs and forefingers together. None of those threats thrilled her, especially when she knew they were all true. “Well,” she said, with a tired wave. “If I’m gonna get killed by the family, I might as well make a real show of it.”

That got Chance’s attention. He dropped his foot to the carpeted floor and straightened, the gold in his eyes sharpening into jagged peaks: a clear warning to anyone who knew him that they were now on treacherous ground. “And how exactly do you propose to do that?” he asked, icily.

“Because I know Aunt Yasadan won’t go asking her dad for answers of where I went, not with the bad blood that’s currently between me and Thor. So, it’s going to take a long time for Mom to rule out the Known Realms, even if she brings in Dad’s family to help with the search. As of now, I’m going to ignore all the blood-links I receive, so none of you will be able to tag me that way. It’ll be months before Mom reaches out to the elders for help, and months more before you all realise I came into the Unknown Realms. I’m going to have at least a year before you manually track me down.”

Chance surged to his feet with outrage written all over his face, but Janesha froze him and the whole scene in place before he could act. Even if this was just a dreamscape, it was never fun to be around an angry elder. In all fairness, that was kind of the reaction she was expecting from him. And if that was his reaction, the others were going to be fifty times worse … at least. Uncle Avis and Uncle Tal would blow the top off the scale, if they got involved. She was playing a very dangerous game now.

But Janesha wasn’t done with talking to her uncle, just yet. So, she reset the scene to where he was buffing his nails. “Maybe,” she agreed, answering his swipe about a severe ass-kicking. “But this other celestial, or group of celestials is seriously screwing things up here. He, she or they have got to be here somewhere. And either they're so screwed in the head that they like it this way or they’ve been suckered into their own thrall and can’t get out. Either way, I'm the only one who can fix this shit, right now.”

Chance gave her a long, parental look and shook his head. “Janesha, you're intruding on someone else's realm, and you know better than to assume you have the right to change the way they've set things up. Even if you weren't in the wrong here, you're opening yourself up for severe retribution once they realise you're in the realm.”

“It's still fucked up, Uncle Chance,” Janesha maintained stubbornly. “They're using celestial constructs to give some of these mortals lots of power, and they're setting the mortals against each other. They're even using other constructs to attack the mortals directly, making it play out like a kids' book, but with lots of casualties.” She was pretty sure Chance had never read a comic book before, and this was the closest approximation she could come to.

Her uncle pressed his lips together and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Sweet Pea. It really doesn’t. You’re still pissing in someone else’s pool.” He dropped his leg and braced his elbows into the arms of the chair, bouncing his fingers off each other in front of his face. “And there's one very important detail that I think you're overlooking here, baby.”

Janesha, sure she’d covered everything, raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Like what?”

“You claim these mortals are growing on you. I can see at least some of them are. But if you go after the established pantheon and you challenge them for the right to rule, you will get yourself killed. And what do you think will happen to this precious mortal world you’ve discovered when your great-grandmother and the rest of us find out about your death? Do you think whatever this peon of a pantheon has is any match whatsoever for the full might of Mystal and Rangi-Tuarea combined? I can’t speak for your father’s pantheon, but we wouldn’t stop until this whole galaxy was one big smoking hole that not even hard vacuum would survive in. You understand me?”

She understood him, alright. It was just that she hadn't actually thought of it in those terms before. So, if I die, so does Danny, Taylor and everyone else on Earth Bet. Okay then. I guess I just have to make sure I don't die. “I know,” she said out loud. “I'll be careful. Love you!” Dispelling the simulation of her uncle, she leaned back in the armchair for a moment and stared up at her vaulted ceiling. As if I didn't have enough to worry about. Joy.

The introspection thus far had lasted the better part of three hours. Once she figured she could face the world, Janesha pulled back out of her own head and sat up in bed. Above her, she heard the noise of Taylor stirring. Elsewhere in the house, she detected the sound of a shower running. Mortals of this world did showers slightly differently to the way Mystallians achieved it, but that was because they cared about things like water wastage. Still, Janesha quite enjoyed a hot shower once in a while. Stimulation waves were obviously quicker, but the purpose of a hot shower wasn't to actually be quick. It was to be luxuriated in (at least, in Janesha's opinion). Unfortunately, today wasn’t a day for relaxation. She had a tight schedule to stick to.

“Morning, Taylor,” she sang out, then gave herself a stimulation wave. As she got out of bed, she shifted her sleep-wear (pyjamas like Taylor's) back into her Mystallian leathers. “How are you feeling today?”

“Unngh,” grunted Taylor, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes. Her hair was all over the place, just begging for a good brushing or a stimulation wave of its own. “Wha … huh … oh. Hi, Janesha. Morning.” She looked down at the bed, her brain still apparently catching up with events. “Bunk beds. Cool.”

Instead of repeating her question, Janesha ran her mental fingers across Taylor's surface thoughts. Her friend seemed to be well-rested, without any ongoing agitation from bad dreams, which was good. No doubt those would happen again at some point, but she'd blunted the edge of the blade for that at least. She wondered idly if Aunt Clarise's dad had a specific torture lined up for people who betrayed their friends and shoved them into lockers full of filth, then snorted silently to herself. Of course he does. He's Belial. Personalising torture is what he does. Or maybe that’ll be Uriel's job from Heaven's side, being the archangel of Vengeance and all. That was an interesting conundrum. Who’d have dibs on them? Maybe, when she finally got home again, she'd ask Aunt Clarise which way that would swing. Being both American and white, it was more likely than not that at least two of the three girls had their religious views geared towards Heaven. And since that was the case, maybe she should reach out to Yeshua after all. See if he had any pull with his old man, and if he did, put in a little request to have that pair sent directly to Hell as a personal favour to her … instead of being shown any mercy.

“Janesha?” Taylor looked doubtfully down at her. “You've got a nasty smile on your face. What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, uh, nothing important.” Janesha schooled her features to a gentler expression. “Consequences of actions, mostly. Celestial stuff.” She didn't quite know how Taylor felt about the idea of Emma and her friends being tortured for all eternity for the multitude of their sins against her, and she didn't want to turn Taylor against visiting Winslow. She might not be descended from highborn bloodlines like some of her cousins but her shapeshifting heritage still acknowledged her as a denizen of Hell, and there were three girls (at least) who richly deserved a lot of punishment: demon style.

“Okay.” Taylor swung her legs over the side of the bunk and dropped to the floor. “So, are we still going to Winslow today?” She looked and sounded a little dubious at the notion.

“Sure we are,” Janesha stated heartily. “Just remember, there's literally nothing they can do to you physically that you can't tank, and nothing they can do to you at all that I can't reverse. And they won't be focusing on you, anyway. They'll be looking at me.” By way of explanation, she flourished the cape she was wearing.

Taylor put on her glasses and blinked. “Wait, you're going to be wearing that to Winslow? Won't that make you kind of … noticeable?”

“Well, yes.” Janesha tried not to sound too sarcastic. “That's the whole point. Everyone's going to be noticing me and leaving you alone.” She caught the glint from Taylor’s glasses lens and frowned. “You know, I could fix that for you. There's no reason for you to not be able to see perfectly. It'd take me two seconds.”

“I, uh …” Taylor looked taken aback. “Won't people notice that I'm not wearing glasses anymore?”

Although Janesha held Taylor in high regard, offering a piss-weak excuse like that was just downright insulting. “That? That's it? You're worried about people noticing?” Reaching out, she tapped the nose bridge of her friend’s glasses. “If you need the deception, I can remake these into plain glass. Or bulletproof. Or whatever else you want.” With a deeper frown, she added, “Don’t you guys have some kind of laser surgery to do away with glasses? I’m sure I remember something like that being on Earlafaol…”

“Sure, if you have the money. We don’t technically have enough money for my medical bills, officially.”

Janesha wrinkled her nose. “I hate pretending to be poor.”

“I hate being poor,” Taylor quipped back.

“Touché. I can still make you fake glasses to keep your cover.” She canted her head to one side and cocked an eyebrow. “Any other excuses we need to get past?”

“Well, when you put it that way …” Taylor shrugged. She held out her hand to Janesha. “Do your thing.”

