Question Shattered Glass

Before reading this story you should read Never and How Far , as both of those main characters are the MC's here.

A slight warning, both of these main characters had very bad things happen to them, this story deals with them putting their lives back together. It's not as dark as their origin stories, but it can be a little dark.

Whateley
Late November 2007

Rona read over the list of things she had to show her new roommate, while waiting in the administration office. She was pretty nervous about that, having arrived only two weeks ago, but as Mrs. Horton carefully explained, Ruth had been kidnapped and confined for several months. Having her meeting all sorts of new people immediately, might not be the best for her. So as the roommate, she got to play tour guide as well.

Since she was just recently freed from her own kidnapping, only a few days fortunately, most of it spent drugged up, and was still coming to terms with being a girl, much less a girl who looked to be made out of transparent glass, even if they'd discovered her skin was pretty resilient and could heal from cracks, she wasn't sure how sound their logic was. But since no one else in Poe, except for Mac, and that girl had some serious problems even if everyone said she was getting better, had been put through similar situation, Rona was considered the best option.

Leaning her head back, letting her long slightly curved hair dangle and rattle like a wind chime, she thought about turning invisible, especially when Ms. Hartford glared at her for making noise. Going from being a boy to a girl was freaky, not really bad, but it was taking some getting used to. Finding out her mother was a famous mutant porn star was humiliating, even though she still loved her mother, especially after everything she'd done to rescue her. Getting kidnapped by her maybe father to be turned into a mutant prostitute, was bad, and she was talking to the school psychologist just trying to wrap her head around it. Having her mother being wanted by the MCO, FBI and the police for killing her kidnappers using a variety of plants, had her fending off nightmares at night. Being a mutant who could turn invisible, had a little harder than average skin, and could pull out her hair to make fairly solid weapons, in a school full of bricks, psychics, energizers and other people who could shatter her into a million pieces was really humbling. Throwing all of that together, had her a nervous wreck, how they thought she could help anyone was beyond her.

The door opened up, revealing a tall, well built girl, with great breasts, awesome curves, and a beautiful face. The girl was wearing a wool skirt and warm legging, which Rona still wasn't willing to try, and had a bandanna covering shoulder length blonde hair. If she was still a guy, she'd have been drooling, but since her change, it seemed that she was almost asexual. Dr. Bellows wasn't sure if that was because her tastes were changing to fit her BIT, or a result of everything she'd experienced causing a mental and emotional block.

Whatever it was, she was happy enough to not worry about dating for the foreseeable future.

Getting to her feet, she smiled as best she could, seeing the scared look on the girls face, and how Ms. Carson squeezed her hand encouragingly, before introducing them. “Ruth, this is Rona. She's your new roommate.”

“Hi, Ruth,” Rona said as cheerfully as possible.

The girl looked at her for a few seconds, not speaking, until she finally whispered, “Hi Rona. Thank you for having me.”

Well at least she wasn't freaked out by her appearance, Rona thought. “It's my pleasure. Come on, I'll show you a few mandatory things, and then we can get some lunch. Are you hungry?” she asked, trying not to babble, or clam up. She saw Ms. Carson give her an encouraging smile, and guessed that she was was doing ok.

“A little,” Ruth answered, in the same whispery voice.

They headed for the stairs, “I guess since we're here I'll take you to the Homer Gallery, some big shot wants all students to see his picture when they arrive at school for the first time. Did you get your student card and bead?”

The tall girl nodded, keeping her head down, her shoulders hunched and her bag in front of her almost like a shield.

“Good, we can go straight to lunch as soon as we're done, and then I'll show you the class buildings, security, Doyle, uh that's the clinic, and the tunnels. Then I'll take you to Poe. It's a bit of walking, so if you want to take a break or call it quits after I show you the important stuff, we can finish up tonight or tomorrow.”

“You decide,” Ruth said.

“Um, right. Here we are,” Rona said happily. Knocking on the office door, she got the lady inside to open the secret door to the school museum/trophy room. “Ok, first things first, this is Lord Paramount, he's some big shot leader over in Europe, who gives the school lots of money. So we have to look at it... like I already said.”

The girl looked at the ugly picture intensely, as if trying remembering every little detail.

“You must really like him,” she tried to joke.

“You said I have to look at it. Am I doing something wrong?” Ruth asked, starting to shake and looking at the picture even more closely.

Rona remembered a little bit from her first power testing, when she'd been scared, drugged out of her mind and made to believe that if she did everything perfectly she could go home. She was pretty sure she had looked exactly like Ruth did just then. Snapping her fingers to get her attention, Rona grabbed the girl by the elbows and forced her to look away from the picture.

“Ruth, look at me.”

The big blue eyes focused on her with an unnerving intensity, the shaking got worse. Taking a shot in the dark, she leaned in and gave Ruth a hug. Her Mom hugging her like that had helped when she'd had a few panic attacks on the way to Whateley, waking up from nightmares of being photographed practically naked, or when memories of hands groping her had popped up. “I know a bit of a what you're going through, it's going to be ok. Just relax, your safe right now. Just take a couple of deep breaths.”

The shaking gradually subsided.

When it seemed safe, Rona let go of her roommate. “We've looked at the picture, how about we go get you something to eat?”

“Yes, if you say so,” Ruth whispered.

Heading to Crystal Hall, she tried to keep things light. “This is where we eat. You can get some ready to eat food from the campus store, there are hamburger vending machines in some of the buildings and tunnels, and little fast food stalls in the tunnels to. I just got here two weeks ago, so I've only eaten at Crystal Hall. You need your student card to eat, so don't forget it. According to the sophomores, there was a lot of trouble for one girl in Poe who didn't get her student card until she'd been here for a few days, and it was a bit of a mess. But if you're with me, I'll cover for ya.”

“Thank you.”

“So what do you like to eat? They have a bit of everything here, although the main dishes tend to follow a theme. I think today they're doing ham.”

“I like ham.”

“Great.”

They entered Crystal Hall which wasn't too busy, since it was Saturday after the main rush. It still seemed a bit much for Ruth, who grabbed hold of Rona's arm and squeezed up against her, if her skin had still been normal, the squeezing probably would have hurt.

“You don't like crowds?”

“I'm not used to them. Not many people lived in my community, and then I just didn't see anyone except... him and people he hurt... or hurt me,” Ruth whispered.

“Don't worry,” she said, squeezing the hand that had a death grip on her arm. “We've got a few bullies, but no one will do anything too bad. Just stay with me for now and I'll help you avoid anyone really nasty. And you'll get friends at Poe and in class who will help you out.”

They made their way to the buffet, half the trays were empty, but there was still some ham dishes. Grabbing a tray, she got a big pile of ham and rice with some steamed vegetables. Ruth got the exact same dishes, and it looked to her like it was in the exact same proportions.

“You know, you don't have to take exactly what I do. There are a lot of other things you could have.”

“This is good,” her roommate said, not even looking at all the choices.

Shrugging, she led the girl to the drinks fountain, where Ruth got a glass of water, and then they ran through the check out procedure. Taking an out of the way table, Rona explained what would be happening for the next few days, power testing, choosing classes, the near daily counseling sessions, and more.

Ruth listened to it all, while shoveling the food into her mouth as if she was afraid it would be taken away from her at any second. From how closely she was paying attention, Rona was willing to bet she could recite everything word for word if asked to.

“What classes are you interested in?” she finally asked, after running out of things to say.

“I don't know. What would you suggest?” Ruth asked.

“What classes were you taking before?”

“I stopped going to school in grade eight. Too much education makes a person proud, and isn't necessary for living.”

“Who told you that?” Rona asked in shock.

“M-my parents, and the elders. I am...” she wiped her eyes with a napkin. “I was Amish.”

Rona wanted to ask what had happened, had she been thrown out for being a mutant, turning into a girl, or what. But it was definitely a sore spot. Nibbling on the inside of her lip, which was about all she could do since her outer lips were about as soft as glass, and would chip her teeth, she tried to get the conversation back on topic. “Well you're a devisor and a gadgeteer, at least that's what they told me. So you'll be taking a bunch of math and engineering classes. You'll have to take martial arts or survival, they say you have the option to take them, but unless you really argue about you're put in one of them.”

The girl slumped down, looking at her empty plate as she picked up the last few grains of rice with her finger, delicately placing them into her mouth. “Martial arts. That's where you fight?”

“Yeah. I'm thinking I'll take it in the spring term, definitely next year, but for now I'm in survival. I was told it would help me learn how to get around looking like I do. I don't want to be like my mother and have to wear a bag over my head,” she said.

“Why does she wear a bag over her head?” she asked in an almost normal voice.

“She has a burqa, the same thing Muslim women sometimes wear.” That got a blank expression. “It's like a robe that covers your entire body including your face. My Mom has really bad GSD, she's green with tree branches for hair, and her arms and legs are more like vines. So she wears it to hide her appearance.”

“I don't want to fight anymore,” she whispered.

“Then guess you'll be joining me in survival. I've only gone to a couple of classes myself, but I've already learned how to deal with police, spot danger signs when moving in a crowd and the best places to hide when running away.” She paused to think. “You may want to get into costume shop next term. I'm in it, but I'm way behind and I don't think I'll be able to catch up.”

“Costume shop?” Ruth asked, looking bewildered.

“It's where you learn how to make a costume to protect yourself, either with armour, or by disguising how you look.”

She shook her head. “I don't need that. I have forcefields.”

“That's another power?”

Another head shake. “I had to learn how to make them, how to power them. I have a suit that they let me keep. I begged them to let me keep it. So I would feel safe. The heroes backed me up.”

“Ok. Forcefields are good. You won't have to worry about bullies much if you have that. How about we go and look at the classes now, I'll take you to the tunnels and show you where you'll be working. I have a map with me.” Her roommate kept her head down, staring at her hands. “Or we could go to Poe and get you settled in.”

“That would be good. Thank you. I was told to take it easy, and not push myself.”

They bused their trays, and headed outside. It was a green flag day, so Rona didn't have to worry about her features. Unfortunately that meant others were out and about to.

“Rona!” a small fairy like girl shouted, flying out of the sky to land delicately on her shoulder. “Have you thought about my offer some more? Ethereal Beauties would be perfect for you, and we already have a couple of photo shoots planned. You'd be great as a living statue, or the invisible, or a ghost! And if I can finally convince Miriam to join in, you two could work together, her light shining through you, creating a human rainbow!”

“Teri, not now. I told you yesterday I'd think about it.”

“Oh sorry. Is this your friend?” the little girl asked, jumping to Ruth's shoulder. “Hi, I'm Teri, I haven't seen you around here.”

Ruth actually grinned for the first time that day. “I just came here. My name is Ruth. Can I touch your wings?”

“Sure!” she said, stretching one wing to stroke Ruth's cheek. “No one ever wants to massage my wings. And I can't massage them myself, do you know how stiff they get after flying around all day? Oh that feels nice!”

Rona watched in disbelief as her roommate and the fairy smiled at each other, while Ruth stroked and massaged the fuzzy blue wings. Teri just kept nattering on about her day, the modeling club she was making for GSD students, teachers that were good and who were boring, and all kinds of other things that made a normal person want to run away from before their brain cells gave up the ghost. But Ruth seemed to like it, nodding along, and actually listening.

Finally Teri remembered she had something to do about ten minutes ago, with a quick good bye and a kiss on Ruth's cheek, she flew off, a little blur of energy yelling at people to get out of the way.

“It seems you've made a friend. Be careful she may not leave you alone,” she warned the newbie. “She's been bugging me everyday to join her modeling club since I became a student.”

“She's nice,” Ruth whispered, rubbing her cheek. “And safe.”

“She's very nice, and VERY cheerful, and so full of energy it's amazing she doesn't explode. That's the problem, she doesn't know when to stop. But if you want to be friends with her, she's never turned anyone down yet. And if you do run into trouble with bullies she's very protective of her friends to the point of artful cruelty and torture.”

She stopped when she realized that Ruth wasn't beside her anymore. Turning she saw the girl standing stock still, shaking in the snow, her face ghostly white. “Whoa! What's wrong?”

Her roommate tried to say something, but nothing came out. Some people were starting to stare. “Ruth, come on, let's get you lying down. I didn't mean Teri hurts anyone, she hasn't, she just does pranks if someone hurts a friend of hers. She's been know to rip the pants and skirts off of bullies, hang them from trees, and things like that, nothing dangerous, just embarrassing, and if they don't apologize, she keeps doing it.”

Slowly they made their way to Poe, fighting a panic attack the entire way. She knew Ruth was in bad shape, but this was ridiculous. How many landmines were in the girls head? They got to the dorm room, and she helped Ruth lay down on the already made bed. The one side of the room was bare, but Mrs. Horton had pulled out some spare bedding since the girl was coming with absolutely nothing except the clothes on her back and some gadgets and devises. Rona hadn't been much better off when she arrived, but at least all of her clothes and things had been delivered a few days ago when a benefactor who wanted to remain nameless, hired a moving company to go and clean out her and her Mom's old house.

With Ruth calmed down, falling asleep curled up in a tight ball, completely covered by the quilt, Rona went to tell Mrs. Horton what had happened, and ask for some advice.

