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Chapter Text

The little brunette girl was sitting in the middle of the stands, surrounded by all kinds of people – even if most of them weren’t human. The cheering or booing was almost deafening, and the smell of weird and exotic foods overpowered her nostrils. She excitedly looked up at the massive screen floating in the air – well, that was not an accurate description, since this planet lacked such a thing. The little girl didn’t know what it was this planet had in its stead.

She couldn’t see it thanks to the taller beings next to her, but she knew that if she could look around she’d see a collection of giant sand-castles that she didn’t understand how were kept standing, lit by strange glowing stones. Maybe one day she’d get the chance to dig through one of their walls and see what happened. The sky was completely black, the atmosphere of the planet, apparently, had a weird way of reflecting light that didn’t allow the stars to shine during the night.

The screen showed a series of hovering vehicles, each one more interesting than the last, traversing a barren wasteland at high speeds, only their own lights to guide them, with a commentator – barely audible to the girl – shouting with energy and narrating the events onscreen. The current vehicles included a strange water-like long teardrop with what looked like a giant jellyfish inside, a cloud of a smoke-like substance in the shape of a triangle, a slim and completely black fuselage with a couple of sharp-looking wings coming out of the back at an angle, giving the whole thing an arrow-like look and a rocket apparently made of stone with a metallic ring surrounding it, completely disconnected from the main body. None of them had obvious methods of movement, they had no engines.

The pilot the little girl, Akko, was cheering for wasn’t onscreen.

She had trouble remaining still, so she stood on her seat to see the giant screen a little better. Since the race was close to finishing the focus would be only on the first places. She started to grow more anxious with each passing second. The pilots were all tightly fighting for first place. When one managed to get slightly ahead, the barrage of attacks from the other three vehicles kept them from getting away.

Akko perceived something from the corner of her eye. She turned her head a bit to her left – a light had appeared on the horizon, but she could barely see it. She tugged on her father’s clothes next to her. He smiled at her and put her on his shoulders.

The girl tried not to move too much, but she couldn’t help almost throwing her father off balance when she noticed the four lights in the horizon getting closer – they were definitely the racers! They closed in at high speeds. This planet was slightly bigger than earth, so the horizon was slightly further away. Even then, in less than a minute, the four vehicles had closed one third of the distance to the finish line, which was just slightly to the right of Akko, glowing red and with the highest concentration of spectators per square meter in the universe right now, even if one had in mind the completely empty space that was the track itself.

As the girl’s anxiety was reaching critical levels and she started to think she didn’t want to keep looking, something else appeared in the horizon. A fifth light. A big smile appeared on her face as she realized who it was. She strained to hear what the commentator was saying, and she could just make out the words.

[And there she is! The dark horse of the competition, Chariot and her broom: the Shiny Rod! Will she be able to catch up in time?!] The commentator sounded as excited as Akko felt as she saw the beautiful white ship approach at an incredible speed. It was a long and slim ‘Broom-Racer’ – that was the name human ships received – which ended in a point. While it didn’t have wings, it was slightly flattened, which somehow allowed it to fly straight. Seven green spheres, the broom’s weapons, were spaced around the fuselage, covering most angles. Besides the pilot, there would be another member onboard, handling the defense and attack of the ship, though no one knew who the gunner of the Shiny Rod was. The most impressive part, however, was the back: The Magic-Engine of the broom, a golden lambda-looking piece connected to the cockpit which was emitting a powerful pale-green light that danced like fire. The Shiny Rod moved fast, faster than any of the other vehicles, even if Akko didn’t fully understand why.

The other racers had already made half their way to the finish line, but Chariot was fast as lightning. When the other pilots entered the final stretch at three-fourths of the way, marked by the start of the sand-castle city, the Shiny Rod caught up to them. All the firepower now focused on the human ship, but the seven spheres on the fuselage all started to glow at the same time and a strange pale-green force-field appeared to protect it.

Akko felt her grin widening and she started squirming – accidentally hitting her father’s head in the process – with excitement. Her heart started pounding in her chest and she held her breath, trying to blink as little as possible. The five racers moved through the city’s streets so fast that the spectators had to be careful not to fall over from the wind created – wind of something that wasn’t air.

The attacks kept focusing on the Shiny Rod – zaps of electricity from the jellyfish-like creature, bombs of smoke from the cloud, energy beams from the arrow-like ship and strange floating stone spheres that kept banging the shield with energy from the stone ship.

Akko knew the Shiny Rod couldn’t keep up for much longer, they were already at four-fifths of the way to the finish line, but the human ship couldn’t attack while defending and it was going to be impossible to get past the four pilots in front of it.

Unless…

The brunette girl jumped in her father’s shoulders as she saw lines appear on the Shiny Rod. Pale green lines connecting all seven spheres. [Oooh here it is, ladies and gentlebeings!] The commentator exclaimed. Akko looked at the screen to get a better view of what was happening. Then, in a heartbeat, the ship’s front separated, apparently cutting it in half, making a way for the cockpit. [The madwoman is about to do it again!] The firepower got even heavier from all four other contestants, but it was too late. Right as the Rod’s force-field gave up, the cockpit shot out of the main ship so fast that it broke the speed of sound – sound somehow carried through the not-air. [The Shiny Arc!] The commentator cried the name, obviously partial to the human Witch – the name female human pilots received.

Akko shouted in encouragement, her eyes following the cockpit as it flew through the four ships that didn’t have time to react.

It crossed the finish line, passing so fast that Akko saw nothing but a blur of white that crashed to the ground, skidding for a long time before coming to a rest. The crowd had gone silent, they didn’t even pay attention as the other four racers crossed the line. They all looked at the cockpit of the Shiny Rod half buried in the ground, not moving…

Until the emergency exit at the back opened and a pilot in a white, tight anti-g attire came out of it, her red short hair visible through the helmet that allowed her to breathe.

The crowd went wild and Akko with them. She almost fell off the shoulders of her father while he tried to keep up with his excited child. She had never celebrated so loudly. That night her vocal chords got absolutely destroyed, but she didn’t mind. It had been the most exciting moment of her life.

A team of strange of sand-like aliens – originating from the planet they were currently in – who were more like sand-blobs than anything else, quickly approached Chariot and handed her a microphone.

“Never forget,” she started with her catchphrase as she always did. “A believing heart is your magic.”

The cheering continued, but Akko paused, staring in awe at the screen where Chariot’s face was barely visible. That was the moment when she made up her mind.

She was going to become a Witch.

Chapter Text

The classroom was quiet. Morning light slipped through the big tall windows on the side of the room, even if the sun didn’t directly hit on this side of the building.

“This campus is located on top of one of the ley-lines, initially discovered by Alfred Watkins in the second half of the twenty-first century.” The old, gray-haired teacher spoke in a hoarse voice, her lines indistinguishable from the ones in the books the students were using, despite the fact that she didn’t have hers opened. “Ley-lines act as underground pipelines for Magic Energy, which is then extracted by facilities like our own New Moon Tower. The Magic is then stored in the Sorcerer’s Stone Containment Unit, which can in turn re-fuel our Broom Eng-” the teacher was cut off by a weird sound. A snore, to be precise. She narrowed her eyes, looking for the source, even though she already knew which of the anti-g-uniform wearing students was the culprit. With a flick of her wand – a high-tech stick-like remote used to control little magic-fueled devices – she guided her spell to the brunette girl in the middle row of white, pristine seats. “Can be used to fuel our engines and technology.”  

“Akko,” the girl next to the brunette whispered in a futile attempt to wake her friend up. She had orange hair and wore big, round glasses.

The spell, a simple sphere, stopped and hovered above the sleeping brunette’s, who had managed to remain sitting, somehow. Then, a little hook fell from the bottom of it, hooked onto the girl’s hair and pushed her down. She face-planted into the desk and grunted in pain.

“‘Abusing Magic Energy will lead to humanity being destroyed by Magic’, can anyone tell me who said that?” The teacher glared at the now awake girl for a few seconds. In the right row of seats, near the back, a single student raised her hand. Her platinum-blonde and tea-green wavy hair stuck out among all the other students as a presentation card. “Cavendish?”

The blonde girl stood with a serious expression, completely ignoring what had just happened. “T.S. Daniels,” she said in a relatively monotonous voice. “Piloting Eudaemonics,” she finished by citing the source.

“Good,” the teacher said, and the blonde girl sat back down. “It order to properly pilot, you first need to understand its history. Understood, Miss Kagari?” She focused her old eyes on the girl, who hadn’t moved at all.

“Ugh…” Akko said, finally looking up. “Yes ma’am…”

Akko walked to her next class through the white, hospital-like hallways with her nose still hurting slightly from the hit earlier.

The auburn-haired teacher pointed at the screen-blackboard behind her. A complicated equation was showing there, way too complicated for Akko to solve. She started to drift off when she suddenly noticed her sight getting strangely blurry. She blinked a few times before realizing the blur wasn’t her fault, as Sucy had touched her with her wand.

She frowned and looked to her right, where a purple-haired girl sat. “Sucy, what are you doing?” Akko asked trying to make the blurriness go away by rubbing her eyes.

“Just testing,” Sucy said with a smirk. “How’s your eyesight?”

“Barely functional,” Akko grunted, trying to think what kind of potion Sucy had used on her. “Could you turn me back?”

“Good, good…” Sucy nodded to herself. “Don’t worry, it’ll dissipate in an hour or so. Here’s some glasses,” she didn’t even turn to look at Akko as she handed her a couple of simple square glasses.

“I don’t expect you to be able to, but is there anyone who can solve this?” the teacher said. Finnelan, she was called. She had a harsh face and moved with efficiency, quickly examining everyone in the room.

Two girls raised their hands, to the surprise of probably everyone. One of them was Diana Cavendish. The other one, however, was the redhead troublemaker sitting in the front row – not by choice, but because all teachers had forced her to stay there and stay out of trouble. Akko put the glasses on reluctantly and looked, curious.

“Miss O’Neill?” Finnelan said, her voice slightly tainted with curiosity.

“Well, I don’t know about all the equations and stuff, but I’m fairly certain that the ship would leave the atmosphere in ten seconds, right?” Amanda said nonchalantly. Akko believed she was going to be wrong, however, Finnelan slowly nodded.

“That is… Correct. But if you can’t do the calculations it’s useless!” She finished pointing with energy at the screen, Akko instantly losing interest again. The teacher then called Diana to the front, who made all the calculations in just five minutes and came to the same result.

Akko rubbed her eyes. She still felt like everything was blurry even if the effect wasn’t on. Damn Sucy and her potions obsession. Still, it was now lunch, so it’s not like she needed to read anything. The cafeteria, a big dome of pure glass with white marble floors, where all kinds of students and pilots mingled – Luna Nova wasn’t just a pilots academy, it had also a pro racing-team – was amazing. She looked at the pro-team’s table.

About half of that team was made up of Akko’s teachers. She had been excited to meet them, but when they turned out to be boring old ladies, well…

“I don’t get how anyone can get through those boring classes,” she said. She wasn’t really talking to her teammates, but they still looked at her with inquiry. “Isn’t flying supposed to be about daring competitions and believing in yourself? This isn’t anything like I imagined, I can’t believe Chariot learned to fly here,” she finished by putting some food into her mouth.

Behind her, a student stopped. Her tight and purple anti-g suit, the Academy’s uniform, highlighted her curves and well proportioned body, the monotony of the color only broken by the light-blue markings around the golden zipper in the front. “You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who respects Chariot’s piloting skills,” a calm and collected voice came from the student. Akko – still chewing – turned to see the blonde girl that had passed to the front earlier that day. “Particularly at this academy, Akko,” she finished as her two teammates arrived, staying a few paces behind her as usual.

“Oh, hey Diana,” Akko said without enthusiasm, sighing. She wasn’t fond of the stuck-up perfect girl. “What do you mean?”

“You won’t find any decent pilot who knows their trade that holds Chariot’s flying in high regard,” Diana said, drawing some looks of curiosity from the tables around them. “It would be best for you to remember that.”

Akko frowned. Both of her teammates leaned back a little, aware of how insulting Chariot tended to affect Akko’s feelings. “That’s not true! Chariot’s races were always broadcasted to everywhere in the world and everyone watched them!” She wasn’t lying, statistics had been shown, near sixty percent of the global population watched Chariot’s races. And Akko was sure that forty percent was made up of old farts who didn’t like new things and kids who didn’t understand Chariot’s awesomeness. Maybe politicians too, those didn’t like anything, ever.

“While I admit Chariot had a short but vivid period of popularity, her gaudy and reckless flying style left no lasting impression on society,” Diana raised slightly her face, making it seem like she was really looking down on Akko. “It’s been almost ten years since she dropped from the Inter-Planetary race, when she was just one race away from victory too. No one cared enough to look at what happened to her,” She turned her face away, one of her hands moving in a dismissive gesture. Her tone bothered Akko, a lot, so she stood and stared Diana in the eyes.

“Chariot gave me a dream!” She exclaimed. The conversations around them quieted a little. Hands stopped moving as other people sitting in the small square tables of the cafeteria directed their views towards Akko and Diana. “I’m going to become the best Witch in the whole world and make people’s hearts race when they see me flying!” Determination appeared to emanate from every pore in her skin. Diana raised an eyebrow, finding the outburst curious.

“The best Witch, huh?” Her tone changed a little, implying something that Akko didn’t understand. “We’ll see about that,” she turned away, followed by her to teammates, who were giving Akko funny looks. Mocking looks.

Reluctantly, Akko sat back down. Her teammates considered best no to speak to her right now – and, given the mood Akko found herself in, she didn’t notice the lack of chatter between them.

Without giving up on the angry expression, Akko went back to eating.

After lunch that same day, Akko found out they were going to be simulating how to fly.

“Flight simulator?” Akko whispered to Lotte. “I didn’t know we were going to get to this so soon!”

Lotte smiled in a mixture of pity and resignation. She avoided mentioning to Akko that two of the classes they’d had during the two weeks they’d been at school had been all about how to handle the simulator. “Well, it’s good to get students used to the standard controls of a broom,” she explained. “Though most of us have already been to a couple of those during our lives. Some even have real flying experience,” she looked towards Diana, making Akko instantly get a lot more serious. Diana was being called a prodigy and the Witch of the century, but she was only sixteen, so Akko had always assumed it was only because of her theoretical knowledge and some simulations.

The simulator room was big, but simple. The door stood behind the group of students, all of whom could stand around comfortably within its simple, empty white walls. Given the fact that this room was in the middle of the building, it had no windows, getting its air through a ventilation system. In front of the students, in the wall opposite to the door, a series of different machines covered the entire thing with blinking lights and cables. And, in the center of the wall stood a mock cockpit, smaller than real ones but bigger than Akko had expected, being taller than her and about two bodies in length.

“But, wait, I thought you were here to be a Spirit researcher,” Akko looked at Lotte. Spirits, that’s what advanced A.I. was called.

“It can simulate a lot of scenarios, Akko,” Sucy butted into the conversation. “We call it Flight Simulator for simplicity’s sake,” her explanation only answered half of Akko’s questions, but she had already heard some giggles around her and instinctively knew they were directed at her, so she just frowned and decided not to show more of her ignorance. She’d learn how it went as she watched.

After a few minutes of waiting, the quiet chatter of the students had grown into full fledged conversations that were hushed when Miss Nelson, one of the best Witches in the academy, stepped out of the mock cockpit wearing her anti-g suit paired with a really old aviator’s hat and pair of goggles.

“Listen up!” she said, and suddenly everyone stood a little straighter. The teacher had a military hint in her voice, which made students pay more attention to her. “This will be your first time using the school’s simulator and I bet it’s going to be a little more complex than what most of you are used to! The point of the lesson is for you to get used to more complex controls or systems! Don’t get nervous, it’s not a real broom, and don’t get cocky either,” she said that last part looking at Amanda, the tall redhead. She wasn’t really the tallest around, but she seemed to tower over others with her self-confidence. Akko tried not to feel too self-conscious about the different in physiques, comparing her simple body to Amanda’s slim and curvy one. And even then she still didn’t compare to Diana, but Akko would never admit that out loud.

“We’re going in alphabetical order, got it? Now…” The teacher called for the first student – Apparently, they were going by first-name. Akko gulped, that meant she was going to be between the first ones to test it. The student called stepped forward and entered the mock cockpit through the backdoor, which was usually the emergency exit, the normal one being the very windshield of the cockpit being able to open.

The ceiling suddenly opened a slit, from where a screen came down, floating. It looked like a normal piece of glass, except for the four metallic tips – which would hold the light-projection means of it. The screen lit up, showing a girl inside the cockpit, which looked bigger on the inside than it really was. The back was mostly empty, but one of the walls could be opened up to let down a bed. This kind of broom was not a racer type, to Akko’s disappointment. In the front stood the piloting controls, with the standard two-joystick configuration and a bunch of buttons, small levers and switches that Akko had no idea what were for.

The girl didn’t go to the seat, instead opening one of the lockers in the side opposite to the bed and taking out a small toolbox. She was a mechanic, apparently.

Akko’s mind started to drift away as the simulation started, apparently testing the student on her ability to fix something under pressure. Akko didn’t understand any of the words being said by Miss Nelson as she explained what she needed to do at any point in time, so she tried focusing on how she was going to fly.

She had a basic understanding on how the controls worked, gained through videogames. She hoped those special controllers she had bought proved to be useful, because if not then she was going to complain to the companies that had made them in a very angry e-mail.

The girl didn’t appear to be doing very good. She didn’t speak while working, but her hands moved around a lot without doing much and she constantly dropped her tools when any kind of loud noise sounded. After a while, the simulation finished, and when she stepped out of the cockpit she looked defeated.

Akko started to wonder what the exercise for Witches would be.

The next student was a spirit researcher, like Lotte. Her test consisted on trying to calm down a failed A.I. that had gone mad without shutting it down. Akko wondered how one would go about that, if the spirit was already mad, then talking to it wouldn’t really help, would it? She was wrong, apparently, because after a few minutes the girl inside the cockpit came out with a satisfied smile crossing her face.

Akko perked up at the announcement of the next in line, looking away from where she was trying to keep Sucy from using another one of her potions – small capsules of Magic Energy, focused on producing effects on the world around them – on her.

Amanda stepped forward, ignoring the warning look Miss Nelson was giving her and slipped into the cockpit with an ease the other girls hadn’t had. Through the screen Akko saw how Amanda didn’t hesitate to sit down and take the controls. The piloting chair was a low one, in which feet were given plenty space to move. The feet were used for the regulation of speeds and breaks – though, there wasn’t really a ‘break’ on a broom: Only reversible engines that allowed you to slow down. Basically, a reverse gear. This was because many brooms were used for space travel, where having air-breaks – like the earlier models of brooms had – wasn’t really useful.

In front of Amanda, the screen that had so far remained black turned on, simulating the view of a long, vast plain with nothing in sight but tall green grass and spotless blue skies. The simulation started and Amanda instantly pressed a couple buttons and switches and took off, not bothering to wait for the teacher’s signal. “O’Neill, what do you think you’re doing? You don’t even know where you have to go!” As Miss Nelson tried to quickly explain the goal of the simulation, Amanda completely ignored her guidelines and did a barrel roll.

“This thing is too heavy!” She cried as the ship barely managed to stay on the air. Then, it started to gain speed, but after a few seconds Amanda snorted. “And what am I flying on? A turtle?!”

“This is a simple practice, O’Neill!” The teacher explained with exasperation. “Broom-Racing practice doesn’t start until your special course in second year!”

“What?!” The redhead turned to look at where the camera was placed, flying in the simulation without even looking at it. “But I don’t want to do this boring stuff!”

“Then don’t,” Miss Nelson said it with a serious tone, far more serious than the one she’d been using this far, and grabbed her wand, which, like everyone, she kept hooked in a special place in the uniforms made just for that purpose at the hip. She flicked it, and the simulation instantly stopped. “And, you’re banned from any kind of flying until I say so!”

“Well, whatever,” Amanda stood and burst out of the cockpit with a ‘whatever’ face, matching her words. “Not that I’d want to fly this boring thing anyways.”

Nelson just shook her head, looking at her list again. Another girl went in, this time it was a gunman. The entire interior of the cockpit changed, the panels of control flipping and the joysticks diving into the ground and turning into… another pair of joysticks, though these ones looked more rigid and thick.

The test this time consisted on the ship moving around and the girl having to shoot at the targets, nothing fancy. Akko watched with some semblance of curiosity, since up to this day she still considered the gunman of the Shiny Rod the best one in the whole world. But, well, there was no way to compare, since the Shiny Rod had had one of the most unique fighting systems in history. No other broom could compare to it and the creative ways it had found to use Magic Energy.

Mostly because it had been lost along with Chariot, and no one had gotten the chance to study it.

Akko had been so lost in thought that, when her name was called, she had to be pushed forward by Lotte before she reacted.

She heard some snickering and snapped her head backwards, seeing the girls at the source. They weren’t trying to be subtle. Hannah and Barbara, Diana’s teammates. As usual, they stood just a few paces around their tall, perfect-looking leader. So perfect that it pissed Akko off. She stuck her tongue out at them and then turned again, walking determinedly towards the cockpit. She reached forth, grabbing the opening mechanism – a circle in the middle with a handle, when the handle was pulled or pushed the door would release the pressure that kept it closed and allowed it to open – and pulling.  She entered the space, which now looked smaller than it had onscreen, and walked a few steps forward, sitting down on the seat. This was her first time actually sitting in one of these, even if it was a fake. Her determination from before started to falter as the sight of all the buttons in front of her overwhelmed her. She stretched her feet, the pedals finding their way towards them and positioning themselves in a comfortable position for Akko.