“Well, my thing is usually mind-bending, but sure. I'll need you to take your glasses off first so I can see what I'm doing. Or rather, so you can see what I'm doing.” Janesha waited for her to comply, then took hold of her outstretched hand. “Here we go.” With no other warning, Janesha went into her friend’s memories to see just how bad her vision was. The answer came in a fuzzy image that barely made out colours, let alone shapes. “Dang, girl…” she couldn’t help but mutter. “Blind Hoðr had better sight than this.” Well, no, he didn’t, but it went awfully close. Most celestials didn’t have to put up with crap eyesight. Even if they were born with bad eyesight, it was easily rectified. Unless, of course, they had an asshole step-uncle who made it his mission to screw with the whole pantheon for shits and giggles and hardly ever had to wear the consequences of those actions. Janesha ground her teeth in vexation. Fuck, she hated Loki. Like A lot. Hoðr had done nothing to him … and that mother-fucking gutless asshole went and ….

She shook her head to clear those thoughts. It didn’t matter. It was done now. Hoðr had paid with his life for a crime he’d been tricked into committing, and much to the annoyance of anyone in possession of a hint of decency, that masterminding bastard went on his merry way.

Having got what she came for, Janesha returned to the physical realm and took a moment to compare her own eye shape to Taylor's, then did the preliminary reshaping. Her shifter power matched one to the other with ease; the only speed-bump lay in ensuring that Taylor's eye colour remained the same.

Going back into Taylor’s mind, she went to see what her vision looked like now. Shapes weren’t quite so blurred, and colours definitely had better clarity, so she was on the right path. For a moment, she compared what she was doing to a scientist correcting a microscope and chuckled. Taylor would throw something at her if she shared this particular thought. If she hated being compared to an ant, being compared to an inanimate microscope would probably put her over the edge.

Back and forward she bounced, zeroing in on any imperfections and then checking to see if there were any others. If I was trained as a healer like some people I could mention, I could've done this in one pass. Just because that training took thousands of mortal lifetimes wasn’t the point. Back and forth. Maybe it was because she was a perfectionist … or maybe because this was her friend and she wanted to make it especially perfect, but she refused to accept anything less. Back and forth. Back and forth.

In real time it had only taken a few seconds to do the dozens of corrections instead of the two she’d promised, but she didn’t think Taylor would mind. Not now her vision was human perfect.

“Done,” she announced. Grinning, she watched Taylor blink a couple of times.

Tentatively, Taylor put on her glasses, then took them off again. She held her hand in front of her face and examined her fingernails in awe. “Wow,” she murmured. “Just like that.”

“Well, not 'just' like that,” Janesha said, her grin souring just a little. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to keep checking to get it perfect. The tedium was actually beginning to annoy me by the end. If we were back home, or I was attuned to this realm, it would’ve happened just because I wanted it to.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “So, what you're saying is because you can't do it the effortless celestial way, you did it the not-quite-so-easy celestial way that's still light-years ahead of anything us mere mortals can come up with?”

At the sarcastic tone, Janesha twisted her lips to one side, but couldn’t prevent the smirk that crept into the edges. She knew there was a reason she liked Taylor so much. “Now you’re getting it.” She reached out and touched the glasses, flattening the lenses out. “That was a whole lot easier.”

Taylor was about to say something, when she paused and tilted her head towards the door. “Dad's finished in the shower. He'll be going down to make breakfast. You want to shower next?”

Janesha rolled her fingers back towards her pristine self. “Stimulation waves for the win, petal. Remember?” With the same hand, she gestured towards the door. “You go ahead. I think I might wander downstairs and give Danny a hand with breakfast.” Whatever Danny and Taylor considered a worthwhile breakfast was more than likely not going to be what she had in mind. Just because I'm living in a mortal household that deems itself ‘poor’ doesn't mean I have to eat like it.

“Sounds like a plan.” Taylor's grin gave Janesha the distinct impression that Taylor was even more in tune with her thoughts than she'd figured. She opened the bedroom door and headed down the corridor, while Janesha followed more sedately. The bathroom door opened just as they arrived, and Danny stepped out, wearing a bathrobe.

“Morning, girls,” he said blandly. “Taylor, you're up early.” His eyes skimmed over Janesha's leathers without judgement.

“I slept real good,” Taylor reported. “Better than I have for a long time.” She tilted her head toward Janesha. “Between that fix job she did on my mind and the mattress she made for me, I had the best night's sleep, in like, ever. No nightmares, nothing.”

Danny raised an eyebrow in Janesha's direction. “So, when you said you were going to make your bed, you didn't just make yours. You made one for Taylor as well.”

“I’m not that selfish.” Janesha lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Besides, technically, I remade her bed to suit both of us, so fixing them up at the same time was a no-brainer.”

“Just to put it out there, there was nothing wrong with the old bed I provided for her.”

For a split second, Janesha felt sorry for Danny. He had been Taylor’s provider her whole life, and now everything he’d given her wasn’t good enough. “I can put it back if you want …”

“Don’t you dare!” Taylor shouted. “Dad, you gotta let her change your mattress too. I swear, you’ll never sleep on another mattress again, once you have. It’s like sleeping on a cloud.”

Danny smiled at Taylor, though it was more of a grimace than a smile. Janesha’s eyebrow hitched at the by-play. Since when had she started taking notice of this shit? “Up to you, Danny. The offer’s an open one, for as long as I’m here.”

At least he seemed to appreciate the fact she was offering instead of just doing it. “Thanks, Janesha. I’ll keep it in mind. But how did you fit two beds in Taylor’s tiny room? Did you extend the house sideways or something? I didn't hear the house settling any more than usual last night.”

Janesha snorted in amusement. “Now who’s using a mountain when a molehill will do?”

To her surprise, both Danny and Taylor looked at each other, then burst out laughing. “Oh, man,” Taylor continued to laugh, holding her father’s shoulder for support. Danny had to take his glasses off to wipe his eyes. Janesha didn’t think she’d said anything that funny. “You are sooo lucky Mom’s not around to smack you upside the head on your total butchery of that saying.”

Just as Janesha was about to look into their surface thoughts for the source of their humour, Danny decided to elaborate. “An example of ‘Making a mountain out of a molehill’ is when you trip over a rock, but then go on to tell everyone that rock was the size of the moon,” he said, sliding his glasses back into place with a push of the nose bridge to secure them. “Only a celest would ‘use’ a mountain as a tool. I think the idiom you’re looking for is 'Swatting flies with a sledgehammer'.”

Janesha curled her lip into a sneer and flipped them both off, which had Taylor laughing helplessly and Danny shaking his head.

“She made us bunk beds, Dad,” Taylor explained, once her laughter died down and she could breathe again. “Extra wide.” She rolled her eyes in remembered bliss. “I mean it, Dad. You have to let her change up your mattress. You have never slept on anything like it.” She touched the side of her head, right about where the arm of her glasses would've gone back to her ear. “Oh, and she fixed my eyes, too. I can see everything clear as day.”

Danny blinked behind his own glasses, then shook his head again. “I keep wanting to say 'wonders will never cease' but then I remember you’re a celestial and it’s kind of in the job description. Around you, wonders will definitely never cease.” He nodded past the girls toward his room. “I've got to get dressed before I make breakfast, so if you'll excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry, Dad.” Taylor ducked around to the side to let him get through. “I'm just gonna have a shower then I'll come down and have breakfast.”

“And I'll go see to Cloudstrike,” Janesha said. She didn't comment on Danny's assertion that he'd be the one to make breakfast. She and Taylor both knew what was really going to happen, so Danny had two choices: either eat the breakfast he prepared in protest or give in and eat the one she made. Now that he was someone who mattered, ‘owning the space’ demanded he be given the choice. She knew which one she'd pick. “Ciao.” With a single finger salute/wave, she realm-stepped into the celestial realm and rematerialized in front of Cloudstrike’s stall.

Cloudstrike nickered happily to see her and butted her head up against Janesha's hand in her eagerness to get ear scratches. Janesha complied with a grin, murmuring to the mystallion as she ran her other hand over Cloudstrike's neck and through her mane. Picking up a random piece of trash from the basement floor, she transformed it into an apple for Cloudstrike as a reward for being a good girl and not wrecking the stall (or the house, for that matter). While the mystallion noisily crunched the treat, Janesha renewed the hay in the net, made sure the trough was still full of water (and wasn't overflowing), and sent a stimulation wave through Cloudstrike to clean her friend up.

