[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/dGFSkqO.png[/img][/center] [hr] [color=ec008c]"Hey, how about this - have you ever seen an Ars Magi hit a moonwalk?"[/color] [color=a187be]"Is that including myself? I was a master moonwalker, back when I still had young knees."[/color] The self-deprecating joke was served with a wink and a playful smile, but there was something darker beneath her instructor's good humor; one of Ciara's canines had a glint that made the tooth appear wolfish, and her scarlet eyes were deep and gave nothing away. She scared the hell out of Nicole. It wasn't that she believed the veteran Ars Magi would do [i]her[/i] harm - just that she was clearly [i]capable[/i] of it. [i]Enjoyed[/i] it, maybe, beneath the ditzy attitude. Those were just hunches, though, vibes beneath her vibes, married with whispers of Ciara Gallagher's reputation. When Nicole had heard who would be handling her exams, she had been sure there was a mix up in the paperwork somewhere. [url=https://i.imgur.com/mTnmJ2L.jpg]Ciara Gallagher[/url] was one of the school's legends - the charismatic godhead of Team 00, the Valkyries, five of the most gifted students in Nova Lux's history assembled under one team banner. Each of them had gone on to be a Wing of Justice in their own right, working security for one Duodecim family or another or doing morale pieces for some Imperium cause celebre, but Ciara was undoubtedly the one who got the lion's share of the important missions. Most of what she had done was still classified; the rumors of what she got up to, from assassinations of the Imperium's enemies, fights against Voids the size of airships, to secret missions that rivalled some of the best spy movies, were all that abounded. Why would someone like [i]her[/i] be assigned to work with a goof like [i]Nicole?[/i] And why would she care about Nicole's dancing? Moonwalking had to be one of the least of Ciara's talents. It was stupid to want to show hers off like she was really doing something. Or, you know, it was like a bonding moment. Showing off didn't have to be stupid. The two of them had been drilling the usual physical exams, sparring, testing the limits of her endurance and her aerial control for the better part of six and a half hours. Ciara had promised a ride back on a spacious military craft that bordered on being one of the smaller [i]airships[/i] she'd ever seen, floating languidly back over the MEZ, to a fancy dinner at one of the better Hastan restaurants in the city she knew. It was a little unorthodox, flying such a craft directly over the Zone, but it seemed like Void activity had gone down since their mission with Aiya and the other cadets, and there was probably no one Nicole was safer with than Ciara. That went for matters of combat [i]or[/i] matters of dance. Nicole laughed and stood up, giving her legs a little wiggle and splaying them out slightly, feet slipping across the floor of the craft's hull as she tested its friction, and then pivoted ninety degrees to her right and began to [i]glllllide[/i] on back, stepping through the air, seeming to slip parallel along a gravity-less surface. Ciara's eyes widened a little, then her lips curled in a huge grin, coupled with excited applause. Part of that was just the buoyant personality she'd been putting on since their exam had begun, but Nicole could tell; she'd actually impressed a legend. She beamed, spun again, glided on back towards her seat. The four soldiers escorting them seemed less impressed. There were two mounted on each side of the uncomfortable wall-mounted benches that lined the cabin's walls, but none of the quartet sat. Or, you know, had even moved, really... Imperium discipline, maybe. Pretty creepy. She wondered if some of the bright-eyed, talkative cadets that had befriended Dana and Penny would end up that ramrod someday. [color=ec008c]"What about you guys? Any special requests? Wanna see me hit a dance?"[/color] she asked one, trying to see if she could make them move a muscle. Ciara's shoulders shook, a knowing Cheshire grin along her face. [color=a187be]"I'll give it to you, Nicole. That's certainly a better moonwalk than mine is. Hmmmm..."[/color] she made a slight show of pursing her lips in thought, one finger to her cheek. [color=a187be]"Here's good."[/color] She banged twice upon the side of the transport, [i]hard.[/i] Hard enough that it seemed like the craft had shaken with the force of her blow, and Nicole had to shift her feet to steady herself, but after a moment she realized the cause of her leftward lurch. The craft had stopped. [color=ec008c]"Ma'am?"[/color] Ciara Gallagher stood. [color=a187be]"Just one more test before we celebrate, Nicole,"[/color] the veteran Wing of Justice instructed as she swung an arm behind her head, cracked it, rubbed her shoulder, repeated. A preparatory movement disguised as lazy ambulation. [color=a187be]"I've been instructed to oversee your field leadership exam."