“Miss Kagari, I get it this is your first time doing something like this?” Miss Nelson asked. Akko felt a rush of relief from the voice, at least she wouldn’t have to figure stuff out on her own.

“Yes,” Akko said, and she heard some more snickering through the communicator.

“Well then, be careful, but remember what you were taught in class and everything should be fine,” the teacher said, and Akko pressed her lips. She hadn’t really been paying attention to most classes. “You only have to go from point A to point B, as shown in the radar.”

Akko desperately looked around for the radar before realizing she probably needed to wait until the screen showed her something to see it, since that’s where normal radars would be – hopefully. In front of her appeared, then, the same grass field Amanda had used, and she felt her heart drop when she didn’t see the radar anywhere on the screen.

She started cautiously looking at the buttons again. A green one to her left, slightly larger than others, had a circle and a cross on it. It could be the aim of a sniper, or...

After pressing it, a pale-green holographic radar appeared in front of Akko, high enough that she didn’t need to look down but low enough that it wasn’t in the way. Akko assumed she was the small yellow arrow, and that she needed to get to the red point at the edge of the circle. “Ok, miss Kagari, you may start.”

Akko’s first instinct was to reach for a pedal with her feet. There were four of them: The one in the far left was the instant reverse pedal, the middle left was gear down, the middle right was gear up – more commonly called accelerator - and the far right was the magic burst. Well, that last one probably wasn’t called magic burst, but that’s how Akko had grown up calling it. There was a button on the joysticks themselves to turn off the engines entirely, but in space that wouldn’t do much to stop a ship from moving. So, Akko pressed the gear up and the ship started moving, the mock cockpit somehow simulating the movement and giving it a realistic feeling.

“Kagari, what are you doing?!” Miss Nelson instantly yelled. “You didn’t start hovering, you didn’t retract your wheels, you didn’t check to see if all systems were running!”

The brunette, upon hearing this, panicked. She looked around the countless buttons and switches and levers for any semblance of knowledge as to what any of them did. After a few seconds she found the drawing of a wheel next to a switch to her right, pressing it. The wheels retracted, and the ship started to grind against the little segment of concrete that was meant for take-off, the cockpit vibrating and emulating it in such a realistic way that for a second Akko worried about breaking the broom. Akko heard some gasps and snickering from the communicator as Miss Nelson yelled at her for retracting the wheels before she started to hover. The grass upfront was starting to get really close, and panicking, Akko pressed the first switch that she considered might be for hovering, since it had the little drawing of a couple of lines that, in her mind, could be a reference to that.

Instead, the heat turned on. Snickering turned to full blown laughter as Akko started to press every button, switch and pull on any lever that might be related to the task at hand. She hit the line of grass, continuing to move across the field without seeing where she was going.

After turning on the radio, flushing the non-existent toilet of the cockpit, making her seat start to vibrate and turning on the air-conditioner, she finally found the green button to her left that activated the hovering. In her defense, the drawing, a simple square with two wavy lines below it, had looked like a dog in her first sweeping views of the controls.

Not that it mattered now. The simulated broom finally started to hover, and now Akko could simply push on the joysticks and...

As soon as she did, the nose of her broom crashed into the ground, making Akko stumble forward and fall off her seat, and the entire thing stopped in its tracks.

“What!” Akko cried. “Inverted movement?!”

“It’s the standard movement, Miss Kagari,” the teacher said in a low, resigned voice, and the screen in front of Akko turned off. “Get out of the cockpit.”

Akko sat there in the floor for a few seconds, trying not to punch the screen in frustration. Whenever she’d play a videogame she’d turn off the inverted movement. She hadn’t known that was the standard one! She stood and exited the mock cockpit, trying not to look too embarrassed, and probably failing. Still, she looked angrily at all those who were staring at her with smirks or chuckling.

“Miss Kagari,” Miss Nelson said.

“Yeah?”

“You too are banned from any kind of flying until I say so. Is that clear?”

“…yeah” Akko said in a weak voice, not able to meet her teacher’s eyes.

“I believe you understand why,” Miss Nelson’s voice was softer this time. Akko still didn’t meet her eyes, but she nodded. “Ok, next one is…!” she called the next student, but Akko was no longer paying attention.

“It’s fine, Akko,” Lotte tried to encourage her as she went back to their group. It didn’t really help, at all. “Everyone has a rough start,” she softly patted Akko’s arm in a comforting way, which Akko appreciated.

“Though I bet not everyone buries their broom in the ground as soon as they get it in the air,” Sucy poked fun, earning her a glare and open mouth as she was beginning to complain. However, she got interrupted by someone else.

“I mean, you got my heart racing with your flying,” Hannah’s voice said from behind her. “I was laughing so hard…”

“That has to be the worst first try I’ve seen in my entire life!” Barbara also appeared, and both girls started an overdone synchronized laughter.

Akko’s face grew red with both anger and shame. “Well I’ll…”

A sudden alarm noise distracted her, and she looked up at the screen, where the next girl in line was desperately trying to fix something under the control panels. Akko cringed, who would be able to concentrate under that kind of noise? Not that she was able to do so in normal circumstances anyways.

She had gotten so distracted that she didn’t notice when the two bullies walked away, bored now that Akko wasn’t paying attention to them anymore.

“Don’t let them get to you, Akko,” Amanda appeared out of nowhere. “You don’t need that stupid simulator anyways,” they weren’t friends per-se, but they had found some camaraderie on them both being labeled as troublemakers the first week at school. Behind the redhead, her two teammates appeared. The tiny Constanze and the chubby Jasminka stared at her with indifferent expressions. Constanze had a wand on her hand – though, strangely, her wand appeared to be a little thicker than normal ones. Jasminka, on the other hand, was eating some snacks.

Akko nodded, but was now paying closer attention to the other’s troubles.

The next familiar face came in the form of Barbara, who was a system engineer. Akko cocked her head, how many specializations were there in this school? She hadn’t really checked, she knew the first year was for basic understanding and that from the second year onwards everyone would get to their specialization of choice. For one simulator to be able to generate so many different scenarios… It was baffling.

Barbara didn’t appear to be affected at all by the pressure. She connected a little keyboard to one of the ports in the controls and started to work without rush. She finished her task in a couple minutes and stood out of the Cockpit with a satisfied smile that made Akko move her jaw in annoyance, particularly when the black-haired girl shot a look at her and winked.

After that, Constanze breezed past her own test, though Miss Nelson said that she shouldn’t take advantage of the simplicity of the simulation to add things to the design. And after another couple of students, all voices started to quiet down.

“Diana Cavendish,” the teacher called. Diana, with her beautiful wavy hair, drew the attention of everyone, Akko included. There was elegance in her stride and confidence in her eyes as she opened the mock cockpit and settled into the seat.

The entire class appeared to be focusing only on her, and Akko’s curiosity kept growing. What could Diana do that was so amazing? Why would everyone just stare at her, creating this weird atmosphere?

When the simulation started, Diana carefully pressed a couple of buttons and switches before she started hovering and retracted the wheels. Unlike Amanda’s swift but overly excited movements, she did them all with a sense of… Composure that Akko envied.

Then, Diana started to move backwards and to the left. On the side of the screen the goal was shown, and where other students had started moving forward and steering, Diana just took advantage of the mobility of the broom and hovered straight in the direction of the red point. However, after just a few seconds, she moved her feet quickly and moved her hands, and the ship turned about a hundred and fifty degrees and then started moving forward, not ever losing the previous trajectory.

It wasn’t flashy or awe-inspiring, but Akko understood that what Diana had done wasn’t normal. It was a simple task to perform: Go from point A to point B. Yet Diana had still managed to show the absolute difference in ability between herself and the others.

“She’s not called the best witch to ever set foot on Luna Nova for nothing,” Hannah said from somewhere, and even if she wasn’t speaking to Akko, it still felt like a personal attack.

Akko was between jealousy and bafflement when Diana finally came out, and Akko realized her mouth was slightly opened in surprise, closing it instantly. Miss Nelson then moved on to the next student.

Or, she tried to, because before she could even call the name, the screen showing the inside of the cockpit changed. It turned blue. For a second Akko feared it had suffered a BSOD. It hadn’t, for after a few seconds of waiting, Headmistress Holbrooke appeared, wearing her older-than-the-sun piloting attire – a thick anti-g suit that didn’t fit her all that well anymore – and a really old witch hat. Witch hat as in fairy-tale witch hat, not the standard helmet that was nowadays called that.

Her normally happy and easy-going face was now serious and intense.

“It’s here!” Someone exclaimed, and Akko cocked her head. What was here? She looked around, and saw excitement in the eyes of everyone, including Amanda, weirdly enough. The only girl in the room who didn’t appear fazed was Diana, who looked with her usual demeanor at the Headmistress. Or, maybe, that’s what she wanted everyone to think. Akko noticed the slightest of smiles on her face.

So this was something serious, then?

Holbrooke spoke and suddenly it all made sense. “The next Inter-Planetary Race has been officially announced. All students, teachers and school staff are to be congregated in the auditorium as soon as possible,” she said in a really serious voice.

Akko, now understanding what the apparent excitement was about, smiled.

Chapter Text

The Inter-Planetary Race, easily the most important sports event since earth established contact with aliens. No one knew exactly how it started, but Akko’s knowledge of the event was something like this: A human wizard and a couple of pilots from other races started discussing which planet had the best pilots. It wasn’t long before they had organized their own little race, which was won by a Shapeshifter – aliens whose smoke-like physiology allowed them, back in the day, to have superior means of flying to the other races.

This little event turned into a not so little one when the next one occurred, and after a few decades, the whole ordeal had grown to be the Planetary Alliance’s biggest event. So important that it happened once a decade.

The best pilots of the universe – or at least the explored universe – would come together to prove which race had the superior speed, strength… and other things Akko had forgotten about.

Chariot had been the first human to almost win – she had appeared out of nowhere in the Earth’s qualifiers, and by the fifth race – out of ten - of the main event she was already first on the competition. Akko had gone to see her seventh race live, right before chariot disappeared at the ninth one.

A new Inter-Planetary Race was a motive for excitement and celebration, particularly in a school like Luna Nova Academy, and that was obvious by the energetic chatter of everyone – hundreds – in the auditorium, an enormous, also completely white room, except for the metallic stage at the end of the room with a dais in it. Tall but thin windows lined the walls, almost mimicking pillars.

Chatter that slowly went down as Headmistress Holbrooke stepped onto the dais.

“Yes, yes,” her kind tone had come back to her voice, but her face was still worried. “It is a great day indeed, the Inter-Planetary Race is a big event and we all love it,” Akko felt like there was something strange with her voice. “However, we have an announcement to make.”

There was already silence in the room, but the way Holbrooke had said that made all possible noise stop. Suddenly, the entire room started to feel eerie. Why the seriousness? Why the worry?

Why was a screen raising behind her?

“I’m sure we all know what the rules of the race can be,” she started, as the screen showed a simple graphic of the different stages of the competition, from qualifiers to finals. Normally, each planet would hold their own tournament to determine who was worthy of being the representative before the actual Inter-Planetary Race started, and then the big race cycled through five different sets of rules every time. Akko only knew one of the five sets of rules, since all she cared about was Chariot. “So I’ll skip the explanation. However, this time earth is doing things a little… Differently,” she offered that last word with a hint of anger.

The screen changed as she flicked her wand – Magic had a weird way of reacting to movement, so controlling a wand was pretty hard and something Akko found troublesome – to show a simple… List of students? Everyone had a zero next to them, too.

“This is the ranking of every pilot – student or not,” she paused for a second, taking an angry breath. “And it will only be up for a week. The IPR this time and for some reason is happening just ten days from now, instead of the usual month, so there’s no time to prepare an actual tournament… Or that’s what they say anyways,” she added in a mumble. “Still, you heard correctly: Students are also allowed to participate this time,” she looked over the ranks of teenagers standing in front of her and Akko thought she saw pity in her eyes. “Though you shouldn’t be too hopeful, please remember that you’re just children and that pros are participating in the rankings too.”

The eerie silence in the auditorium had transformed into potential cries of excitement, and Akko herself felt the excitement this produced. Nobody questioned the strange decision, nobody wanted to question it. A chance to participate in the Inter-Planetary Race while only being students? What an amazing opportunity!

“The two best Witches or Wizards of the ranking will also be earth’s pilots, and they will in turn have the right to select their substitutes, gunman and substitute gunman. Now, I know we’re all… Excited,” Holbrooke sure didn’t sound like it. “But keep calm. If you want to take the test, the inscriptions are open in reception. Students will have to ask their parents and Miss Nelson for approval, too.” She stepped out of the dais. “This is it for now, have a good day and return to your classes.”

As soon as she disappeared, the building excitement exploded, and a hundred energetic conversations started at once.

“No, and no,” Miss Nelson looked at Amanda and Akko, who had said nothing, with a very severe expression. They were now in the school’s entrance, a square room with rows of pillars that led to the main hallway or the outside. The line of students and staff members grew bigger by the second, and as far as Akko could it went outside and probably turned a few corners of the school too. Akko didn’t want to look outside and be too discouraged by the waiting time. Having to stand with nothing to see but trees would be hellish. She was almost relieved with Miss Nelson’s quick answer.

“What? Why not? I’m the best pilot at this academy!” Amanda instantly complained.

“Then you should’ve proved it in the simulation room. And I don’t know why you’re even here, Miss Kagari, you can’t even get a broom on the air, did you seriously expect me to allow you to participate in this?”

Akko frowned. Miss Nelson was right, of course. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “Well, maybe there’s a broom without inverted controls…” Akko said, but the teacher simply shook her head and turned to the line of students behind them.

“Just go, girls, I have a lot of work this week.”

Amanda made as if to spit, but then she just grunted and walked away. Akko cocked her head, surprised at Amanda’s tame reaction. She would probably had insisted a little more on normal circumstances, but the shame of her earlier catastrophic failure still haunted her.

Akko followed Amanda through the rows of students out into the main hallway, with its white walls and the red carpet, but found her going in the opposite direction of the classroom they were supposed to be in now – they had gotten permission to leave to try to participate in the IPR. Curiosity overwriting her sense of responsibility – as always – instead of going back to class she went after the redhead.

After the first corner, Akko was surprised to see the redhead going out through one of the windows. Everyone in the room was so busy with the race ordeal that no one noticed. Making a split-second decision, Akko followed, jumping through the window too and falling face-first into some bushes.

When she looked up, Amanda was looking down at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey,” Akko said.

“Shut it,” Amanda grabbed her arm and picked her up. “If you gonna follow me then don’t make much noise.”

Akko nodded and started to follow Amanda through the school grounds. From the outside, Luna Nova academy was a simple-looking, even if gigantic, white building with an almost hospital-like look. In the past it had been a beautiful and old building, but in the advent of the new century it had been completely rebuilt to adapt to a modern standard and, more importantly, to allow for the best Magic equipment to be used.

Akko and Amanda quickly circled the school, and Akko realized where they were going. “Why are we going to New Moon Tower?”

The tall and cylindrical building was sky-high. So high that Akko was certain vertigo would kick in, even if she didn’t normally suffer it. That was the facility that allowed magic to be extracted from the earth.

“You’ll see.”

They continued forward, since apparently not a single soul was out on the school grounds at this hour. Akko looked to her right, where the school’s own practice racetrack stood tall. She hadn’t had the chance to look inside it, but she hoped she’d one day get to practice in it.

And when they reached the tower – surrounded by a fence that they easily jumped over – Amanda took out her wand. A spell appeared from her pocket and moved towards the metallic door, attacking a little camera above it with pale green magic energy. “Come on, that’ll give us a minute to get in,” Amanda whispered and moved. Akko followed, feeling her heart start to race with the thrill.

The door had an electronic password lock, but Amanda pressed the combination of numbers without even hesitating and strode in, Akko behind her.

“Isn’t that security a little too… weak?” Akko asked surprised. This was an important Magic Energy-extraction facility after all.

“That’s just for the entrance. The important places have heavier security, but I don’t care about those. Come on, follow me,” as the door behind them closed, she shook her wand and it lit up like a flashlight, showing that the inside of the tower had a central, massive pillar that Akko suspected was also the pipe extracting the Magic from the ground in a pale green light. The rest of the base level floor was apparently empty. A set of stairs and elevators led up, but both of those had electronic locks too, and these ones required some kind of key-card to open them. For a second Akko thought that Amanda was going to pull one out, but instead she just took a normal key from her pocket and kept moving.

They rounded the pillar, and on the other side, they found a set of stairs going down. Akko gulped, it was really dark down there. She took out her own wand and shook it. Miraculously, it lit like Amanda’s had, and she sighed. Last time she’d tried to pull that off one of her spells had broken a window. The stairs had a simple fence and chain to lock them. Amanda used the key on the padlock and opened the door, looking back at Akko and putting a finger o her lips, signaling the brunette to be quiet.

The trip downstairs was a dark one. Their wand-flashlights did little to ease Akko’s anxiety as they walked into the underground. Where were they going? Magic Energy was extracted several hundred feet underneath the earth, so it’s not like they could walk all the way down to a Ley-line. Could they? Akko didn’t want to think about it.

Despite her musings, the trip downstairs ended up being not that long. When they reached the bottom, Akko was surprised to see an enormous door waiting for them. It had to be at least ten meters high and wide. It was metallic, and big steel draw-bars were used to close it.

“What is this?” Akko asked in wonder. The metallic door was completely plain and empty of any inscriptions, and as she looked around she found that it was the only thing in the narrow corridor.

“You’ll see,” Amanda said with a smile. She approached the giant metallic door and started to fidget with something. Only then Akko noticed that in the left corner there was a normal, human sized door with another padlock. This one, however, Amanda was picking with a lock pick. After a few moments of clicking sounds and grunts of frustration, the lock gave up and the door opened with a soft creak.

Amanda entered. Akko hesitated for a moment before following.

And she was absolutely amazed by what she saw.

“A broom graveyard…” She trailed off as she started to walk. What she had said was instantly apparent: The impossibly enormous chamber opened up before her, both up and down, and all kinds of hulls, fuselages and broom pieces were lying around in heaps, without a single window or light in sight. Bulky and slim, big and small, rusted and new-looking, all of them amazing and interesting in their own rights. Akko was standing on a platform that was, apparently, also an elevator to carry those brooms up or down, and she started to suspect that the central pillar of the tower might have not been what she imagined. To her right there was a metal staircase leading down to the ground level, which was about ten meters down too. The entire thing must have been twenty-five meters tall, and Akko couldn’t even see the opposite or side walls from her position.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Amanda said before starting to go downstairs. Akko eagerly followed, excited to see what she could find. Beyond the initial silence, Akko noticed a low rumble echoing through the chamber, only broken by their metallic steps. Each step made her worry that if someone was down there they’d hear them.

“Why is this here? Luna Nova isn’t a broom manufacturer, is it?” Akko asked, still pointing her wand at the heaps of brooms in disbelief.

“I’ve no idea,” Amanda shrugged. “Maybe they get paid for this or something? Does it matter?”

“Well, I guess not really,” Akko agreed. There could be a million reasons for this graveyard to be here, who cared.

They reached the floor, and Akko relaxed a little, since their walking wasn’t so noisy anymore. The heaps didn’t appear to have an order of some kind. Akko tried to find something like that, but where one pile appeared to be mostly of old brooms and another of mostly new brooms, there would be also one mixing both with no pattern. Some heaps were tall and wide, and Akko would’ve feel compelled to climb them if not for the strange reverence she felt towards the old brooms. There were also Wands scattered through the floor, older and newer, and Akko suspected they used to be the brooms’ keys. Other heaps were short, with barely two or three brooms and some pieces. As she walked next to one, she picked up an old couple of joysticks from the pile and examined it. Unlike the ones in the simulator, these ones had buttons on the sides. It was definitely from a broom-Racer, though Akko couldn’t tell which one at all.

Amanda had gone a different way, but Akko could see her light through the abandoned brooms and other garbage. Despite her earlier apprehension, her excitement was greater, leading her to explore without much worries.

Sometimes she tripped with junk in the floor, the noises of metal against metal echoing through the graveyard. A lot of things caught her hyperactive eye, like a really, really old one-joystick controller paired with buttons or one specific broom that she recognized as one she had a toy of. Her family hadn’t really been able to afford a broom, so they still used normal hover-mobiles.

Amanda sometimes made noise too. She seemed to be climbing a lot of these heaps, but Akko worried she was going to cut herself with some rusty metal or something. She would, under no circumstances, try to…

What was that? She had casually pointed her wand upwards, towards the top of a particularly tall heap. At least fifteen meters tall, reaching further up, even, than the elevator. There, in the middle of the slope upwards, stood something strange. A white stick, a little larger than a normal wand. She let her light drop while thinking. Even from the distance, something was familiar about it.

It was glowing with a pale green light, and Akko finally recognized it. Her eyes widened with awe and shock, mixed with some excitement. She looked around, but Amanda was pretty far away. She cringed at the thought of calling for her and making a ruckus, so instead she just looked up and rolled up her sleeves. Grabbing her wand with teeth instead of hands, she gulped and started to slowly climb the heap.

She stepped on the rusty pieces of brooms or the brooms themselves as she went up. Wings, engines, doors and glass were her steps in the climb, climb that she had decided to do without looking down. Whenever she felt a sharp edge near, she moved very carefully. Luckily, everything seemed to be pretty well settled, besides some smaller pieces, and the climb was mostly uneventful. In a few minutes she had reached the strange wand – which was about ten meters up, in line with the platform at the entrance – and taken it into her hands.