The smell of frying eggs wafting down the stairs alerted her that Danny was starting on breakfast. Giving Cloudstrike one last ear-scratch and nose-to-nose nuzzle, she stepped away from the stall. “I've got to go and have breakfast now,” she said, half-apologetically. At Cloudstrike's fretful nicker, she relented. “Don’t worry. We'll take the long way to school, I promise.”

She’d already figured out their flight-plan. Remembering the geographical layout of Brockton Bay from both Danny’s memories and the Butt-Baster’s, if traffic was bad, it would take anywhere up to forty minutes to catch the bus to Winslow High school. There was also the time it took to walk to the nearest bus stop, meaning she had at least three quarters of an hour. Janesha planned on using that time to give Cloudstrike a chance to really stretch her wings before dropping them of at the High School.

Cloudstrike jerked her head up and down emphatically and stamped her hoof in the soft earth. The stimulation wave had a dual effect, and now her friend was full of energy. Giving Janesha a sidelong look as if to say, Remember, you promised, she turned aside to pull a mouthful of hay from the net.

Wondering if anyone else ever had to put up with this emotional blackmail crap, Janesha made her way upstairs. She could have realm-shifted into the kitchen and saved steps, but she’d learned that while people didn’t mind you disappearing to leave, they got real toey when you appeared right behind them. That, and she didn’t know exactly where in the kitchen Danny was, and appearing in the space he was already occupying would be … embarrassing.

As it was, Danny was standing beside the small stove in the corner, frying eggs in a pan. “How's Cloudstrike this morning?” he asked, once he noticed her approach.

“She's well, thanks,” Janesha said, pleased that he'd asked. “She's getting a little antsy, though. I'm going to take her out for a proper ride soon, or she might start breaking things.” She headed over to where he stood; an unopened packet of bacon on the bench beside him. “Bacon and eggs, huh?”

“Given that you seemed to think a quick jaunt down to Rio was only a light stroll for her, I'm guessing you'll be going much farther afield,” Danny noted dryly. “And yeah. Bacon and eggs. Easy to make, hard to screw up.”

A quick glance at his surface thoughts informed her that he was entirely sincere with his comment about Cloudstrike and in fact seemed much less concerned about it than he had been the day before. She wasn't quite sure if this attitude was just another side-effect of living in a world where 'capes' performed ludicrous (on a mortal scale) acts on a daily basis. Equally likely was the possibility that her own celestial essence was starting to creep through, making him accept her actions all the more readily. It might even have been a combination of the two; she had no real way of knowing.

“Would you like me to take over the breakfast?” she asked, giving him the option of either accepting her help, or being stuck with boring old bacon and eggs for breakfast. “I don’t need to worry about fast and easy, since it’s all the same to me.” Raising her hand to shoulder height, she snapped her fingers, adding a sparkler effect to the air around her fingertips.

He suddenly looked thoughtful. “That meal you made for us last night was about the best thing I've ever tasted. Do you have a breakfast recipe that's as good?”

“I might be able to whip up something,” she grinned.

<><>

Taylor

Showered and dressed, Taylor came downstairs. An irresistibly appetising smell met her nostrils halfway down the steps, and she quickened her pace. In the kitchen, her father and Janesha were chatting while different plates were being carried to the table. Several more plates were already there.

“What's all that?”

“Oh, hey,” Janesha called, sliding the last of her plates onto the already over-crowded table. She then straightened and shrugged. “Since I’m not allowed to go into your minds, I didn’t know what your breakfast preferences were, so I threw together a variety of things for you to try.”

“Emphasis on ‘threw together’,” her father added glibly.

Janesha rolled her eyes at him and crossed them over her nose. “Yeah, as I was saying, don’t fret about the mass. Just pick out what you like, and when you’re full, I’ll clear away the rest.” Janesha waved her forward.

Taylor slid into her seat, staring at the mountain of food. “Where do I start?”

“Wherever you like. There’s smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast. Omelette with truffles, mushrooms, avocado, sausage, spinach and bacon. Croissants with chocolate, whipped almond cream and strawberries. The other croissants have caramelised onion, cheese, brie, bacon and honey. There’s also yoghurt with bananas, blueberries, walnuts and cinnamon and porridge with cashew milk and agave syrup, and coconut yoghurt with goji berries and popped quinoa. I made up some sugared toast with apricot compote, crème fraiche and mixed berries. For drinks, there’s too many to choose from, so there’s jugs of water, and after taking a glass or a mug, let me know what you want and I’ll touch-shift it in.”

“Like wine, maybe?” Danny asked, raising his eyebrow cockily. Taylor stifled a laugh, not sure if Janesha would get the Christian reference.

“Wine? Not my first choice,” the celestial noted, apparently missing the entire point. “But sure, if that’s what you’re into. Personally, I find breakfast a little early to hit the heavier stuff, but a lot of the elders drink ambrosia at every meal.”

“Ambrosia … isn’t that that Greek god’s wine?” Taylor couldn’t say who asked it first, her or her father.

Janesha chuckled. “Funny you should mention Dionysus,” she mused. “Since it’s his son that’s our god of the drink.”

“I didn’t know Dionysus had a son.” Taylor decided to start with what was right in front of her, which just happened to be the savoury croissants. The combination of so many flavours had her tastebuds moaning in delight.

“Well, the Olympians know about Yitzak, but the Greeks don't,” confided Janesha, with an air of I-won't-tell-if-you-don't. “But yeah, Dionysus and my cousin Emmalyn of Festivities got busy during a social get-together, and a century or so later, we got ourselves a god of the Drink.”

“Is he always falling-down drunk like his father?” Taylor’s questions were said in and around her food. Yes, it was rude to talk with her mouth full, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted answers almost as much as she wanted the next bite. Not even her father’s frown of disapproval could dissuade her. Janesha took her seat and reached for the French toast and …whatever she’d said was with it.

“Exact opposite. The bastard never gets drunk, no matter how hard we try.” Janesha waved her hand in a flourish. “Oh, he pretends to, to fit in. But the second he wants or needs to, he’s a sober as they come. Worse, he can do the same to anyone else too. Rip an alcoholic blur right out of you.” With an almost evil smile, she added, ‘Or dump you in one if you piss him off. Imagine dealing with a celestial-scale hangover when you haven’t touched a drop.”

“I think I’ll pass on that one, thanks,” her father said with a shudder. “Normal hangovers are bad enough.”

Being underaged, Taylor could only guess how unpleasant that would be. A thought then occurred to her. What would happen to my bugs if I became drunk? Would they all act drunk too? And if they did, would that stop me from ever drinking again, knowing my actions impacted on others, much smaller and less significant to me? She could see through the eyes of a bug and make them do what she want. Swarm them if she chose to. Had she ever once stopped to think about what they wanted? She had been experimenting with her control of them ever since she’d left the hospital and her only thought at the time had been, yes—I can. Not only did she have control of all the insects in her vicinity, she also knew where they all were, how many there were and (possibly most important) what types there were and what they could do.

To be honest, the answer to the last bit was usually some combination 'fly slowly', 'scuttle slowly' and 'bite weakly'. There were a lot of bugs with abilities that frankly weren't very impressive. On the other hand, spiders spun webs and she'd seen on some science show that spider silk was one of the strongest things in the world. She had considered using their silk to braid unbreakable ropes. Cool, right? But had she even once thought about how the spiders felt about that?

Taylor looked over the food pile to Janesha, suddenly having a whole new level of respect for what her family must go through. It didn’t sound like they were very nice about it, but she was certainly starting to see the similarities.

Still thinking about that, she finished up the croissant, absent-mindedly shooing away three flies that were making a bee-line (so to speak) toward the inviting smell and helped herself to a slice of omelette. Janesha gave her an approving nod and went back to eating her own breakfast. Close up, it smelled even more heavenly. Taking up her knife and fork, she carved off a slice and popped it in her mouth.

“Oh, my God,” she mumbled as the taste exploded over her tongue. “Thiff iv amazing.” Chewing the mouthful, she swallowed and immediately snagged another piece. Across the table, her father was making similar inroads on his smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast. The whole meal had been prepared in the length of time it took her to have a shower. Ten minutes … maybe fifteen, tops. Taylor had heard people say that cape powers were such bullshit, but she suspected they had nothing on celestial capabilities.

“You might say it’s been in the works for eons,” Janesha said with a laugh, pouring herself a glass of water, which she quickly changed into a fruit juice of some type. “The cooks back home live for thousands of years, perfecting their offerings. They get it right down to how many grains of salt are used with each serving. I got to taste the end result, and it was worth it.” Her voice was casual, rather than boastful. Taylor got the impression that this really wasn't a big deal to her.