**
Waking up in a strange room, Ruth tried to remember how she'd gotten there. She'd had lunch, and Rona was talking, then the tiny fairy had come and talked to her, and then she'd heard Sadist speaking, saying how he was a 'Picasso of pain'. Just thinking about it made her hands start to shake, her teeth ground against each other, her eyes moved wildly around the room trying to see where the attack would come from, where the demon would come from to punish her, demanding she fix something for him, humiliating her to show her her place.

Shaking her head, she told herself that she was starting to panic again, that she was afraid but nothing here was going to hurt her. Reaching into her purse she pulled out her panic diary, breathing as regularly as possible to avoid gasping for air, trying to ride the wave of panic rather than fight it.

In her diary she began writing down what she was feeling, what had set off the attack, how it felt. As she went through the well practiced motions, the panic began to die down. By the time she was done, her hands were steady and she was able to say she was as calm as she could be.

Looking at the clock on her roommates side of the room, Ruth saw she'd only been asleep for an hour or two. Or she'd slept through the night and most of the next day, again. Since she wasn't hungry she was going with the first thought. She noticed a naked green fairy sitting on the wardrobe, watching her.

“Do you talk to?” she asked.

The fairy didn't answer, instead flying down to stand on her shoulder, it's dragonfly wings tickling her ear, making her giggle.

“You really should have some clothes on,” she told the fairy, who merely grinned blankly.

Fixing the bandanna on her hair, Ruth walked to the door, carefully taking smooth, graceful steps so as to not knock the fairy off, took a deep breath and stepped outside. She saw that she was in a long corridor, a bathroom for girls clearly marked just across and to the left, and there was a lobby or something halfway up the corridor on her right. She stood there uncertain of where to go, when the fairy pointed at a door near the lobby.

Not sure what else to do, she followed the instructions, and went to the door which was opened by a green haired girl with long pointed ears and she had a fairy on both her shoulders. “Hi Ruth, I'm Absinthe, come on in.”

Uncertain, Ruth stepped into the room which had a couple of comfortable chairs, a couch, a table and a stereo system. Rona waved from her seat, and a person who could have been a man or a woman with long white hair, large golden eyes, and a perfect build, stood up with a smile.

“Hello Ruth, I'm Kenneth, or Bishonen, the wing adviser. If you have any problems or just want to talk just knock on my door, it's right across the hall,” the man said, speaking with a strange accent.

“Thank you sir,” she replied, ducking her head for a moment.

“You don't need to be so formal with me, I'm just a senior, not a teacher,” he said, gesturing for her to have a seat. “We just wanted to welcome you formally to Poe, give you a tour, introduce you to some of the residents and of course Mrs. Horton the housemother.”

She nodded, not sure what to say.

“You like my fairies?” Absinthe asked.

Another nod, she'd grown out of the habit of talking over the last few months.

“I manifest them, they're a side affect of my magic. Hold out your hand,” Absinthe said.

Her hand went up automatically, without any conscious thought. Suddenly a fairy appeared, smiling and waving. “She'll last all day before disappearing. I'll give you a new one every morning if you want.”

Grinning at the pretty little creature, she nodded. “I would like that very much. Thank you.”

“Let's check out the rest of the cottage, then we can go to the store to get you somethings. The school's given you a small allowance early to help you buy your uniforms, basic necessities and things like that,” Rona said.

With a nod, she followed the trio out of the room, and tried to follow everything they had to say about the cottage, and memorize all the people she saw, afraid to forget anything that might be important later.

**
Rona grabbed her things to get ready for bed. She had it easy compared to the other girls. She didn't need shampoo, lotions, razors or anything, she didn't even need a towel unless she decided to take a shower for fun. While Ruth got her net bag with some shampoo, soap and toothbrush kit, she just got her toothbrush and paste, glass polisher, a soft cloth and a specially made microfibre cloth.

Turning invisible she walked to the bathroom, ignoring the gay boys and the male changelings who were further down the hall. Sitting on a bench in the bathroom she began pouring the glass polisher on her skin and gently rubbed it in with the cloth. She didn't need to do her back, that day fortunately, that was about the only time she needed to use a shower to actually clean herself. After getting her legs, body, face and hair polished, she turned invisible to wipe her privates and bum with sanitary wipes, and then began to wipe the polish off her skin with the microfibre pad. Learning how to properly clean her skin had taken a bit of work, at first she'd used ordinary soap and water, and she'd been covered in streaks.

Ruth walked in and headed immediately for the shower, not taking off her robe until she was actually behind the shower curtain. Rona figured she was still nervous about being around so many people, and hoped that she'd eventually calm down. She wasn't buddy buddy with all the girls, some of them just rubbed her the wrong way, but none of them were really bad or anything. At least with the green fairy riding around on her shoulder, she seemed to be able to avoid panicking so much, just a couple of shakes and looking at her feet for a minute or two. It was still hard to get her talking above a whisper, and she did what she was told without question.

That last one actually had Rona very worried, Ruth was a pretty girl, even if she wasn't exemplar beautiful. What would she do if a dickwad told her to do something disgusting? She'd have to bring that up with Bishonen and the others, at least Absinthe could keep an eye on her with that fairy.

The shower curtain opened, and Ruth stepped out smiling a little while she reached for her towel. Rona was watching her and was the first to see the tattoos that covered almost every inch of her skin from her upper arms to her ankles. They were well done, but they weren't beautiful, or even nice. They spelled out things like cum bucket, $1 whore, bitch, slut and worse. Arrows pointed at her vagina saying men at work, free ride, one dollar an hour, and things she couldn't read. Pictures were there as well, women with Ruth's face being raped, caricatures of her begging men to fuck her, cum spots, dicks, chains, and god knew what else on her back and sides.

Everyone was staring at her. Mercy, a girl with wings made of pure energy, managed to speak first, saying what everyone was thinking. “Why did you get those tattoos?”

The tiny smile died, Ruth grabbed the towel with hands that were shaking so badly they were almost a blur, trying to cover herself and almost dropping the towel. “I-I didn't want them,” she stuttered. Tears began pouring from her eyes like a dam bursting. “He gave them to me. He said it was to remind me what I am!”

Everyone stood horrified for a second as the tall girl began bawling sliding to the floor, covering her face with her arms.

Mercy was the first one to rush over to Ruth, hugging her tightly, Rona was a second behind, and then pretty much every girl in the bathroom was huddled over the crying girl, trying to give her some support, even Absinthe's fairy was hugging an ear for all it was worth.

Once the crying lessened, they got some order and managed to dry Ruth off, slip her into her robe, brush her teeth and walked her to their room. Bishonen came in at lights out to find out what was going on, Sphere opened the door, and whispered something to him that Rona couldn't hear. The wing adviser popped his head in, saw how practically every freshman female changeling in Poe was in the room talking to Ruth, getting her talking about her favourite foods, hobbies, what she wanted to learn, and anything that would take her mind off of what had happened to her. With a look of satisfaction at what was happening, he closed the door and didn't bother them for the rest of the night.

It was almost midnight when the room finally emptied, and Ruth was asleep curled up tightly in the furthest corner of the bed buried under the quilt, gently clutching the fairy hobgoblin to her cheek.

Rona turned off the bedside light and rolled over, trying to keep her tinkling hair as quiet as possible. She realized as sleep came to her, that if her Mom hadn't rescued her from the pimp in Portland, after a few months she might have been as badly off as Ruth. Grabbing her cellphone she sent a quick message to her Mom, it was short and sweet, 'Thank's Mom.'

Ruth walked alone, except for the green fairy on her shoulder, to crystal hall for breakfast the next morning, well bundled up in a long black wool coat that went to her ankles, and a wool toque over top her bandanna. The cold nipped at her cheeks, making her feel alive.

A few people were walking along the path, but most students who could were underground, avoiding the dry snow that would pelt their faces when the wind picked up. She liked the solitude, knowing that she had some people who cared for her close by was enough for her. Sometimes she just needed to feel the sun on her face, the breeze in her hair, and the smell of living things in the air. Spinning in a circle, she threw her arms wide in joy.

Laughter filled her ears. Looking off to the side, she saw a large boy dumping snow on someones face. As the smaller person tried to stand up, the bully kicked him down.

She looked around, her eyes painfully wide, her chest tightened, her hands were shaking, rattling her purse as she clutched it. She almost fell twirling around looking desperately for help, security another student, a teacher, anyone, but no one was nearby. Deeper laughter rose in her head, louder, even more vicious. Ruth started to jog away, trying to find a security she'd heard were placed around the campus. The laughter chased after her, hounding her as she fell on some ice. The pain in her knees brought the image of Sadist throwing her to the ground, laughing as she cried out, to mind.

Gasping for breath, she tried to ride the panic out, telling herself she was safe. The laughter behind her told her differently. Then the boy yelled in pain.

Her ears heard the boy yelling, her mind turned it into the screech of a teenage girl, begging and screaming as she was tortured and murdered. Her small gloved hand changed into a larger hand, calloused from a lifetime of working with farm equipment, tools and other things, they uselessly slammed against a metal door, bleeding and swelling as he tried to break it down through strength alone.

“NOT AGAIN!” she shrieked.

Hitting a button under her coat, a PFG formed around her. Racing across the snow, she saw the bully kicking the smaller boy. Jumping on his back they toppled to the ground. An inhumanly strong arm threw her off. She rolled to her feet, eyes wide, her face twisted with rage.

“What the fuck is your problem?” the bully snarled.

“Leave him alone!”

“What is he, you're fucking boyfriend?” he asked, kicking the boy away. “Maybe you want me to hurt you?”

“You think you can hurt me, dip shit!” she laughed at the thought. “I learned from a fucking Picasso of pain!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a gadget that looked like the hilt of a knife, pressing a button blue plasma erupted forming an energy blade. She started walking towards him, her eyes on his throat.

He jumped back. “Jesus Christ! You're fucking nuts!” When she kept coming, he turned and bolted jumping over the snow in twenty foot leaps.

The boy got to his feet, clutching his bruised side. His eyes were wide with fear, staring at her.

“Are you ok?” she asked, completely forgetting she had a plasma blade in her hand.

He didn't answer, just turned and ran away. She stared at him in confusion, then she realized her hand was hot. Flicking the blade off, everything came rushing back. Shoving the weapon into her pocket, she reached into her purse, pulling out her panic diary even as her hands shook. Her eyes focused on the page in front of her, and her hands steadied so she could write. She wrote down everything that she had felt, seen and heard, Dr. Bellows would want to read it when they met in the afternoon. With the panic past, she put her pen and diary away, brushed the snow off and calmly walked back to the path.

She reached crystal hall, and got a tray. Walking up to the buffet, she saw so many foods to choose from, she didn't know what to take. Standing there, she tried to think what would be good, but her eyes went from one tray to another, unable to focus on any one item. People started pushing past her as she stood there wondering what would be the right choice.

Finally in desperation, she followed a girl with bluish white hair, taking everything that she took. The girl gave her some odd looks, but didn't say anything. Finally she had her breakfast and after paying for it headed to a table where Rona was sitting. With her head down, she asked, “Can I sit here, please.”

“Sure,” Rona said. “Everyone this is Ruth, she just came to my wing. Ruth, these are Splits, Steph and Mandy, they live in Poes girls town. Did you like your walk?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“It's too cold for me to go outside,” the willowy girl called Splits said, her hand moving free of her wrist to bring a spoonful of cereal to her mouth which was floating two feet above where her neck should be. “My body parts keep freezing unless I practically tie them into my coat.”

Quickly eating the eggs and cheese that made up the majority of her breakfast, Ruth listened intently to what was being said, and despite arriving late, she was done before everyone else. Her eyes kept going to Splits, who didn't seem to have any joints, just open spaces, with the body parts floating like balloons in the general area where they should be. Near the end of the meal, a disembodied hand, holding a bookbag, came flying through the doors and settled on Splits left wrist. She stared openly at the bizarre sight.

Rona snapped her out of it. “Ruth, what do you have to do today?”

“I-I,” she stuttered trying to get her thoughts in order. “I must see Dr. Bellows this afternoon. He will help me get classes, and we have a counseling session.”

“Do you want to go to church? I heard you're Amish, that means you're pretty religious aren't you?” Mandy asked, flipping a lock of fluorescent orange hair out of her bright eyes.

“Ye-, no, I, wait, ,” she paused taking a moment to get her thoughts in order. “I'm not sure if I want to. With the community, service is held in our homes, I'm not sure what it would be like in a church.”

“Well, we have a church on campus, I don't really like Reverend Englund's sermons though, and I'm a little too shy to go to church in Dunwich or Berlin,” she motioned to her orange hair and eyes in explanation. “But if you want, I can take you there once we're done, or next week we can go together to one in town. And maybe we could do a bible reading in our dorm.”

Ruth nodded, allowing herself a tiny smile. “Yes. I'd like that. But not today.”

“Really? great, not many Poe girls want to bother with it, and not a lot of people on campus want to either, most of the ones that do, can be a little hardcore. Maybe next week you can join a few of my friends and I, we have bible study on Sunday afternoon. We're not the fire and brimstone type stuff you'll hear from Reverend Englund and his crowd, and it's pretty small usually there's only three or four at most.”