It was about fifty percent longer than a normal wand, and a little thicker too. The most interesting thing about it, however, was the golden handle and the seven small beads of glass that surrounded it, which were giving the thing its glow.

It had to be what she believed it to be. There wasn’t any other like this in the whole universe, as far as she knew.

The key-wand of the Shiny Rod.

She contained her excitement, quickly climbing down the heap of brooms – or, as quickly as she could – and, as soon as she touched the ground, calling for Amanda.

“Amanda! Come here, look at this!” She didn’t care about the noise anymore. A minute later, Amanda appeared from between two smaller piles behind Akko. Akko squinted her eyes as the redhead pointed at them with the light, and when they were close to each other, Akko raised the wand.

“What?” Amanda looked at it with confusion.

“Don’t you recognize it?”

“Sorry, no,” she said with a shrug.

Akko frowned. “It’s the key-wand to the Shiny Rod!”

Amanda instantly snorted, not even bothering to consider it. “Don’t be silly, the Shiny Rod and Chariot disappeared a decade ago. Why would that key wand be here?” She examined the wand again. “And more importantly, how come it’s in such a perfect state?”

Considering this, Akko came to no conclusions. “Well, I dunno, but…” Then, an idea came to mind. “Wait, didn’t the Shiny Rod come upon calling? Alcor was a Familiar, right?” Familiars were kind of like spirits, but unlike normal A.I. they were fine-tuned to their users and had very specific commands and functions only their owners knew about.

“I think so…” Amanda’s eyes widened. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”

“Depends, what do you think I’m thinking?” Akko said as a smirk slowly crept through her face.

Then, with the knowledge coming from watching hundreds, maybe thousands of hours’ worth of Chariot videos, she flicked the wand in the exact way she knew to be the calling command.

And both girls heard a rumble in the distance.

Chapter Text

Diana sat in her room, preparing. The room, one of the high-class ones, was spacious. As the rest of the school, it had white walls and floor. However, the low ceiling made it a little more cozy than most other places, and the colorful furniture they had brought to it – red covers for the beds, dark wooden furniture, blue curtains and green plants – made it a little less boring.

As usual, her two teammates sat on their beds. Diana had made a separation with a bookshelf for herself, since she enjoyed the little semblance of privacy it could provide.

It had been a long day. When the announcement of the IPR was made, and the change of rules, she instantly knew this was her chance. She wouldn’t get another one for ten years. If she wanted to pursue her dream, she had to do it now. This knowledge had her on edge, even if no one noticed. Time seemed to move through tar, a single minute extending to infinity as she waited for her turn to rank. She didn’t need to be the First Category pilot, she could settle with a pro at First and taking the Second Category place.

But, could she really hope to participate? She was just a teenager. How would she fare against someone with more skill and experience? A part of her mind told her that it was a futile effort; that she should just focus on bettering herself for now and aiming to participate the next decade.

She didn’t listen to that part. The sooner she could pull this off, the better. In normal circumstances she would probably wonder why the change in rules and times, but as things stood she preferred not to question it. For now.

“You ready, Diana?” Hannah’s head poked from the other side of the bookshelf. Diana was indeed ready, so she nodded.

Diana circled the shelves shoving any doubts aside. Her teammates, Hannah wearing her special gunman uniform and Barbara wearing more simple clothing, waited for her. Diana wore her uniform, carried a helmet under one hand and had made a ponytail of her hair.

“Let us go, girls,” Diana said in her always neutral voice.

They stepped into the corridor of their wing of rooms, and slowly made their way down to the first floor. Diana tried not to focus too much on the task she was about to perform. Only a week to do the rankings meant that everyone who applied only got one chance to prove themselves, and Diana had come on top of the raffle for trying. While others might’ve considered this a good thing, Diana understood that it wasn’t. It took away any chances she’d have of practicing. While that probably was a part of the experiment – after all, the IPR required great improvisation skills – it didn’t help Diana relax, knowing she was going unprepared beyond basic knowledge of how races usually functioned.

“Are you ok, Diana?” Hannah asked. Diana looked at her auburn-haired friend and nodded absently. She hadn’t realized it, but she was looking down while walking, something unusual for her.

“It’s going to be fine, you’re the best broom pilot in the last century, you’ll blow everyone away I bet!” Barbara encouraged.

“Yes, you’re right,” Diana put on a façade of confidence. Her teammates looked up to her, despite her inner struggle. She didn’t want to disappoint them, or anyone. She made sure to keep her inscription a secret from most people, in case she didn’t do good for whatever reason.

As she walked towards the pro’s simulation room, crossing in the white hallways classmates and other students, she was trying to keep the helmet and strange hairstyle as hidden as she could. If someone saw her like this they’d realize what she was doing.

When she finally reached the place, a big room on the western side of the Luna Nova building, she knocked on the door. The woman who opened the door was one Diana didn’t recognize. She had long, blue hair and a couple of red eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. She wore the tight, standard anti-g suit that was mandatory for school staff and students, but it was of a darker shade than most. She greeted Diana with a kind expression.

“Ah, Miss Cavendish, I believe,” she said in a soft voice. “Come, please.”

Diana nodded in a polite salute and walked into the room followed by her teammates, where three broom-Racer simulators stood. Smaller than the one they’d used the previous day, these three only the pilot seat and the controls along with a separate space for the gunman. This time there was no screen showing the insides of the mock cockpits as the ones inside them right now would most likely be other competitors. The results of the rankings wouldn’t be posted until the next day, probably to encourage pilots who didn’t want to bother to try to participate and best the leaderboard.

A memory of Akko’s failure made Diana relax a little. Both because she knew she wouldn’t fail as hard as that, at least, but also because it had reminded her of her first time on a broom. She had done almost the same mistakes as Akko; biggest difference being that she wasn’t on a simulator.

Of course, she had been only ten years old back then.

“Who are you?” Hannah asked, looking at the woman, who turned and looked at them with some surprise.

“Oh, right, sorry. I’m Ursula Callistis, pleasure to meet you,” she offered a hand to Hannah.

Hannah took it. “Hannah England, Diana’s gunman,” she said. Ursula nodded, the warm smile on her face not fading.

“And you must be Barbara Parker, is that right?” The woman said looking at Barbara.

“Yes,” Barbara shook her hand too.

Then, Ursula turned to Diana. “And, well, you need no presentations, isn’t that right?” She offered her hand to the younger girl. Diana took it, noticing that her hands were strong. “Are you nervous?”

Diana’s first reaction was to scoff. She regretted it instantly, but she was so used to showing confidence that when someone questioned it she couldn’t help it. “Why would I?” she said, shaking her head. “I either make it or I wasn’t good enough, there’s no other way to see it.”

Ursula looked at her with doubt. “I… see,” she hesitated, but didn’t get the chance to say more thanks to one of the cockpits opening. Miss Finnelan came out, confidence showing in her face, followed by a younger member of the pro-team who wasn’t part of the teaching body. She instantly noticed Diana and her companions and moved towards them.

“Ah, I see you’ve met our new recruit, Ursula,” she said as she approached. “Are you ready, Miss Cavendish?”

“Of course, Miss Finnelan,” Diana nodded respectfully to her teacher. Finnelan nodded in approval and pointed to the cockpit.

“Go. Good luck,” she patted Diana’s shoulder and then walked off. Diana wondered if that had been an honest encouragement or just a polite one. She figured it didn’t really matter.

“Well, Diana, let’s go get them,” Hannah gave her a few pats on the back.

Barbara joined with some rubbings on the arm. “I’ll go back now. See you when you’re done,” she said before turning to go.

Diana looked at Ursula, who nodded slightly, and took a deep breath.

“Wow,” Amanda said, looking at the Shiny Rod hovering in front of them with a low rumble. The long, slim broom was instantly recognizable with its pristine white and incomparable shape. The seven magic orbs and the unique engine were all glowing with faint, pale green light. “What the hell is this thing doing here?”

“Who cares?” Akko jumped on top of it, stumbling for a second before finding her footing. It was about three meters wide and seven meters long. The cockpit must have been a meter and a half and two and a half meters. Akko knew that from below she would have been able to see a door leading to the gunman’s place in the ship.

“Akko, what the hell are you…” Amanda trailed off as she saw Akko reach the windshield of the cockpit and wave her wand. It opened, and she jumped inside the broom without hesitating. “Wait, you don’t know how to pilot! Let me do this!” she quickly climbed the ship and followed Akko.

The cockpit was… Unusual. It lacked controls, buttons or switches. Inside there was nothing but a throne-like chair and a couple of glowing orbs. When Akko sat down – completely ignoring Amanda’s request – she rested her arms on the armrest and her hands fell naturally on top of the orbs right as the redhead dropped inside the cockpit behind her. It was rather cramped with the two of them there. The windshield closed, leaving them trapped. Akko didn’t mind, she was entranced with the broom.

There was a moment of silence in which Akko didn’t know what to do. What were the orbs for? Chariot had never let anyone explore the inside of her cockpit. They had to be the controls, but…

Two light-beams suddenly shot from the orbs and met in front of Akko. In quick motions they started to draw something in the air, a 3D model of something that looked like a bird. A crow, to be precise. When the drawing was finished, the light-beams disappeared, but the crow stayed there. It had the four-pointed star that was Chariot’s symbol on its chest. Akko looked back at Amanda, who shrugged, obviously as confused as she was.

“Uhm,” Akko raised a finger, debating if she should touch the bird or not. “Hello?”

Hello. Welcome, the bird suddenly said. Both girls jumped back in shock.

“A spirit?” Amanda asked, leaning over Akko’s shoulder.

“No,” Akko realized. “It must be Alcor. Are you Alcor?”

Yes, Alcor answered with a monotone voice.

“Well, hello, Alcor. I’m not Chariot, you realize that?” Akko quickly got past her initial surprise and now the excitement had come back.

“Akko what are you doing?” Amanda whispered on her ear. “It might shut down if it…”

Not Chariot confirmed. Hello, Not Chariot. What should I do?

Akko cocked her head, dumbfounded. Amanda chuckled. “Ehm… How do I control this thing?” Akko asked. Alcor stood mid-air without moving for a few seconds, and Akko started to believe it had maybe frozen or something. Right as she was wondering if she could restart an entire ship like a computer, the crow extended its wings. From between Akko’s legs, a panel slid and a controller approached her. A video-game controller. Well, not one from any console she recognized, but similar enough. It had a very similar setup, with two joysticks, two sets of four buttons, four triggers, a comfortable grip…

“Hey, wait a second,” Akko frowned. “If this is how the Shiny Rod is controlled why the hell did I buy that fancy simulator controller for my games?” She complained. Amanda was now almost climbing on Akko’s back to see better what was going on.

“Is this thing controlled with a video-game controller? I don’t buy it,” she said, skepticism on her voice.

Akko tested a few buttons, but they didn’t do anything. She moved the joysticks and pressed the triggers, but again, nothing. Was this some kind of prank?

“Alcor, can you show me the controls of this thing?” She asked. Alcor took a few seconds to do it, but his bird shape disappeared and was substituted by a screen. The screen showed the explanation for what every button did. So she first needed to press the ‘start’ button, huh.

“Hey Alcor,” Amanda suddenly said. “Doesn’t this thing have normal controls?”

The screen in front of Akko changed. It showed a standard broom control system. Amanda hummed, nodding. Then she touched the screen. Akko believed her hand was just going to phase through it, since it appeared to be a simple hologram. However, a slight beep sounded and suddenly Akko’s controller got yanked out of her hands and into the floor again. After a few seconds another controller rose from the ground, this one being a standard, coupled with pedals and everything.

“Wait, there’s a shitton of things missing,” Amanda said. “Hell, there’s only movement controls here, how could anyone fly this thing?”

The Shiny Rod handles most things automatically. All you have to do is rest your hands on the Control Spheres and think about what you need, Alcor said. Apparently he couldn’t tell that Amanda and Akko weren’t the same person. Well, it was an older Familiar after all.

“Automatically, huh?” Amanda had a disbelieving undertone to her. “Isn’t that a little convenient?”

They waited a few seconds, but Alcor didn’t answer. Amanda sighed. Akko didn’t mind and started to grin.

She pressed the start button, and then put her foot into the accelerator. The broom started moving. A seatbelt automatically crossed over Akko. Amanda stumbled to the floor, surprised by the sudden movement. The screen in front of Akko slid to the side to avoid getting in the way.

“Akko, what are you doin-Ah!” She cried as Akko tried to rise into the air, but instead dived into the ground, grinding the Rod’s nose in the ground. Akko grunted in frustration, but then an idea came to mind.

“Alcor, can you turn off the inverted controls?”

This time, the response was faster. Inverted Controls deactivated.

Now that’s more like it, Akko thought with a smile. She tilted the joysticks and the broom moved mostly as she wanted.

Except that it was a little too loose for her tastes. She heard a heap of brooms crumble to the ground as she hit it on accident, and then another one. She tried to aim herself at the ceiling, but it was a little faster than expected and the broom jumped. broom-Racers weren’t meant to fly – They just hovered, Akko believed the limit of altitude was about five meters. ‘Jumping’ is what they called to suddenly point upwards and get over the limit. While doing that, you lost the ability to control the broom-Racer for a short time.

Akko crashed into a heap that miraculously didn’t come down on them.

“Ok, get out of the controls, I’m taking us out of here,” Amanda gained her footing again and tried to shove Akko off the pilot seat. Akko stubbornly refused to move.

“I found the Shiny Rod and I’m going to pilot it, got it?” She turned and stuck out her tongue. “Ehm, Alcor, do you… Know how to get out of here?”

Right when she thought there wasn’t going to be an answer, the screen changed again, showing a tridimensional map of the surrounding area. Cool, Akko thought. In the map there were two dots, a yellow one that was clearly the broom and a red one that the brunette assumed was the exit. It was at the other side of the enormous graveyard, but Akko took it as a chance to practice with the Shiny Rod.

“Akko, you’re going to get us both killed,” Amanda sounded worried, but Akko didn’t bother to even look at her.

She pressed the reverse pedal and prepared to go.

Chapter Text

“Are you familiar with the ‘Shooting Star’, Miss Cavendish?” Ursula’s voice came through the communicator as Diana settled into the pilot’s seat. Unlike the normal simulator, this one was narrow, the seat she was using made for safety more than comfort. The joysticks – a long time ago, they were called ‘yokes’ like the controls of old planes, but with time the newer generations had just started calling them joysticks – had some extra buttons, useful for quick movements out in the field. There were a lot less buttons, switches and levers than in the previous simulator, mostly because a broom-Racer didn’t have as many functions as a cargo broom.

“Of course, Miss Callistis,” Diana said. She heard a strangled noise from the communicator, but didn’t pay it much mind. “It’s one of the more – if not the most – advanced broom-Racers in development. Supposedly, it should hit the markets in about two years,” Diana was up to date with most things going on in the broom-Racing world. The Shooting Star had been an amazing, next generation design presented two years before. Supposedly it would be the fastest but also more controllable, not to mention the absurdly low Magic consumption and top-notch attack equipment. Many believed it would be impossible to make.

“Ah, good. Also, you can just call me Ursula.” The woman said, a hint of awkwardness on her voice.

“Why did you ask, Miss Ursula?” Diana didn’t mind calling people as they asked, normally.

“That’s the broom you’re going to be piloting during this simulation,” Ursula explained. Diana paused for a few seconds. So the broom already existed? How had she not heard of that? Or maybe it was just one of the prototypes.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Hannah commented from her seat at the gunman’s position.

Or perhaps… “Ah, so it’s a marketing campaign, is it not?” Diana asked to the communicator. “The broom has been done for a while, but they managed to get a deal with the Earth Representatives Committee about using it in the next Inter-Planetary Race. If we managed to win with it…” It made sense, and Diana wasn’t particularly annoyed; the Shooting Star was the best broom out there, technically speaking, so a chance to use it was welcomed, no matter why.

“Yes, that’s right, you catch up with things pretty quickly, don’t you?” Ursula sounded impressed. “In any case, you’ll have three test runs. You should consider the first two as your chance to practice with a broom you’re not familiar with, with the third one being the actual test. In the end, the best out of the three scores will be the one that appears on the rankings.”

“And… How is the score decided? I find it interesting that it doesn’t only depend on time,” Diana asked. She believed this was going to be a race against the clock, but there were a number of reasons why that could not be the case. She would’ve tried to guess if she hadn’t just asked.

“That’s a secret, sadly. Just remember, IPR races aren’t just about speed,” the screen of the simulator turned on, and Diana instantly recognized the landscape. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof. She was hovering deep in a chasm. So deep, indeed, that if one looked up the surface wouldn’t be visible. However, she knew it was a chasm for how straight the walls were and for the vertical lines running through them. The most impressive feature, however, was the glowing moss on the chasm walls, with their faint purple glow. They were in Vorago – basically chasm in Latin, the human way of calling the planet – the planet of the Armor race. It was a planet with constant meteorite showers on the surface, where the locals had evolved to live in the chasms that were all around the planet. Surprisingly enough it was a planet with breathable air, though slightly toxic in the long run.

Diana didn’t hesitate to start thinking. Vorago was a hard planet to race in. Chasms could be like a labyrinth. Dead ends, paths that would deviate too far and make you lose time, the impossibility of going over walls… What could be tested here? Improvisation, sure. Sense of direction, maybe? Though a little useless, given the fact that radars were a thing. Ability to fly in narrow spaces, making sure your pilot doesn’t suffer from claustrophobia.

With a button, Diana turned on the radar. The finish line was a red dot on the top. brooms didn’t have enough mapping capabilities to generate a layout of the surrounding area, so she only had a direction to go on. On the radar, however, appeared another nine dots. An emulation of the Inter-Planetary Race, where all ten classified planets participated at the same time. The Planetary Alliance had twenty-six sentient races in it, all of them with a high enough level of technology to be able to participate. The four races that hadn’t missed a single IPR so far were the Humans, Shapeshifters, Daemons and Medusas. They were also, usually, the ones to rank on the top spots of any race.

Humans hadn’t won a single IPR so far, however. The closest they’d gotten to winning had been with Shiny Chariot as their First Category pilot ten years back, but she’d disappeared without a trace before the race was over. The most common winners were the Shapeshifters, while Humans averaged at third place most of the time.

She pressed a button, and saw a superficial blueprint of the Shooting Star. It was a thin, long broom with the wings on the nose and the back, from where the engines came off. The attack weapons were below the ship. She couldn’t tell the color on the blueprint shining with the pale green light, but she could see from the screen that it had been painted red.

“Get ready,” Ursula said, breaking Diana’s train of thought. She looked to her sides, and the other racer’s simulations had appeared. Every race usually appeared with a new ship to each race, better than the last, but this simulation used the last known ones.

In front of her, a three appeared. The countdown.

Two. She prepared her foot to accelerate.

One. A deep breath.

A gunshot sounded, and she accelerated, instantly feeling the speed on her body, the sound of the engines outside echoing through the chasms. The purple glow became purple streams of light as she moved, and the world suddenly looked a lot more psychedelic. “Hannah, keep them off us,” she had started in first place for the race, and while a lot of people might have thought it was an advantage, Diana considered it a handicap. It didn’t allow her to see the other ships and, more importantly, she was using a broom unknown to her, so she had to adapt first. However, if she was in first place she was not about to let it go. Hannah made a noise of agreement and the magic guns started firing with loud, sharp and acute noises. “And try to see where the Armor will go, they know these chasms better than us.”

She gave a few test nudges to the sides, trying not to think about the weapon sounds from behind, tilting the broom slightly without steering. She was already feeling the unusual speed of the broom, but surprisingly enough it had a perfectly good control. Up ahead appeared the first division as the chasm opened into two separate ones. “Right!” Hannah exclaimed suddenly.

Diana made a snap decision and went left, right on time too because from where the broom had been just a second before appeared a giant stone ball, the Armor’s weapon. No one knew exactly how it worked, the Armor could just control those giant demolition-sized balls as if with remote controls.

The current chasm had a curve, so Diana was trying to keep down the anxiety of not seeing ahead. At these speeds, a crash would kill her. Yet, given the fact that the Armor had followed her it probably was the right path. The sensors of the ship suddenly sounded and she barrel-rolled to the side right as a missile flew by. “Hannah!” Diana called, those were the types of things she should’ve been able to deal with.

“Sorry, one slipped by!” Hannah cried. So there were a lot more. Weird, that meant one of the participants was probably Appali – A race very similar to humans, but way more war-friendly and lacking the discovery of Magic Energy – but those hadn’t been in an IPR in at least three decades. Their ships hadn’t grown at a good enough rate and they had been left behind. Diana didn’t have time to turn around and check, but she suspected the simulation was probably cheating and giving them extra speed on their old racer, which was a metallic disk with a domed windshield in the middle. It was said that their ships were the inspiration for UFOs on earth.

That didn’t matter. Hannah, as a gunman, had the job of keeping most projectiles away, along with their owners. She would be looking behind themselves and shooting at anything that got close. It could be a very stressful position to be in, too, seeing all those attacks coming and being responsible for them.

The chasm suddenly curved to the other side. Diana was fast enough to react, but ahead there was also another split. Three different paths, this time. One of them, however, lacked the common glowing moss of most chasms. The purple moss was a great way of seeing the chasm walls; to make sure to avoid them. But, if she were the one preparing the race…

Hannah yelled an insult as something shook the Shooting Star. They’d been hit, so Diana instantly pressed the analysis button. As she waited for the status report, she decided to go through the dark chasm at the left and steered. The Shooting Star really had perfect maneuverability, it had moved exactly as she wanted it too. The status report appeared, they’d been hit in one of the rear wings, but it wasn’t affecting them greatly.