Breakfast was over all too soon. Danny went into the living room and turned on the TV, while Taylor stacked the used plates in the sink and turned on the tap to rinse them. By the time she turned back to the table, Janesha had made all the excess food disappear. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she said, with a headshake.

“Get used to what?” Janesha asked, crossing the kitchen to lean against the sink beside her.

“Having a celestial in our household. Since you’re not doing anything, you want to grab a tea towel and wipe the dishes as I hand them to you?”

Janesha canted her head again. “What for?”

“Because they need drying.”

The strangest blend of confusion and disbelief drifted across Janesha’s face. “You want me … to dry dishes … with a towel?”

“Uh huh.” Taylor turned the tap off then picked up the brush. When Janesha made no move towards the tea towel, Taylor reached over and chucked it at her new friend, slapping her in the face with it. “Stop being a baby and help.”

Reaching up, Janesha removed the towel and held it out at arm's length like a dead rat, then dropped it on the counter. “If anyone back home finds out I’m doing this …” she growled, but nevertheless took the first plate Taylor offered her. In the length of time it took Janesha to put the plate on the counter, the water evaporated away from it in a visible burst of steam, leaving it completely dry.

“Well, that works, too,” Taylor said with a smirk. She scrubbed at the second plate then handed it to Janesha to be instantly dried and stacked. “So, you mean to tell me you’ve never ever washed up before? Even once?” She briefly recalled happier days, when she and Emma had shared the chore, inevitably splashing each other so that they needed more drying than the dishes did.

Janesha snorted in derision. “You do know what the word ‘god’ means, don’t you? At mealtimes, we sit down, we eat, we socialise, and we leave. The rest is left to servants.”

“It sounds nice,” Taylor observed, scrubbing industriously at the third plate. “So, you didn't have any responsibilities?” Celestials, she was beginning to suspect, had it better than any medieval king.

“Oh, I have responsibilities,” Janesha said defensively. “I had lessons to attend, Cloudstrike to take … well, I had to learn how to take care of Cloudstrike, for the times when we weren’t at the pantheon’s stables. Otherwise, there were stablehands for that. Defend the name of Mystal in the eyes of other pantheons …”

“ … get kicked out of Asgard for talking back to Thor …” Taylor chimed in, grinning.

Janesha poked her tongue out at Taylor as she took the last plate. “He was in the wrong. You don't steal another warrior's glory. Especially not a Mystallian’s, and double especially in front of another Mystallian.”

Taylor happened to agree wholeheartedly, though in a slightly different context than warriors and glory, so she shifted to another topic as she started cleaning the cutlery. “So … lessons? About what?”

“Oh, everything.” Janesha rolled her eyes. “All about the realms, and who's in power in each one. The creatures in each realm that we need to be careful around. The languages of the different realms—well, I'm still working on those. How to comport myself as a goddess once I finally get my establishment. How not to get myself accidentally established.” She waved her free hand as she took the handful of forks and dried them. “How what you guys call 'physics' and 'biology' works in each of the realms. Stuff like that.”

“But you said as far as you're concerned, physics is what you make it.” That sounded fundamentally wrong to Taylor. Everything she knew told her that physics was physics.

Janesha shrugged but didn’t deny it. “Only the mortal realm is that malleable. The celestial realm is a lot more … resilient.”

"That's screwed up." Taylor grimaced.

“It is what it is.” With a shrug, Janesha dropped the last of the cutlery on the drying rack and dusted her hands. “So, is that it? Do you need to bring anything like books or stuff?”

The memory of what had become of her school books caused her to pinch her lips together tightly. “No,” she grumbled. “They were all in the locker with me. Even my backpack.”

“Mother-fuckers,” Janesha swore, scowling so thunderously Taylor thought she might have seen flickers of lightning in her irises. But then her friend closed her eyes, drew a deep breath in and held it. When she finally released it a few seconds later, she opened her eyes and smiled the way Taylor was certain a striking cobra would smile, if it were able. “Well,” she purred, her tone laced with venom. “Let's see about fixing that, shall we?”

“Um … how exactly are we going to do that?” If anyone else had said those words, Taylor would've automatically prepared herself for disappointment. It was the way her world worked. But Janesha had a talent for making the impossible a reality, so she didn't instantly write the possibility off.

“We go there, and make them give us replacements,” Janesha said flatly. “Not only did you get hurt, but your stuff got destroyed on their watch, so it's up to them to fix that shit.” The further into the explanation she went, the angrier she became. “Either they learn to own their space, or I'll make them fucking own it. No bunch of fucked-up fucking mortal bureaucrats is gonna screw my friend over like that. Fuck that shit!”

The sound of Danny clearing his throat drew Taylor's attention to the door into the living room. Leaning on the door-frame, Danny eyed them both, while the TV played behind them. “Did I hear the sound of a Mystallian about to go and do something extremely Mystallian to someone who hurt my daughter?”

Taylor was impressed by the fact that her father had used the word 'Mystallian' as both a noun and an adjective in the same sentence. From the look on her face, Janesha had never heard it done like that before either. Stiffening her back, the young celestial looked Taylor's father in the eye. “And what if you did?”

Despite the certain knowledge that Janesha could destroy his mind at a whim, or disassemble him at a touch, Danny seemed unfazed. “Something tells me I should urge you not to go overboard. But even if I did, you'd probably ignore me, and I don't feel like being particularly merciful to those people anyway. So have at it, young lady. Just try not to do anything that would get me called in to a parent-teacher conference. I'm reasonably certain they'd be offended if I laughed in their faces.”

Janesha’s anger melted away and she smirked at Danny. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Taylor’s father chuckled and returned to the lounge. Seconds later, she heard him heading up the stairs, probably to get ready for work.

Janesha waved at Taylor. “Come on, let's get going.”

“Sure, okay.” Taylor headed for the back door, then realised that Janesha was going toward the basement door. “Uh, are we saying goodbye to Cloudstrike first?” She knew she'd agreed to accompany Janesha to school, but any excuse to delay was a good one, and visiting Cloudstrike was a better one than most. The mystallion's golden coat was so soft and warm, and she truly seemed to like Taylor. This was possibly because Taylor thought she was absolutely gorgeous—which was true—but there were worse reasons.

“Oh, no.” Janesha shot Taylor a grin over her shoulder. “We're riding Cloudstrike to school.”

“Wait, what?” Taylor's mind locked up and skidded to a halt. Her feet quickly followed suit. “We can't … can we?” Mental images arose of her dismounting from Cloudstrike in front of Winslow. Of everyone watching her do so. She didn't even have the faintest idea what the fallout from that would be. At the very least, the PHO boards would go nuclear. She hadn't gone online yesterday, so she had no idea how bad it was already. On the one hand, they didn't have news crews setting up camp on their front yard, but she strongly suspected the tinfoil-hat brigade would be out in force. Going to Winslow on Cloudstrike with Janesha would simply throw gasoline on that fire.

“Sure we can.” Janesha shrugged carelessly. “But since we’re going to take a little detour first, I’m going to modify her saddle to make the ride more comfortable for you. Stirrups, too, so you don't accidentally kick Cloudstrike and confuse her.”

“Detour to where?”

“Cloudstrike needs to properly stretch her wings, so the length of time it normally takes you to go to school, I’m going to let Cloudstrike have her head.” Janesha must’ve seen the horrified look on Taylor’s face, because she immediately said, “Oh, don’t worry. Cloudstrike has an excellent sense of direction. She’ll get us back here right on time.”

“But you said her full speed is twelve galaxies a second!”

“So?”

“So there’s no air out there! It’s just vacuum! I’ll die!” Taylor thought that was kind of obvious. It was the first thing humans thought about when going into space, after all.

Janesha paused and looked her over as if that thought had never occurred to her. “Hmmm, point. But I really do need to let Cloudstrike stretch her wings, before she does something else to get my attention.” The longer she looked at Taylor, the more she rubbed her bottom lip. “What if … very temporarily, mind you … I give you the ability to sustain yourself in hard vacuum for the duration of the ride? And then change you back once we get back to Earth Bet. I give you my absolute word I won’t leave you like that … unless you like it, in which case,” she grinned mischievously, “… what Danny doesn’t know won’t get you yelled at, and me yelled at a whole lot more.”