She wondered what it would be like reading the bible with the English, non-Amish people. She liked listening to her father reading the bible at night, would the bible study be the same? She'd been told that taking small steps at meeting people in comfortable settings would help her, but she didn't know if this would just be opening up old wounds. Very hesitantly she nodded, once.

Mandy's heart shape face lit up. “Great, I'll tell them this afternoon to expect you. Don't worry you don't have to do much, just come and listen at first.”

She nodded again.

“What's your power, Ruth?” Splits asked with the lull in the conversation. “I'm a warper. My body parts can go almost anywhere I want it to.” She used two disembodied finger tips and her thumb to grab a napkin from the dispenser halfway across the room while she stayed seated to demonstrate.

“Um, they said I'm a devisor and a gadgeteer. Nothing else. I like to make and fix things. Is that ok?”

“Better than me,” Rona said, pulling on a strand of her glass hair that was about as thick as her thumb, which came out easily, giving her a two foot long solid glass cylinder that became thinner at one end. “All I can do is turn invisible, and pretend my hair is a dull sword.”

Mandy rolled her orange eyes, turning them pure white momentarily. “Yeah turning invisible and always having a weapon is ssssoooo bad. I'm an omniglot, that means I can understand any language, including computers and body language. So I know when someone wants to kick my butt in any language of the world.”

The blonde girl, Steph snorted. “I've seen you in martial arts, you can hold your own against exemplars. You've made me land on my ass and I'm an exemplar four with danger sense.”

That made the smaller girl, who looked a little chubby blush and start playing with her long hair. “I'm just able to see what you're planning to do and make sure I'm not in the way.”

Ruth watched and listened as the conversation about powers kept going, not really following it, what was an exemplar, or a warper? How could reading body language help in a fight? What exactly was danger sense, and who was the evil little bastard?

Not really knowing what to say, and not understanding even a quarter of the talk, she wanted to leave, but she enjoyed being near people. The feeling of belonging struggled with her need to find a peaceful place and as her psychiatrist said, check out for a while to regain her balance.

Finally everyone finished eating, after she'd spent at least ten minutes wrestling with her decision. Standing up she followed Rona, since she had no idea what she should be doing until her appointment. The four girls started walking towards the library, which she had visited the other evening.

“Ruth we're going to be doing some homework in the library, you can come with us and read some books, or explore a little by yourself,” Rona said.

Biting her lip she looked at the four girls and then at the campus. A part of her wanted to be moving, to play in the sun and avoid being stuck in a building, but not knowing what was to happen next, not having any orders or routine after so long was scary. She'd been told that making her own decisions was important after so long of not having any choice except to obey or risk getting hurt. Taking a deep breath trying to control her shaking hands, she said, “I'll go for a walk.”

Rona gave her a hug. “Good for you! If you need some help ask a student or security. And if you don't feel safe about something head over to Kane or use a security phone.”

“Thank you,” she said, putting her shoulders back turning around and walking away.

**

Ruth had walked all around the school, carefully avoiding groups of people and really anyone else, occasionally holding her hand out for the green fairy that was flying around her to land, so she could cuddle it. The walk was relaxing, and she was glad she'd done it, even if a few times she'd gotten scared. She had seen a stable and heard some horses whinnying inside, her feet had started taking her towards it, but then she saw two girls, one of them wearing a leather dress, and the other one had a sword on her back, and turned away, not sure if she should be there or not, and not wanting to take the chance.

Now she was by a cottage that was apparently Dickinson, at least according to the small sign post. She
remembered that that was a girls cottage. It didn't look as nice as Poe, being smaller, and older looking, but to her eyes it was well built.

A pair of girls were coming down the path, so Ruth ducked her head and got as far off to the side as possible.

She gasped when a hand grabbed her, jerking her to a stop. The fairy flew up into a tree, making faces but staying well out of the way.

“What the heck are you doing Brianna?” the smaller girl asked.

Ruth looked up at a huge girl who was larger than most men. Words formed in her throat, but wouldn't come out.

“I think this is the girl who attacked Tyson this morning,” Brianna said. “Did you attack my boyfriend, bitch?”

“He was hurting a boy,” Ruth whispered.

“What did you say?” the girl asked giving her a hard shake.

She swallowed, trying to speak up. “He was hurting a boy. He shouldn't hurt people.”

Ruth winced when the girl started squeezing her arm. It hurt a little, but not nearly enough to cry over. Brianna leaned down getting into her face. “So you can attack him with a knife?”

She ducked her head, not sure what to say, hoping it would end soon.

“Bri, this can't be the same girl,” the smaller girl said. “Look at her, she wouldn't frighten a mouse.”

Brianna shoved her into the snowbank. “Give me your purse.”

Ruth took her purse off and held it up, letting the girl have it without a fight.

“Now let's see what you have in here. Tissue, student card, pencil, note pad, diary,” she sneered at Ruth, throwing most of the things to the ground in disgust. “What the hell, no cash, no phone, nothing. You're not only a pussy, but a poor pussy. Let's see if you have anything good in your diary. November 15, woke up from nightmare, dancing naked on a pool table as people threw coins at me. Demon was behind me slapping me to make me dance better. Didn't scream when I woke up. Shaking so badly can barely move. Afraid to go back to sleep. Hear him laughing. Hear Wendy screaming in the closet. Isaac is pounding on the door, yelling to be let in. Just memories, can't hurt me. They can't hurt me. They can't hurt me. Jesus, this covers the entire fucking page.”

The two girls looked at her with disgust. She kept her head down, watching them through her bangs. “Please, can I go now?” she whispered.

Brianna threw the diary at her head, bouncing it off her head. “Yeah, go ahead, freak.”

She picked up the diary, shoving it into her purse and grabbed everything that hadn't blown away. As soon as she had it all, she hurried away, head down, trying to avoid looking at anything, and trudging well off the path whenever she saw someone coming. The fairy Absinthe had given her sat on her shoulder hugging her and stroking her hair. When she finally made it back to Poe, she hurried into her room and sat down on her bed, cradling the fairy in her hands. Thinking about what had happened, she decided it had been a decent morning overall. She didn't have any bruises, she wasn't hungry, she'd only had the one panic attack, and she'd made some friends.

If everyday could be like this, she'd be happy.

**

“Hello Ruth, I'm Dr. Bellows, it's a pleasure to meet you,” the fifty year old man who was just beginning to lose his hair on top said.

“It's very nice to meet you as well, sir,” she replied, looking at her knees.

“How are you liking the school so far?” he asked.

“It's very nice, sir.”

“Any worries?”

She shook her head.

“Would you like to go over your class schedule first? It could help us get to know each other a bit and get one bit of paperwork out of the way.”

“That would be good, sir.”

“Right. Now because there are only a few weeks of school left, we are not assigning you to any regular classes. There isn't enough time to get you caught up, and I believe there are better options for you. Instead of pushing you directly into a classroom, you'll be doing quite a bit of independent study to get you used to interacting with a teacher and classmates in a more relaxed manner.” He looked at her expectantly.

Ruth just looked at the desk. The last time she'd been in school it had been a one room schoolhouse, run by the community, and most of her learning had been done by herself with help from the school teacher. Not knowing the first thing about how an English school was run, she simply didn't have anything to say, and he was in charge, she had to accept it.

“Is there anything you would like to learn?” he asked.

“I will learn what you tell me to. I'll do a good job, don't worry.”

He gently lifted her chin so that she was looking at him. “Ruth, you have a say in what to do with your life. Don't let anyone take that away from you. Now what do you enjoy?”

“I like horses,” she whispered.

That brought a smile to his face. “All right. You need a job at school, so would you like to work in the stables? We have several horses this year brought in by the students, which need taking care of.”

“I would like that, sir. I'd like that very much.”

“Excellent, I'll pull every string I have to, to get you a job there.” He wrote somethings onto a sheet of paper. “Now, about your classes, looking at the tests we sent you last week, you are doing quite well in engineering, the hard sciences, and most math. The social sciences however are generally a little below average. I heard that you ran into Teri the other day, did you enjoy meeting her?”

What could the little fairy have to do with classes, she wondered. “She was nice. So happy and small. I liked petting her wings.”

“It just so happens Teri has been tutoring several students in English as part of her school job, I'll ask her teacher to add you to the list of students for the rest of this term and the winter term. When we return to regular classes in Spring you'll be at the proper level.” He wrote some more things on his paper. “So that's English out of the way. We'll fit you into some independent math and tech study classes in the morning and afternoon.”

He rested his chin in his hand for a moment. “You don't fight do you?”

In a very quiet voice she said, “I don't want to fight anymore, sir.”

“I understand,” he said, patting her hand. “I'm going to put you into Survival 1, as an observer. You can ask questions, take tests, and follow the class, but you won't actually be graded. This will give you a boost in the spring term, when you can take the class right from the start. You'll be able to go with Rona and a few other Poe freshmen to that class.”

He typed some things into the computer, when she didn't respond. A paper came out of the printer a minute later. “This is your class schedule, Survival is in the first period, followed by two independent math study sessions, where you'll be in class with a teacher and other students but you'll be working on problems by yourself. You're expected to ask for help when you run into a problem and you may be asked to help someone else, so take the time to get to know your classmates and teachers. And for your afternoon classes, independent electrical engineering, chemical engineering, and drafting. We're looking at getting you your own workstation in the tunnel labs, you might have to wait until next term to get your own though. With finals coming up everyone is spread out as much as possible with their projects. However for small projects, you can find space on the supervisors station and you'll have a locker you can store it in safely.”

She nodded.

“Now that that's out of the way, your file says you have been keeping a panic diary, may I look at it?”

She handed it over without any hesitation.

“Do you find this helps you deal with your panic attacks?” he asked.

“Yes sir, it's very helpful.”

“I'll have to consider adding it to my own bag of tricks,” Dr. Bellows said. Opening it carefully, he quickly read several of the entries and then flipped to the last page. The kind smile faded as he read the final entry, until it was completely professional and unreadable. “Did you really attack a student with a knife?” he asked.

Ruth bowed her head, pulling the gadget out of her pocket and placing it in front of him. Her hands whipped back down below the desk, gripping her knees hard enough to hurt.

“What does the knife do?” he asked.

“It burns. It can burn flesh through forcefields, and slice metal. Sa- Sadi- he used it on me when I fought him. Burning my throat.” She felt her body starting to tremble. Grabbing the diary back, she began writing furiously, keeping her eyes on the page, ignoring the world around her. As usual when she was done writing panic was largely gone.

Dr. Bellows waited patiently, as she wrote, watching how she was dealing with the panic, and didn't begin to talk even after she put the book back in front of him. Only when she was able to look in his direction did he start to talk again. “Thank you for giving it to me and telling me the truth. That was a brave thing, many people wouldn't have been able to do. Do you have anymore weapons on you?”

She shook her head so quickly her bandanna came a little loose.

“Good, thank you for telling me. You have a PFG right?”

Her head jerked up, her eyes wild, grabbing his hand in hers. “PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT! I NEED IT! I NEED IT TO BE SAFE! PLEASE!”

He placed his free hand on hers. “I won't take it. There is nothing wrong with having it. No one will take it from you. I just wanted to know if you had it.”

Dr. Bellows kept calmly talking to her, as she kept pleading, not comprehending a single word he said at first, so overwhelmed with terror that she'd lose her shield. Gradually she began to focus on what he was saying, the blind panic running its course. Several long minutes later, she was able to remove her cramped fingers from around his hands. While she rubbed feeling back into her fingers, she watched, ashamed, as he winced and flexed his hand, bruises already appearing where she'd squeezed too hard.

“Do you want to keep going Ruth, or do you need a break?” he asked.

“I don't know,” she admitted.

“I want you to make the decision, I can't make it for you.”

She stared at her hands. She'd had so few choices for the last several months. She didn't know how to decide anymore. It was easier to just do what she was told. The only time she felt comfortable choosing something was with machines. She'd be given a job, and as long as she got it done as quickly as possible, she could do it in the way she thought best. The last few weeks, with people asking her to make decisions all the time, it was too much. Didn't they understand she'd do whatever they asked. As long as they didn't ask her to do something that would hurt someone she'd do it happily. It was her place, her job.

Dr. Bellows was watching her.

What was she suppose to do?

What did he want her to do?

Why wouldn't he tell her what to do?!

She bolted, forgetting her purse, her coat, even the green fairy who had been watching her. Slamming the door open she pushed a secretary out of the way as she ran past. She ran as fast as she could down the stairs, and picked up speed once she was outside heading for Poe. Ignoring the startled looks of the other students, she made it to her dorm. Closing and locking the door, she sat on the floor at the foot of her bed, clutching her knees, watching the door waiting for the Demon to come, demanding she make something for him again. Or maybe one of the people she'd killed would arrive to drag her off to hell. Or Isaac would be there, screaming for his body, his life.

When the door finally opened, she saw Bishonin and Mrs. Horton were both there, looking concerned, talking very softly, asking if she was ok.

She started crying in relief.