You could attack other competitors in the Inter-Planetary Race, you just couldn’t try to actively kill them. Aiming for cockpits or engines was considered rule violation, though that was a big gray area where there wasn’t exactly a consensus about it. In the eleven IPRs that had occurred so far, seven pilots had died and twenty had been severely damaged, usually along with their gunmen.

The Shooting Star had its own lights, which shined brightly ahead. They weren’t as effective as the glowing moss to see the path, but when Hannah called out to Diana, to which she dropped a few meters and a giant stone ball passed above them, she knew they were on the right path. According to the radar they had already raced one third of the way to the finish. This was a shorter race, and Diana wondered if maybe the three tests would happen in different types of races. It made sense. She moved the Shooting Star up again as the stone ball came back, like a boomerang, aiming to hit them from the front. Right before it passed below them, however, it slowed down. Diana knew what it was going to do, so she pressed the instant reverse pedal and aimed the nose of the Shooting Star at the ground. With the momentum carried they still moved forward, but the ship was lifted a little more and the angle stopped the stone ball - which had started to move upwards – from hitting the broom-Racer. Right at that moment, the chasm started to have glowing moss at the sides again and Diana saw that it was a straight path for quite the distance. She had lost a lot of speed with the little stunt, and she needed to regain it. “Hold on Hannah!” she cried.

Diana pressed the nitro pedal, and suddenly she was thankful for the anti-g uniform. She wasn’t exactly sure how the simulators managed to emulate the g-force of a ship, but she was planning to study more about them later.

The path, which had been at least half a kilometer long, started to shorten at an alarming rate. Diana quickly pressed the gear down pedal a few times, but the speed had been gained. She dared look back – the cockpit of the Shooting Star was above the ship and it allowed the Witch or Wizard onboard to look back, should they need it – and saw that they had left behind the Armor ship, which was a rocket-like looking ship made out of rock with a giant metallic ring around it, and about as long as the Shooting Star itself.

Ahead, the chasm separated again. Two paths. This time there was no obvious clue, and the Armor were too far away to be able to use them as a guide. Given the direction she was going in, and the direction of the finish line, it was clear that the correct path would be to go right. However, that might have been exactly what they wanted pilots to think.

And that was why Diana went down the right path. She hoped no more forks appeared. The new chasm was full of bends and turns, some shaper than others. Hannah was no longer shooting her gun, but she was obviously still on the alert.

The finish line was getting closer. Already two thirds of the way and they had, apparently, kept first place thorough the whole thing. It was a little suspicious, but Diana didn’t question it, she couldn’t afford to doubt herself now.

After two other turns, another fork appeared. Another two paths. This time she didn’t even have time to check the radar, she just went left. It had just felt like the right path.

And it was. It was a straight line, and in the end, maybe a kilometer away, she could see the finish line, glowing red and imposing in the ground.

She checked her fuel reserves. Hannah cried something about someone catching up to them with their own methods of buffed speed.

Without hesitating further, Diana pressed the nitro again, but this time she didn’t let go. The finish line approached at a dizzying speed, and the pressure of the Gs threatened to make her fall unconscious, but she held onto the joysticks, determined.

And in a heartbeat, she had crossed the finish line and the simulation had stopped, releasing the Gs and leaving Diana disoriented for a few seconds. Hannah grunted from behind Diana.

“Do you want to step out of the simulator for a moment, girls?” Ursula asked. Diana stood, finding it kind of hard to walk, but she managed to exit the cockpit along with Hannah. Ursula was looking at them, impressed.

“It’s way too fast,” was the first thing Diana said. “That’s why I didn’t have trouble winning. It completely blew away the competition,” she had reached the conclusion during the final use of speed. “Are you sure the simulator is being accurate with the speeds? I can’t believe it would outperform everyone else so easily.”

“And the guns were too powerful. Since when can our blasts deflect Daemon lasers?” Hannah asked.

Ursula approached the two girls. “I was rather impressed too, but yes, the data is accurate, we had a lot of…” Diana stopped listening, still a little dazed by the amazing burst of speed. With something like that, how could Earth lose this race? And she was just an amateur, what would a pro be able to do with such a beast of a broom?

“Harder,” Diana interrupted Ursula mid-explanation. “Can’t you make the race harder?”

“Harder?” Ursula cocked her head, looking at Diana with some amusement. “You… Want to make it more difficult for yourself? You do realize that won’t guarantee you’ll get any kind of extra points, right? You might even lose some,” despite what she was saying, Diana could see a spark of interest in her eyes.

“What is the point of practicing against the ghosts of the past? Isn’t it arrogant to believe our rivals haven’t advanced as much as we have?” Diana’s voice was serious. She wasn’t sure why she was insisting: Ursula was right, there was no guarantee of extra points. She could have been killing her only chance by doing this.

And yet, the thought of how easy that last win had been bothered her. The IPR wouldn’t be that easy. If this really was the method for finding the new earth pilots then the human race wouldn’t stand a chance.

Unless there was something else to it.

The other two cockpits opened at almost the same time, letting out a pair of pilots from the pro team who simply nodded at them and walked off.

“You’re a very interesting individual, Diana,” Ursula said with a smile. “Maybe you’ll…”

Suddenly, blinding light flashed in the room with the pale green characteristic of Magic Energy, and the sound of metal against metal and crashing made Diana cringe.

When she opened her eyes again, she had to take a few moments to process what she was seeing.

A broom had materialized, somehow, in the middle of the room. A long, white broom with a golden engine and seven big glass spheres that glowed with Magic was distinguishable through the smoke and dust that had burst out from the crash.

The cockpit opened and a brunette girl stumbled out of it looking dazed, almost falling to the ground face-first, followed by a redhead in a similar state.

Chapter Text

A few minutes earlier, Akko was in front of a wall, heaps of brooms behind her. The Shiny Rod hovered above the ground and both girls looked around in the darkness. “According to Alcor the exit should be around here,” Akko commented.

Amanda hummed. “You sure it’s not broken? It has more than ten years, right? Who knows how much time it went on without any kind of maintenance.”

Akko didn’t bother answering. Alcor obviously functioned perfectly, so the only logical answer was that the exit was hidden. “Alcor, can you tell us where the exit is?” Akko asked. The red dot on the tridimensional map started to blink. Yeah, she suspected it wouldn’t be effective.

She started to go to the side, along the wall – she was trying very hard to keep a low speed, but broom-Racers weren’t meant for slow hovering. There had to be something here. Some way to get all of this junk inside and some way of getting it back out.

“I dunno,” Akko sighed in defeat after a few minutes. “Doesn’t look like there’s an exit…”

“Toldya, thing’s broken or something,” Amanda poked the map but this time her hand did pass through like if it was a normal hologram. This confused Akko even further, even if it wasn’t related to the problem at hand.

“If only Chariot was here to explain us how this works…” Akko said wistfully.

Then, the tridimensional map changed. Akko cocked her head, it was rearranging itself to form… Words? The green light was moving around, disappearing and then, indeed, forming words in a perfectly readable Comic Sans.

“Why is it comic sans? Is this a joke?” Amanda noticed. Akko wasn’t paying attention to her, however. She was reading the unfamiliar words.

“Noctu Orfei Aude Freator” Akko read, confused. “What the hell does that- WOAH!” She cried as suddenly the Shiny Rod lurched to the side and started moving itself. It pointed at the wall and started glowing.

“Akko,” Amanda said from the floor again. “What did you do?”

“I dunno, I just read those words and-” she was cut off by the sudden burst of movement. Directly aimed at the wall.

“Well, it was great living,” Amanda said with dark humor. Akko was yelling.

And suddenly, there was a flash, loud sounds, a lot of trembling and the ship stopped, kicking the air out of Akko and somehow not making Amanda hit her head against anything. There were a few seconds of confusion before Akko decided she’d better get off the broom to try to determine the damage that had been done to it.

“Open,” she said in a shaky voice, and the windshield opened. She climbed out of the Shiny Rod and stumbled, barely managing not to face-dive towards the ground.

She managed to set foot on a solid surface and she finally started to look around to see what had happened. What were all these bits of metal on the floor? And all this light? And the dust and smoke, none of this seemed like they were still in the graveyard…

“The Shiny Rod?” An unknown voice suddenly said. “How… What is it doing here?” It asked, very surprised. Akko panicked: They’d been discovered! She looked around frantically for a place to hide in, but there were no heaps of brooms around. Where were they?

Then, from the cloud of dust and smoke, a woman appeared. Blue haired, glasses, wearing an anti-g suit, she was looking at Akko – Amanda had dropped on the other side of the broom – with intensity. Then, another figure appeared, and Akko instantly recognized this one. That wavy hair, that figure, that poise when walking…

“Akko?” Diana asked. “How in goodness’ sake did you… What is going on?”

“Great,” a third voice said. Hannah. “You two weren’t allowed to participate so you decide to destroy the simulators and stop everyone else from doing so?”

Amanda appeared from the other side of the broom, looking at Hannah with a cold stare. “What do you mean? Where are we?”

Akko saw as the three met eyes. Then, the woman explained where they were. “What!” Akko exclaimed. “There’s no way! We were just in the graveyard… We teleported?” She could barely wrap her mind around the idea.

“Teleportation? Don’t be silly,” Hannah instantly said. “Teleportation is nothing but theoretical. Please tell us what really happened,” she sounded angry.

“Well, Hannah is right,” Diana didn’t sound angry or anything, but there was a menacing undertone to her. “What you just told us is impossible.”

Akko looked around. Then, annoyed, she frowned. “Oh, then tell me, genius: How come there are no broken walls?” She pointed at everywhere, showing that the four walls of the room were in perfect condition. “Guess we just phased through them, or is that just theoretical too?” Sarcasm flooded out of her mouth as she said this.

Diana seemed taken aback for a moment, which granted Akko a great sense of accomplishment. It didn’t last long, however, when she noticed the older woman approaching her.

“You’re… Atsuko Kagari, right?” She said with a doubtful voice. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Akko stared the woman in the eyes. They were red, like hers, but kind and soft. She found herself strangely trusting them.

As quick as she could, she explained what had happened – not without stopping to praise Chariot a few times – with as much detail as possible. Then, she took out the Key-Wand for the Shiny Rod and showed it.

The woman extended her hand, as if to grab it, but Akko instantly stepped back and put it on her back, protective. She narrowed her yes. “I found it, I keep it,” she said simply.

“Uhm, Miss Kagari…” The woman said. “That’s not how…”

“Akko, this is Ursula Callistis,” Diana took a step forward, looking at Akko with harsh eyes. “She’s a new member of the school staff. You should do as she tells you or…”

“Nope!” Akko took another step back. “This thing was basically in the trash. Nobody wanted it, right? Well I do want it! So it’s mine!” She should’ve known this was going to happen. No one thought of Chariot in ten years, but as soon as she found the Shiny Rod suddenly she couldn’t keep it. Hypocrites.

Everyone gave deadpan looks at Akko, including Amanda. “Akko, that’s still school property,” Diana simply explained.

Akko pouted. Then, still with narrowed eyes, she started to give the wand to Ursula.

And, as soon as Ursula touched it, a loud alarm sounded. It came from the Shiny Rod, and it was very obnoxious. The Shiny Rod instantly closed the windshield and, without even moving, it disappeared. Ursula stood, dumbfounded. Akko saw her flick the wand in the calling command – she would have been more surprised, but Chariot was world famous after all – but nothing happened.

“Well, that’s… Weird,” Ursula did it again, with no results. “Ehm, Akko, is what Diana called you?” she saved the wand back in her pocket. “Are you participating in the IPR?”

Hannah snorted. “Akko? Racing? Please, she can’t even get a broom to leave the ground!” She laughed.

“That’s because that stupid simulator had inverted controls!” Akko cried. “I managed to fly the Shiny Rod just fine!”

“Except for a bunch of crashes and bumps,” Amanda commented, earning herself a glare from the brunette.

“What I’m trying to figure out is, why did you make the Shiny Rod appear here?” Diana asked, looking at the destroyed remains of three simulators. Akko cringed when she noticed what they were. Those were expensive. Really expensive. But, it hadn’t really been her fault that they got destroyed, was it?

“I didn’t make it do anything. I just asked for a way out and… Well, I don’t think Alcor understood what I was saying.”

Diana’s blue eyes focused on Akko. With each second, the stared girl grew more and more uncomfortable, until Diana finally looked away with a pensive expression. What was her deal?

“I think,” Ursula said. “That we should go get Miss Finnelan.”

All the present girls looked at each other and, reluctantly, Akko agreed. Hopefully she wouldn’t end up with a life-long debt to the school.

Diana dropped on her bed, tired. The talk with Miss Finnelan, and later Holbrooke, had been rather tiresome. She didn’t need to be there, since it had been Akko’s problem, but…

The Shiny Rod? How? Why? Akko really was a troublesome individual. How in hell had she managed to find a lost broom from ten years ago? And under Luna Nova grounds, even. How had no one managed to find it? What was it doing there? So many questions, not a single answer.

Well, she’d have plenty of time to look for answers. Her one chance had been completely blown away. While other participants were going to continue tests on other facilities at school, Diana had rejected to get another try. It felt like destiny, somehow. She would get a score based on her first test, and that was that. The crashing Shiny Rod had been like a sign.

A sign of Diana’s hypocrisy.

She tried not to think about it as she rolled in bed, too tired to even undress. What she had said to Ursula, that had been hubris. She was an arrogant fool, thinking she was above just taking the tests like everyone else had. On the other hand, that discussion had saved her life, probably. Akko hadn’t been worried about almost killing seven people. After all, no one had actually gotten hurt, right? She had also refused to call the Shiny Rod again. She was a really annoying person.

Diana envied her ability to be so careless, though.

“Ehm, Diana, you sure you’re ok?” Barbara appeared from behind the bookshelf. “Hannah just explained to me what happened, you could still…”

“I wasn’t really planning on participating on this IPR anyways,” Diana sat straight and looked Barbara in the eyes. “I’ll just go with my original plan and take part in the next one. I probably wouldn’t have made it anyways, against pros and the like.”

Barbara pressed her lips, but didn’t say more. Instead, she nodded weakly. “Well, if you feel like talking, just remember we’re here,” she said. Diana felt a little stab of guilt for not telling her how she was really feeling, but this was for the best. She took a deep breath. Nobody expected her to be able to participate in the race this time, so nobody would be surprised or disappointed by her not being able to take part in it.

Then why was it that she felt that crushing feeling on her chest? She’d known she wouldn’t make it. She… Shouldn’t have been thinking about that. Instead, she rose. There was still dinner to go to, and she wanted to take a shower.

Akko sat in her room, angry. She didn’t have a right to be, they had accepted the event as an accident and hadn’t given her the debt of a lifetime, but she was still banned from stepping out of the school building for the next month. Not to mention, she wouldn’t be allowed to fly in any way, whether simulated or not, until she agreed to call the Shiny Rod again. The Key-Wand rested on her desk, and she was tempted to use it, but she didn’t want to. The only reason everyone else wanted the Shiny Rod was to study it and take it apart. But Akko would use it for an actual good reason: Finding Chariot. It was her broom. Alcor had believed her to be Chariot at first. All she had to do was call it when no one was looking and search for clues.

“You know, it’s just a ship. I doubt it’ll help you find anyone,” Sucy commented from her bed.

“Don’t be mean about it, Sucy,” Lotte said. “But… I think she’s right, Akko. It’s been ten years, and I don’t think a ship would be able to tell where a person is…”

Akko just grunted. They didn’t understand, not like she did. No one understood. But that was fine by her: She’d find Chariot, she’d meet her idol and… Well, something. She’d think about it when the time came.

“I’m just saying, she should just call the thing and let our teachers explore it. It was a rather impressive and technologically advanced broom, it could help a lot to…”

“See!” Akko jumped “That’s the problem! Everyone just thinks of it as a broom, but it’s not! It’s Chariot’s broom! It’s the Shiny Rod!” She grabbed her head. “Why is it that hard to understand for you people? Chariot was the most amazing pilot ever, aren’t you even a little curious?”

“No,” Sucy shrugged.

“Akko, Chariot was good, I’ll agree, but… Well, a lot of people think her way of winning was cheating. Things like the Shiny Arc, those aren’t well seen nowadays.” Lotte tried to explain, kindly, for like the hundredth time.

“Yeah, now they say that, because no one else can pull it off! They’re just jealous!” Akko exclaimed. It was true: No one had been able to replicate things like the Shiny Arc in the past ten years. The Shiny Rod was unique, and people were just bitter that they couldn’t best a pilot from ten years ago, so they said her methods weren’t good or whatever. When talking about that everyone always casually ignored that Chariot had been the closest to first place any human had been. But Akko wouldn’t forget, ever. Chariot had been the most amazing pilot ever, and she’d be like her, one day.

“Whatever you say, it’s impossible to talk with you about Chariot,” Sucy rolled her eyes and looked the other way. Akko mockingly imitated her in a low voice. Lotte was looking at her two teammates with some worry, but decided that it was better that the conversation had finished.

Akko sighed. Yes, no one understood her, and no one would. She’d do this on her own.

Chapter Text

When the rankings appeared, everyone was surprised.

Diana particularly, since she was first.

The results had been shown during noon. It was Thursday, when the announcement of the IPR had happened on Tuesday. The test period would last until Monday, and then the selected pilots would leave for whatever planet happened to be first in the rotation this time on Wednesday. The official race would start next Sunday.

The cafeteria, full to the brim with the chatter of conversations, suddenly quieted. Diana, sitting with her two teammates, could feel all the stares on her. Amazement, awe, jealousy, skepticism, wonder, surprise.

“Diana…” Hannah spoke as if dazed, slowly nudging Diana’s arm.

“I know,” Diana simply replied, not daring look the screen again. Yet, she had to. She had a hundred points, and she surpassed the second place by twenty-seven points. Despite what she had said, she didn’t understand. What was going on?

“You think it may be a mistake?” Barbara asked in the low. Diana didn’t answer, but she did think it was probably that. There was no way she was actually first place. True, she hadn’t done badly in her first race, but she hadn’t done it perfectly. And then Akko had come to crush her dreams.

Or so she thought.

The second in the rankings was also a pro, a worldwide known Wizard that was currently accepted as one of the best pilots on earth. Diana had, apparently, bested him, and by a mile. The difference between second and third was only of five points.

Yeah, right. Something was off. Diana didn’t buy for a second what had happened. Had they given her extra points for some reason? Because her test got interrupted or something? She found herself growing angry and frustrated, not happy. She didn’t feel like she deserved it.

She finished eating and ignoring the eyes of everyone on her, she decided to go talk with someone about this.

Ursula sat in front of her PC – A small cube connected to a holographic screen that she controlled with her wand – thinking about what had happened the day prior. First, Diana Cavendish had proven to be the perfect candidate to participate in the race. However, then Atsuko Kagari had showed up with the Shiny Rod. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Most people, they didn’t understand magic. They only understood it as a source of energy, but it was so much more. Ursula had seen in Diana the potential to understand. She had experienced what a ship taking advantage of magic had been able to do and hadn’t really believed it. And then there was Atsuko. That girl had her sights set on finding Chariot and be like her. Nothing else, apparently. However, that was, too, something Ursula was looking for in pilots. Not the looking for Chariot thing, but the simple-minded stubborn determination of pursuing a single goal with your heart.

She was surprised to find out the second girl had been banned from participating in the race. Apparently, she couldn’t even pilot the most common of brooms. Most failed to understand that the Shiny Rod was not a common broom. They thought it was no more than a broom with some tricks up its sleeve, but if they could experience it, it would be a revolution in the understanding of Magic Energy.

That was why Ursula was kind of relieved that such a simple minded person had found it. Should she have decided that Diana was worth it, she wasn’t certain the girl wouldn’t just try to pick the Shiny Rod apart herself.

And, speak of the devil, Ursula heard a knock on the door of the classroom she was currently using, with Diana standing at the doorway.

“Oh, Diana,” Ursula wasn’t sure exactly when she had started calling Diana by her first name. It had sort of just happened. “Did you want something?”

The blonde girl stepped forward, bearing the same careful neutral expression she always wore, but not a natural one. It was a carefully crafted neutral expression that Ursula recognized better than she wanted to admit. She didn’t tell this to Diana, if only because she also understood how fragile those masks could be.

“I want to retire from the race,” Diana stated. Ursula smiled kindly: She had kind of expected this.

“Why is that?” She asked with a curious voice.

There was a spark on the teenager that she also recognized. Pride, mostly. Maybe some stubbornness too. “I don’t know how the points were assigned, but I fully believe I didn’t show the best of my capacity and I cannot condone such a perfect score to be given to me when that’s the case.”

Ursula nodded, understanding. She suspected the girl would say something like that once the results were made public. That’s why she had prepared a counter argument. “But, if you don’t know how the scoring system works, you can’t really know if I scored you based on your performance,” she explained.

“But I know I didn’t perform my best, therefore…”

“Sometimes,” Ursula interrupted. “It’s not just about if you did your best or not. I can assure you, Diana, the score given to you has a perfectly good reason that I can’t disclose.”

Diana’s neutral expression broke for a second as she pursed her lips. She quickly turned it back and shook her head. “I don’t agree with this, Miss Ursula,” Diana looked at her with determined eyes.

“If you want to drop out, I won’t stop you,” Ursula said. “But please, don’t think you should drop because you’re not good enough.”

Diana paused. Ursula could see the doubt in the girl. This was not a chance anyone would just pass, even if they were doubtful about their worth.

“I’ll… Think about it.”