Taylor grinned as well. Being able to survive hard vacuum sounded pretty cool, but she still had a concern. “Am I allowed to bargain?”

Janesha threw an arm over Taylor’s shoulders and led her to the basement stairs. “Try me.”

“If we’re moving that fast, I’m not going to see a thing. If I’m going to ride for that long, I want to see where we’re going.”

Janesha barely hesitated. “Oh, that’s easy. There’s a few ways we can do this. One, I give you permanent eidetic memory. Anything you see, you can go back to and replay at whatever speed you want. Two, I give you stop-motion visual capture, so if anything really fast happens in your vicinity, your eyes automatically record it for later review. And three, I give you the ability to overclock your visual cortex so you can watch anything in slow motion at any time. But it’ll have weird effects on the way you experience other sensory inputs, so I wouldn’t recommend using it for too long at one time.” Janesha shrugged. “I’m good, but mortal brains have their limitations.”

“Huh, wow.” Taylor considered her options. Being able to remember everything she saw and heard would be so useful, from passing tests to memorising the back streets of Brockton Bay if she ever decided to go out as a hero. The instant slow-motion vision also sounded pretty cool. In fact, each of the three had their appeal. But she didn’t take long to make her choice. “The visual capture, please.”

“One hard-vacuum adaptation and visual-capture brain mod, coming up.” Janesha never slowed down in the slightest. Instead, she opened the door with her free hand and guided Taylor down the stairs.

“How long's this going to take?” Taylor asked. She hoped it wouldn’t be too long; they still had to get to school, after all.

“Already done.” Janesha squeezed her shoulder, reminding her of the contact they already shared. “When you’re in an airless environment, your external orifices will pinch shut and your body will start breaking carbon dioxide back down into oxygen and carbon.” Her hand blurred in front of Taylor’s face. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah, I did.” Taylor somehow knew there was a memory waiting for her to access it. She did, and the image of Janesha's hand forming several obscene gestures in a row floated across her vision. “Okay, that’s rude and you should feel bad. What about my eyes? Won’t the eyeballs burst or something?” She remembered seeing some science fiction movie where that had happened.

Janesha rolled her own eyes. “Oh, petal. Have you already forgotten? Your eyeballs are bulletproof. A little hard vacuum isn’t even gonna make them twitch, let alone go pop.” She rubbed her hands together. “So, you ready to go to school and kick ass?”

It suddenly occurred to Taylor that while privacy was probably going to be an issue at some point during Janesha's stay—almost certainly sooner rather than later—the risk factor was far lower than it normally would've been. This was because she and her father had little to worry about physical harm anymore and in fact, thanks to the efforts of Emma and her coterie, she had literally no friends in the world who could be used to put pressure on her. Apart from Janesha, of course, and Taylor could only imagine how badly it would end for the person stupid enough to threaten the celestial. Regardless of whoever did the threatening.

They descended the basement stairs, to be greeted by excited nickering from Cloudstrike. The mystallion barely waited until Janesha had let herself into the stall before bumping her head firmly against the teenager's shoulder. Her wings flexed open, brushing the side-walls, before furling once more.

“Yes, I know you heard us,” Janesha said fondly, running her hand through the mystallion's mane. “And yes, we're going for a ride, but first I've got to work on the saddle. Come on through, Taylor. Cloudstrike won't step on your feet. Will you, girl?”

Cloudstrike tossed her head at that, managing to look offended. Turning her head toward Taylor, the mystallion nuzzled at her for attention. Taylor took her cue and ran her hand over Cloudstrike's cheek and along the mystallion's neck. “How long have you had her?” she asked. “And how did you even get her? I mean, wow. She's amazing.”

Janesha reached out to the side of the stall and pulled one of the granite blocks away, smoothing out the hole she'd made with casual ease. The block became a leather saddle which she placed over Cloudstrike's rump and attached to the back of the main saddle. “When someone in our pantheon hits puberty, one of the mystallions in the herd falls pregnant. Once the foal is born, they're matched with their rider. By the time that person’s old enough to learn how to ride by themselves, the mystallion is old enough to be ridden. I've had Cloudstrike since I was twelve, and we've been flying together since I was thirteen.”

“Lots of stuff happens when you hit puberty, doesn’t it?” Taylor asked. She supposed that getting a mystallion would go a long way to make up for acne and teenage awkwardness. Then she wondered if celestials even got acne. Somehow, she suspected, they didn’t.

Janesha shrugged. “It’s a marker, I suppose. The Known Realms’ way of accepting I’m not a kid anymore …” Nudging Cloudstrike's wing aside, she swung astride with the ease of long practice. “Okay, do you think you can get up, or do you need help?”

Taylor looked at the saddle, then at the stirrups. She was tall for her age, but they looked way too high for her to use them to get on the mystallion's back. “Uh, some help, please?”

“Not a problem.” Reaching down, Janesha took hold of Taylor's wrist and lifted her up to the point where she could slide her leg over the saddle.

It took Taylor a moment or two to get settled. Looking at how Janesha had her feet in the stirrups, she emulated that with hers. It felt weird, but the posture was far more stable than when she'd just been sitting on Cloudstrike's rump, the day before. “Wow,” she said. “I don't know how you get used to this. I hope Cloudstrike's not uncomfortable with me on her back as well.”

This got her an explosive snort from Cloudstrike and a laugh from Janesha. “Trust me, if she didn't want you there, you'd be sitting on your ass on the ground. At the very least. Comfortable?”

Taylor's hands, resting on the front of her saddle, found a couple of handholds which she immediately latched on to. “Uh, I am now.”

“Good. Then there’s one other thing I need to do.” Before Taylor had a chance to ask what Janesha meant, she felt the leather of the saddle slide over her thighs, locking her in place. “It’s a long walk home if you get thrown off,” Janesha said.

Oh, right. Remembering Cloudstrike’s speed, Taylor’s hands gripped the handholds until her knuckles went white from exertion.

“Okay then, let's go.” Janesha glanced over her shoulder and gave Taylor a grin. Taylor didn't see what signal she gave to Cloudstrike, but the mystallion made a jump forward—

—and they were airborne, over the weird crystalline landscape. Cloudstrike's wings snapped outward, the downbeat catching them before they could begin to fall. One more beat, and they were flying through space. Yes, her brain confirmed as she clenched her eyes shut and redoubled her grip on the handholds. She was actually in outer space.

For the first few minutes, Taylor stayed like that. But as time went on and she didn’t feel any need to breathe or any other ill effect of being in vacuum, it actually got a little boring. Which, she would be the first to admit, was not something she would’ve expected from space travel.

When Janesha actually started laughing, Taylor relaxed enough to peek over the celestial’s shoulder to see what was going on. It all seemed a blur of horizontal lines of light to her, but several stored memories popped up almost immediately, so she sat back to review them. As insane as it sounded inside her own head, she was getting images of actual planets—and sometimes whole stars—literally leaping aside as Cloudstrike swooped at them, urged on by Janesha. Looking over her shoulder, Taylor collected more imagery of the heavenly bodies—so to speak—jumping back into place as the mystallion streaked onward. And Janesha was laughing about it.

At that moment, Taylor decided that the old movie title was indeed correct. The gods were indeed crazy. After all, who played chicken with a sun? On purpose?

Eventually, Cloudstrike’s pace slowed enough that Taylor began to recognise the planets of her own solar system, without needing the visual capture, as they cruised past them. She shook her head in wonder and tried to murmur to herself but her throat was sealed tight, so she had to be content with thinking it. No one is ever going to believe this.

She didn’t think Janesha would hear her thoughts, but the girl grinned over her shoulder and winked at her. “Tolja it was awesome.” She looked downwards at the saddle and said, “Since we’re back in your solar system, I’m going to take the trainer bands off your legs. Remember, if you fall, it’s still a bloody long way to walk, and I’ll laugh my ass off at you every step of the way.”

Taylor both felt and saw the leather straps melt away from her thighs. Is that what they were? Carefully, she mouthed the words so Janesha knew to look into her thoughts.

“Well, yeah. Even celests have to start with the basics when they’re learning. I spent the first five years tied into the saddle before mom let me sit there by myself.”

Taylor tried not to smirk. She’d caught up with the celestial in just half an hour. Janesha never looked back, but suddenly Taylor’s stirrup poked her in the foot. Ow, hey!

“I lost the training straps when I was five, you wise-ass,” Janesha grizzled as she shot Taylor a dirty look over her shoulder.