[/color] Nicole couldn't have been more floored if she was told she was the secret love child of Demonetta. She blinked at Ciara - this ridiculously hot, legendary Ars Magi, the kind of superstar that girls around the world aspired to be - and laughed in her face. [color=ec008c]"Ummm, field leadership...okay."[/color] Nicole laughed. It was hollow even to her own ears, bemused and a little anxious. [color=ec008c]"Do all the girls get that? No one mentioned it to me..."[/color] [color=a187be]"Mmm, no."[/color] The catlike amusement hadn't left Ciara's scarlet eyes, empty but for her unsettling sense of humor at this whole situation, but her full lips had tightened up into a stern line, only barely curled at an edge. [color=a187be]"How many leaders do most things normally get?"[/color] She raised that same single finger and laid it against her cheek again. [color=a187be]"This one is allllll about you. Congratulations."[/color] [color=ec008c]"Ummm, thanks, but--"[/color] [color=a187be]"Why? Because you're such a [i]regular girl[/i]?"[/color] Ciara seemed to have anticipated this hesitation, and her own tone brooked no room for it. [color=a187be]"I'm a very busy woman, Nicole. I don't always have time to come back to Nova Lux and help oversee these exams. But the faculty and administration seem to think they have something very special on their hands with you, Nicole, and in the time we've spent together this evening I can understand why. Not every girl who comes through this academy has the head for the power they wield, but you certainly do. You're charismatic, resourceful, talented, [i]fun.[/i] You definitely [i]do[/i] have a killer moonwalk. But if you're going to be the kind of Ars Magi they want you to be, you're going to need to embrace who you are inside. Not the [i]'regular girl.'[/i]"[/color] Nicole blinked. [color=ec008c][i]And who is that?[/i] [/color]she wanted to ask. It was the question Ciara was daring her to ask. But if she admitted she didn't know, it would only lead to a real reprimand - and the truth was, she did know. She'd known it from the first moment her power had turned on. [color=a187be]"But..."[/color] she hesitated again. [color=ec008c]"Vanna is--"[/color] [color=a187be]"--a talented Ars Magi and a young woman from a helluva bloodline. In battle, do you follow her? Do they? Does she use her name to overrule your orders?"[/color] [color=ec008c]"What?"[/color] The question honestly made Nicole a little defensive. [color=ec008c][i]Vanna would never do that.[/i] "No. Never."[/color] Ciara shrugged her other shoulder languidly. The four guards were doing an incredible job of acting like there was no conversation going on at all. Their muted armor, black ceramic with none of the Imperium's neomilitarist flair, didn't even move with their breathing. What was their [i]deal?[/i] [color=a187be]"I can understand the thought making you nervous. Four other girls put their lives in your hands, every day. And from what I've read of your training exercises thus far, [i]in[/i] the field, you take that responsibility very seriously. But as soon as the fighting is done and the school uniforms go back on, there you are again - 'just a regular girl.' Do you think I stopped commanding my girls just because there weren't Void trying to kill us?" [/color]Ciara grinned ruefully. [color=a187be]"If that were the case, none of us would have survived Nova Lux - and not because of any monsters other than the ones who shared our dorms. My team was nowhere near the group of friends yours was, Nicole. There were always fights. Fights over missions, fights over boys, fights over girls. Fights over nothing at all. One of my girls took a member of the Duodecim as her lover before she'd even graduated. Another descended from a crime family in Hasta, probably not far from where you grew up. My best friend was a light elemental who honestly believed she was a lizard. That was the secret of the famous Nova Lux Valkyries. We were fucking delusional. A group of wrecks and morons. And every day it was something new, some new test. Some of them went well. Some of them went horribly. You know the one outcome we never, ever had?"[/color] Nicole had been stuck on the 'one of the girls thought she was a lizard' thing for a few seconds, but enough of what followed had filtered in that she gave a numb, assenting head movement. Her brain wouldn't have processed the answer. Her single word response came from her soul. [color=ec008c]"Regular."[/color] [color=a187be]"Regular,"[/color] Ciara Gallagher purred softly. [color=a187be]"Because no Ars Magi is [i]regular[/i]. Not just because they're a lizard girl or a Mafia princess, not because she's a girl who thinks she's in an anime, and not even the slut next door. And especially not [i]me[/i]. Because I was the girl who was [i][b]born[/b][/i] to lead them. You are, too. Let me prove it to you."