Ursula simply nodded in response, watching as the girl turned to go. She was certain, now, that the score given to her had been perfect. When Diana left, she started to look at her PC again, going over the data about other pilots. Now if only there was someone who was worthy of being the second category pilot…

When Amanda had looked at the leaderboard a day and a half ago, she had felt a calm, cool anger. Of course Diana Cavendish was in first place. Amanda felt her chest burning with justice. She was ten times better at piloting than Diana, but no one ever acknowledged it because she wasn’t perfect like the blonde or her teammates.

Well, she was already working on fixing that. She smiled to herself as she walked silently through the dark hallways of Luna Nova’s third floor. After a quick search on the internet, she had found very interesting data. She planned to use it, but there was only one person in the entire school who could have what she wanted. The school, this late at night, was mostly empty.

‘Mostly’ being the key word. As she suspected, there were guards. Given the importance of what they were guarding, Amanda thought there were fewer than she had expected. She was moving counterclockwise through the fourth floor, like the guards, always staying behind a corner and being hidden. She needed to find enough time to open the door to the headmistress’ office, but it wouldn’t be fast.

After three full laps around the floor, she started to grow tired and she had already gotten enough info, so she took a small ball she had brought with her and threw it downstairs with strength, breaking a window. She then darted forward, right as a guard appeared and pointed his flashlight to the broken window.

Amanda didn’t lose time. That guard wouldn’t take long to check things out, and the next in the cycle would arrive even sooner. The door to the headmistress’ office was in the middle of the northern hallway, a big metallic door against the white wall. She quickly put on the rubber glove she carried, then sprinkled some makeup dust on the green-glowing lock and blew the leftovers and pressed her finger on it. Such a simple trick, so easy to learn, but so many people didn’t think it’d work.

Well, it normally didn’t work, unless there was a single fingerprint on the scanner with no overlaps. That was why Amanda had wiped it before the last time Headmistress Holbrooke had gone in, leaving a single, perfectly usable print.

The door opened – automatic, like most doors nowadays – and she slipped in, allowing it to close again.

And she stood in the dark office. She could barely see, so she crawled through the floor until she bumped against what she supposed was the desk. Feeling around its carvings and trying not to topple anything, she reached the drawers on the other side. She started feeling them and, in the rightmost corner, she found the only locked one. That was it. She couldn’t straight up open it, but lockpicking was one of her many talents.

After a minute, she found what she was looking for: The headmistress’ extra keycard. She quickly put it in her pocket and went to the door again. She couldn’t see or listen outside, so opening it would be rather dangerous. Luckily, she had a friend to help.

The loud noise of another window breaking came even through the metal door, and then another one, and another one. Amanda cringed, Constanze was going a little overboard, but she supposed it was better to be sure. After a few seconds she opened the door, relieved at finding no guards in the hallway outside.

Without even waiting a second, she darted from there and ran downstairs skipping from one to three steps at a time, not breaking anything thanks to her athletic abilities.

Perfect, she thought with a smirk as she finally found a place to relax and catch her breath. Now I should get the only girl who can help me with the next step.

Akko woke up on Saturday morning with reluctance. Sucy and Lotte had gone to do stuff earlier, as far as she knew, but she wasn’t allowed to leave school grounds.

She just wanted to lie in bed all day. The results of the rankings had surprised her, but not too much. After all, Diana getting a perfect score was no news to anyone. Seemed like she didn’t even have to try to be perfect, unlike most normal people. This wasn’t as annoying to Akko, however, as the fact that the girl was apparently thinking of dropping out of the race. She couldn’t get behind that mindset: A chance of a lifetime thrown away because she didn’t feel up to the task? Crazy, that’s what that was.

Well, staying in bed wouldn’t really solve anything, and she was hungry. She got up and dressed, yawning before going to the bathroom to wash her face. After going through her morning routine she finally went down to the cafeteria, where breakfast time was almost over.

She sat on a table, alone, while eating. She didn’t really know what she was going to do today. She couldn’t go outside the school, she couldn’t hang out with her teammates, and she sure as hell wouldn’t study. Diana caught her eye, sitting with her two tails, looking as perfect as ever. She was tempted to ask her if she really wanted to drop out of the race, but why bother? Diana would probably ignore her and then Hannah and Barbara would mock her. Diana wasn’t one to mock others, or at least not directly, but Akko sometimes suspected that she just conformed with seeing her teammates do it.

So, once she finished her food, she exited the cafeteria and went outside. Technically, she was banned from leaving the building itself, but she doubted anyone seriously expected her not to set a single foot outside even once. She still kept close to the walls, though, not daring going too far.

At one point, bored out of her mind, she decided to sit. She took out the key-wand for the Shiny Rod. It was also a normal wand, she had checked that. She could use it to manipulate her spells, but she still was reticent to use it, lest she call the Shiny Rod on accident somewhere. Now she looked at it, thinking how cool it would be to be able to participate in the tests and earn the right to participate in the IPR. She would take Diana’s spot in a heartbeat, she knew that if she were able to race with the Shiny Rod she’d win without breaking a sweat.

She sighed loudly. Daydreaming wouldn’t get her anywhere. Maybe she should start studying a little…

“Pst.”

Akko jumped, startled by the sudden noise. There were students walking around the school grounds, but none of them appeared to be the source of it.

“Pst,” it came again. This time Akko was able to tell from where, and she peeked over the bushes she had nearby. Amanda was there.

“Why are you hiding?” Akko asked, cocking her head. Amanda looked up with her emerald green eyes and then her eyes started darting around. She grabbed Akko by the arm and pulled her down next to her.

“Akko I need a lift,” Amanda whispered. “Don’t ask questions, it’s better if you don’t know.”

“A lift?” Akko’s frown deepened. “You don’t mean…”

“Yes, I’m talking about the Shiny Rod. Come on, do me this favor, I’m begging you,” Amanda clasped her hands together, as in prayer.

“What? No way! If anyone finds out…” Akko did not want to be expelled.

“It doesn’t have to be now, we can do it this night. Come on!” Amanda seemed desperate. Akko was going to refuse, but…

“I’ll do it if you tell me where we’re going and what we’re doing,” Akko said.

Amanda hesitated for a moment, but gave in to Akko’s request somewhat reluctantly. “Fine. I’m going to the Planetary embassy.”

“Why?” Akko asked with confusion.

“To become Earth’s pilot,” Amanda answered with a smirk.

Chapter Text

When the Shiny Rod appeared at its destination, Amanda stood quiet for a few moments.

No one had seen them, apparently. Teleportation seemed to be a very handy thing. Would it be legal to use it during a race? Akko doubted it, she had never seen Chariot using it. Still, she now looked around the room they had appeared in. It was a massive, easily the size of an auditorium. In the faint pale-green glow of the Shiny Rod, Akko barely made out what looked like a big screen at one end of it, accompanied by some machines.

“You teleported us to the Pilot’s Sanctuary?” Amanda asked after noticing where they were with panic in her voice.

“Isn’t here where you wanted to go?” Akko asked, confused by the attitude.

Amanda looked at her before closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You could’ve…” She paused. “Whatever, this makes things easier,” she concluded, resigned, before opening the canopy and jumping out of the broom.

Akko followed. The Pilot’s Sanctuary, the room only used once each ten years, where Earth’s pilots were chosen and inscribed for the Inter-Planetary Race. It was a sacred room for many, including Akko. Amanda had convinced Akko to bring her here, but now Akko was reluctant to leave the broom. Was she worthy of setting foot in here?

The redhead obviously didn’t have the same holdups. She moved her wand – already in flashlight mode – and pointed at the screen in the end of the room. The Shiny Rod was now hovering over the rows of seats set for the ceremony that was to take place in just a couple days.  

Seeing Amanda walk off gave Akko enough determination to step out of the Shiny Rod and walk, carefully, through the room. So far, twenty-two of the greatest pilots Earth had seen had been chosen in this very room, along with their twenty-two gunmen. There had been a couple times where substitutes had to come in, but luckily they never had to be there for more than a couple races. Substitute pilots were, usually, the coaches. Pilots who were great at the technical part but maybe not so much at the practice, yet still good enough to not drag the team through the mud.

Before reaching the stage, Amanda stopped for a second. There appeared to be a small device in front of it, something that Akko couldn’t quite make out. The redhead passed a card through it, and then moved on.

Akko pointed her wand at the great screen while walking between the rows of cushioned seats. Below the screen stood four pedestals – not fully aligned quite yet, from where the four chosen humans would be presented to the world at large.

Amanda was now climbing one of those pedestals – the middle right one – with a crazy look on her face. Akko fastened her pace and, without thinking it too much, she climbed the rightmost one. Amanda was now standing on the First Category Pilot’s pedestal, while Akko was in the First Category Gunman’s one.

Amanda looked in front of her. Both pedestals had a small stands on top of them, holding small square plates that Akko didn’t recognize. What were those things? Looking at Amanda, the girl seemed reticent. She was looking at the square with doubt and almost reverence. Akko waited to see what she did. Amanda left her hand over it for a few seconds, but hesitated and took it away, grunting in frustration. ‘come on, just do it’ she whispered, getting her hand close to it again. She kept doing this for the better part of a minute before Akko lost her patience.

“What is this thing?” She asked, placing her hand on the thing to get a feel of it.

Suddenly, it started glowing with magic. She panicked, trying to get her hand away, but it was stuck there.

“Akko, no!” Amanda looked at her with eyes that said, loud and clear, ‘I fucked up’. “Aw hell, let’s just get this over with!” she yelled and pressed her own hand to the square, the effect repeating.

Akko felt her heart rate spiking as the glowing intensified. Her fingertips felt funny and… “Ouch!” She suddenly felt a sting on of her hand and the glowing stopped. A few seconds later, Amanda’s light did the same and they were back to normal.

And an alarm sounded.

“Akko, time to run!” Amanda said, jumping from the pedestal and sprinting towards the Shiny Rod. Akko reacted a second later and ran with her.

“What the hell just happened?” Akko asked, looking around with worry while moving. She didn’t like this.

“Well, you just…” Amanda paused. Before reaching the Shiny Rod, the door of the Pilot’s Sanctuary opened. The broom was in the middle of whoever was entering and them, but Akko panicked.

“Take this!” Akko cried, throwing the Rod’s key-wand to Amanda, who grabbed it in surprise. The Shiny Rod’s alarm went off and, just like before, it disappeared. Amanda looked back in panic as a force of ten men entered the room carrying weapons. In a second, all of them were pointing at the two teenagers, small red dots appearing on their chests. Instinctively, both raised their hands.

Amanda laughed nervously. Akko was focused on not peeing herself.

What had just happened?

“So, let me get this straight,” Miss Finnelan, still on her pajamas, was pinching the bridge of her nose. They were sitting in the headmistress’ office. Holbrooke sat, tired, behind her dark desk. Bookshelves lined the walls around them, the whiteness from everywhere else in the school half broken by the blue painted ceiling and the green carpet. “You sneaked into the embassy to steal the position of Earth’s First Category Pilot?”

Amanda shrugged. The last couple of hours had been a ride for Akko. From being carried all the way back to Luna Nova to having to answer an interrogation where none of the questions made god damn sense, everything was kind of fuzzy.

“Fine, don’t answer, that’s the obvious one. What I actually wish to know is why did you choose Atsuko Kagari to be the pilot,” she opened her eyes, looking at Amanda with a harshness that Akko had rarely seen in anyone. That question had gotten her attention, and apparently Amanda’s too, since her eyes were widening with confusion.

“Wait, what? No, I made myself the pilot,” she explained, and Akko nodded. She had been in the pilot’s position.

“Miss O’Neill, the stage was only being set up. The things weren’t in order,” she explained with annoyance. Amanda’s eyes widened even further, and Akko could almost hear the ‘oh no’ inside of her head.

Probably because she also heard it inside her own.

“Wait, you don’t mean,” Akko frowned.

“Congratulations, Miss Kagari,” Finnelan said coldly. “You’re now earth’s First Category Pilot,” there was venom in her voice. She turned to look at Amanda. “And you? You’re a First Category Gunner, miss O’Neill.”

Amanda, who was up until now sitting rather straight, slumped in the chair, jaw dropping with the sudden realization. Akko was similarly shocked, but something else hit her too. I stole Diana’s spot, she thought. “Well, just, like, reset the thing,” Akko said. For some reason, the idea of taking the spot like that was highly annoying. She’d best Diana properly some day, this way was not what she wanted.

However, the look she got from Finnelan made her soul drop to her feet. “We can’t,” she said with bitterness. “That biometric security system was crafted with just one pilot in mind, Miss Kagari. The Planetary Committee didn’t expect anyone to be able to get past security… Or, well, to even attempt stealing the spot. What’s more, your data was instantly sent to the higher ups, and we can’t make changes in the pilots without a week of notice. Week that, you can probably guess, we don’t have,” she marked those last words with anger. “You girls should be glad that there isn’t a law against this, mostly because no one imagined it could happen. If it were me, you’d get thrown into a reformatory or even jail.”

Akko gulped. She’d… Messed up, hadn’t she. “It was Amanda’s idea…” she tried, but Finnelan gave her a harsh look and she shut up.

“You used the Shiny Rod to get in there, didn’t you? I knew I shouldn’t have given you that wand back,” she didn’t sound just angry, she sounded even hateful.

“I’m… Well…” Akko was out of excuses.

“We should just drop out of the race entirely. I’ll ask the Committee if…”

“No,” Holbrooke spoke for the first time since entering the room. Finnelan looked at her with surprise. “You know we can’t do that, Miss Finnelan. We can’t drop out of the race for any reason,” she sounded tired. Disappointed. And, maybe more than anything, angry. Though, curiously enough, Akko didn’t feel that anger directed at her. Something else seemed to be bothering the Headmistress.

“Maybe we can say she got sick, get a replacement,” Finnelan suggested. Akko thought that could be it, if a pilot got sick they could get a sub, after all. Holbrooke, however, just raised an eyebrow, not even answering. “No, a replacement can only race for three races, any more and we’re disqualified.”

Akko looked at Amanda again, trying to see if she had any ideas. However, she was just in the same position as before, looking dazed and out of herself. Akko would’ve tried to help her out, but she was in trouble too.

No one spoke for a few minutes. Finnelan was red with anger, Holbrooke kept her tired eyes closed, and the teenage girls didn’t really know what to say. Akko was about to ask why they couldn’t just drop out of the race when someone knocked on the door.

Holbrooke opened her eyes and gestured with her wand. The door opened, and Ursula stepped inside the office, looking worn out and panting. She eyed Akko and Amanda and, for the first time since the incident happened, Akko didn’t feel any kind of reproach.

“I just got the report,” she said out of breath. “Is it…?”

“Yes, it’s true. Meet your First Category team, coach Ursula,” Finnelan said pointing at the two teenagers. Akko expected to see disappointment, anger, or some kind of negative emotion in the woman. Instead, Ursula looked at them with interest. Akko met her eyes, feeling strangely relieved.

“Wait, coach?” Amanda perked up. “Why is she the coach? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a race,” she frowned. Surprisingly enough, instead of answering, Finnelan looked at Holbrooke expectant. Apparently, she didn’t understand either. Holbrooke, however, sighed.

“It’s not important, miss O’Neill,” she sat up a little straighter and took a deep breath. “Well, I guess there’s no need to continue with this useless discussion. Ursula, if you may, please accompany these girls to their rooms.”

Finnelan raised her eyebrows with wide eyes. “Wait, Headmistress, you don’t mean…”

“Miss Finnelan, there’s nothing we can do now. These girls caused a lot of trouble and now they’ll have to take responsibility,” she stared them both in the eyes, alternating. “I think they’ll regret their decisions soon enough,” she didn’t say it with malice or humor. It sounded more like… Pity.

Akko looked at Amanda, and they met eyes. They both felt like those words had been ominous. What had she meant by that?

“Before you go, however,” Holbrooke said to Ursula. “I want to know, how are the rankings?”

“No one besides Miss Cavendish has broken the ninety points yet,” Ursula explained. Holbrooke nodded slowly.

“Then I say we call it off. The best pilots on earth have already participated. With the adventures of Miss Kagari and Miss O’Neill this night, we only have one pilot left. Don’t you think we should get this over with?”

Ursula nodded, and Akko found that she was smiling. Finnelan had just turned to look out the window. The coach turned to look at them – Akko particularly – and pointed at the door. “Well, girls, let us go. We have a lot to do tomorrow,” she sounded… Excited?

Amanda stood and walked out. She had gotten over her daze, now looking just angry.

Akko lingered in place for a moment, but in the end went out too.

Apparently, she was now Earth’s First Category Witch.

“What an idiot!” Hannah was walking in circles around the couch. They had received the news first thing in the morning. “Both of them! Idiots, absolute…”

“Hannah,” Diana said, coldly. The auburn-haired girl ignored her.

“How could they? How can someone be so… Idiotic?”

“Hannah.”

“I knew they were probably jealous, after all, they weren’t even able to take part in the classifications, but…”

“Hannah…”

“…to do this? To just straight up steal the spot? And why can’t they just be thrown away? Just reset the system, explain the mistake, it can’t be that hard, I mean…”

“HANNAH!” Diana snapped, and Hannah paused. Barbara was looking at her with an awkward expression. “What’s done is done, complaining won’t get us anywhere. I would appreciate it if you allowed me to think quietly.”

“Aren’t you angry?” Barbara asked, confused.

“Of course I’m angry,” Diana explained. “But complaining and getting worked up over it won’t make the anger go away. I…” She sighed. “I just want to think.” She was sitting on the couch, but she stood and went around the bookshelf to sit on her desk.

She closed her eyes.

Her world had been shaken to its core in the last couple of days. Her score, thinking to drop out of the race, deciding that she wasn’t going to, growing ever so slightly excited about being Earth’s pilot, and then getting her wings burnt from getting too close to the sun. The second she’d believed maybe things were going to go her way for once, someone had appeared and destroyed those dreams. Again.

She should’ve seen something like this coming. Being earth’s First Category pilot with just sixteen years? What was she thinking?

And yet, Akko had done it. Through potentially illegal means, but she had done it nonetheless. Hannah was still complaining about that to Barbara, though in a lower voice.

Diana started to play with a pen, rolling it between her fingers, feeling its tip, while thinking. She did a lot of that and, in the end, it didn’t really solve her problems. It helped, sure, but most of the time she found solutions to these kinds of things by chance, not by overthinking.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself. She felt the frustration, disappointment, anger and relief stirring her chest like a tornado, fighting each other for control.

Diana took a deep breath and quelled them all.

All that was left to do was accept what had happened. She was to be Earth’s Second Category pilot. She’d do the best she could to help with the race. There was nothing more to it.

Amanda stared at Ursula as she guided the small group of students through the white hallways of Luna Nova. She still couldn’t get over what had happened, and she doubted she’d ever get over it. Such a big overlook, such bad luck. She would’ve been fine if she had accidentally taken Second Category pilot or something, but no, she had taken a god damn gunman. Or, well gunwoman, but the official term had kind of always been just gunman and no one had been bothered to try and change it, so everyone said gunman and was done with it.

The red, blue and green teams all walked together. Amanda, Akko and Diana for obvious reasons, and the other ones Amanda didn’t really know. Ursula had said that they had things to do today, but she had only called to them after noon and was now walking rather slowly.

Eventually, just as Amanda was about to ask where the hell were they going, they reached one of the school’s ‘towers’ – not really towers, but forbidden rooms on the top floor – and entered it. Amanda had already sneaked into one of these rooms before, but as far as she knew, they were only medium-sized rooms used for storage.

What she knew was apparently wrong, for right after entering – requiring, apparently, a keycard, something that wasn’t the case back when Amanda had sneaked in – she saw a broom. For a second, she was astonished. It wasn’t just a broom, it was the broom. The Shooting Star. Her jaw dropped and she stepped forward, not withholding her urge to touch it.

However, she phased through it and tripped over her own feet, not falling to the ground by pure luck.

“This,” Ursula completely ignored her actions. “Is a holographic replica of the ships you’re going to be piloting during the race,” she explained. Amanda’s eye twitched at this. She was not going to be piloting it!

“Uhm…” Akko spoke up. Amanda tried to give her a death stare, knowing what she was going to say, but she realized her body was probably now hidden within the hologram. “I’m going to be piloting the Shiny Rod, though.”

Everyone – including her teammates – looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Akko, we know you like Chariot,” Lotte said, gently touching her arm. “But do you not recognize what this is?”

Akko shook her head. Amanda burst out of the hologram and pointed at it. “This is the Shooting Star, Akko! This is the most technologically advanced broom in the world!” she pointed at it again, more exaggeratedly this time. “I don’t care how much you like Chariot, you can’t…”

“Can it teleport?” Akko asked, frowning and sounding strangely serious.

Amanda frowned back, confused. “Well, no…”

“Can it shoot out the cockpit?”

“Why would it…”

“Can it create shields out of pure magic?” Akko crossed her arms, her serious and somewhat angry expression slowly shifting to a self-confident one.

Amanda paused. She had forgotten about the shields. “Ehm, no…”

“Can it turn off the inverted controls?”

When Amanda didn’t answer – she didn’t really have an argument anymore, Akko snorted and looked back at the teacher. The other girls in the room were left slightly confused by the exchange. Ursula was slightly uncomfortable as Akko stared at her intently. “Uhm,” the woman said. “Sorry, it was my bad. You will be piloting the Shiny Rod,” upon saying this, Akko nodded and relaxed visibly. “But, well, there are no digital records of the Shiny Rod’s structure, so… Just let me explain what this is for.” She turned around and flicked her wand. Then, the Shooting Star broke. Or, more like, undid itself. A lot of different pieces.