I didn’t say anything!

“You didn’t have to. Smug is an ugly colour on anyone.”

Sheesh – you must really hate your own reflect…OW! That one had a point. Cut it out!

Taylor wasn’t sure who laughed louder – Janesha or Cloudstrike. Or how she was hearing them, with vacuum surrounding them all. It was a celestial thing, she figured. You both suck.

Still looking at her, Janesha and waggled her eyebrows. “You could always get off and walk.”

Taylor crossed her eyes and poked out her tongue. What happened to me being ultimately invulnerable and all of that?

“You’re as tough as the toughest mortal in this realm. Key word here? ‘Mortal’. Don’t take on anything celestial and expect to win.” With her usual mercurial change of mood, Janesha pointed downward. “Check it out. This is the place you guys keep sending all that space junk to.”

And it was indeed Mars. With Cloudstrike slowing right down, Taylor got a good look at it on the way through. After picking out many of the ravines and contours, she was almost disappointed that little green men didn’t pop up to see them. Never … never ever ever did she think in a million years this would ever happen to someone like her. Or any other human actually. Although she wasn’t hugely up on cape activities, she was pretty sure she was the first human to get that close to the planets of the solar system.

The moon indicated another slowdown, and before Taylor realised it, Cloudstrike was already descending toward the upper levels of the atmosphere, where fluffy white clouds hugged the surface far below. A moment later, they whipped past something grey-white in colour, and Taylor found another stored memory waiting for her.

“What in the realms—” began Janesha, but Taylor was already reviewing the imagery. A slender humanoid figure, adorned with wings stretching in all directions, thrown into shocked confusion as they blasted straight past it into the upper atmosphere. She didn’t need to see it twice. Tapping Janesha’s shoulder, she couldn’t wait for her friend to see these surface thoughts. We just buzzed the Simurgh.

“What?” Having picked up what Taylor wanted her to hear, Janesha looked past her to stare back along their path. In this she was probably too late, given that Cloudstrike was already flaring her wings, the tips of which were glowing faintly, as they re-entered the atmosphere. As it was, they were already around the curve of the Earth; in another moment, they broke through the cloud layer and were streaking west (Taylor thought) over the Atlantic (Taylor hoped). “That was the pretender bitch who's been giving my friend a bad name? I should go back there and pluck her like a fucking chicken! Then I’ll—!”

“Hey, she’s not due to attack for a month or so,” Taylor said hastily. “Weren’t we going to deal with Winslow first?” She’d been mentally preparing herself for this conflict since Janesha broached the idea, but she wasn’t ready to take on an Endbringer. Like, ever.

She realised a moment later that she was talking again. We must have enough air for me to breathe.

“Yeah, okay, you’re right.” Janesha made a rude signal back over her shoulder. “You’ll keep, bitch.” Then she faced forward. “Cloudstrike, hup!” she said, and once again the landscape shifted from what Taylor was used to, to that weird crystal terrain. A heartbeat later, they were right over Winslow High.

“I am never going to get used to that stepping thing,” Taylor declared, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the rushing wind. “Or that celestial realm place. What are all those big crystals? Do they have anything to do with that rope-thing you showed me?”

“I think they have everything to do with them,” Janesha said, banking them to the right so they could land.

“How so?” Taylor really, really wanted to know. A moment later, she made the conceptual leap. “Do you think that rope was connecting me to a crystal?”

“I'm certain it was,” Janesha called back. She hesitated for a moment, then added, “I think the crystals are what give your 'capes' their powers. When I brought Squealer through, she had the same thing. But we’re better off tabling this for later. Remind me when we get home.”

As she spoke, Cloudstrike landed at the bottom of the front stairs of the school itself. Nerves ate at Taylor’s confidence, until she felt the familiar buzz of a stimulation wave sweeping through her body. Then she knew she looked as good as she felt, and she squared her shoulders confidently.

Getting off Cloudstrike was a lot easier than getting on had been. Taylor simply kicked both feet out of the stirrups and swung her leg back over Cloudstrike’s rump while holding on to the handholds. Then she slid straight to the ground, letting her knees flex slightly with the landing.

She took a couple of steps away from Cloudstrike to let Janesha dismount, and to get over the weird sensation of suddenly feeling a lot shorter than normal. As she stamped one foot and then the other on the concrete to reassure herself that yes, she was standing on the ground and not thigh-deep in it, she looked up and realised for the first time that there was the usual crowd of students heading into Winslow. Or rather, they had been, right up until Cloudstrike’s dramatic entrance. Now they were all staring at her. Well, some were staring at her, but most were staring past her, at Janesha and Cloudstrike.

<><>

Janesha

Running her hand over Cloudstrike's neck, Janesha made the reins attach themselves to the saddle so they wouldn't dangle and get in the way. “Good girl,” she murmured. “Did you enjoy your ride?”

Cloudstrike jerked her head up and down and stamped her hoof once. The concrete cracked, but only a little. Besides, there were plenty of other cracks there already, so Janesha didn't care. With great precision, now that they had an audience, Cloudstrike shook her wings out and folded them alongside her body.

“Excellent.” Janesha scratched behind Cloudstrike's ears. “Go on, back to the stall. I'll see you when I get home." She hugged her mystallion around the neck, then stepped back to let her take off.

Which Cloudstrike did, in her usual show-off way. Rearing up, the magnificent creature let out a ringing whinny that would've drawn every eye even if she wasn't already the centre of attention. Unfurling her wings and bringing them down with a thunderous clap, she took to the air, then vanished as she stepped across to the celestial realm.

Janesha turned to look at the assembled crowd. She was pretty sure she could hear the sounds of jaws hitting the concrete in all directions. “What?” asked Janesha as she stepped up alongside Taylor. “You're acting like you've never seen anyone show up for school before.”

With Taylor at her side, making sure the taller girl didn't fall behind, Janesha strode forward into the crowd. Not altogether surprisingly, they made way for her, though there were a couple of guys off to the side with close-cropped heads who glared at her in what they probably thought was a covert manner. She'd made no promises not to read anyone else's minds, so in she went.

As she'd surmised, these were members of the Empire Eighty-Eight, a grandiloquent name for a ragtag bunch of idiotic mortals who were even more delusional about their place in the grand scheme of things than the norm. They were led and reinforced by a significant bunch of capes, which Janesha might've been more concerned about if she considered capes to be a danger to her. The two she was looking at weren't capes, and they didn't know about any Empire capes in Winslow, which reduced them to the status of pond scum in her eyes. Both in terms of their importance to her, and what she'd turn them into if they tried any of their skin-colour hatred shit on her, or tried anything on Taylor.

Tucking away the information regarding the names and faces of every Empire idiot in Winslow, Janesha went on without breaking stride. She knew full-well that many phones were out by now, capturing pictures of her and Taylor. A few lucky ones would even have gotten pictures of Cloudstrike. That didn't matter to her; it wasn't as if there were any celestials on Earth Bet who knew her, or (more importantly) were related to her. And as exactly two mortals had the full story on her divine background, nobody was likely to decide she was a celestial and start worshipping her.

They climbed the steps to the front doors of Winslow, people still making way for them. Beside her, Taylor kept pace, though her breathing was a little rapid. Janesha brushed hands with her and dived into her surface thoughts. As she'd expected, Taylor was scared. Without the mental tweaking Janesha had done on Taylor the previous night, her friend’s fear would be rapidly escalating to a full-blown panic attack. Now, she was managing her fear. It was still stressing her out a little, so Janesha decided to give her some assistance. Another brush-touch gave Janesha full access to Taylor's body via her shifting. Janesha wasn't a Weaver, so she couldn't command emotions directly, but she could dial back the symptoms of fear to give Taylor a chance to collect herself. She did this, and saw from sidelong glances at Taylor that the mortal girl's posture wasn't as rigid as it had been before.

Down the halls of Winslow they strode, Janesha subtly matching her steps to Taylor's so that they walked in lockstep. It was the Mystallian way to back each other up to the hilt, and marching in step was one of the minor ways they showed it. The people in the building hadn't seen the arrival, so they weren't looking at Janesha and Taylor with quite the same level of surprise and awe as the ones outside had. Still, her uniform was fortuitously close enough to a cape's costume that the students in the hallways made way for the pair.