Rona stretched out all the kinks from working on the stupid English report as the other girls took off to meet friends, do some shopping and other things, except for the short break at lunch and to walk Ruth to her counseling session, she'd been stuck in the library and now she was ready for some R&R. About the only good thing she had to say about the English class was that she wasn't behind in it. She'd been studying Hamlet in her old class and while they went into more detail here, it wasn't too hard to get up to speed. Math, history and Spanish was about the same, she actually had an advantage in Spanish coming from California, she'd picked up a basic understanding over the years. It was the strange classes like Costume Shop and Survival that were kicking her ass.

Her phone beeped, there was a message from Mrs. Horton, asking her to pick up some things from Dr. Bellows when she was free. Walking through the tunnel to avoid the cold, Rona tried to remember where the nearest stairway to Doyle was. She could take the elevator, but really didn't want to. However after wandering around for fifteen minutes looking for some stairs, she came up with nothing. Stiffening her spine she headed for the elevator leading directly into Doyle.

Stepping into the fairly roomy elevator, she jabbed the button and stood in the middle of the space, closing her eyes. Rattling her hair to have some noise, she tapped her foot waiting for the door to open. She didn't mind the closed in space, it was not having a way out that brought up unpleasant memories. So as soon as the door opened, she was out like a shot.

Dr. Bellows office was straight ahead, she knew it fairly well, having been there five times in two weeks. Knocking on the door, she waited until he called her in, and then left the door open a crack. “Hi Dr. Bellows, I have to pick up something?”

“Yes, thank you for coming. Your roommate left a few things here after our session,” he said. Reaching behind his desk he handed over Ruth's long coat and purse.

“What happened?” she asked, thinking about how cold it had to be walking between Doyle and Poe without a coat.

“I pushed her a little too hard,” he said with a grimace. “Tell me, from what you've seen of her is she capable of making decisions on her own?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “When we've eaten, she'll get the exact same thing I get. At breakfast she came late and stood at the buffet for about five minutes just staring at the food, before she seemed to latch onto a girl and followed her every step. Ruth did decide to explore the campus on her own when we gave her the choice of coming to library with us or exploring. She seemed pretty proud of herself.”

“That is good news,” he said, looking a little relieved. “If you can, keep giving her little choices like that. Not all at once and if she can't decide help her make the decision but gentle pushes will help her. She's gone for quite a while without having any real choices, she needs to learn how to do it again.”

Dr. Bellows, tapped his empty pipe, as if he really wanted to light it. “How are you doing with the extra responsibilities?”

Rona shrugged. “It's not too hard. She doesn't argue, or really cause any problems. Last night was kind of rough after we saw her tattoos, but all the girls helped with that. So I guess the strangest thing is how she doesn't talk much, just follows along with those wide eyes.”

“That's to be expected for a while, but it sounds like you and everyone else is doing a great job. Has she shown any hints of violence?”

She snorted in surprise. “No way. My mom would say she wouldn't say sh- poop if her mouth was full of it.”

He nodded as if it fit his own ideas. “If you see anyone getting bullied, get her as far away from there as possible. Tell her to go with you to security, get a teacher, or some concrete task that will make her feel useful. If she hesitates, drag her away, make it an order if you have to.”

She wasn't stupid, something was very wrong. “I thought you guys didn't want me to order her around, you pretty much told me to never do it. What happened?”

Dr. Bellows took something that looked like a knife hilt from his desk drawer. Flicking a button a twelve inch gout of plasma shot out. “When she was walking to breakfast, she saw a boy getting kicked and taunted by another student. She attacked the bully, barehanded at first, thankfully. Then she pulled this out, and according to her diary she was ready to make him stop one way or another. Both boys ran away, and after a minor panic attack, she acted completely normally.”

“Jesus,” Rona whispered.

“You don't know a fraction of what she went through, and I'm not going to give you nightmares about it. But suffice it to say, Sadist lived up to his name, finding every chance to punish others for any sign of rebellion or complacency from Ruth. She watched him torture and kill people, blaming her for causing it every step of the way. She'll likely accept almost any punishment or torment against herself, but if someone else is being hurt, she will react.” He carefully placed the weapon back in the drawer with a look of disgust. “I told Mrs. Horton to order her not to carry a weapon, so we shouldn't have to worry about her causing any lasting damage. But you can imagine how getting in the middle of a fight could lead to her and others getting injured.”

“Right, keep her as far from bullies as possible, got it. Anything else?”

“No that's enough for now. And thank you for everything you're doing, it's a great help to Ruth, the school, and ultimately yourself.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said, heading for the door.

Taking the stairs down, Rona headed back to Poe to get in some quality relaxing time. And she wanted to call her Mom in Vancouver, the three hour time difference made a morning phone call impossible, but at least with her Mom not having a job yet, and basically laying as low as possible so the police and MCO wouldn't notice her, calling anytime in the afternoon or evening was fine.

Saying hello to some of the kids in Poe, she went to her room to get a book. Ruth was there working on something with a little toolbox open beside her. The girl was smiling and humming to herself lost in her own little world, so Rona just put her things on the bed, took off her own coat, grabbed her book and quietly left, heading to the common room.

Settling into the comfiest chair, she realized that amazingly no one was there, everyone was probably enjoying one of the bigger rooms with a tv or something. Pulling out her phone she dialed a number she'd only just memorized. When the other end picked up she said, “Hey Mom, how ya doing?”

**

“Hey Ruth, do you want to see a movie?” Rona asked her roommate.

“What?” Ruth asked, looking up from her project.

“The changelings are having a movie tonight, some romantic comedy, I thought you might like the chance to meet some others. Are you interested?”

She watched the tall girl, bite her lip and fix her bandanna, looking at the door and whatever she was working on.

“It's going to be fun. We have popcorn and pop,” Rona said, after about a minute of silence.

Ruth closed her eyes, stood up and grabbed her hand. “Yes, I want to see the movie,” she said in a very firm whisper.

“Great. What's your favourite movie?” she asked as they headed for the stairs.

“I never watched a movie before.”

“Never watched a movie!”

Ruth shook her head. “No, we didn't have a tv. I was going to watch one after I turned sixteen. But... things happened.”

“Well now's your chance.”

They came to a larger common room with a big screen tv, a table had refreshments on it, and almost every chair and couch, along with some larger cushions on the ground, were all full. No one made a big deal when they came in, but within the first ten minutes everyone had said hello to Ruth, giving her a smile or a pat on the arm, an older girl called Belle gave her a bowl of popcorn and a drink, telling her to sit wherever she wanted.

Ruth picked a chair off to the side, where her back was against a wall and there was a little space between her and everyone else. A few moments after sitting, a cabbit jumped onto her lap nuzzling her hand and making little mews to get petted, a green fairy flew up landing on her shoulder and began playing with her long hair. The momentary surprise quickly vanished as the girl leaned back and enjoyed the attention.

Rona sat near the back, close to the door, which she opened just a little. The movie didn't really interest her, she'd have preferred something with a bit more action, but it was ok. She tried to figure out if she'd prefer watching it with a boy or a girl. Looking around the room at the beauties like Fey, Chou and Kayda, and then at Lancer, who even she had to admit was really good looking, she couldn't decide. She felt a little bit of tingling down there when she looked at them, but nothing that left her really hot and bothered, or made her heart start beating.

She wasn't sure how she'd feel if Lancer made her panties wet, but it would be nice to have some kind of clue. Pouting she ate her popcorn and tried to get into the movie.

**

It was Monday morning and everyone was getting ready for classes. Belle came down the stairs, a mischievous smile on her face, Mega-girl walked alongside her, not looking as happy. “Are you sure about this, we were told to go easy on her?”

“Come on, it's just a little prank. Everyone has to be welcomed into Poe properly. I haven't gotten Rona yet, so this is two birds with one stone,” Belle said breezily.

They saw the two new girls head into their room, all bright and shiny after the morning bathing rituals. The door became thicker, backed by a brick wall made out of ectoplasm. It would disappear after twenty minutes or so, leaving them just enough time to get a quick breakfast and reach class if they hurried a little.

Giggling they left Poe.

**

Absinthe rushed down the hallway, she was one of the last ones in the wing thanks to sleeping in, and she still had to give Ruth her fairy. She reached their door, and saw a brick wall where the door should be.

“Great, thanks a lot Belle,” she muttered. How was she suppose to give the girl her fairy now?

She was about to take off, making a fairy and having it fly in through the window would be easy enough, when she heard someone pounding on the other side.

“Hey, you guys ok in there?”

There was a loud sob, and someone, it sounded a little like Rona, yelled to be let out.

“Just wait! It will come down in few minutes!” she shouted through the wall.

The hammering got louder.

Swearing, she looked through her fairies trying to find Belle. She found her quickly enough almost at Crystal Hall. Her fairy flew down grabbing Belle's coat and jerking her back towards Poe, pointing frantically. The prankster realized something was wrong and started jogging back.

“Rona! Belle is coming back, just wait we'll get the wall down,” she called out.

The sobbing and the hitting didn't stop.

Grabbing control of her nearest fairy, she sent it flying to the girls window. From the window she saw Rona on her knees, hitting the brick wall with her fist. Ruth looked calm, extremely calm. She was carefully putting on a padded suit, strapping some kind of backpack on, double checking everything. The tall girl heard the fairy tapping on the window, and turned to look, her face was utterly expressionless, except for her eyes. Instead of the usual wide eyed, bewildered look that seemed a little lost, the eyes were narrowed, and as hard as stone.

Turning her attention back to Belle, she saw the prankster had reached Poe.

“Belle! Get the damn wall down NOW!” Absinthe yelled towards the stairs.

“What's wrong?” Belle yelled back.

“LOSE THE WALL!”

The fake wall started to fade away, but it was too late. Three feet to the right of the door, the real wall exploded as if hit by a battering ram, Ruth stepped out, completely shrouded by dust.

“Bloody hell, what happened?!” Belle shouted, staring at the destruction.

Absinthe was knocked into the far wall, as Rona threw herself out of the room crying and gasping. Clutching the girl, she looked over at Belle and Ruth.

The senior was still staring in disbelief when Ruth punched her in the breast, sending Belle flying backwards with a scream of pain. The tall girl, who everyone had agreed wouldn't hurt a fly, snarled like an animal and walked towards Belle, dragging a hand along the wall, leaving a deep gouge in the plaster, slicing a door in half.

Absinthe summoned her fairies.

**

Ruth checked over her schedule again. It was nice having a structure, it felt safe and secure seeing it all written down on paper. “In Survival, you can ask questions?”

“Yeah,” Rona said, slipping on her pants. “As long as they're on topic.”

“And if you answer a question wrong, what happens?” she asked.

“If you get it really wrong, you get told that you're probably dead, and told in detail why. If it's wrong but shows you're thinking, he tells you why you're wrong but it's a lot nicer.”

Getting their bags, they headed out, at least they tried, there was a brick wall right behind the door.

“What's going on?” Ruth asked, staring at the door.

“I-I think it's Belle. She likes to prank people,” Rona said, running her hand along the wall as if looking for a secret handle. “It'll come down in a few minutes. We just have to wait. It will come down.”

Ruth sat on her bed, staring at the door, not really thinking of anything. If the wall would come down soon, there wasn't any reason to worry. Rona went to the window, staring outside.

Five minutes later the sounds from the hallway stopped. There had been some laughter from the girls and boys as they walked past, but no one tried to help. Rona started to pace, muttering to herself that they'd get out soon. That everything was fine. That there was no reason to worry.

“Rona,” she said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, “sit down.”

The glass girl sat down stiffly at the desk, her eyes once more focused on the window.

“Write down what your feeling. Why you're scared. What caused it. Anything you can think of, it helps,” she told her, putting the pen in her hand.

The pen started moving, the words were jagged, ripping through the paper. Tears fell smudging the few legible words. “I have to get out,” Rona whimpered.

“You said it would be a few minutes. You can wait. Belle won't lock us in all day.”

Running at the door, Rona slammed into it with her shoulder. It didn't budge. Watching helplessly as her roommate hammered on the door sobbing, and begging it to open, she came to a decision, they needed to get out of the room one way or another. She didn't have any explosives, they'd taken them away from her, but she had other things that would work just as well.

Going to her closet, sidestepping her roommate and friend, she pulled out her armour. Stripping out of her clothes she carefully put it on. There was no rushing, haste caused problems, allowing you to make mistakes. Isaac had rushed, and look what it had gotten him. Make sure everything was lined up and then do it without any hesitation, Sadist had taught her that. She heard someone on the other side of the door. It sounded like she wanted to help. That would be good if she could, but it wasn't necessary, she had the solution to their problems.

Looking at the window, she saw a fairy, it was too small to help, and it was trapped on the other side of the glass anyways. Ignore it.

With everything in place, she went to the wall. She had no idea how strong the brick wall was, better to go with known variables. Setting the battering ram to maximum with her tongue, she lined her fist up on a part of the wall where there were no support beams. She'd found all of them the other day in case she had to use the knowledge sometime. Bringing her fist back, she punched the wall, sending the forcefield forward. The wall didn't stand a chance.

Stepping out, she saw Absinthe looking at her, her mouth was open in shock. Rona came tumbling out, knocking the elf girl down. Ruth started to relax, her job done. Then she heard a voice, “Bloody hell, what happened?!”