“You see,” Ursula continued. “I firmly believe that any pilot should know the layout of their ship. Even if you’re not a mechanic, being able to recognize what’s wrong in your ship and maybe even fix it can prove helpful,” she moved the wand around, making the hologram shift perspectives or even moving particular pieces. “We barely have a week to do this, but I will run you all through a basic course on how ships work, and particularly the Shooting Star,” she explained.

“Uhm, why are we here, then?” Sucy asked, raising an eyebrow. “We’re not going to take part in the race…”

“You are, actually,” Ursula smiled at them. “We’re not about to break the teams the school has been building just for the race.”

Lotte and Sucy didn’t know how to answer. However, what surprised Amanda was Barbara’s face of pure relief and Hannah’s complete nonchalance. Something didn’t really seem right with those reactions, but she couldn’t exactly place why they felt so wrong.

However, she still turned, not really excited about the prospect of learning how to fix a ship. All she wanted to do was fly them.

I’m not even going to ride the Shooting Star, she thought with bitterness. She was stuck as the Shiny Rod’s gunman and stupid technology impeded her from fixing her mistake. She had done everything right: She had researched what the inscription security was going to be this year; she had stolen Holbrooke’s keycard to allow her inscription – Holbrooke, as the Headmistress of one of the most prestigious pilot academies in the world, was a part of the Planetary Committee, given the importance races had on the cultural exchanges of the twenty-six planets of the Planetary Alliance – and she had even gotten Akko to carry her through most of the security.

Her fuckup had been right at the end, and she was still livid about it. On the inside, at least.

Ursula was now explaining something about the inside of the broom. She was only slightly interested, so she heard while wishing the ground swallowed her to put her out of her misery. She knew she would never forget this mistake. She’d regret it for the rest of her life. That perspective was almost enough to drive her crazy on the spot. She was only sixteen years and she had already committed a mistake so monumental that she wished to die.

The silver lining, however, was that she was going to the IPR. And that meant that she still had a chance to pilot. Incapacitating Akko for a couple races was attractive, but she was not that desperate. Yet.

She still had some dark thoughts, though.

“This is a Magic capacitor,” Ursula explained while pointing at a piece from the back of the ship. Amanda tried to pay some attention to distract herself. “It gives an extra… Kick, let’s say, of magic to the system when starting. If it breaks, your broom’s systems might not start and you’ll be flying blind. It’s not impossible, but…” Amanda stopped listening completely.

Minutes passed. Her mind was blank. She could no longer think straight, not with the deep desire of going back in time that she felt right now. She wanted to punch Akko, even if it wasn’t her fault. She wanted to punch Diana, because it had been her perfect score what had pushed her to do such a stupid thing. She wanted to punch everyone, just because she was angry.

But in the end, it had been her mistake. So Amanda only saw one possible path: Accept it and learn how to aim properly, because if she was going to participate in the race in any way, she was going to do her best to help Earth win.

Chapter Text

Akko stood, nervous, in the dressing room. She was next to Amanda. Both girls were checking their outfits, which were their new uniforms. No longer the Luna Nova uniforms, no. They now wore Earth’s uniform. They changed it every decade. The first one had been blue and green, for obvious reasons, but no one had liked the design. Over the years it had seen better and worse iterations, but Akko thought this one wasn’t on the ‘worse’ side of things.

The outfit in question was a normal anti-g suit: Thin, tight and it highlighted the curves of anyone who wore it. Once you got past the initial embarrassment of wearing one, it was quite comfortable. Then, most of the uniform was black. Akko didn’t like that. The previous uniform had been completely white, and she hoped that would be the case for her too. Her hopes seemed misplaced, sadly. However, in the inner side of her legs, the sides of her body and the undersides of her arms, it was a strange marine-green. It wasn’t bad, but then again, Akko was not a fan of it. Not that pilots were forced to wear them if they didn’t want to: one was allowed to fly however the hell they wanted, even if that meant they were being stupid. But Akko didn’t want to not wear it, if that made any sense.

“Damn, this is awful,” Amanda said. “I think I’ll stick to the Luna Nova uniform for the races,” she was checking herself out in the mirror with a disgusted expression. The suit fitted her so much better than Akko though, why was she complaining? Akko was about to voice her question when someone knocked on the door. The dressing room was barely enough for Akko and Amanda to change comfortably. It had a couple mirrors and a closet, along with a small makeup station that neither of them used.

“Come in,” Akko said. Both of them were already dressed so there wasn’t much else to do. Ursula opened the door and looked at them with a kind smile.

“Are you ready, girls?”

“No,” Amanda said. “Everyone there knows we cheated. I’d be surprised if they don’t bathe us in rotten tomatoes,” she cringed while thinking about it. Akko considered it and thought it could be fun. Like a water balloon party in summer.

“Don’t worry, the rankings showed Akko with a high score near the end, most people won’t realize what happened,” Ursula reassured. Amanda sighed, but said nothing more. Akko wasn’t sure she liked what they had done to hide her mistake, it’d be obvious that Akko was worse than Diana the second they started racing. “Come on, it’s time.”

Akko followed slowly through the wooden corridors. The embassy was a building that had been constructed with the intention of looking old. Though the structure was modern, everything had a layer of wood outside. The lights were even slightly orange, as those from the past. Akko felt strangely nostalgic in there, even if she had never lived in a building like this.

Doors lined the hallways, most of them being probably offices. After a while walking, Ursula stopped in front of another door. Akko cocked her head, confused, until after just one knocking two girls came out, wearing uniforms similar to Akko’s but with the colors switching places. Diana and…

“Hannah?” Amanda was the first to react. “What are you doing here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Hannah raised an eyebrow, seemingly offended.

“This is a ceremony for pilots and gunmen, isn’t it?” Amanda sounded shocked, though Akko was just as surprised as she was.

“I’m Diana’s gunman, you idiot,” she scoffed. The redhead raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to say something, but Hannah continued. “Don’t bother commenting, I don’t care about what you think,” she said and turned to Ursula.

Amanda snorted. “Well, whatever,” she said with faked nonchalance. Akko noticed that Hannah was using slight makeup, but Diana wasn’t. Not that she needed any, being as pretty as she was.

Akko felt strangely uncomfortable realizing what she'd just thought.

Trying to ignore it, she walked next to the others until they reached a massive double door. And, upon opening it, they entered the Pilot’s Sanctuary.

Unlike the day where they had sneaked in, it was lit with those old-feeling orange lights. The floor and the cushioned seats were all a deep maroon, and the walls, stage and ceiling were all painted a very dark blue, the walls lined with photos of previous earth pilots and gunmen. It kind of looked like a theater with different seats. Seats that were all occupied. Members of the embassy, important pilots of the world, even aliens: Representatives of the Planetary Alliance. Not every single race was here, but Akko recognized the Armor with its huge, armadillo-like body made apparently of rock, or the Shapeshifter with its indefinite form, like a cloud of black smoke constantly shifting but somehow maintaining a bipedal appearance. A giant Medusa occupied a place near the front, though it looked to be in a kind of tank with not-exactly-water inside it. Two persons from Appal, too. Very similar to humans, but with taller builds and sharper features, almost like an exaggeration of what a human could be, particularly in their hair colors. One of them had bright yellow hair, while the other seemed to have it black. However, if you looked closely you’d see that it was actually a really dark purple.

All of these people were here to look at the four teenagers who were considered the best earth had to offer.

Their looks showed that they didn’t believe it.

Akko tried to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, not sure of being able to keep a straight face if she did.

Amanda walked with a determined, don’t-get-in-my-way step, while Diana and Hannah walked with casualty, as if this were everyday occurrence to them. On their way to the stage, someone touched Akko’s forearm and she almost cried in surprise, only to see that her friends from Luna Nova were sitting there, a few rows before the front. Lotte was giving her an encouraging smile, while Sucy and the others seemed rather indifferent to the whole situation. Akko even noticed that Lotte was trying to hide something from view and instantly recognized one of those books she liked so much.

She didn’t have time to stop and chat, though.

When they reached the stage and climbed on the pedestals – in the positions they were meant to be, the giant screen behind them suddenly turned on and showed photos of them. Neutral, front-facing photos. Then Ursula stepped onto the stage before them between Akko and Diana and started to present the students. She wasn’t very thorough with any of them – Akko suspected that Diana had done a lot more than Ursula presented. The problem was that Akko hadn’t really accomplished anything.

As the presentation went on, Akko found it harder and harder not to look at the audience. At first she tried focusing on her friends, none of them besides Lotte really paying attention. Slowly, her eyes started to check out the spectators. Akko recognized with shock the Second Category pilots from the previous race, a Wizard and Gunmen who everyone had assumed were going to be the First Category ones until Chariot showed up. After that, they had given up racing and no one really knew what to make of them. They were looking at Akko and Diana with the same kind of harsh looks Akko expected to find everywhere.

Her expectations were met. The more people she looked at, the more nervous she grew. Harsh eyes was a simple way to say it, some were even full of hate. She gulped, feeling like she was going to puke.

But then, it hit her like a brick. This had been exactly the same position Chariot had been in. Well, kinda, she had earned her place, but she had been met with the same kind of harshness. At the start, media called her a cheater and some other stuff, because she hadn’t allowed her Broom to be studied, even if there was no proof of her ever cheating.

Akko found comfort in this, starting to feel more confident. Maybe she hadn’t earned her place, but she had the Shiny Rod, she would be able to do something that earned the same kind of fanatism her idol had had.

Then, four aliens stood. The Armor, taller than the average human by three or four heads, seen from the front, wasn’t so much an armadillo anymore. It still had the strange shell, but underneath it were three pairs of legs that walked very close to one another along with four arms, all of which appeared to be made of rock. The Shapeshifter left a trail of smoke when walking, but that smoke eventually came back to its main body. It had probably chosen a humanoid form for the ceremony, but if Akko remembered correctly, their natural state was a simple formless cloud. She didn’t understand how a being that was apparently made of smoke was able to grab things but that was another matter. A Cyborg, a half-biomechatronic half-organic creature, bipedal but with four sets of arms – two of them fully metallic, stood taller than even the Armor, barely being able to move through the seats without kicking others. Apparently, their race had once been like humans, but had grown so dependent on technology that their newborns usually lacked a couple limbs. And last, the Octopus. It… Wasn’t really an octopus, since it only had four tentacles, but other than that it was very similar. In its mouth and around its neck it had some kind of water-scarf that allowed it to breathe and its movements were rather funny to look at.

All of them were carrying small medals. Two gold, two silver. Akko’s felt some real excitement for the first time in a while. Those were the pilot medals. She was going to receive one with just sixteen years! But she didn’t earn it, so it felt cheap, but it was so hard not to be excited!

The Shapeshifter was the one to approach Akko. It had no face, its head completely empty and constantly shifting but somehow maintaining form. Akko instinctively sniffed a little when it got close, but there was no smell coming from him. She wondered what would happen if she stuck her head inside it and took a deep breath. She didn’t do it, afraid of being poisoned by the strange smoke. It reached up with its unreal-looking arms and the medal – Akko noticed that it was inside the smoke, half-phasing through the body – and put it around Akko’s neck. It brushed Akko’s shoulder on the way down; making her realize that there must have been some sort of physicality to it, since she had felt a soft touch.

When it stepped away – its feet lacking any kind of noise – Akko felt as if something had changed, allowing herself to smile a little. Yeah, she wasn’t here because she had earned it. But if she worked hard she was sure she would make for a worthy Witch with the title of Earth’s First Category pilot!

She looked at the others. Amanda had received hers from the Cyborg who, even if Amanda was tall, standing on the pedestal and on the stage, still looked down at her when putting the medal her. She was still looking him straight in the eyes. To the other side, Diana was receiving hers from the Armor and Hannah from the Octopus. Both of them had calm expressions and nodded slightly when receiving the medals.

The four aliens went back to their seats and an old man stood, one Akko recognized instantly. The leader of the IPR Committee. Paul Hanbridge, with grey hair and green eyes. He wore a pair of glasses and wore what was probably his finest black suit.

He stepped onto the stage, taking the microphone from Ursula, and looked at the four teenagers.

“You are Earth’s representatives from this point on and until the race finishes. Show the best humanity has to offer, both in terms of attitude and ability. Godspeed, pilots.”

His short speech ended quickly. All speeches were short when it came to the Inter-Planetary Race. People wanted a race, not a speech. The whole ceremony was, actually, little more than a simple formality. And it had already ended. Everyone in the room started to get out, save for the other Luna Nova students, helping Akko relax. No more eyes focused on her, no more harshness. Now, only the overlapping excitement and guilt remained.

Ursula turned to look at them as they climbed down from the pedestals, smiling. She was looking particularly at Akko, even if the girl didn’t notice, interest shining in her eyes. “Well, we’re all set. Call your families, prepare your luggage. We leave at first hour on Wednesday,” with the wave of a hand, she prompted the girls to go towards the exit too. Akko looked again at the others. Amanda and Hannah looked the same as before, but Diana was, strangely enough, looking down, apparently lost in thought.

Akko considered asking if something was wrong, but why would she? Even if she did, she wasn’t friends with Diana so she doubted she’d get an answer. Plus, she thought she had an idea of what was going through the girl’s mind. Akko didn’t want to admit it, but she was probably hated. There was no way Diana would actually drop out of the race, she was probably just nervous, but then Akko had gone and stolen the First Category from her. It was probably best if she kept her distance.

“I must say,” Diana suddenly said. “I did not expect such a small audience.”

Akko cocked her head. Small? There had to be like two hundred people in there!

Ursula, however, nodded. “As you may remember, procedures were sped up this time. What would have normally taken a full month was narrowed down to just ten days, a third of the time. A lot of people weren’t invited because there wasn’t time to prepare it all,” she explained right as they exited the sanctuary and got back to the wooden corridors.

“I see,” she simply said. Akko noticed some hesitance. She wondered if maybe there had been an ulterior motive to her question, but she didn’t dwell on it. She had her own things to deal with, and right now, what she wanted was to just be rid of all the thoughts that haunted her. She checked out the medal she had received. It had a simple depiction of Earth in relief.

She allowed herself to smile, if only a little.

That whole ceremony had been a farce.

Diana understood this. Lack of time to prepare? What an idiotic excuse that was. No, they had wanted as little people to watch it as possible, to not be asked questions. Hell, the press wasn’t even there! There was just a single camera streaming the event and Diana suspected it hadn’t even been a world-wide thing. Akko’s and Amanda’s blunder had basically ruined the whole thing, leaving only the locals to attend the event. Normally there were about a thousand people in these ceremonies. Diana noticed how the seats had more space between them, the suspiciously big margin left at the sides and back of the room, the unusually wide center corridor. It was impossible to hide that four fifths of the normal guests weren’t there.

And Diana was happy about that. She had been at the verge of collapse thorough the whole thing, wanting to explain all the reasons why what they were doing was wrong. But somehow, the smaller audience, the quick ceremony, everything had helped her get through it. She looked at her silver medal, with its relief of the earth. She felt conflicted about it. Did she really deserve it? She still didn’t know how the punctuation system had worked. Maybe she did, maybe she even deserved the golden one.

Still, after much thinking, she had logically concluded that this was for the better. If she didn’t deserve it, then at least the bulk of the attention would be drawn to Akko, who was surely even less deserving of hers. On the other hand, if she did deserve it, or if she deserved the better one, she’d prove it in the only way she could: Racing. Piloting. Beating everyone else, no matter who they were.

She glanced at Akko, who was looking at her own medal with a smile, something she hadn’t done in a few days. She had a good heart, but that was it. She lacked discipline, ability and practice. Earth was not going to win this Inter-Planetary Race, but maybe, if Diana did her best, they at least wouldn’t come out in last place.

Just maybe.

Hannah went up the boarding dock of the Dragon – a massive broom with the size of a damn stadium, painted in blue and green. It looked like a fusion between a submarine and a plane, but giant. It was the only ship on earth, magic-fueled or not, capable of world-hopping, a term used to describe the travel between planets. The door was surprisingly small, but they were using a special entrance. Behind her, she could see the enormous docks in the middle of the ocean – the broom was so massive that it needed to land on water. There was no natural land anywhere in sight, and the structure they were in, full of people, was a giant floating platform where boats constantly came and went. The people here came from all different kinds of cultures, but they all had the same aristocratic air to them. They were, after all, wealthy enough to pay for the travel. Food stands of all kinds popped here and there, normally near the multiple entrances to the massive broom, and most of them were pretty successful in their sales.

Hannah scrunched her nose at the sight. So messy. She had expected something more organized, not a sea of colors and people coming and going with no clear objectives in mind. The amount of noise was almost deafening, footsteps that never stopped, shouts that were directed at no one in particular, crying babies and more. The smell of all those food stands gave Hannah nausea, who would eat in those things? Besides everyone else, of course. Hannah, Barbara and Diana stood at the top of the boarding dock, looking at the crowds for signs of their companions, who had gone to get something to eat. Hannah was tempted to just go inside the Dragon but Ursula had said that she wanted them to stick together until the ship departed.

“I’m kind of hungry,” Barbara said, looking at the crowd.

“I’m sure there’ll be food inside,” Hannah said, completely missing the point of what Barbara had said. The black-haired girl sighed and nodded.

Soon enough, the group of six appeared from the crowd, all carrying something to eat. Jasminka was carrying all kinds of different foods, and apparently tasted them all at once.

“You sure you don’t want something?” Akko asked with her mouth half full, offering the blue team trio some of what she was carrying. Hannah couldn’t recognize it beyond knowing it was fried. She winced at the idea of having to eat it and shook her head energetically.

Barbara seemed to want to try it, but she held herself back. Diana completely ignored the offer, instead turning and entering the broom without delay. Hannah and Barbara followed.

The inside of the Dragon wasn’t spacious. The metallic corridors were narrow, probably no more than two meters high and one meter wide. They were perfectly rectangular, with white lights illuminating the way. Doors to different compartments lined the walls and the steps of the nine girls walking through the maze of corridors resounded. Everyone was wearing casual clothing today: They had two days of travel ahead of them, so Ursula had suggested they wore comfortable clothes. Hannah was wearing a one-piece completely white summer dress, while most of the others wore simple t-shirts and jeans. Akko and Amanda wore shorts, while Sucy wore a cloak for some reason.

After five minutes going around following Diana, Akko asked her friends if they were lost. Hannah turned back to answer and, in that precise moment, Diana stopped, which lead to Hannah bumping into her.

“Here we are,” Diana said. There they were indeed: The corridor they were in was a short one, and it only had doors on one side of it. Three doors, to be precise, one for each team. At the end of the corridor there was a set of stairs that Hannah hoped would lead to the upper levels of the ship where there were things to actually do. She had checked the pamphlet: There was a pool somewhere, and she wanted to try it out.

“Then, which room is which?” Akko asked.

“Our luggage should be inside,” Diana explained. “Check where is yours and we’ll know.”

Everyone started to check out the rooms. The red team was on the left room, the blue team on the center and the green team on the right. The three rooms were exactly the same, with four beds that retreated into the walls, small two-shelves closets with a single drawer, the smallest bathroom in the universe and a single screen hanged on the opposite wall to the door, probably to watch movies and such. Not very comfortable, but it was just a two-days trip.

The red team’s room had an extra luggage that no one recognized, thought it wasn’t hard to come to the conclusion that it was probably Ursula’s. The teacher would now be working on making sure everything was ready for departure, probably down in the hangar of the Dragon where smaller brooms would be stored. Hannah remembered the desire she had felt of punching Akko in the face when it had taken up to twenty-five minutes to convince her that the Shiny Rod wouldn’t be able to just teleport to another planet and get her to call for it so that it could be stored. The earth team was now carrying three brooms on the ship: Two Shooting Stars and the Shiny Rod. The three had been hidden and described as Shooting Stars, because Akko absolutely refused to let others look at it. She was afraid of someone wanting to steal it.

Hannah had wanted to punch her, but in the end Akko had accepted their arguments.

After settling into their rooms, Barbara and Diana decided that they would wait there until Ursula came back. Hannah had no patience for that, so she made sure to remember the number and of the room – 809 – and stepped outside.

She was greeted with Amanda’s grumpy face in the corridor, looking with hesitance at the stairs. Her shirt was white and it had a dancing leprechaun drinking beer on it. Rather ugly, in Hannah’s opinion.  

“Going up?” Amanda asked, not sounding particularly excited about the prospect of going in the same direction as Hannah.

“Yes,” Hannah said coldly. Amanda rolled her eyes and instantly took off. Hannah hesitated for a second before deciding that she was not going to get hampered in her mission to go search the pool because of her. She started going upstairs – It was a long way up but she didn’t know where the elevator was – at a relatively normal pace.

When she reached the first deck, the massive area near the front of the Dragon that was already full of people – though, not in such mess as in the docks – she almost ran into Amanda, who appeared to be awed at the size of the place. It looked like a mall. The floor was lined with wood and the ceiling was at least five meters tall. To her left, the line of picture windows at the front of the ship gave an amazing view of the ocean and to her left a metal wall cut off the view, leading to more rooms. The edges of the space were lined with small shops, which would probably see a lot of business in the coming weeks - while the pilots would find stay on whatever planet they were going to, most of these people would remain inside the Dragon during those periods. Most didn’t dare go into crazy alien planets without a good reason and even less dared sleep in them. In the middle of it all there was a giant stage where Hannah knew there’d be some amazing shows, but none during this first short trip. Most of the better stuff would come during the longer world-hopping periods, which could last up to a week in some cases.

The pool wasn’t here, but Hannah was not going to climb a single step more.