Taylor became more nervous the closer they got to Blackwell's office, but Janesha also noted a growing undercurrent of dark glee. On the one level, Janesha's mortal friend was apprehensive about the upcoming confrontation, but on the other, she desperately wanted to see Janesha make mincemeat out of the woman who'd stood by for so long and let all this shit happen to her. Which Janesha was quite happy to do, literally if necessary. Nobody fucks with my friends.

Either word had gone ahead or Blackwell normally kept her door locked, because when they got there, the handle wouldn't turn. Janesha turned it anyway, the door opened, and they entered. Pushing the door shut behind them, she sealed it to the door-frame. There would be no escape that way.

The front office was deserted, which led credence to the idea that Blackwell had gotten wind of their coming. There was, however, the sound of a voice from the main office. Taylor tested that door handle, then tensed and twisted the handle a lot harder. With a loud crack, the lock broke and Taylor pushed the door open. Inside, a woman whom Janesha recognised as Principal Blackwell looked up, fear flashing across her face. She held a phone to her ear, and in the silence that followed the entry, Janesha clearly heard someone asking if something was wrong.

“Hi,” Janesha said. As she passed by the door, she rested her hand on it and repaired the damage Taylor had done. “The door was open, so we let ourselves in.” Moving forward, she rested the knuckles of both hands on the desk and leaned over it. “We need a moment of your time. And by 'moment', I mean 'the next half-hour'. So I would advise you to hang the phone up right now and give me your full attention.”

Obedient to the mental command thus given, Blackwell hit the 'end call' button and placed the phone on the desk. “Who are you, and what do you want?” she asked Janesha, her tone freezing.

Although inclined to put the impertinent mortal through the wall behind her for the attitude thus shown, Janesha controlled herself. If Taylor could handle the situation without punching a hole through this self-important bitch, so could she.

“I am Janesha of Mystal.” Every word she uttered rang with the confidence it deserved. “I'm here to make sure that Taylor Hebert has all the property that was destroyed in her locker replaced. Better get a pen out.” Glancing sideways at Taylor, she added, “Taylor, start listing.”

“Oh, uh—” Taylor began, but was cut off by Blackwell.

“Miss Hebert has been already compensated,” the principal said flatly, with barely a glance at Taylor. “Her father was given a check to cover—”

“That check barely covered her hospital bills and you know it,” Janesha cut her off in turn. She took a moment to dive into Blackwell's head. Ignoring most of the minutiae of how to run a school—by the Twin Notes, how they liked to over-complicate things—she zeroed in on Taylor Hebert and why nobody was interested in doing anything about the situation.

Well, that's interesting. It seemed that the combination of Emma Barnes' father being a lawyer and Sophia Hess (aka Shadow Stalker) being a junior hero set up Emma and Sophia as being basically untouchable, at least for the 'minor' crime of picking on an unpopular girl. It didn't help that Shadow Stalker's PRT minder was advising Blackwell to soft-pedal the Ward's punishments, so that she was always available for her crime-fighting duties (and to remain in the school, for which Winslow was being compensated). Perhaps the worst bit was that Blackwell didn't even dislike Taylor. She was just supremely unconcerned with her well-being, and was perfectly okay with throwing the girl to the wolves just to keep things running smoothly.

“That's as may be,” Blackwell responded tartly. “Legally speaking—”

“Legally speaking,” Janesha interrupted again, “the school board might be interested in knowing how you've over-reported damages for gang fighting for seven years in a row, claimed compensation to fix it, and pocketed the difference. Or the PRT might be interested in knowing how your pet Ward is engaged in a full-blown bullying campaign against Taylor here, while you just stand by and let it happen.”

As she spoke, the colour drained from Blackwell's face until it was a paler shade than her dyed blonde hair. “How—” she began, then started again. “That's not true. You have no proof of any of that.” But the expression on her face and the hunted look in her eyes proved the lie.

“Try me.” Janesha showed her teeth in what was definitely not a smile. “Or, you can simply give Taylor back the property you rightfully owe to her. Your choice.”

“Textbooks,” Taylor said firmly. “Backpack. Pens. Pencils. Pencil case. Exercise books. Notepads. Calculator. Stapler.” She eyed Blackwell challengingly.

“It'll take time to get all that together,” Blackwell tried, a desperate look in her eye. “Next week—”

“Today. Before first period.” Realising her temper was loosening its leash, Janesha held up a finger to calm herself down, then went on with: “By my estimation, you've got twenty-five minutes. Get to it.”

Blackwell stood up almost involuntarily. “Uh, the textbooks need to be paid for—”

Son of a bitch, the greed ran deep in this woman's soul. Janesha was out of patience. “No, they don't. Fetch what Taylor listed, from your personal supplies. Now.” She took it up to a celestial command, leaving Blackwell no choice in the matter at all.

“All right, all right.” Blackwell darted away from the desk toward a large cupboard that stood against the far wall. As she struggled to find the right key to open it, the phone on her desk rang. Janesha leaned over and eyed the display, but all it showed was that the number was blocked.

She'd seen smart-phones before, so she reached down and swiped it to answer, putting it on speaker. A shift in her throat allowed her to emulate Principal Blackwell's voice. “Hello?”

Taylor's stare at her was only mildly incredulous. Janesha winked at her, then turned her attention back to the phone call.

“Hello, Principal Blackwell.” The voice was familiar. “This is Armsmaster. I'm responding to your call regarding an unknown cape entering your school, and how you cut the call off. I'm inbound now. Can you talk freely?”

Janesha smirked and changed her larynx back to normal. “Hey, Armsmaster, it’s me,” she said in a casual way. But then, realising he wouldn’t necessarily recognise her voice, she added, “Janesha of Mystal. Everything’s fine here. I’m just talking some things over with Principal Blackwell. Nothing to be worried about.”

“Ah, of course.” Armsmaster's tone was much more relaxed now. “It's good to hear from you again, Miss Janesha. Is everything all right at the school?”

“Everything's fine as far as I can see,” Janesha said with a shrug. “We're just talking about a matter to do with a student's lost property. Nothing detrimental.” Yet, she added silently to herself.

“Oh.” Armsmaster paused. “Thank you for the information. If that’s all it’s about, I'll call it in.”

“That works for me.” Janesha grinned. “Though I might try to catch up with you later. I have a friend who would love your autograph.” She waggled her eyebrows at Taylor, who flushed, then nodded vigorously. “But we can sort that out later. Bye for now.”

“Goodbye,” Armsmaster responded. A moment later, the call ended.

Blackwell brought a stack of books back to the desk. “Who was that on the phone?” she asked suspiciously.

“Armsmaster,” Janesha replied, having no reason to lie. “He knows there's nothing to worry about.” She glanced at Taylor. “Is that all the textbooks you need?”

Taylor eyed the stack. “I guess. But I'm also going to need the rest of the stuff, too.” The two of them turned to look at Blackwell expectantly.

The next twenty minutes were highly entertaining for Janesha and Taylor. Less so for Principal Blackwell, as she ransacked her own office for school supplies to replace the ones Taylor had lost. Janesha could've created it all at a moment's notice, but she chose not to. She wanted this lesson to stick. Blackwell had to learn that not only did you not fuck with any Mystallian on Earth Bet, but you also didn't fuck with the friends of Mystal either. Ever.

Just as Blackwell was gathering the last few items, Janesha took a parting look at the woman’s mind in case there was any hidden agenda she’d missed, and that’s when the commands she’d instilled in the principal still hung like tapestries in the woman’s mind. Shit! She hadn’t realised she’d made the ‘Today. Before first period.’ a command. That was a loss of temper that would’ve had the woman trying to complete EVERYTHING before first period today, even things she had no chance of doing. As much as she didn’t like the woman, she didn’t want her breaking due to an unfulfilled celestial command. So she removed that one.

Finally, leaving with Blackwell's own desk stapler joining the rest of the supplies in the replacement backpack—located in what had once been a lost-and-found drawer, and refurbished by Janesha—Taylor and Janesha left the office. Reaching ahead, Janesha unsealed the outer office door from its frame, then opened it.

Outside stood a group of adults. Janesha figured them to be teachers, but she didn't really care. “Hi,” she said. “Taylor needs to get to class. Coming through.” She stepped forward, with the full intent of walking right over the top of anyone who stayed in her way. Fortunately for those in the hallway, they stepped aside.

“Wait—” began one, a youngish-looking man. “Who are you? What's going on here?”