Turning she saw Belle standing there. Hate filled her. How dare the girl hurt someone. What gave her the right to terrify others? Didn't she know what being scared and afraid felt like? How it felt to be helpless and alone?

She'd learn.

Lowering the battering rams strength, so it would only hurt and not kill, she punched Belle in the breast, aiming for the center of it, knowing from experience it would cause intense pain. Smiling, she watched the girl fall with a scream, clutching her chest. Turning the forcefield into a blade, she jabbed it into the wall and walked towards her, growling.

“Listen dip shit, you need to learn a lesson,” she said, bringing the blade slowly out of the wall, . “Never do something you can't back up.”

Fairies flew in front of her, getting in front of her eyes, popping as they came close , strobe lights made her vision blurry, her skin felt like it had been rubbed raw, she even felt a wave of heat wash over her face. She'd dealt with worse and kept moving.

Bringing her hand down, causing the tip of the force blade to tear plaster from the wall, destroying a handful of fairies that were trying hold her at the same time, seemingly intent on slicing Belle in two. The girl screamed in terror, creating a wall of metal to block the blade. But Ruth wasn't going to kill her, the blade had vanished even as she swung. Twisting, using her momentum to go even faster, she brought her foot down on Belle's thigh, with all of her weight behind it. The muscle immediately cramped up, and the scream turned into a shriek of pain.

She raised her foot, ready to stomp on the bully's stomach.

A fairy came flying down the hall, then everything went black.

She paused, blinking furiously.

A second later, still blinded, something huge grabbed her, shoving her into the wall hard enough to dent it. Screaming she hit the suits thrusters.

**

Rona looked up, still having trouble breathing when Belle screeched. She blinked in amazement at seeing her roommate standing over the girl, what little of her face was visible was full of hatred. Her fist rose up, the air shimmered around it.

A single surviving fairy flew right into Ruth's face, before erupting in a bright light. Ruth staggered, shaking her head. Belle raised her hand, white ectoplasm came together, forming a humanoid shape, a second or two later Tony the Tiger appeared, slamming Ruth halfway through a wall.

Ruth's scream of rage filled the hallway, and a jet of flame erupted from her back. The tiger seemed to flatten and deform as they flew across the hallway, making a second door into the bathroom. The sound of punching echoed in the hallway.

Absinthe got up. “Let's get Belle and run,” she said.

Together they grabbed the senior who tried to help, even with her one leg useless and twisted from the charlie horse.

“Belle,” Ruth called out, slowly moving out of the bathroom, ectoplasm dripping from her hands. She touched the wall as she blindly followed the sobbing. “Did you know there's three types of people in the world. Most people are useless, turning food into shit, they're not good or bad, they just exist. Then you have people like you and Sadist, who want to hurt others for their personal amusement. Because it's funny. Because it's good for a laugh. Because they can. I hate those people, they don't deserve to breathe. Then you have those who stop them. The good people.”

The trio made it to the stairs and started heading down.

“I don't know where I am in those three,” Ruth continued, starting to shout. “I'm not good, I can't be anymore. I don't want to hurt people for fun. I don't know if I'm useless. What I do know is that you hurt my friend. If you do it again, I will teach you real pain! I'll MAKE YOU BEG ME TO PUT A BULLET IN YOUR BRAIN!”

Mrs. Horton met them on the stairs, carrying a shotgun. “What's happening?” she asked, pointing the gun at the door.

The three girls started talking over each other.

**

Ruth sat in the hallway, stripped of her armour, shivering in her underwear. Her sight had returned a few minutes ago, and as she looked at the holes in the wall, she wasn't sure if she should cry or not.

She remembered what she'd said, and shook with revulsion. Sadists words had come out of her mouth, what kind of monster was she? She wasn't safe. They should have thrown her in prison with Sadist. She felt empty, drained of emotion, nothing good was left in her. Grabbing the suit, she threw it away from her. If she had a knife she'd slash it into ribbons.

“Ruth,” Mrs. Horton called, “are you there?”

She couldn't look at the housemother, keeping her eyes on her feet, “Yes, Mrs. Horton.”

The housemother stepped into the stairwell and gasped at the damage. “Come on child, let's get you covered up, we don't want security seeing you half naked.” She hurried over, picking Ruth up and not quite dragging her into her room. Ruth followed along, not trusting herself to make a decision, she always made the wrong choices.

Ruth got dressed under the watchful eye of the housemother, making sure to tie her bandanna around her hair with special care. Her mind was in the distant place, where reality didn't seem quite so bad, and fear was kept at a reasonable distance. As if in a dream, she saw security appear, one of them was holding her armour. They told her to go with them, so she got her coat and boots and surrounded by officers walked towards Kane. She noticed that a young woman in a security outfit was eyeing the holes in the wall very carefully.

She was led into a small room, where an older man was sitting looking over some papers. She waited patiently until he told her to sit down.

“I'm Chief Delarose, Ruth. I'm going to ask you some questions and I'd better get some good answers, do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“What exactly happened this morning?”

“Belle locked us in the room. It scared Rona. I got us out. And Belle was there. She was watching. She had heard Rona screaming, begging. She didn't do anything. She thought it was funny. She thought it was funny scaring Rona,” she said, her hands gripping the arms of the chair so hard they had turned white.

“Did you try to kill her?”

“No. I just wanted to teach her a lesson. Let her know what it's like being scared. Being terrified. Being alone. Maybe if she knew, she wouldn't do it again,” she said in a monotone.

“Do you have proof of that?”

“When I hit her the first time. I could have put my hand through her chest. I could have cut out her heart. I could have shattered her bones like I destroyed the wall. Sadist did all of that. I know how from watching him. I didn't. I have enough blood on my hands. I don't want more. But she had to know what it felt like. She HAD to, so she wouldn't do it again.” She felt her eyes watering, but blinked the tears away.

He sat back, watching her for several minutes. Finally he stood up. “Wait here. I need to go talk to some other people.”

She nodded, looking down at her hands.

**

Rona sat in Dr. Bellows office, her feet on the chair, resting her head on her knees. The window was wide open despite the cold outside and the door was open as well.

“How are you feeling now, Rona?” Dr. Bellows asked quietly.

“Embarrassed. I didn't think I'd panic like that,” she said. She knew she had some problems with elevators and things, but she had it under control. She could sleep with the door locked at night, she didn't freak out in the tunnels, she had it all under control.

“What were you afraid of while the prank,” his voice had an edge of disgust as he said the word, “was going on?”

“I was thinking that I was going to be stuck until someone came to dress me up like a model to take my picture. That I was going to be drugged again and handed over to some pervert who wanted to... you know.” Her voice became very quiet, “And this time Mom wouldn't be there to save me.”

“Was this the first time you got scared being confined?”

She gave a small head shake. “No. I try not to use elevators, and I only lock the door in my dorm at night when I'm going to sleep. It took a few days to do that. I need to make sure I have an exit.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Dr. Bellows asked.

“I thought I had it under control. I've got enough other problems, I wanted to believe I had something under control, that I didn't have to vanish from the world to make everything all better.”

He nodded in understanding. “What did Ruth do when you first realized you were locked in?”

“She just sat on her bed waiting. She does that a lot. She's in a lot of trouble isn't she?”

“They're discussing it now,” he admitted.

“She tried to help. She tried getting me to write out why I was afraid and what I was feeling. I couldn't, I needed to get out. I was thinking of jumping out the window. Then she broke down the wall, just as the brick wall disappeared. She didn't panic. Not until she saw Belle. She roared. I've only heard John yell like that, when he saw what my Mom and Janet had done.” She closed her eyes, trying to forget what Ruth had threatened.

“Do you still feel safe around Ruth?”

She thought about it. Usually it felt like she had to protect Ruth. The girl seemed to be lost all the time, watching everything like a scared little child. But there had been nothing childlike that morning. “She threatened to torture Belle until she begged to be killed, if she ever hurt me again. I don't know why I'm so important to her, I haven't done much. I don't want her being punished because of me. If I'd stayed calm, she wouldn't have done anything. She just wants everything to be nice and calm and in order. If I hadn't panicked, none of this would have happened. She should probably stay away from me. I'm too much of a basket case for her. Mom would be better off without me to.”

She couldn't say anything else, she was crying too hard.

**

“All right Absinthe, from the top, what happened?” Chief Delarose asked.

“I really don't know,” the elf girl admitted. “I had slept in, so I just wanted to drop off a fairy for Ruth like Mrs. Horton asked me to, and get some breakfast. I saw the wall put up by Belle, and was going to keep going, sending a fairy through the window when I heard someone crying and banging on the other side. I got a fairy to find Belle, and got her heading back to Poe. She got there, and I yelled at her to take the wall down. She started to when Ruth tore through the wall. The next thing I knew, Ruth had punched Belle, and sounded like she was going to kill her.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I hit her with every spell I had ready, even a fireball since she was in armour. Any one of those spells would have most people at least pausing for a second, she didn't. I know her forcefield couldn't stop all of them, she just didn't seem to care. The only thing that worked was blinding her, and that just slowed her down. So we grabbed Belle and ran for it.”

“Did she try to follow you?”

“At first yeah. She was yelling at Belle, calling her a sadist or something. Saying all Belle wanted to do was to hurt people. She said she'd put a bullet in Belle's brain if she hurt anyone again. What happened to her? She always seemed scared, only really happy when she was alone with one of my fairies.”

**

“Belle, what were you thinking playing a prank like that on Ruth and Rona? I know for a fact Mrs. Horton told everyone in Poe to take it easy on Ruth,” Chief Delarose demanded, several hours after talking to Ruth.

Belle held an ice pack against her chest. The doctors had declared her healthy, except for two spectacular bruises, which were going to heal quickly enough with the medicine she'd been given, but until they did, it was going to hurt.

“I just played a joke on them. It's the usual welcoming them to Poe, everyone gets it. How was I suppose to know she would freak out?”

“When you get a cottage wide statement saying to take it easy on a girl who's had a very hard time recently, it should be common sense. And just so you understand, Ruth isn't the one who initially 'freaked out'. It turns out Rona has severe claustrophobia, she was begging Absinthe to be let out. Ruth was getting her out in rather spectacular fashion, when she saw you. Right now Rona is talking to Dr. Bellows, still trying to calm down, after helping Absinthe get you away safely.” He glared at the girl, wondering if she understood.

“I didn't know,” she muttered.

“No you didn't. You played your prank and walked away, not caring about the consequences. Why shouldn't I give you detention for a month?”

“I'm the one who got beaten and thought I was going to die. It was only luck and thanks to Absinthe that she didn't kill me”

“Hardly. As Ruth explained and the evidence of her suit and the results agrees with her, if she'd wanted you dead, you would have died with that first punch. She wanted to hurt you, a lot more than she did admittedly, but she was going to let you live.”

“You're taking her word for it, she was bonkers?”

“She destroyed a wall with one punch, if she'd hit you with that same force, you'd be lucky to survive long enough to reach Doyle. We also tested the suit. Your ectoplasm would have been sliced in two and you with it, if she had kept the blade active. She was angry, just this side of a rager probably, but she had that little bit of control to make sure she didn't become a murderer.” He let that sink in. “Now I'm asking you again, why don't I give you detention for a month for provoking the incident when you'd been told to do as little as possible that might aggravate this girl?”

She glared at him for a few seconds, before looking away from his very angry face. “I think I've learned my lesson.”

“Good. Detention for two weeks at Hawthorne, maybe you can learn how to use your powers to entertain and help people without resorting to childish pranks,” he said. “Those are Headmistress Carson's word, not mine. Now get back to your classes, and then rest up tonight, your detention starts tomorrow.”

The glare came back, but she wisely didn't say anything. Instead she silently limped out of the office.

**

Ruth looked up when Chief Delarose came in. She hadn't moved from her seat in all that time. He sat down across from her, his expression was very grave.

“Do you know what an ultraviolent band is, Ruth?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“It's an armband you wear, it lets people know you are dangerous and could hurt them. You are also put on a board for special attention, and you have to report to security every few days.”

“Thank you,” she said, interrupting him.

“What?”

Keeping her head down, it looked like she was talking to her hands. “I am dangerous. You should warn people about me. Thank you.”

“I wasn't proposing to give it to you yet. I was going to warn you it would be used if you attacked someone again.”

“I want it.”

“This isn't an honour, it's punishment.”

“I understand.” She really did, she was little better than Sadist, continue his habits even after he was locked away. The more people who knew what she was capable of the better. She deserved to be alone.

She watched him, silently as he struggled with how to respond. He seemed to reach a decision. “Fine. I was going to give you detention, but if you're so set on getting the UV band, it's yours. Wait here.”

She waited a few minutes, staring at the same wall she'd been looking at for several hours, until he came back with a white band, that had UV stitched on it in large black letters. “You have to wear that whenever you are outside your dorm, you will come here every Monday evening to check in. If you can overcome your violent protective streak, we'll remove you from the list.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Placing the band on her arm, she left the office, keeping her head down. She hadn't eaten that day, and it was well past lunch, looking at her schedule she had chemical engineering in twenty minutes. Running to her dorm, she picked up a small PFG and then headed into the tunnels, jogging along so that she wouldn't be late. She could eat later.

**

Ruth went through her chemical engineering class, memorizing everything, but not really there. When the teacher, who was speaking from a far away place, gave her the projects she had to do, she took five minutes sorting out the ones that were most similar, dividing them into pairs, and setting four of them up, one on each corner of the desk. Ignoring the students around her, she worked on each of them, planning the time spent on each of them to within twenty seconds. When one of her projects started to melt, she pulled the power source, jotted some notes down on the paper, disposed of it, took a minute to readjust her schedule, and went back to work, even more quickly on the three other projects.

“Ruth,” the teacher said, “you don't have to do them all at once.”

“I can do it, ma'am. I used to do seven projects at a time when I had a proper work station,” she said, moving around the desk without looking up.

“But these aren't exactly safe.”

“They're within the parameters. They'll last for 24 hours, more than long enough for the project, and they do everything required. If they had to last longer please tell me now. Do you want to make any changes? I can make them last longer and it will only add another fifteen minutes to the project. If you want them to be in the mid range of the parameters, that will take an extra twenty minutes, as I'll have to redo several steps,” she said quietly but firmly.

“No, you're not doing anything wrong. I'm just concerned that you could get hurt by pushing yourself so hard.”

“I can handle it, ma'am. I won't make many mistakes. I promise.”

“You can call me Ms. Merenis. You're not being graded for this, you should spend a bit of time getting to understand everything and seeing what the other students are doing.”

She looked over the projects, with the chemicals involved, leaving them incomplete overnight would be dangerous. “You want me to go slower and and look around the room, yes?”

“Yes,” Ms. Merenis said.

She quickly did some calculations in her head. “May I have three minutes?”

The teacher frowned in confusion. “Ok.”

She quickly dismantled different parts of the project, disposing of the chemicals safely, she began walking slowly around the room, studying every project and student closely. Those who had seen her take apart three projects that she'd spent over half the class making, without seeming to care, gave her very odd looks. The looks got worse as she didn't talk to or even seem to notice them, reading over their notes, and studying their projects as unobtrusively as possible. The UV band on her arm, was even more off putting, and a few students backed away when she came towards them.

Then she finally spoke. “Don't do that.”

“What?” the boy said, holding a wire. “I have to, it's part of the project.”

She shook her head. “It's wired wrong and won't handle the energy. It will catch fire.”

“Yeah right, it's perfect. I've been doing this stuff since I was ten,” he said, pushing her away and reaching out to put the wire in place again.

Ruth put her hand between the battery terminal and the wire. “You will hurt yourself!”

Ms. Merenis quickly came over, and carefully put herself between Ruth and the boy, nervously eying the UV armband. “Ruth please step back and explain why he can't attach the wire,” she said, very calmly but firmly.

“He has it wired wrong,” she pointed to the places. “If he runs power through it, it will overheat and catch fire.”

The teacher looked it over, nodding in agreement. “Marshall, she's right.

“Come on, how much can a UV know?” the boy demanded.

“She knows enough not to cause a fire. Take it apart and redo it,” Ms. Merenis said. “Good job Ruth, keep looking around.”

With no idea how to handle being complimented for her work, Ruth did as she was told, until the end of class when Ms. Merenis told her to see Dr. Bellows.

**

Going most of the day without eating wasn't easy for Ruth, especially after a few weeks of regular meals, but she had experienced it often enough, so she ignored her stomach and the headache as she entered Dr. Bellows office.

Rona looked up, her transparent face was streaked and when she saw the UV band on her Ruth's arm she started to cry. Dr. Bellows saw the band as well, and his face turned red with anger.

“Why are you wearing that?” he asked, not able to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Chief Delarose told me about it, I asked them to give it to me,” she explained.

“Why?”

“I'm dangerous. People should be warned about me.”

Dr. Bellows stroked his forehead. “That is for students who are truly dangerous. They've confiscated all your weapons, the worst you could do now is lightly bruise some students in a fight.”

She looked him right in the eye, “I want it. Everyone is telling me to make choices. I choose this!”

“Fine, let's drop this topic for now,” he said, taking a deep. “Please have a seat, Rona would like to ask you something.”

Ruth sat down staring at her hands, knowing what was going to happen. Rona was going to ask her to go away, she was scared of her and didn't want to be in the same room as her.

Blowing her nose, Rona seemed to get control of herself. “Why did you help me today? It only got you in trouble. Why was I worth it?” she asked quietly.

She stared at her hands for several minutes, not speaking. Not able to even think of the words, much less form them. There was too much screaming and crying in her mind. Finally looking up, a look of hopelessness etched so deep into her face she was sure it would still be there on judgment day, she saw Rona was crying again, her every feature a match for the misery and torment she'd felt so often. The words came.

“I could. I could finally help someone,” she said with a smile that vanished almost instantly. “Wendy Cox, Trevor Mason, Cindy Mason, killed and tortured in front of me when I could have, should have, done something. Alex Anderson, Tamara Reeds, Thessaly Meyer, Michael Roberts, and fourteen more people I know by name, at the Goodkind bank, killed as I was forced to watch to show me what would happen the next time I defied him in any way. Nicole O'Hara, three years old, the first person killed in Sudbury when he attacked with the armour I repaired for him, so he could draw out Grinder and steal his jetpack. Twenty three people died then. I didn't know when I fixed it what he was going to do, if I had I'd have slit my own throat. I couldn't even save Isaac. I just drew out his torment, stealing everything from him.”

The smile came back. “You, I could save. I could stop your hurting. So I did. And I could show Belle what it was like being the victim. Maybe teach her a lesson so she won't hurt others. I had to do something horrible, but I helped you.”

“I'm not worth it!” Rona almost shouted.

She got to her feet and hugged Rona. “You are. You are. Some of us can't be saved. Don't deserve to be saved. But you do.”

“You don't know anything about me,” she said. “My Mom is on the run because of me, her best friend is in a coma. If Mom is seen by the MCO they'll shoot her on sight.”

“What did you do?”

“Got kidnapped. I couldn't get away, my maybe dad was going to sell me to rich people. Mom killed him. I should have tried harder, I just let them do anything they wanted. I didn't do anything except steal a phone!” Rona tried to say more, but was overcome by sobs.

Ruth didn't say anything, seeing a tiny bit of herself in the girl she considered a friend, hoped desperately was a friend, even though she didn't deserve one and would only bring pain to anyone close to her. She didn't have the strength to push Rona away like she should. So she let the younger girl cry herself out, like she had for over a week after she'd been freed.

Later she'd find the strength to be alone, when Rona was strong enough.

**

“What were you thinking putting her on the UV list?” Dr. Bellows demanded later that evening as he and Chief Delarose stood in Mrs. Carson's office.

“She is dangerous. I have a report of a student attacking someone with a knife that is very similar to her, she was ready to torture Belle. She didn't kill her but she was within a hair of it. More importantly she wanted it. Since we were both in agreement on it, it seemed the right thing to do,” Delarose said, just as angrily.

“You confiscated all of her weapons, how is she dangerous now?”

“I've seen a person kill someone with a spork. You have the will anything can be deadly. And we left her her PFG's, she has at least a dozen of them. So she's not at risk of the other ultraviolents seriously hurting her for the challenge.”

“Chief, I thought you were going to give her a month of detention helping out in Doyle. Where did the UV list come in?” Carson asked.

“I was trying to give her a little scare. With most kids it's a bucket of cold water that freaks them out. I had only explained half of it and she was thanking me for giving it to her.”

“She thinks she's personally responsible for over forty murdered people, and deserves to be punished. Of course she'll thank you for punishing her,” Dr. Bellows said.

“That is your area, my concern is for the security of the students, and she is a risk,” Delarose said. “Maybe not quite on the level of the other UV's, but if people are around her they should know that she could be dangerous. And don't worry about the security details, this is all unofficial. She gets the band, and personally talks to my nicest officer every Monday, but nothing is written down. Students and teachers know to handle her with care, she knows she did something wrong attacking Belle, but the moment she takes it off, it's off for good and only people who saw it will remember it.”

Dr. Bellows looked like he was about to say something everyone might regret, when Carson raised her hand. “Dr. Bellows, I realize this is not an ideal solution, but security is the Chiefs area. He's worried that she could be a danger, and I'm not going to undermine him. Also she did choose it, which her files say she has trouble doing. However, as soon as you can make her choose to take it off, she will be allowed to.”

Both men looked unhappy with the decision but nodded in agreement.

Carrying two take away meals, Rona walked uneasily into the Changeling wing of Poe, and saw that while the physical damage had been repaired, she and Ruth were getting some strange looks, especially the horrible UV band on Ruth. Everyone had to know what had happened. She resisted the urge to turn invisible, she had to face what had happened. Dana came up to them, since she was Absinthe's roommate she had to have heard everything.

“Hey guys, what happened today?” the girl asked, trying not to sound accusing, but not doing a great job of it.

“Belle played a nasty prank, and I panicked,” Rona admitted. “Ruth got me out, and beat up Belle. It wasn't as bad as it seemed.”

With her spending all day with Dr. Bellows, Ruth being a UV, and at least a few people hearing Ruth threatening to torture Belle until she begged to die, the short explanation probably satisfied no one, but it was the only thing she could think of. Looking anywhere but the girls and guys around her, she realized that she'd turned invisible again. Willing herself visible was hard, but had to be done.

“Is everything ok now?”

“For now. We're working through some things. So if you can please just listen to Mrs. Horton and give Ruth, and... and me, a bit of time to get used to everything, it would be great.” A lot of eyes were still on the UV band. “They took away Ruth's weapons and her power armour. So she's not going to punch anyone through a wall or pull out a knife or anything.”

That made some of the watchers breathe a little more easily. Ruth was still looking at her feet.

“So are we cool?” she asked.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Absinthe asked.

Rona felt herself turn invisible, she didn't stop herself this time. Dr. Bellows had told her that talking when she was ready, could help. Was she ready? “I was kidnapped for a few days. Locked up and drugged. That was about it. I don't like being trapped now.”

She flinched when Ruth took her arm, probably guessing where she was from her voice, and started walking them down the hall. Rona felt her start to tremble, then heard her voice, just loud enough to be heard by everyone. “For me, look up... Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Earlier this month. The bad stories.”

They entered their dorm, where both of them collapsed at their desks to eat supper, drained after the emotionally exhausting day.

As they were finishing there was a knock on the window. Looking up showed Teri flying just outside holding a kids backpack.

“Oh for the love of...” Rona groaned, and opened the window. “What are you doing here Teri?”

“Tutoring. Monday is a free day for me, so when I was told I was tutoring Ruth, I decided to start right away. Hi Ruth!” she shouted, getting a shy wave in return.

Flying inside, the fairy put her bag off to the side and went to sit on Ruth's shoulder. “Did you just finish eating? I guess you didn't want to deal with the Monday crowd at Crystal Hall. I don't blame you, sometimes it gets kind of wild. Like the first time I had supper there, there was a huge food fight, and I got blamed for it, even though I didn't throw any food. It was so unfair. If either of you ever want to eat in some peace and quiet, but not in your room, just ask me. Em, Splits and I know a few good out of the way places. All it will cost you is another wing massage. Oh, you got an armband!”

Teri slid down Ruth's arm, squeezing her legs under the band, and sliding down until it was snug under her breasts. “Hey I don't even have to hold on here and I get such a nice view! This is awesome! Can I get a ride with you if we're ever going in the same direction, this is a lot better than sitting in a hood or a pocket. On red flag days you can say I'm your Disney doll. I have a great Tinkerbell costume, that looks so cute on me. You're pretty tall, I wonder who you could dress up as.”

“Ok,” Rona said, sick of the non-stop chatter, “I'm going to tell Mrs. Horton you're here. Next time come in through the front door, you have to sign in ok, Teri.”

“Gotcha, got to protect your secret and all,” the fairy said.

“What- what secret?” Rona asked completely unconvincingly.

“That you're all lesbians. I came in once to see Splits, and her roommate was making out with a girl that would have Hustler breaking down their door if they were just a bit older. I didn't know people could bend like they did without being made of rubber or water, I swear that red head had to be warping space. Anyways, I was told all about it and sworn to secrecy on pain of a fly swatter. Don't worry, I don't judge.” She paused for a moment in thought. “Would you agree to model if I gave you kiss? And I think Miriam might swing that way a little, I could put in a good word for you.”

“NO!”

“Oh well, gave it a shot. So Ruth, I have to get your essays up to snuff. What do you like to read?” Teri asked, popping out of the UV armband to sit on the confused but smiling girls lap.

Rona left hurriedly.

**

Three hours later, Rona left the cottage library where she'd found some peace and quiet, hiding between the shelves. Invisibly she made her way back to her room, unwilling to talk to anyone. On her door was a small note, telling her to keep quiet. Curious she crept inside to find Ruth asleep, curled up in a ball in the corner, her head was visible for a change.

On Ruth's desk was a note written pretty sloppily, 'Goodnight Ruth. See you Wednesday. Great work today!!!! HUGS! Teri!'

Beneath it was an essay, it was pretty simple just three things that made Ruth happy. Hoping to understand her roommate better, she quickly read it over. The first one was helping people, second working, and third, actually there wasn't a third. Instead a space was left for it to be written later, and it went to the next paragraph explaining why helping made her happy. The reasons were morbid, talking about how she couldn't help people before and they'd died. How until now she'd been forced to watch helplessly, but now she could make a difference. The examples were intense, yet seemed to be hiding even worse things.

The next paragraph about work, was as disturbing in its own way. She wasn't hurt for doing a good job, she couldn't hurt anyone while she was working, and she was left alone. Below it were doodles of horses, fields, solar panels, a minivan, cows, chickens, a young girl in an old fashioned dress, an older man with a funny beard, and lots of scratched out words.

Turning off the desk lamp, she took out her phone and laid down on her bed, pulling the comforter over her head before dialing.

“Hey Mom, how ya doing?” she whispered.

“Rona, it's great to hear from you,” she answered sounding really happy for the first time in three weeks. "Things are going really good. I'm unofficially working with Herb as his house keeper and secretary. So I'll be able to start sending you a bit of pocket money. And Janet woke up yesterday. She's not out of the woods yet, but they're a lot more optimistic. How about you? And why are you whispering?”

“My roommates asleep. We kind of had a bad day. A really bad day.”

Her Mom became serious. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

Closing her eyes, she started talking, telling her everything even when the tears came. And her Mom listened, talking her through the harder parts, letting her get it out into the air. Finally Rona finished, feeling drained.

“Can I ask you a question, Mom?”

“Anything.”

“How did you deal with everything you had happen to you?”

“Badly. I only had John with me and he caused almost all of my problems. Don't do what did and crawl into a bottle or a needle. It seems Ruth really is trying to improve, and she see's you as her chance to do it. Let her help you, and you do the same for her,” she said.

“But,” Rona wasn't sure how to put it, “we're both so fucked up.”

Her Mom gave a little laugh, “Who isn't? When you were born, Janet was a drug addict who didn't know how to say no, unless she was negotiating a new movie contract, I was an alcoholic and recreational drug user, who just found out she was pregnant. I grabbed Janet and we used each other to get ourselves... not so fucked up. You're both younger than we were, and you have more support. Use it, and each other. And you'll be coming to Vancouver for Christmas, so you'll have my shoulder to cry on for a bit, and my foot kicking your butt to get you doing something fun.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“It's what I'm here for. You sound tired, how about you say goodnight and get some sleep?”

“Sounds good. Night Mom. Love you.”

“Love you to, honey.”

Teri flew into Dr. Bellows office thirty minutes before class started. “Hey Doc, so as per your request, I met Ruth yesterday for our first tutoring session,” she said.

“Thank you Teri, how did it go?”

“I want a raise! She's a nice girl, but I had nightmares last night. How am I suppose to keep looking so beautiful if I can't get my beauty sleep.”

“We don't pay you,” he said.

“I know, so it will be very easy to give me a raise. You can always get more than nothing,” she explained.

He ignored that, and went to his next question. “How's Rona?”

“I discovered that when she blushes she gets a very pretty cherry red tint on her skin. But other than that I got nothing. She doesn't like me very much, she thinks I talk to much.”

“I can't imagine why she'd think that,” Dr. Bellows said dryly.

Teri stuck her tongue out at that crack. “I'm going to slowly lay off asking her to model with me. I didn't know what happened to her, or I wouldn't have started asking in the first place. But I don't want her to think I've been nosy or anything, and maybe I can get her hooked up with Miriam. I think those two would like each other and they won't have to listen to me all the time. Ok, I have to go get ready for class now. Just wanted to let you know that Ruth wasn't looking like she was going to rip anyone's head off or anything. She did her work, talked and fell asleep. And I invited her to eat with me and Em, and Splits sometimes, we're planning on having her becoming our mechanic when we begin our overthrow of Whateley. Bye bye.”

**

Ruth sat in her independent math class, going over the questions quietly. The Survival class had gone well she thought. Rona, Splits and some other Poe students were in the class and had let her sit beside them. Learning what to do when kidnapped had been useful, even though she realized that she didn't have a chance to do most of them under Sadist, if she'd been captured by someone not quite so paranoid or smart the lessons would have been practical.

Now she was alone, but the math was interesting. She'd seen math like this while doing her research, getting to work with it first hand was actually fun. The first twenty minutes had been spent trying to understand the formulas, she'd hesitantly asked the teacher for help a few times, gaining more confidence when she wasn't hit or insulted for not knowing. Now she was slowly but steadily working through the questions, confident that everything was right.

“Hey, are you really an ultraviolent?” a boy asked suddenly, causing her to jump in fear.

“What?” Ruth gasped. She saw that the teacher was in deep discussion with a student across the room.

“Are you an ultraviolent?” the boy asked.

“Yes.”

“Cool! You don't see many of your kind in math class. I'm Regen, like regenerator, because I can regenerate flesh and bone on someone, as much as I want,” the boy who was very normal looking said proudly.

She leaned away from him. How could anyone find violence cool? “I have to finish this work,” she whispered, turning away.

“That's cool. I Understand. But how many people have you fought?” he demanded, a sickening grin on his face.

“Three.”

His face fell. “Just three?! What did you do, kill them?”

“No. I don't want to talk about it.” She reached into her bag for her panic diary as her hands started to shake.

“What can you do?”

“Devisor, gadgeteer,” she answered, opening her book to a fresh page.

“What's that?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as she wrote.

She didn't answer, focusing everything onto the sane words and repetitive action, letting her panic at how gleefully the boy seemed to find violence, and the questions he was asking. He grabbed her pen, leaving a long ink stain across the page.

Grabbing the edges of her desk, Ruth tried to keep from being overpowered by the panic, riding with it even as her safety line was ripped away.

“Hey. Hey! Pay attention to me,” he hissed.

Unwillingly her eyes focused on him.

“Can you fight? Are you some awesome fighter? Is that why they made you a UV?”

His words turned to gibberish, her chest ached, and she hunched down knowing she was going to be hit, all she could do was wait for it. The entire desk was shaking, the longer it took, the more certain she was that the punishment would be even worse. She wanted to scream at him to get it over with, but she could barely breathe. Her heart beat so quickly it was like a jackhammer hurting her ribs.

Very slowly the pain faded away, she could breathe again. Her blouse stuck to her body from sweat, her diary and notebook were wet, like they'd been rained on. The teacher, Dr. Winslow was sitting in front of her, Regen was on the other side of the room.

“Here,” Dr. Winslow said softly, seeing that she was capable of focusing again, handing her a box of tissue.

Taking it she started wiping her face, getting the stinging sweat away from her eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

“Are you ok now? Do you need to see Dr. Bellows?”

She shook her head. “Just a panic attack, sir. I am used to them.”

“You need to get cleaned up,” he said as gently as possible. “Go to your dorm and get a new shirt, class is almost over, it will be ok.”

Ruth looked at the clock and saw that the attack had lasted almost twenty minutes. Not exactly a record, but longer than usual. “Thank you, sir.”

Collecting her things, she hurried out, hunched over and holding her bag in front of her like a shield. She never noticed Regen smiling at her back.

**

After a much more successful independent math class Ruth walked to Crystal Hall trying her best to avoid the rush, by walking slowly and following the smaller paths that still had a little bit of snow on them.

Stepping inside, she took a few seconds to get a handle on the large crowd. Then she walked towards the food. She would do what Teri had recommended the night before, and take one item that one person took, and another item that someone else took. That way she had some variety.

Taking a tray, she saw skinny girl take three hamburgers, and did the same. Walking over to the vegetables, a boy took mashed potatoes, she did the same. Another person who looked like a humanoid rock, grabbed a plate of steamed broccoli, she took the same. Her eyes latched onto a student going to the salad bar, she followed him and took a fruit salad just like him. A girl with crystal hair caught her attention, Ruth followed her back to the meat section and got a hot dog. The tray was starting to get heavy. Walking towards the checkout, she found herself following a werewolf and getting a plate of vegetarian lasagna. People were starting to look at her, she didn't notice them, walking behind a group of students, watching them to see what they would pick up.

The heavy tray was suddenly taken from her.

“Wow Ruth! You must be really hungry,” Teri said, holding the tray that was piled down with food.

Rona was there a few seconds later. “Let's put some of this back, ok.”

Ruth just nodded dumbly, watching a disembodied eye and hand flying away.

A minute later she had a hotdog, mashed potatoes and the fruit salad. “Who do you want to sit with? Me or Teri?” Rona asked.

“I've got to eat and run,” Teri said. “It's a club meeting with a possible sponsor, so you two have fun. But we can have supper together. Ok?”

“Ok,” she said. “Have fun at your meeting.”

“So how was your first morning of regular classes?” Rona asked, leading her to a table where Steph and Mandy were eating.

“They were mostly good. I like the teachers, and the work.”

“Hi Ruth!” Mandy said. “Did you stay out of trouble today?”

She nodded, before ducking her head to start eating her hot dog. She thought that Rona gave the orange haired girl a dirty look but couldn't be sure. The conversation, once more largely bypassed her, they were talking about classes, teachers, and school gossip. But they told her a bit about the teachers she'd met so far, and some of the more unique students they saw walking to and from the cafeteria. The blind devisor with sickening clothes choices, and his scary looking friends got special attention.

“Crap!” Mandy said. “We've got the UV wannabes coming up, and they're looking for trouble.”

Ruth looked behind her and saw Regen coming over with three boys, one of them a cat like kid with long razor like claws, and two girls, one of which was covered in spines. They were looking right at her.

She got up to go, when Rona grabbed her arm. “If you run, they'll just go after you and you'll be alone. Here we've got a lot of strong guys who will step in,” her friend whispered.

Nodding, Ruth reached into her pocket, grabbing three PFG's and slid them to the other girls. She activated her own.

Steph stood up and glared at the new group. Despite having the appearance of what Sadist would call a ditzy blonde, the girl looked intimidating. “What do you guys want?”

“We heard about the newest member of the UV club, and really wanted to get to know her,” cat boy said. “Regen met her already and wasn't impressed. We're worried they might be slipping in losers who will detract from our reputation.”

Ruth realized that most of them had UV bands. They were just like Sadist.

“She's just a devisor, and they took away her weapons, Lynx,” Rona said. “You won't get much of a fight out of her, as you can see she wouldn't hurt a fly like this.”

Her hand gripped the plastic food tray.

“Ruth, put it down!” Mandy ordered.

Her hand pulled back from the tray, even as her eyes moved looking for a better weapon, Rona's hair might work.

“I think you're wrong. She just needs the right incentive,” Lynx said, watching her with amusement. “Rumour has it she beat the shit out of Beltane. That's pretty impressive. What did Belle do? Play a prank? Make someone dress naked on stage again?”

“Let's just beat the shit out of everyone here, until she entertains us,” the spiny girl said.

“There's a good idea, Quill. Would that get you fighting?”

There was some commotion from the direction of the stairs, and Ruth saw out of the corner of her eye, three large guys and three GSD girls coming towards them. The girls looked like demons, and the boys each had a UV band. She tried to guess who would be the best target to go after first, wishing she had a weapon.

“You assholes,” the largest newcomer said pointing at Lynx and his friends, “beat it now!”

To emphasize the point, the gargoyle like girl shot a burst of flame into the air, while the others cracked their knuckles or bared claws in the case of the winged girl.

“What the hell are you guys defending these losers for, Tee-Kay?” Regen demanded.

“None of your business. But you fuck with them, you're going to have TNT and the Furies beating your asses into the ground, and for once the Chief is going to thank us,” Tee-Kay said.

“Hey Tee-Kay, that would be funny to see. Let's just fuck em over right now,” said the most normal looking one of the newcomers. Little explosions filled the air behind him.

The demon woman leaned in close and whispered something about detention spoiling date night, and the explosions stopped.

The doors burst open and a large group of security officers came in. “You guys!” a young woman shouted. “You're done lunch, get somewhere else now or you're seeing the Chief.”

Lynx smirked at Ruth, “We'll see you around.” With that he motioned for his followers to leave.

“You guys to,” the woman said, looking at TNT and the Furies.

“Actually, they were helping us, Ma'am,” Mandy said.

That got a look of disbelief. “Is that right Tee-Kay?”

“We're not going to make a habit of it, but yeah, this time we were helping,” the UV replied.

“Alright, go back to your lunch, and thanks for not escalating it.”

“You girls,” Tee-Kay said pointing at Ruth and the others, “be sure to tell that crazy fairy we helped out, and we expect our girls to be front and center of the Valentines Calendar.”

“Yeah sure! We'll tell her!” Rona said quickly.

With the situation settled, security left with a warning to be careful.

“Did I hear that right? The Furies are going to be in a calendar, for Valentines Day?” Steph asked, looking a little green.

“You did. The boys were REALLY excited about it,” Mandy confirmed, looking like she was going to throw up.

“I could see it,” Rona said, watching the girls climb the stairs.

“The English are strange,” Ruth muttered to herself, rapidly calming down since there hadn't been any violence.