“Are you going to move or what?” Hannah asked in annoyance. Amanda snapped out of her surprise and looked at her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said with annoyance. Hannah started walking around the shops, which were already open. Clothes, gifts and even fast-food chains were there. Not used to these kinds of experiences, Hannah did find herself in a thrill while exploring. It was exciting. From time to time she stopped before display windows in shops, thinking about buying some clothes. There’d be a few parties thorough the IPR, some inside the Dragon and some in the different planets they were going to. They had been asked not to bring too much luggage, but no one had said anything about buying stuff.

One of the times she stopped, Amanda bumped into her. She apologized without much energy.

“Why are you following me?” Hannah asked giving the tall girl a flat stare.

Amanda shrugged, meeting her eyes with the same kind of expression. “I dunno, not that I was planning on doing it or anything,” she said and turned away. “I’ll go the other way if it bothers you so much.”

“That’d be lovely, thanks,” Hannah said with feigned sweetness. Amanda let out a ‘bah’ before starting to walk in the opposite direction.

Hannah frowned. She didn’t know what to make of Amanda. Unlike Akko, she didn’t usually react in any meaningful way to her taunts, so it was boring to tease her. Despite how she acted, when Hannah thought about troublemakers at school, Akko wasn’t the first one to pop into mind: Amanda was. She caused trouble on purpose, almost as if wanting to get expelled, coming up with crazier and crazier ways of causing trouble. During her first week she had hidden all the teacher’s wands in a single night and then, next week, she did it again. The thing was, that time the wands had been in a safe with a twelve-digit numeric password. Then she had given up on the prank, because doing the same thing over and over would grow boring.

Well, she wasn’t Hannah’s problem.

At some point, when walking around the deck, Hannah found herself growing really hungry. She had money, but she considered it would be best to at least wait for her friends. Particularly Barbara, since she had said she was hungry too. On the other hand, it could be hours until Ursula came back.

While debating herself, she saw something that caught her eye. It was a small silvery necklace with an emerald pendant. It was really, really pretty. But also expensive; too expensive for a sixteen year old, no matter how much money her family had. Still, she stared at it for a while longer, thinking of what kinds of dresses would go well with it.

When she was done fantasizing, she started walking again. Maybe she should just eat, be done with it. There were a couple of good looking restaurants here that would probably be interesting. She suspected that the really good ones, however, would be on the higher decks, where a good portion of the passengers wouldn’t be able to access. Pilots could enter all five decks, but common people went by tiers. This was the lowest, Bronze Deck. It went Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Magic. All tiers were absurdly expensive, but the higher ones could go up to half a million per head or more. Hannah hadn’t searched, she was kind of afraid of what the prices could be.

After about fifteen minutes, she managed to get to the other side of the deck. There had been a ton of cute dresses and other garments she had stared at, but she was starting to grow bored. The other people on the deck were entering and exiting shops constantly, or just walking around, and the place was starting to grow hot. Apparently the ventilation hadn’t been turned on quite yet. Hannah decided that it was probably time to go back.

She spared a thought for Amanda, wondering where the troublemaker would be. She didn’t see her near, so in the end, she shrugged. She would find her way to the rooms eventually. Now, where was that elevator…?

“Akko,” Lotte said, the hint of annoyance in her voice. “Could you please not leave your things on the floor?”

“Sorry, I’m just…” Akko was going through her luggage in a panic. She couldn’t have forgotten it, could she? There was no way, there was no… Ah, there it was! “Oh thanks lord, I thought I didn’t have it,” she kissed her small Chariot card. During the three months of the IPR ten years ago, Chariot had grown to a marketing monster in just a few weeks. What Akko had right now was one of her many Chariot cards. Her favorite: The one where Chariot stood atop a half-buried cockpit in the dirt, wearing her white anti-g suit and a helmet that allowed her to breathe. It was the moment she had lived herself during her youth and it had been stuck in her head ever since. The card didn’t help get rid of it, of course.

“Of all the things you could’ve brought you decide to take a card,” Sucy rolled her eyes. “You didn’t bring the entire collection did you?”

“No, just this one,” Akko explained. “It’s from the race I saw in person, the one that convinced me to be a Witch,” she said with nostalgia. Sucy smiled as she always did before throwing a snarky comment, but right at that moment Ursula entered the small room and looked at Akko from behind her glasses.

“Akko, I need you and Diana to come with me,” she said.

Akko tucked the card back into the luggage and stood. Then she paused, feeling the daggers on her back, and turned to look at Lotte with an apologetic smile. “I’ll clean it when I get back, I promise,” she said before practically running out of the room.

In the corridor outside, Diana waited already. She wore a light blue t-shirt with dark jeans and sneakers. Akko never imagined she would wear such simple clothing, but then again, the idea was to be comfortable. Ursula guided the way through some corridors and they reached a series of elevators. While waiting for one to come Akko had the urge to talk about something, but she didn’t know what she could talk about. She barely knew Ursula or Diana, even if she did want to get to know them better. Though Diana probably didn’t feel the same way.

The elevator finally arrived. Curiously enough, Hannah came out of it. “Oh, hey,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’m… going to the rooms, see you,” she hurried away. When had she gone out?

Ignoring this – Ursula seemed slightly uncomfortable with what happened, but she moved on – they got into the elevator. Ursula pressed a button and they started moving down.

The awkward silence became even more awkward as they went down. No one else came into it, so Akko just started tapping her foot.

When they reached the floor they were going to, the elevator door opened to a hangar. All kinds of ships – brooms or not – were being carried around by members of the Dragon’s crew. Ursula didn’t stop to look at these, moving left and straight into the deeper parts of the tall hangar where the bigger ships stood. There, amidst the sea of unfamiliarity, stood the three brooms Akko had come to know. Two Shooting Stars, one red, one blue, and the Shiny Rod, still hidden under a giant cover.

They approached them, and Akko noticed the magic bindings around them. And in front of those bindings, dark panels that Akko recognized.

“Girls, you’re already familiar with these. They’re biometric security systems, so that only you may access these ships,” Ursula pointed to them. “Please set your hands on the panels,”

Akko nodded and went straight for the Shiny Rod’s panel. Diana went for the red Shooting Star one. Akko winced when the biometric scan ended and stung her, but other than that, it was as easy as stealing the First Category pilot spot had been.

Diana didn’t even flinch at the pain she must have felt, and she moved onto the next Shooting Star.

“Wait here for a while, we’re going to need to get your signatures. Where’s the guy…?” She trailed off as she walked away, leaving Akko and Diana alone in front of the brooms. Akko absently got closer to Diana, wanting to say something. Maybe an apology, or something encouraging? They had barely spoken to each other, but Akko still felt like she should at least try to be nice.

“So… Pretty nice weather, huh?” She said, instantly face-palming in her mind.

“I agree, even if we can’t really see it from here,” Diana said calmly. Akko was instantly reminded of why she hadn’t tried to talk with Diana before: The girl had this… Egotistic undertone to her, like if she was always in control. Akko had made a comment about the weather and Diana had still managed to instantly make Akko feel stupid.

“Uhm… This ship’s pretty awesome, right?” Akko continued her attempts anyways.

Diana took a deep breath. “I’m not in the mood for small talk, if you don’t mind,” she said, not looking at her.

Akko frowned. “Then you are angry with me,” she said in reaction to the cold answer.

“It might be surprising, but I’m actually not. I just don’t feel like entertaining you.”

“Ok, you don’t have to tell me, I know it anyways,” Akko hmpf-ed. Why would she hide it, anyways? It wasn’t like if she usually pretended that they were friends or anything.

Diana sighed loudly. “Do you think this is a game, Akko?”

Akko turned, surprised at the change of tone. The blonde girl now sounded very tired and annoyed, and she was looking at Akko with an uncharacteristic lack of patience. “We’re Earth’s representatives in the most important inter-planetary event of the decade,” she started. Akko hadn’t really thought much about it, but… “I do not have the time to spare being angry at you, because every second I would spend like such is a second I can’t spend mentally preparing for the rough path ahead,” she pointed at the brooms behind her. “You fail to understand it, but the potential to win is here. These Shooting Stars, they could change everything. You can’t even begin to fathom just how superior they are to all previously known brooms on Earth. And somehow, you have something that is apparently better than they are,” she now pointed at the Shiny Rod. She didn’t sound angry, not really, but it was hard not to realize she wasn’t calm either. Akko thought she’d rather Diana sounded angry than… Whatever this was. “Do you not understand? This could have been the time Earth actually won an Inter-Planetary Race. I don’t have time to be angry at you, Akko, because I want to do my best at trying to win the races ahead of us, and emotions such as those would be nothing but an impediment. I feel like we could’ve won, but then…”

She wavered and took another deep breath, then exhaled. She instantly put on her neutral expression again. “No, never mind. Look, there’s Ursula,” her voice had gone back to normal.

Not that she needed to say it. Akko understood. But then Akko and Amanda had butted in and ruined everything. For the first time since they had committed the act, Akko was hit with the full weight of what she had done. She had managed to ignore it by thinking that she would be like Chariot, that the Shiny Rod would be her triumph card.

But, could she really do it?

Even after signing, going back to her room, tidying up her mess and waiting for the Dragon to take off, she didn’t come to an answer. This time, no rationalization came to help her. Maybe it was because of the guilt, or because she had never imagined Diana would speak to her like that, but her previous bargaining mechanisms were no longer enough.

So it was that, as the Dragon started to move, Akko didn’t feel like going to explore the ship.

Instead, she fell asleep. Maybe she’d have an answer when waking up.

Chapter Text

Diana felt bad for what she had said. She hadn’t meant to snap like that, but she had let her guard down around Akko for some reason. All the thoughts she hadn’t told to even her friends, she had spurted them out to Akko when she wasn’t even really the guilty party.

Still, she hadn’t said anything untrue, so she didn’t really feel the need to apologize.

They had left Earth about three hours ago, so she was now walking through the third deck – also called the Gold Deck – looking for a place to eat along with Hannah and Barbara. They had taken some time to do so because Diana wasn’t feeling particularly good. Akko had apparently gone to sleep and Diana was sure it was her fault, but the main reason was that she wanted to be sure to not snap like that again at anyone anytime soon. She’d needed time to collect her thoughts. Hannah and Barbara had been really nice to wait for her.

Hannah had wanted to go to the upper levels, but Diana had already once been to the Dragon and she already had a place she wanted to visit. The Gold Deck was, in truth, the biggest of all the decks. As high as all the other metal decks, it occupied three-fourths of the length of the ship. It was basically a small shopping district. Diana wasn’t sure if a ship needed so many shops, but she wouldn’t complain. She walked through the wooden, relatively narrow streets along with the traffic. One half of the Gold Deck was occupied by what passengers called the ‘Shopping Town’, while the other half was a big, artificial park with some other things in it. The park was not in Diana’s mind at the moment.

After walking past countless colorful shops, they reached the ‘main street’ of the deck, where all the big, important shops and chains were.

Including Diana’s favorite restaurant in the galaxy.

It was a small establishment, with a door that wasn’t particularly striking or flamboyant made of white wood in a wall painted brown. Above the door, a small sign with the name of the place hung tilted. It hadn’t been like that last time Diana came, but it’d probably get fixed at some point during this trip. The language on it wasn’t readable, not to humans. Diana had tried to learn it, but it had been useless. However, she knew what it meant: Goodwill, so that’s what she called it.

Hannah and Barbara exchanged strange looks. They probably thought Diana was wrong, but she wasn’t.

She stepped forward and pushed the door open. A long corridor lit with white-fire torches was before them. The torches gave, unlike what you’d expect, a spectral light-blue light to the place.

“Wow,” Barbara said. “Aren’t those…?”

“Light Flames,” Hannah finished. “But aren’t those only found in Darkworld?”

‘Darkworld’ was the home planet of the Shapeshifters. Despite the ominous name, the only reason to be called that was the fact that it lacked natural light. It had a moon that was just big enough and had just the right orbit so that the planet was always hidden from the white star of its solar system. Yet somehow it didn’t freeze. Turned out, the planet had a strange energy at its core, not unlike magic, that humans had named ‘Light Flame’. Research hadn’t been done on it yet, mostly because Darkworld was the furthest planet of the alliance from Earth. It would take three months to get there, even on world-hoppers like the Dragon. And the planet wasn’t habitable to humans anyways.

“It’s a source of energy,” Diana said. “As long as there’s a way to store it, it can find its way anywhere.”

She walked through the corridor, her friends following closely and staring in awe at the strange lights. Diana knew that touching one wouldn’t be particularly hot. It would actually feel more like static energy, something she had loved when she was a kid. She was tempted to do it just to see her teammates’ reactions, but she held herself back. She was not a child anymore.

“They’re so pretty…” Hannah said, but she trailed off as they reached the restaurant room.

It was small, barely bigger than Diana’s room at Luna Nova. A skylight stood in the ceiling above the middle of the room, but it had been obscured with some dark material. Little light came through the open glass, as it was only there to allow ventilation into the place. Most of the lighting came, again, from Light Flame torches around the room. There weren’t many tables, and the bar stood lonely at the end. It had tons of bottles behind it, but none of them had a human language written onto their labels. The walls were paneled with dark wood and the floor was a neat white that perfectly reflected the Light Flames’ light.

Diana went for one of the bigger tables in the middle of the room, which was a circle just big enough for three people to sit in comfortably.

“I didn’t know you liked places like… Well, this one,” Barbara said, still looking around in awe. In the spectral blue light, the pale skin of the humans seemed to glow.

“It’s amazing,” Hannah commented. For some reason, she was checking under the table, which had no tablecloth. Other than them, there was no one else in the Goodwill, which Diana found smile-worthy. She was afraid the place would’ve grown more famous with the years, or maybe closed down because of the lack of clientele. But there she was, with her two best friends, in a place that had stayed the same for ten whole years. For a second, she allowed herself to travel back in time.

That second was literal, for a step sounded next to the table, drawing her attention. Hannah and Barbara had uncomfortable expressions to them, but when Diana turned she knew what she would find.

A Shapeshifter. The smoke that made up its body was, in this case, a little lighter than what most humans would be accustomed to, more of a dark grey than a pure black.

“Hello, welcome to the –“ Despite speaking perfect English, when pronouncing the name of the bar, all that Diana heard was a series of whispers and sounds not only barely audible but completely impossible to understand. The Shapeshifter way of speaking was one of allowing the air passing through your body to create the precise sounds you needed to convey your message. Diana had tried to emulate it with whistling, but it was impossible to do it. However, with the strange way Shapeshifter bodies worked, they could transform themselves to speak any language in the planetary alliance. They had been the key to constructing the universal translators they’d be getting once arriving at their destination. “Here’s the menu in Human,” most aliens called the English language ‘human’, such as most humans called the most prominent alien idioms by their race name. “Do you have any drinks in mind yet?” It had a deep and masculine voice.

“Not quite, we will ask for everything once we decide,” Diana took the menu and nodded respectfully.

The waiter nodded. Like all Shapeshifters, he lacked a face, and when he turned to go… Well, he didn’t really turn, he just started backwards and his body changed to make it look like he was doing it forward.

“What’s a restaurant run by a Shapeshifter doing here?” Hannah asked curious.

“I lack that information,” Diana said while starting to read the menu. It had mostly human foods, but it also had a few alien ones. Sadly, not many alien foods were edible, due to the big differences in physiologies between races. Shapeshifters, for example, ate carbon dioxide straight out of the air. After deciding what she was going to get – she already knew, in truth, but she wanted to make sure it was still there – she handed the menu to Hannah.

“Granite and clay? Isn’t this Armor food?” Hannah said while scrunching her nose. “I don’t think an Armor could even fit in here,” she pointed at the narrow corridor that was the entrance.

“I believe I made a similar comment the first time I ate here,” Diana said, recalling her past. “There is also Cyborg food, if you’re up for asking how an alien race would fit in.”

Barbara was staring at her with a weird expression. Diana raised an eyebrow in inquiry, but was met with only a smile and a nod. Apparently, her teammate was just amused at Diana’s attitude. It was unusual for the blonde to look so comfortable.

“Raw meat, this is Appali for sure,” Hannah commented.

“Hannah, how about you look at human food and decide, please? I’m dying here,” Barbara complained. Hannah grunted but nodded, then handed the menu to Barbara. “Ah, look, there’s pineapple pizza here.”

Hannah’s head snapped towards her friend. Pineapple pizza was a touchy subject when Hannah was close. Saying that she hated it would be an understatement: The girl loathed the thing. Diana had never tried it, so she had no preferences over it.

“I’m not saying I’ll ask for it, just thought it was curious. Ok, I’ve picked. What are we going to drink?” Barbara looked at the bar behind Diana.

“Allow me to order something I think you’ll like,” Diana said with a smile. Her teammates nodded without thinking much, they trusted her.

About two minutes later, in which the girls chatted about the nice atmosphere of the Goodwill, the waiter came back. This time he had three arms – one sticking out of his back – as he carried a pencil, a notepad and a tray with breadsticks in it. With it came a sauce that Diana recognized with subtle excitement.

“Have the ladies decided on a meal?” the waiter said. He had a perfectly neutral accent.

“Yes, we have,” Diana said and made the order.

Amanda found herself walking through the hangar in the lower levels of the ship. Out the small circular windows she could already see the stars and blackness of space. She would probably have been more amazed by her first time in space if she wasn’t so tired.

It didn’t take long for her to find the two Shooting Stars and the Shiny Rod hidden below the cover. There wasn’t anyone else in the hangar except for the guard at the elevator door, but he was far away now. Amanda was drawn to the broom-racers, feeling strangely numb while doing so. Was it because she was tired? Or was it the acceptance she was feeling? Maybe it wasn’t even acceptance, maybe it was just depression.

Then again she was just really tired. Her walk through the deck earlier had gone on for a lot longer than she wanted, since she had explored every nook and cranny of the place. She still had to do some exploring of the rest of the ship – she liked to know exactly where she was at all times – but that’d have to wait until she had more time. She’d do it during one of the longer world-hoppings in the future.

She approached the electric blue Shooting Star, placing a hand on its nose, quickly going over every fantasy she’d had of flying it. But this was not the one she’d be riding during the races. Instead, she moved to the left, standing in front of the Shiny Rod.

Such a legendary broom. In only ten years it had become the main mystery of the racing world. Forget the Sixty-impossible-spins of the fourth IPR, or the buckle-turn from the world championship finals of the ’63. Nowadays, the arguing wasn’t about if the feats were possible or had just been luck. It was about discovering how had Chariot tricked the entire Planetary Alliance, about the strange use of magic, about government secrecy.

Amanda had never given much thought to the subject, but after just a couple of short trips inside the broom she could tell there was something special about it. She was tempted to look under the cover and get in it, see if it would start. She took out her wand, she had a spell Constanze had modified for her that could easily break the broom’s bindings… But she was afraid of activating the alarm, and who knew what would happen if the Shiny Rod disappeared here in the middle of space.

Instead, she sat atop it, and the broom rocked back and forth slightly. Curiously enough, it was floating. It didn’t appear to have wheels, or to touch the ground, ever. Amanda didn’t exactly understand how that could be, hovering expended magic and no one was re-fueling the brooms in the hangar. Next, she lay on her back. She wasn’t centered, since the center wasn’t smooth. It peaked slightly and it would’ve been painful to try and lay there.

She was resting on the Shiny Rod. What a surreal experience. She never imagined she’d be doing this. How many people in the world had actually done something like this? Probably none. Well, maybe Chariot herself had, but Amanda doubted it. Being the gunman of this ship, it probably wouldn’t be so bad. How did the weapons work on this thing, anyways? It shot magic straight out of the spheres, but they all pointed in different directions. Amanda considered going to get Akko and try it out, but she was too tired to do that right now.

Too tired…

Ursula sat in her – and the red team’s – room, slight awkwardness to her posture as she tried to find a comfortable position.

All the teenage girls had gone out to explore the ship, but Ursula was a little too nervous to do that. She didn’t worry too much about the girls going out on their own; the Dragon’s security was one of the best in the galaxy. So good, in fact, that Ursula feared being recognized, despite the changes in her appearance.

But she couldn’t really stay in her room two entire days. What an ordeal.

As she thought about this, she heard a grunt from the bed in front of her. Akko turned, crimson eyes half open, and looked at Ursula. The woman smiled as she always did. It had been about four hours since Akko had gone to sleep. A good nap, too good probably. Ursula had forgotten to warn that it was easy to mess up one’s circadian rhythm if one wasn’t careful. It was hard to tell the passage of days in space and alien planets.

“Oh, hey coach,” Akko said with a sleepy voice.

“Hello, Akko.”

Silence reigned for a few long and awkward seconds. “So,” Akko broke it. “Are you a pilot, coach?” Ursula didn’t exactly like being called coach, but it was better than being called by her last name like Diana had done.

“Y-yes,” Ursula was taken a little off guard by the sudden question. “I’ve been for about twelve years, now,” she explained. It was at this moment that she realized the enormous mistake she had made in giving a timeframe, and her fear was met with Akko’s eyes lighting up.

“Wait… That’s the same amount of time Chariot would have being a pilot!” Akko almost jumped from bed. Ursula felt her blood pressure going down. Of all the people on the universe, she had to slip in front of who was probably her biggest fan. “You must have graduated the same year as her! You went to Luna Nova too, right? Did you know her?” Her eyes were a single lumen away from starting to shine like lanterns.

Ursula cocked her head, dumbfounded. She tried not to be too relieved by the Japanese girl’s thought process. Of course she wouldn’t think… Yeah, that was silly. “Y-yeah, I guess,” Ursula wasn’t lying, but it felt like it. “Though it’s not like we were friends or anything,” she laughed nervously.

 “How was she like?” Akko leaned forth in bed, so much so that Ursula feared she’d fall to the ground. She was grinning, her white teeth almost blinding the coach.