Taylor stepped right up to him and looked him in the eye. She was, Janesha noted with amusement, an inch or so taller than him. “That's a question you should've started asking a long time ago, Mr Gladly,” she said bluntly. “I'll see you in class.”

“Me, too,” Janesha added with a fingertip wave. “Come on, Taylor.”

“Holy crap,” Taylor muttered as they walked away. “I can't believe I just said that. Hell, I can't believe we're not both in fucking detention.”

“We're not in detention because I wasn't going to allow that shit,” Janesha said firmly. “Now, you've got your stuff. Did you want just go home now? Because we can totally do that if this has been enough excitement for one day.”

Taylor considered that. “It might be nice,” she allowed. “But what would a Mystallian choose? What would you do?”

Janesha grinned. “I'd stay, and I'd stick it to 'em every chance I got. Mystallians don't back down, and we don't retreat. Anyone who wants to fuck with us learns the hard way what a mistake that is.”

“Then that's what I'll do,” Taylor decided as they turned a corner. “I'll—”

“You'll do what, Hebert?” The new voice was harsh and uncompromising. Janesha and Taylor stopped face to face with three girls. The speaker was a black girl wearing athletic gear; and she was flanked by a pretty redhead and a petite brunette. There was no need for introductions. Janesha knew all three faces like the back of her hand.

“She'll go to class,” Janesha said. She tilted her head as the bell rang. “Just like the rest of you should be doing, I'd say.”

Sophia Hess sneered at her. Janesha restrained the impulse to punch the expression to the other side of her head. “So, who are you? Some nobody she bribed to wear a costume and put on a show, so she looks like somebody?”

Janesha let one corner of her mouth creep up in a half-smile. “Well, I'm definitely not a cape, if that's what you're worried about. I'm just a concerned friend.” She waved her hand toward her face. “See, no mask.”

“You don't want to be friends with her,” Emma Barnes stated with conviction. “She's a nobody. She's less than nobody. If you're not careful, she'll drag you down with her.”

“Yeah,” Madison Clements chimed in. “You probably didn't hear about this from her, but the word going around is that she shut herself in her own locker last week, just for the—waugh!” As tempting as it had been to be the one to break every bone in her body, Janesha shifted the space under the yes-girl’s feet to the slickest, most transparent slime she could think of, and consequently the mouthy bitch landed heavily on her butt, looking up with surprise and indignation at Janesha. “You pushed me!”

Janesha removed the slime, returning the floor to concrete tile. “Maybe you'd better shut up now,” she said softly, fighting back her temper with insane difficulty. Just in case she did lose it, she didn’t want Taylor to see the sort of mess that she could make. “Taylor, get to class. I'll be along shortly.”

Taylor obviously wanted to stay, but Janesha added a firm nod to make sure she went. She didn't want Taylor anywhere around the shitstorm that was going to result from what she did next. With one last reluctant look, Taylor headed off down the corridor.

“Okay, smart bitch,” Sophia said with a sneer, cracking her knuckles. “You just sent your last witness away. Any last words, not-a-cape?”

“Plenty, actually. But first …” Janesha held up one finger and nodded toward a nearby door, which led into a girls' restroom. “I'm going to go to the bathroom. I hate punching bitches on a full bladder.” Without giving them a chance to respond, she shoved past them and headed for the restroom.

Sophia followed her, of course. The beating that the Ward intended to inflict on her would be easier to pull off without any inconvenient witnesses. Janesha couldn't have set things up better if she'd arranged matters herself.

She stepped into the restroom, noting the stalls along one side and the basins on the other. The door, on the way to swinging shut, opened again to admit the dark-skinned Sophia. She turned to face the girl, noting that the other two—as expected—hadn't followed her in. This just made things easier for her, of course.

“Okay, you little queef,” Sophia snapped. “If you grovel and kiss the toe of my boot, I might not kick your ass. Otherwise, I am gonna—”

Janesha had had it! Without a word of warning, she stepped forward and grabbed Sophia by the arm, then pulled them both through into the celestial realm. Overhead, the glowing sky made it clear this wasn't any version of Earth Bet. Around them, the crystalline formations merely underlined that fact.

“The fuck?” Sophia stared around at the alien surroundings. “Where the fuck is this? Where did you bring me?”

“I told you, I’m no cape. This, is the celestial realm. My home … and the source of all your powers.” As expected, there was indeed a twisted rope of coruscating colours, fading from red to grey and back again, stretching into the distance from the girl's head. She hadn't let go Sophia's arm, and now she froze her again. “You see, Taylor doesn’t want her powers. She hates them. But I’ve never actually tried to remove someone’s powers before, and I really don’t want to hurt her. And I really, really don’t want to kill her, so thank you for volunteering to be my guinea-pig in this matter.”

Sophia tried to jerk away from Janesha's grip, but her body and mind were both under the celestial's control. What the fuck? her mind demanded. Fucking let me go right now, you cow! She tried to exert her power, to become ghostly, but Janesha suppressed that impulse as fast as she made it.

“Oh, I really wish I could have brought Taylor here to watch your demise. But she’s too nice. She would’ve tried to stop me.”

Fuck you!

“No,” Janesha purred, allowing her eyes to shift into demonic hellfire for no other reason than to put the wind up Sophia. She also allowed her voice to drop into a hellion growl as she leaned forward, putting their foreheads together. “Fuck you, Shadow Stalker.” With a raised hand, she took hold of the energy rope that was attached to Sophia’s head and gave it a testing tug. A quick search of Sophia’s memories showed the intense flare of pain she'd felt. “Hmmm,” she said, as soon as she returned to the physical realm. “Not like that, then. That'll kill Taylor for sure.”

Wait, what the fuck? Hebert's a cape? And you know who I am?!

“Wow, you’re really fast on the uptake, aren’t you?” Janesha jeered, curling her lip in disgust. “Yes, she’s a cape. For now, anyway.” She put her hand closer to Sophia's head, and twisted the rope slightly. “I wonder …” The pain response from Sophia was somewhat less. “Hmm, okay. Time to give it the old college try. I’d say brace yourself, but I don’t mind if you scream. Actually, I’d kinda like it if you did.” Taking a better grip, she twisted and tugged.

Wai— Sophia's thought didn't get all the way through before the rope came free of her head. Without even a mental whimper from Sophia, too. Well, that was … both fortunate and anticlimactic all at the same time. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Taylor, but a little more agony from Sophia would’ve been poetic. Returning her features to normal, Janesha held up the cord, examining the end of it, figuring out how it would plug into someone's brain. For a celestial construct, it was quite ingenious. And Sophia hadn't died, so that was good news for Taylor.

When she let go of the 'rope', it whipped back into the distance, vanishing from sight in an instant. Janesha took a tighter hold of Sophia and allowed her to move again, just enough to haul her back into the mortal realm …. specifically, the Winslow girls’ toilets. She then dove into the bully’s mind. As tempting as it would have been to leave the bitch with all her justifiable celestial knowledge, she needed to pull it all back to prevent anyone from learning she was a celest. Instead, she replaced the memory with one of Sophia grabbing her by the arm, and Janesha breaking that contact and grabbing Sophia’s arm instead. That fit with the physical realm image of her holding Sophia’s arm. From there, she returned to the physical realm, tossed her arm aside and went into the nearest cubicle, banging the door closed just hard enough to irk the other teen.

“What the fuck?” she heard from outside the cubicle. “Did you just shut that in my face? You do not shut that in my face, bitch!” She heard footsteps as Sophia backed up, then ran toward the stall door. Next, there was a resounding thud and the door shook. Janesha heard a cry of pain from Sophia.

Janesha touched the door, transforming it to a one-way window, transparent from her side and opaque from the other. It showed Sophia sprawled on the floor in the middle of the restroom, groggily shaking her head. The main door of the bathroom burst open, and in ran Madison and Emma.

This was as good an opportunity as any.

Returning the door to its original state, she flushed the toilet then unlocked the door and stepped out. Emma stared at Sophia, then looked accusingly at Janesha. “What the hell did you do to her?”

Janesha made her expression unreadable and shrugged. “Wasn't me. I was in the toilet and she tried to bash the door down. You might want to speak to her about her anger issues.” Moving to the sink, she ran water over her gloves, then headed for the door. Her gloves were dry by the time she got there.

The last thing she saw of the three as the door closed behind her was Sophia sitting up and rubbing an obviously bruised forehead.

One down, two to go.

Part 7