[/color] Behind her, the cargo bay door hissed open. The wind began to roar through the cabin; normally its bellows and howls were a source of comfort to Nicole, even during the storms that seemed to rock Palmyra endlessly, but now the weather made her apprehensive. Its very presence in the cabin seemed to be darkening it, nibbling at the edges of her vision like hungry rats, swarming her healthy eyes with cataracts, parasites-- In the growing darkness, Ciara's smile cut like a knife, and Nicole had a feeling she knew what her [i]field leadership[/i] exam was about to entail. The next feeling she had was of a hand, patting her on her ass, and two fingers moonwalking up the skin of her back. She was almost completely blind now. Nicole felt her hairs stand on end, from the feeling of blindness, from the Ars Magi's touch, from the far-too-suggestive way that Ciara Gallagher's command slithered into her ear. [center][sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKV6XpZaYY]"Show me how a Hastan leads."[/url][/sub][/center] Those two fingers shoved Nicole from the aircraft with the force of shotgun barrels. She felt a lurch in her stomach as the wind ripped the darkness from her eyes, giving her a panoramic view of the buildings of Palmyra, a city that resembled a lumpy mattress, haphazardly made with blankets and sheets of rain and wind. A [i]regular girl[/i] would have become a stain on that mattress fast. Nicole's eyes, stinging from velocity and rain, fixed on a safe point on the ground. [color=ec008c][i]The wind is on my back. May my sword cut like my smile. "Vi faccio vedere come lotte un Hastano."[/i][/color] The words, and the feeling of transformation, had always given her comfort before. Now they were an air raid siren in her head, screaming of danger beyond a simple fall. There was evil at her back. As she decelerated and began sustaining herself in flight, Nicole rolled over in the air, staring up in the direction of the airship-- --and watched as one, two, three, four suicidal escorts whizzed past her in formation. She [i][b]very much[/b][/i] doubted they would be transforming on her mark. [color=ec008c][i]What the fuck--[/i][/color] Then came a violet flash, a wicked star in Palmyra's clear night sky, as Ciara Gallagher transformed too. Nicole watched as the Ars Magi grew from a dot to a silhouette; her flight was controlled, as Nicole's was, with two pitch black wings of Darkness elementum sprung from her back. If she danced as well as she was gliding through the storm, Nicole could believe that she really [i]did[/i] have a killer moonwalk. An inane thought to have as four guys below her were falling to their fucking deaths. What was her problem? [color=ec008c][i]How many of them are like this by the time they graduate?[/i][/color] She thought for a second of Astrelle. [color=ec008c][i]It doesn't matter. It won't happen to me. Me, or my girls. We didn't sign up so dudes could jump out of planes to prove some point about responsibility. We signed up to kiss dudes. Kiss dudes, babes, and save the world. And everyone in it.[/i][/color] Ciara remained at a distance from Nicole, who served as a barrier between her and her quartet of bodyguards. She was just observing, not interfering. The redheaded Hastan spun back around in disgust and kicked her feet through the air once, like a swimmer, to close some distance between herself and the falling soldiers. She outstretched a hand and harnessed the wind to keep them in a makeshift diamond formation, controlled, and clear of the imminent high-rises they were bound to drift into and smear against without her help. For five, ten seconds, everything seemed normal enough. Then the first shadow bolt flew over her shoulder. [i]What the [b]fuck?[/b][/i] What was she playing at? They had sparred and run through elementa training for six hours, what was she playing at sparking another duel now? It was taking everything she had to keep her team in one piece, let alone focus on-- -- --the mission. It was a cruel way to hammer the point home, but suddenly, Nicole got it. This was no different from plucking Astrelle from the air, or helping Penny topple a mech. There was nothing special about this circumstance from a hundred others she would face in her life. There would always be a Ciara. An obstacle. And there would always be a team. She had to take it all in, accept the unfairness, the strain... ...and do the damn thing regardless. The second shadow bolt flew over her shoulder, six seconds after the first. At the very least, Ciara wasn't attempting to outright paste any of her own men, so bare minimum for human decency there, Nicole mused. What she was trying to do instead was break the diamond formation, make one stray away from the pack, and force Nicole to chase after him at the expense of the others. She hoped that meant she wouldn't have to concentrate on outright dodging, although she had a feeling Ciara's shots would start lancing closer and closer towards her as they neared the ground. She needed a way to relieve the pressure until that happened. The third shadow bolt flew over her shoulder, four seconds after the second. The fourth came three seconds after the third. Out of frustration, the wind lashed out at Ciara Gallagher, causing her wing constructs to beat a little harder to remain steady. The fifth shadow bolt came seven seconds after the fourth, and Nicole knew what she could do to win. She tried to call out a head's up to the soldiers, but the wind ripped the words from her throat. She had no idea if it would carry them for her or not. They probably wouldn't give a crap if they did. They fell like bricks from a crumbling building, one among hundreds in the MEZ, hands still linked in military precision. There was something, something that wasn't clicking in the clusterfuck of sudden variables... All she knew for certain was that she could do it. The sixth shadow bolt came five seconds after the fifth. Ciara was recovering. [color=ec008c][i]I can fix that.[/i][/color] Nicole changed direction, shooting towards the legendary Wing of Justice like a bullet. Despite her speed, the world felt slowed to a crawl by her adrenal gland - slow enough that she could see Ciara blink in confusion, see the bemused laugh come to her lips. Then Nicole shot past her, and the Valkyrie's face was gone. Ciara turned, and saw Vedfolnir shimmer in Nicole's outstretched hand. It swung downwards, a tool of righteousness, cleaving through the twin shadows and shaving against Ciara's shoulder blades. Small pinpricks of pale and scarlet appeared in the rips Nicole had made in her top's fabric. Ciara's descent, momentarily, became uncontrolled. Nicole shot past her again, to the freefalling soldiers. The seventh shadow bolt, and the last, was erratic. Ciara had to focus her elementa into a new pair of wings, to avoid becoming the paste she'd almost made out of her escorts. By then, Nicole had reached them again, scooping them up in a forceful wind and ramping them to the ground. It wouldn't be the same gentle landing she would try to secure for Dana or Cordy, maybe, but all four were on the ground by the time Ciara Gallagher touched down. Nicole touched down last; Ciara had already stepped over to inspect the unmoving tangle of ceramic-clad limbs. It was then that Nicole realized the trick, a second before Ciara, giggling to herself, scooped a helmet away from a 'soldier's' body and tossed it into Nicole's arms. It bounced from her chest into her hands, and she stared through its murdered-out visor - to stare deep into the empty, painted eyes of the mannequin within. Of course. Victoria hadn't needed an escort during their initial trip on the [i]Laurus[/i]. Why would Ciara? [color=ec008c]"No one was in any danger," [/color]Nicole said, in a tone both relieved and uncharacteristically irritated. In the weeks to come, when she looked back on this exam day, she would be able to acknowledge that all the work she had put into preparing for exams had been harder than the day itself. But right now she felt like she could sleep for a week. And like she would never fantasize about an older woman again. [color=a187be]"Well, I was, for a second there,"[/color] Ciara winked. [color=a187be]"Neat thinking. I wouldn't have expected that from you, with your file. No wonder the Mars family wants to draft you right out of school."[/color] Nicole wasn't in the mood to take that as praise, and she definitely wasn't about to discuss Aiya with a woman who thought this kind of thing was what made for constructive life lessons. [color=ec008c]"That's not the kind of Ars Magi I want to be. I want to be--"[/color] [color=a187be]"Alexis? Altea?" [/color]Ciara asked softly. For the first time, there was no putting on a sultry act or playing up her ditzines. She was acting her age - late twenties, with the lived experience of twice that and more than her share of horrors. [color=a187be]"We did too."[/color] There was silence after that for a moment. Nicole, Ciara, and four mannequins all slumped with equal lifelessness. [color=a187be]"You still want dinner?" [/color]Ciara finally asked. [color=ec008c][i]No,[/i][/color] Nicole wanted to grumble, before her stomach grumbled for her. [color=ec008c]"Yeah."[/color] But the meal was more of a blur than a celebration, and that night Nicole took her shower with no fuss, no tablet playing retro anime for her to recite to, and no platonic cuddling with Cordelia. And though the rumors of her successful (with commendation for dynamic thinking, in Ciara Gallagher's own words) field leadership exam flew through the school, growing more embellished with each cadet's retelling over the next few days, Nicole spent those days mostly keeping to herself, wandering around the common room with a cup of coffee and her earbuds in to deter small talk. And despite the constant presence of music in her ears, it was days before any of Nicole's friends would see her start moonwalking again.