Ursula paused. How was she? “She was… Optimistic, full of energy,” she described. “An idealist,” too much of one, in fact. “She acted like nothing could stand in the way of her dreams, and she had a way of dragging others along with her that was annoying to most.” Akko’s smile was growing broader. “She was… Young.” And annoying, and an idiot. “Not much else to say, I guess.” Now, that was a lie. But Akko probably didn’t want to hear about the other things she had to say.

The brunette seemed satisfied. She probably didn’t get many chances to speak to people about her idol. Ursula was tempted to tell her more things, things only she knew. But that would give her away. Instead, she was satisfied with seeing how Akko’s eyes moved around while she thought. “Is it true that her scores in the simulations were world-record breaking but the school never let it out to keep it a secret?” She asked with an intense stare.

“I-I couldn’t tell you,” it was a lie, who the hell had come up with such a stupid thing? “I don’t remember much from those days…” She pushed down the growl that was coming to her. It pissed her off when people made up stuff about her past, but she didn’t want to say more than necessary to Akko.

However, Akko wasn’t going to give up so easily. Despite the fact that she had just awoken, she was already full of energy. Energy she used to ask questions that Ursula did her best to dodge.

This would be a very long trip.

When the food arrived, Hannah was amazed. Not only by the amazing smell but by the presentation as well. She had asked for spaghetti – it was a fact of life that, if a restaurant couldn’t serve good spaghetti, then it wasn’t a good restaurant – but she hadn’t expected it to appear so… Amazing. Just the right amount of spaghetti, just the right amount of sauce, different spices thrown on top to make it all come together. Barbara’s juicy steak wasn’t looking any worse, along with its colorful salad. And Diana-

“What is that?” Hannah exclaimed, almost jumping from her seat.

“My meal, why do you ask?” Diana said. Was that… mockery, in her voice? Hannah was almost more surprised by that than by the meal.

But the meal itself was… A stew. A stew of what looked like worms, just a little thicker and white. The broth was a deep green and it still bubbled, slowly, like if it was tar.

Diana didn’t hesitate to take her spoon and put it in her mouth. She chewed for a few seconds before swallowing, her expression unchanged through the whole experience. Hannah slowly started to eat her own meal, which was great, unable to make a comment. It was hard to enjoy eating while looking at Diana’s food, though. Barbara wasn’t touching hers, her face pale.

After a while, Hannah couldn’t take it anymore.

“Ok, that’s it. Why the hell are you eating that?” she asked, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.

Diana, to her surprise, had the hint of a smirk on her face, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “Because it’s delicious, of course,” she said, taking another bite… sip…? Eating again. Despite the aspect of the meal she really did seem to enjoy it.

“I think I need something to drink,” Barbara said, taking the bottle from that the waiter had brought and pouring its contents on her glass.

It was red, which got tainted into a dark purple in the blue light. It started moving within the glass.

“Ah!” She barely managed to put the bottle down, looking scared at the thing she had just poured. “Wha-wha-what is that…” Her already pale face paled further, her skin becoming one with the lighting, making her seem like a corpse. She stumbled, as if she was going to faint, but Hannah caught her.

Diana chuckled. Both girls froze.

Hannah considered the possibility of hallucinations. That was more likely than Diana chuckling. Or than Diana pulling a prank on them. She pinched her cheek. No, no dreaming. Then, Diana chuckled again.

“Come on, sit down again,” she pointed towards their seats. With some doubt, they sat again. “Sorry, it was not within my intentions to scare you,” she nodded slightly. “I just imagined it could be amusing to see how you reacted to these foods.”

Hannah cocked her head. “Amusing? You’re eating worms!” She exclaimed, pointing at Diana’s bowl. The blonde girl shook her head.

“This is a fine stew of Meatflower, straight from Appal, cooked in milk of…” She hesitated for a second. “I believe they’re called Razorspines,” Hannah had heard of the creatures. Big feline-like creatures with sharp spines on their backs. It was only a defense mechanism, however. They were supposed to be herbivorous. Weird planet, Appal. And the Appali with it. “My mother got me to taste it one of the times we came here. It’s been one of my favorite foods since then…” She sounded melancholic. It was weird, seeing Diana open up about anything. Hannah didn’t want to interrupt, feeling like if she did, it would all fall apart.

“Can I… Taste it?” Barbara asked. Hannah gaped for a moment, surprise showing in her face. Diana perked up, nodding slightly. Without hesitating – or rather, not giving herself time to hesitate – Barbara leaned over the table and shoved a spoonful of the stew into her mouth with closed eyes.

She opened them again, swallowed, and ate again.

“This is amazing!” Barbara said. “Diana, you should’ve told us to ask for this!”

Hannah, curious now too, took the spoon from her friend and ate some too. It was sweet, but kind of spicy, with a warmth that spread all over her body despite the fact that it was cold. The meatflower had a soft, squishy texture, not unlike a marshmallow, but with a neutral flavor that depended on the broth to work.

“It is amazing!” Hannah exclaimed. “My god, you say Appali eat this?”

“I believe it is a common food over there, not unlike how a normal stew would be for us,” Diana explained, her neutral expression transformed by a slight curvature in the lips. “Why don’t you try the drink?” She looked at the glass. Barbara nodded, taking a sip. He face lit up, and Hannah instantly followed. It was kind of fruity. Delicious, even if Hannah couldn’t place what fruit it was. “Ultramar, the fruit of Appal’s oceans,” Diana served a glass for herself. “It’s said to have ended the Century War, though I haven’t studied much of the Appali’s history,” she took a sip. She wasn’t the most expressive person, but Hannah could tell she really liked it. She looked around with a satisfied face. “The Goodwill is one of the few places a human can go to – short of Appal itself – to get food like this.”

Hannah and Barbara, back on their seats, looked at their own foods and started eating. The spaghetti really was great, too. “What I don’t get,” Hannah said between mouthfuls. “Is why this place isn’t bursting with clientele.”

Diana shrugged, though Hannah felt there was something she was hiding. Still, the place was amazing. She was already looking forward to coming here next time during one of the longer trips.

With this excitement, she kept eating. So good, damn it. This place was definitely a good restauraurant.

Chapter Text

During the second day of travel, Akko walked through the first deck along with Sucy and Lotte. It felt like they hadn’t been hanging out much lately, but Akko was determined to fix that. She dragged her teammates around the deck with excitement, seeing the colorful people from all corners of the world mingle around her. Lotte seemed to be enjoying herself too, but Sucy appeared to only be interested in trying to pinch someone with her wand and inject a potion onto them. Why did she have a wand like that, anyways? Akko was sure her own wand couldn’t get Potion Capsules into them.

Akko had actually forgotten her Spells and wand. The only one she had was the Shiny Rod’s key-wand and she didn’t dare move it to much. On the other hand, Lotte had a small photo-spirit following her. The little floating cube with a lens took photos based on what the redhead had explained to it. Akko wondered if she wasn’t afraid of someone passing by and hitting it or by a thief trying to take it, but apparently the A.I. was far more advanced than Akko could’ve assumed, given Lotte’s reaction.

Sucy grunted when she failed to inject a fat person walking near them.

“Isn’t trying to poison people illegal?” Akko asked, looking at Sucy’s wand. “Where the hell did you get the magic to waste on that, anyways?”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Sucy said with a shrug. “And it’s not a waste if it works.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works…” Lotte said, looking around with some nervousness, as if expecting to see a police officer around.

“What are you even trying to do?” Akko asked.

Sucy smiled creepily. “You’ll see soon enough,” she said with a chuckle. Akko made sure to keep her at arm’s length, she didn’t want to get blue skin or something like that. Again.

Walking through the middle of the crowd was complicated at best, but what Akko was searching for was near the stage at the center of the deck, so she didn’t have any choices. This deck was always going to be the more crowded one, but the other decks didn’t have… Ah, there it was!

The small fair in the middle of the deck. It had only been set up today, and it surrounded the right half of the stage. Small stands with colorful canopies over them formed a relatively long corridor with all kinds of activities to enjoy. It kind of reminded Akko of new year festivals back in Japan or to an amusement park. She grabbed her friends by the arms and pulled them behind her.

“Akko, calm down,” Lotte tried to calm her to no avail. “You’re going to make someone fall,” the girl threw apologetic looks at everyone Akko bumped. Akko didn’t mind, with a crowd like this it was futile to try and not touch anyone.

They entered the fair. Two lines of stands, a corridor, and a lot of fun to be had. Some of those were food related, but Akko instantly went for the classic. “Come on,” she kept dragging her friends until they stood in front of a red stand with a lot of bottles and rings on an old looking counter. Not many people seemed to be lining up for this, and in truth, there were more interesting and modern ways of doing these kinds of stands, but Akko liked this anyways.

“Akko, these things are always rigged,” Sucy said, looking unenthusiastically at the stand. An old man appeared from the back with a kind smile and mischief in his eyes.

“Ah, young ladies, are you up for the challenge?” He said pointing at the lined bottles. “Two dollars, ten rings, a world of possible prizes,” he showed them the shelves where a bunch of different plushies sat. Akko instantly set her sights on a Chariot one, smiling. The man then sat near the counter.

“I know it’s rigged,” she said looking at her purple haired friend to her left. “The fun in this is to beat them despite that,” she took out two dollars from her pocket and put them on the counter. The old man smiled and handed her the rings, challenge in his eyes.

“Ok, I get four, and you two get three,” Akko said handling her teammates the respective rings. “Let’s do this!”

Akko was the first one to try. She took a deep breath and aimed. The bottles were close enough that just throwing the ring horizontally would probably end in it not fitting into any of them, and a lot of those bottles would probably have ways of making the ring bounce even if it fell perfectly on them. The trick was to be very careful and…

Her ring hit the side of a bottle and fell to the ground. She laughed nervously. “It’s… been a while since I’ve last done this,” she avoided looking at her friends, blushing slightly.

“Hmm…” Sucy stepped forward next, looking completely bored. She then looked at the old man. “Which of these are safe to throw at?” She asked.

The old man looked at her, bemused, and smiled with incredulity. “Now, now, miss, you can’t go asking those things. Those four are,” he pointed at four of the bottles. One of them in the border, two near the center, one in the far corner.

“Thanks,” Sucy said with a smirk. She then carefully threw her three rings at once at the closest bottle and all three of them fell graceful on the bottle’s neck. The old man’s jaw dropped, and he looked back and forth between Sucy and her rings.

“uhm, if you’ll excuse me…” Lotte stepped forward too. She was more patient, throwing the rings individually. Two of them managed to fall onto one of the center bottles, while one was badly thrown and bounced away. The man’s eye twitched. Lotte gave him an apologetic smile and took a step back.

Akko, still kind of baffled by what had happened, threw hers. Despite her words, se only managed to get one of the rings to fall on a bottle. It hadn’t been the one she’d aimed at and not even one of the safe ones.

“Six points…” The old man said reluctantly. “You can get any prize you want up to the third shelf,” he said grumpily.

Akko smiled, the Chariot one was in the first shelf. However, right as she was about to ask for it, she looked at her friends. “Do you want anything?”

“No,” Sucy said without even looking at the plushies. Lotte shrugged, smiling at her.

Smiling, Akko pointed at the one she wanted. “That one, please,” she said with victory in her voice. The old man appeared surprised, and raised to take it. Then, he handed it to Akko. The plushy was one of Chariot in her striking white uniform, no helmet. It was a caricaturized version of the idol, with a big head and eyes. Akko was sure she had something like this at home, but it was still a good one. It looked kind of old, some places were fraying.

Still with a smile across her face, Akko turned to go, but the man cleared his throat. “You still have five points to waste, kid. Take another one,” he appeared surprised to even say that.

Akko’s smile was wiped from existence, substituted by a frown. “Wait, five? You tell me this Chariot was worth only one?”

The man shrugged. “It’s been on my shelves for about nine years now. By the time I got it out, no one wanted anything to do with The Deserter anymore,” he shrugged. Akko’s frown deepened. The Deserter was a term she hadn’t heard in years. It had been often used for Chariot back in the day, when everyone was still mad at her for leaving.

Akko considered punching the old dude in the face.

“Lotte, ask for something before this fangirl destroys this man’s way of living,” Sucy said to Lotte. The redhead nodded, stepping up. “Ehm… Could I get that one, then?” she pointed. The man rose and took a plushy of what looked like a werewolf. Lotte received it with quiet excitement. Akko cocked her head, it wasn’t particularly cute. Well, everyone had their tastes.

Still angry, she allowed herself to follow her friends as they walked away from the stand and back into the fair.

Amanda, Constanze and Jasminka were lost. Not the scary kind of lost; the interesting one. They were somewhere in the upper levels of the Dragon, exploring the cold, narrow, metallic hallways, looking for something interesting. There wasn’t much to see, but the kind of people here were definitely wealthy. These rooms had to be at least thrice as big as the ones they’d gotten. Amanda didn’t mind, since she wasn’t going to use her room for much besides sleeping, but she wondered if they had given them shit rooms just because they were teenagers.

Constanze was following with a tablet on her hands. She was looking for something, though Amanda ignored what it was. She was really focused on whatever was on the tablet, to the point where she had already bumped into three different passengers, all of which had patted her head and spoken to her like if she was a child with a toy. Constanze had been so focused that she hadn’t even gotten mad.

Jasminka, as always, ate. Amanda knew she had some kind of condition and she needed to eat all she could, but she hadn’t ever bothered to ask what it was. The girl seemed happy with it anyways.

They walked into a corridor slightly wider than normal. What level were they in, again? She hadn’t seen stairs going up in a while, maybe they were in the top already.

“Hey Cons, you got a map there, right? Where are we?” Amanda looked at her short teammate. After a few seconds, she reacted and pressed some buttons, then showed her the screen. At the top level they were, indeed. And they were also in the bow of the Dragon, exactly in the center too. And this corridor, if everything was correct, would lead into…

A smirk crept into her face.

There was a single door at the end of the corridor, which was about five meters long. Looking around to confirm no one was around, she walked forward. She had no need to do this, she hadn’t planned for it and why would she even want to get in there? The answer was instantaneous in her mind. For the sake of it.

“Jasna,” Amanda turned to her in a whisper. “Stay here, if someone comes tell me.”

The pink haired girl nodded and gave her sloppy military salute before turning and checking the crossroads. The door wasn’t big. It could only be opened with a keycard and a retina check. Amanda narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line, this was going to be a challenge.

Or maybe not.

“Cons, can you do something to open this?” She pointed at the lock. Constanze looked up and without much fanfare took out her wand. A small, completely black spell in the shape of an octahedron moved fort. One of its tips opened slightly, and a small magic cable connected to the lock.

It was a slow process, what Constanze was doing. Amanda would probably had had more fun if she decided to go away now and come back later, investigate who the captain of the Dragon was and then come up with a plan to slip inside the cabin alone. But she was bored out of her mind and she wanted to do this now.

Jasminka didn’t give any warnings. What time was it, anyways? Probably night time, or the equivalent of it in space. Not that it would be noticeable in the decks, since people from all corners of the world now lived in the Dragon, there would always be someone up and enjoying the ship.

A beep sounded and the automatic door slid open. Amanda didn’t hesitate to step into the room, waving for Constanze to follow. Jasminka would warn them if anyone came.

The Captain’s Cabin. Different from the main bridge, this place was where the guy in charge – gal, maybe – would keep the more important stuff. And Constanze had broken into it in, what, five minutes? A tiny genius, that’s what she was.

The cabin was pretty simple. While spacious, it only had a bed at the right, a desk in the middle and a closet occupying the entire left wall. Between the desk and closet there was a door that likely led to a bathroom. The only relatively lush thing here was the red, circular carpet that was in the middle of the room. No furniture was over it. It was probably just decoration, to break the monotony of grey that the metal offered. Even the bed covers were only white.

Amanda started by checking the drawer in the desk. There was just a diary. A paper one, weirdly enough. Who used pen and papers nowadays? It was written in Japanese, too, so Amanda couldn’t even tell what the hell it said. Still, it probably wasn’t too important.

She then checked the closet. She was met with clothes, most of them blue uniforms, a few suits, and three anti-g suits. The drawers here had underwear and nothing else.

“Well this is a disappointment,” Amanda said, resting her hands in the hips. Truth be told, she didn’t even know what to expect, but she had certainly expected something… more. Just in case, she checked the bathroom. Besides being jealous of the fact that it had an actual bathtub, there was nothing worth noting.

Constanze was using her device around. She seemed to find something, but then she shook her head. Whatever she’d found was not what she was looking for. Jasminka coughed loudly from the corridor. In an instant, Constanze and Amanda exited the room and nonchalantly walked over to where Jasminka was. In the path leading right, a passenger was entering his room. Nothing to worry about.

In any case, this had been a total waste. Why the tight security, though? Maybe the captain just really enjoyed his privacy or something like that.

With the disappointment, Amanda and company went back to wandering around the Dragon. Maybe there would be something more interesting somewhere else.

“What did you do, anyways?” Akko asked Sucy after they walked away from another stand. This one had been about shooting a small magic gun at targets – the gun had the barrel slightly tampered with and the shoots often went just off-aim enough to be a serious bother. The owner of the stand had told Sucy when she asked.

“Truth serum,” Sucy said. “I injected them when they weren’t looking,” she had a satisfied smile on her face. “Pretty simple stuff. I’ve tried it on you and Lotte before, but you’re too stupid and Lotte is too pure. This was a good chance to test it.”

“Wait, then what use would have been injecting random passengers?” Akko cocked her head, remembering the way she had been a while back.

“I was planning on asking them for their credit card information,” Sucy explained. Akko gaped, but Sucy instantly chuckled. “I’m joking. I was just going to ask a few simple but uncomfortable questions like ‘Have you ever cheated on your wife’ or ‘do you have any illegitimate children’ or…”

“Sucy!” Lotte shoved her slightly. “That’s illegal!”

“It’s not illegal if no one notices it,” she said with a creepy smile. Akko was starting to regret bringing her out of their room. Still, it had been a fun day. She now walked around with her Chariot plushy, a really old Shiny Rod shirt – way too big for her, but she would probably use it to sleep – and a helmet that wasn’t exactly like Chariot’s but it was white so it was good enough.

They were reaching the end of the relatively small fair. Akko looked back, checking to see if she had missed anything important. Instead, she noticed some movement in the stage. A few people in uniforms were setting up some speakers towards the picture windows. Akko tugged on Lotte’s clothes and pointed. “I thought there weren’t going to be any shows in this trip.”

“I think the Captain will say some words, nothing fancy,” Lotte explained. “It’s a Dragon tradition, for what I’ve heard.”

Akko nodded absently. Without thinking much, she turned and started to walk towards the area that would get a better view of the act. Lotte and Sucy followed her with some confusion, but they were already used to Akko’s shenanigans.

Not many stopped in front of the stage, so Akko could stand pretty much in first line. The setup was quick, just some speakers and a microphone. Five minutes later, an old man – he must have been edging his seventies – appeared and stood in front of the microphone. He didn’t have a single strand of hair, or if he had, it was hidden under his hat. He wore the blue uniform of the ship, and he obviously had Asiatic ascendance in him. Japanese, if Akko wasn’t too wrong.

“Hello, everyone,” he said in a cordial yet strong voice. “I hope you’re having a good trip,” he looked at the people watching him. Along with Akko there must have been around fifty people, at best. “I’m Kannazuki, but you can call me Captain. This is my third time leading the Dragon into an Inter-Planetary Race. Pretty awesome, don’t you think? When I was little I wanted to be a pilot, like my father,” Akko started to think coming to hear an old man rambling wasn’t such a good idea. “Instead, here I am, captain of a space cruiser and the biggest ship on Earth. Crazy, how life turns in itself in ways we can’t foresee,” he nodded, as if remembering stuff. He didn’t share it with the audience, luckily. “Don’t tell my superiors I said this was a cruiser though, they hate that,” he chuckled. “Wait, is that you, Jerry?” He looked at a member of the audience. Some noise came from that direction. “Ah, good to see you’re still alive and kicking, old friend. Anyways, as I was saying, this is the third time I’ve done this, and let me tell you, it doesn’t get easier. Not one bit. All the preparations are such a pain in the ass, I’m getting too old for this,” he sighed. “Well, I probably got too old for this twenty years ago, huh?” He laughed softly, some members of the audience did too. “And what an ordeal was the last one. Everyone had gone crazy over that pilot… What was her name? Carriage?” Akko almost jumped into the stage to slap the old man with her plushy. “Anyways, that girl really had an audience cheering for her. This trip was slightly easier to prepare, if only because we didn’t have people beating each other up to get passages,” Akko had heard of that event. The Chariot Passenger Riots, they had called it. Luckily, Akko and her family had only gone to one of the races, so they hadn’t suffered so much from that. “Well, I think that’s probably enough rambling. Now I’m going to move on to the boring stuff, like explaining the schedule for when we arrive in about six hours…” He started to go over the protocol to get off the spaceship and a bunch of other boring stuff. Akko listened for the impressive amount of ten seconds before turning to her friends and gesturing for them to go.

“I thought you were going to kill him when he said Carriage,” Sucy commented. Akko glared at her.

“He’s an old man, what can you expect? He probably doesn’t even keep up with the racing world anyways,” Akko said with a hmpf, trying not to sound too annoyed.

“Akko, don’t you know who… No, of course you don’t,” Lotte said. Akko raised an eyebrow. “He’s the son of Julius Burton, the First Category pilot of the fifth IPR,” she explained. Akko cocked her head.

“Oh. Then he’s just an idiot,” she concluded. Sucy rolled her eyes, Akko had the feeling she had missed something. