[Corny, hell! I thought it was pretty darn good, myself.]
Harry paused, looking nervously up and down the hall before she stepped out of the counselor's office. If anyone saw her there, they'd think she was crazy, wouldn't they? She knew she wasn't, but they wouldn't. And if they were anything like the girls from yesterday, it wouldn't matter if they did.
Still...she wasn't crazy, but that didn't mean she didn't have problems. How could she have not seen this before? Had she really been so numbed to the emptiness of her routine that she didn't even notice? She knew, on some level, that that was true, but she still couldn't quite wrap her head around it.
And the counselor had said it was normal? How could it be normal? Other people had easily defineable personalities and things about them that even other people could see; how could they possibly feel like they didn't know who they were?
Harry really didn't know at all. If...if the counselor had even some kind of clue as to what this all meant, well...she had to go back. Looking back, she realized that this went back a lot further than she'd thought, and if it hadn't gone away in that time, it wasn't likely to just resolve itself now.
She turned to the list of extracurricular activities the counselor had mentioned. There were a surprising number of them; maybe it had something to do with this school being a hasty conglomeration of several schools in the rush to get public education back on its feet after the sun changed.
The sheer variety was actually a bit intimidating; Harry's three eyes scanned up and down what seemed like a wall of names. Suddenly, one stood out to her: apparently, there was a band. Not an orchestral band, but a modern band of some description. It didn't say who was involved or what kind of music they played, though.
Despite her emotional state, Harry found herself smiling slightly. She remembered a brief attempt at learning to play the flute some years ago. It had never gotten much of anywhere, since this apathy that plagued her had made her lose interest, but...it had been interesting. Maybe...maybe she should give it another try.
Jay stared at her boss, not quite believing what she had heard. Granted, a whole lot of strange things had been happening lately, but this...this was straight out of...
Sailor Moon had been an extremely guilty pleasure for Jay as a teenager, back when "Japanimation" was just beginning to make inroads elsewhere, and she'd never followed up on anything newer. Even now, she looked back on it with the same mix of nostalgic fondness and cringe-inducing embarrassment as her father had for the cheapo cartoon shows of the '70s. But she did catch enough points of familiarity that she recognized the gist of Toby's story.
Somehow or other, a magical-girl story was unfolding in the real world, right here in this town. From what Toby was saying, it sounded like it may not have been entirely induced by the sun; the mentor character for the one girl they knew of had suggested that whatever was going down long predated the sun's change. Jay wondered how that was possible, but she knew by now that pretty much anything was possible.
One thing she did wonder about, though, was the nature of this whole thing. Whatever the goblin-things were that had attacked Toby's house, they didn't sound at all like...whatever it was that she'd heard through the crack by the vacant lot. Was it some disparate army with different kinds of creatures in different ranks, or was there more than one hostile force trying to break through, or what?
Lisa, for someone who wasn't transformed and hadn't been exposed to nearly as much weirdness as Jay, was taking things remarkably well. "So...what do we do?" she asked.
Toby frowned, her changed face looking rather cute as she did, yet somehow not at all diminishing the determination in her expression. "Well, first things first," she said, "we've got to make sure that crack is really sealed, before it puts anyone else in danger. I'll call up the cop we talked with and see if she can't get, uh, Jenny over there to take a look."
She turned to the fox-woman. "Jay, that light on the photo...the cop mentioned something like it when Jenny did her thing. That might mean there's another of their 'numbers' in the area. I know you had trouble tracking a scent out of there, but it's really important that they find the others, if what that cat-thing said is true."
Jay nodded. "I'll see what I can dig up. Even if I can't follow the scent, there's only so far a little girl could have gone on foot. She must live pretty near by."
The anime woman smiled confidently. "Good girl. I know you can do it. Lisa, can you hold the fort down while we're out?"
Lisa felt a little hesitant. Really, she wanted to be out chasing down a story with Jay, but the sun was still out. And while there was always the temptation to just get it over with, they did need someone minding shop at the station right now...
She smiled. "You got it."
Toby nodded. "All right, let's get on this. There's a whole lot more at stake here than a deadline."
Brittany was half-asleep now; Jon wondered whether a couple of "song" snippets had really tired her out that much, or whether she was just tired to begin with. A couple snarky thoughts about midnight rituals in dark groves sprang to mind, but she ignored them; Brittany claimed not to actually know any magic. And besides, she was too nice to go jumping to conclusions about.
"So...is she, like, a LARPer, or what?" Jon started at the whisper, and turned to face the speaker. It was a boy about her age, not large, but fairly well-built. He had dark grey skin, unruly white hair that hung down almost to his jawline, and red eyes. Jon recognized the "dark elf" look from a variety of fantasy games, but it was a bit strange seeing it in person.
"Uh, um..." She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. At least she wasn't being driven wild by hormones or anything. "She's...kind of odd. I only just met her myself...it's like she's in between our time and ancient Britain. First time I've seen anything like her."
"Huh, that is odd." He frowned. "Uh, right, where are my manners? I'm Tim. With no gratuitous apostrophes, please."
Jon chuckled. He didn't look like your standard D&D; geek, but obviously he knew a bit about modern fantasy. "I'm Jon," she said. "Nice to meet you."
He looked briefly surprised, then smiled and shrugged. "Nice to meet you too," he said.