Ruth walked with Rona to Doyle after class, the doctors were going to start removing the tattoos that night, and they'd be able to tell her how soon she'd be tattoo free after they were done the first treatment. She rubbed her arms wondering what she'd look like with unblemished skin.

Her friend opened the door for her and walked to the nurses station. “Hi, my roommate, Ruth is here for an appointment,” Rona said.

Handing over her student card, Ruth watched an ugly black and orange cat trotted into the lobby like it owned the hospital, a girl in a baby blue uniform with pink glasses followed along a few steps behind. The nurse handed back the card, smiling pleasantly and pointed at the girl who had just arrived. “Ruth, this is Insight, she'll take you to the correct room.”

“Have fun Ruth,” Rona said, patting her shoulder as she headed for the door.

The new girl stepped up, holding out her hand. “Hi Ruth, you can just call me Caroline. I'm going to be your healer.”

“Hello Caroline. Thank you for helping me,” she said gratefully. She knew that they had healers working in Doyle, it had been explained to her by Dr. Bellows, and she'd been a little afraid that a boy would be the one to do it.

“You don't have to be nervous. It can sting a little, but Dr. Tenent has done this before, and I'll be there to keep you from feeling anything,” Caroline reassured her.

She nodded in appreciation, not sure what to say. The cat walked ahead of them, until it reached a door and started pawing at it. They stepped inside, and Caroline put her hand out taking very precise steps towards the counter, not seeming to be looking at it Ruth watched her open the door and pull out a medical gown. “Here you are, put this on. Dr. Tenent and I will be back in two minutes.”

When she was alone, Ruth slipped into the gown and sat on the bed, looking at all the large machine that looked like an oversized camera lense attached to a computer on wheels. Her mind tried to figure out how it could work, what was powering it, how it could be improved. Her fingers itched, wanting to take it apart. She wondered how anything she knew could be used to help doctors.

As she was thinking of ways to make a forcefield fine enough to stop a wound from bleeding out, there was knock on the door. Ten seconds later, Caroline and a woman with long hair came in. The woman had to be the doctor, her hair was holding a file for her to read.

“Hello Ruth, I'm Dr. Tenent, it's a pleasure to meet you,” the woman said.

“Thank you for helping me, ma'am.”

“Before we begin, we need your permission for Caroline to use her psychic powers on you. She'll numb the pain a little, heal you after the procedure, and if necessary she can help calm you down. She's been training for the last several months on psychic surgery and aura manipulation, and is one of the better ones I've met.”

Looking at the Caroline, she had to wonder what it would be like to have a power that could help people so much. She knew she shouldn't be jealous but it was hard. Caroline had probably never had anything bad happen to her, and having a power like that had to be like a gift from heaven.

Forcing a smile, she nodded in agreement. “That will be fine, ma'am.”

“Great,” Dr. Tenent said. “Now if you can take off your gown, I need to get a look at your tattoos.”

Shame, fear and disgust welled up inside of her, only to disappear almost as soon as she felt them, leaving a calm, peaceful feeling. A glance at Caroline showed that the girl was looking at her with wide, milky white eyes. Not entirely sure how to feel about her emotions being manipulated so easily, she stripped, and tried not to cover herself.

No one acted surprised at seeing her tattoos. Ruth figured it was because they'd already seen pictures of them in her files. She forced herself to wait as Dr. Tenent circled her, talking to herself very quietly. Finally the doctor seemed satisfied, letting her put the gown back on. “Ruth, to do this safely we will focus on parts of your body stripping the area of all the ink entirely on that part, and then three days later we'll work on another part. Each time you'll be left with something like a bad sunburn and some bruising, but Caroline will have that fixed in a minute or two.”

“Can you get rid of them all at once?”

“We could, but that would cause more stress on your body than I would like. To be perfectly safe, we should wait a week between sessions, as healing too many times can cause problems. But we can push it a bit to get these tattoos off,” she told her.

Ruth thought she should be more disappointed than she was, but there was still that calm feeling. “All right.”

“Where do you want to work on first?” Dr. Tenent asked.

She pointed at her crotch, blushing even with the unnatural calmness. “There.”

“OK, get up on the bed and lift your gown up to your chest,” she instructed.

Taking a deep breath, she did as instructed closing her eyes hoping that everything would go quickly. She jumped a little, when Caroline asked her, “Do you want to hold my hand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, reaching out her hand.

Caroline took it, and Ruth could feel something passing between them. There was a hum from the machine as it was wheeled over.

“Ruth, I'm about to start. This will hurt a little, tell Caroline if the pain gets to be more than a light pinch,” Dr. Tenent instructed her.

“All right, ma'am.”

The machine started. There was a second or two of pain on her upper left thigh, and then nothing worth mentioning. The laser felt a little uncomfortable, like having the hot summer sun shining through a glass window on her, but that was all.

After a half hour of the laser slowly going over each thigh, her hips, and almost up to her belly button, they were done. When the laser was rolled off to the side, Caroline let go of her hand and ran both hands a few inches above her body. Ruth looked up to see her blotchy reddened skin turning back to a healthy pink. Best of all there was no ink left. Some pictures and words were cut in half, with the bits on her side, inner thighs, and the bits that were too high or too low to get during the session still there, but that didn't matter. She started to cry a little at seeing the worst of the tattoos gone. Touching her skin she almost couldn't believe it was that easy.

“It worked,” she whispered, fighting back sobs.

“Next session we'll get the ones on your chest, and you'll have them all off before Christmas,” Dr. Tenent promised.

“Thank you so much!” she shouted, hugging the doctor.

“You're more than welcome, Ruth,” Dr. Tenent said. “Caroline, how about you go take a break, you look like you need it.”

“Thanks. It was great meeting you Ruth, see you in a few days,” the girl said, sounding a little tired. The cat that had been sleeping in a corner came running up to her, growing in size until it was about as big as a tiger. Grabbing hold of the thick fur around its neck, Caroline carefully made her way out of room.

“Will she be ok?” Ruth asked after the door closed.

“She'll be fine, she's just a little tired,” Dr. Tenent assured her, passing over a box of tissues. “She's strong, so she has to keep her powers in check or they can overwhelm most people. Helping you stay calm, removing the pain, and healing you without using too much power was trickier than if she'd healed a major injury in a few minutes. I have a few questions for you, so I can put them on your file, are you up to answering them?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The doctor smiled at the answer. “Great. Have you had a period yet?”

“Yes. Over a week ago, while I was in the hospital.” She'd had to have a nurse explain what was happening to her when she'd first started bleeding, she had thought it was more internal bleeding from her fight. Everything had still been so strange she hadn't really thought about it at the time and still didn't know how to feel. Compared to everything she'd been through, something like that really didn't matter in the bigger picture. She'd been told that now that she wasn't under so much stress and that she was eating properly, she'd start having a regular period, so she'd listened to the things they'd told her and made sure she wouldn't forget them.

“Did the nurse or doctor explain everything? Do you have any questions for me?”

“They did. I know about pads, keeping it clean and things.” She had pulled down her gown, but was still rubbing her stomach and thighs as if she could feel that the tattoos were gone.

“Well that's good to know. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I know a bit about what you're going through.”

“Thank you, ma'am. I will.” She stayed there, not sure what to do next.

There was a short pause, “Well, get dressed and then you can go get some supper.”

“Thank you ma'am.”

As soon as she was alone, she stripped again and spent a few minutes looking at her bare, unmarred skin. After so long of having tattoos, it seemed almost impossible that some of them were gone so quickly and painlessly. The ones on her face and arms had been excruciating to remove, that was even with having a healer on hand. Grinning, she put her clothes on and headed out with a little bounce in her step.

Walking to Crystal Hall, she was met halfway by a girl who was spider from the waist down and was well bundled up with a long winter coat, and blankets strapped to her spider half. Something came flying out of her coat.

“Hi, Ruth!” Teri yelled. “Come on, let's go get some supper, it's cold out here.”

The fairy settled down in her UV band. “Ruth, this is my friend Em. She's shy, but really nice.”

“Hi Ruth,” the spider girl said. “Teri's said a lot about you.”

“What did she say?” Ruth asked nervously.

“All good stuff, don't worry,” Teri reassured her.

“Just that you're a nice girl. She usually gets sidetracked when talking, with stories, pretty colours, her hair, an interesting piece of fluff, so many things,” Em teased.

“I'm not that bad!” Teri said, sticking out her tongue. “Come on Splits is saving a table for us.”

They hurried inside, they stayed close together as they got their food. Em and Teri each took something similar but not the same, and asked Ruth which one she'd prefer. Gently encouraging her to pick one. It was slow going, but they eventually got their food, and saw Splits, at least they saw her head floating over the crowd.

“Hi Ruth,” Splits said, her head floating back down to meet her body. “I heard you had a bit of trouble at lunch, is everything ok?”

Ruth nodded, thinking about the UV kids. “Nothing happened. Some boys and girls helped me.”

“They were TNT and the Furies right?” Teri asked.

She nodded.

“OK, I've got to get the Valentines Day calendars set up for them,” Teri said with a sigh.

“You can't be serious, they're going to be in a calendar!” Em said.

“Yeah, they've done me a couple of favours. And have you seen the Halloween Calendar we did? Those girls are sexy, and TNT is good for playing regular people. Anyways we're going to have two calendars, the sexy and naughty one, and a cute and cuddly one. I wanted the Furies in the first one anyways,” Teri said.

“You make calendars?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah, I'm head of Ethereal Beauties, for girls who have GSD or aren't the oh so beautiful exemplar babes. We usually do anime, fantasy and science fiction stuff. And In the Winter Semester we'll probably be becoming a real school club. We even have a Christmas Calendar coming out this week. Em can you show her?”

Em reached into her bag and took out a calendar with an evil looking Christmas elf on the front who was glaring at the camera, in an eye watering colourful outfit.

“She doesn't look happy,” Ruth said.

“That's Nacht, she always looks like that. It was a pain getting her dressed up like that, and I even had her guardian helping us. We lost two cameramen because of nervous breakdowns, finally Sunny and I had to take the picture.” Teri giggled at the memory. “We're trying to get her to do it again for the Valentines Day calendar. Oh there she is! HI NACHT!”

Ruth watched as a very grim looking girl who looked pretty if scary, pointedly ignored Teri and ran up the stairs almost dropping her tray of food.

“I think she's coming around.”

“Right,” Splits and Em said at the same time.

Ruth shook her head in disbelief.

**

Rona looked over her homework in the library, savouring the peace and quiet. She heard someone walking over to her table, but didn't look up. Having spent almost a month as a girl she'd discovered that looking at guys could be seen as an invitation to talk, and too many of the guys here didn't seem to understand that talking didn't mean she wanted to go on a date, or want to go to bed with them.

“Excuse me, can I sit here?” a boy asked.

“Sure,” she said, still not looking at him.

“I'm Randy.”

“Rona.”

“Sorry, you're doing your homework. I shouldn't bother you,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

She remembered being the awkward boy who didn't know how to talk to girls, and her conscious told her to stop being a bitch. “Don't worry about it, I'm done all the important stuff. Holy shit! Are you a robot?”

The boy looked like he was a robot or at least wearing power armour, he was slate grey, had camera lenses for eyes, was covered in metal and had a speaker in place of a mouth. “Kind of yes, kind of no.”

“Uh, what?”

“The body is a failed robot, I just got it this week, and I can use it to get out of my room for five hours a day. This is my first chance to get out on my own,” he explained.

“Why do you need a robot to get around?” she asked.

“Because my body is solid rock over in Hawthorne. But I can manifest myself in items for a couple of hours. They finally got me a body I can walk and talk in that isn't a kids toy. So I'm having fun without stressing my body too much.”

“Right,” Rona said. She'd heard of stranger things, but not often. “So why are you wasting it in the library, talking to me?” She winced at how that must have sounded. “I mean, I'm not anyone very interesting or anything.”

“I've seen you a few times on campus and you look cute. And you seem kind of lonely.” If a robot could look embarrassed, he managed it.

She felt herself blushing. “I'm, well, um. Thank you. You're really solid rock?”

“Yeah. They thought I was dead until I managed to manifest in my sisters doll and yelled at them not to hurt my body. Turning into a rock and manifesting are my only real powers. How about you, anything cool.”

“I can turn invisible, and my skin is hard,” she said with a shrug. “I can use my hair as a baseball bat to, it regrows in a few hours. What's it like being in a robot?”

“Kind of cool actually. I'm hoping they let me get some power armour next with missiles and laser beams, and a rocket punch!”

“Ask a devisor to make a shapechanging robot, than you can make yourself a real face, and if it has rockets, you can really say you have a rocket in your pocket.” Her face lit up,” I didn't just say that did I.”

“Yes, actually you did. I have the recording of it.”

“Delete it now. I can turn invisible and I know where to get a sledgehammer,” she threatened.

“OK, OK, don't pull out the hammers and chisels,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “What are you studying?”

“General science, it's so boring. Why couldn't I be a gadgeter or something that actually likes this stuff?”

“That bad huh. Maybe I can help you,” Randy offered.

“Please!”

He got up and sat down beside her to get a better look at her work. For the next hour they talked about science while making bad jokes.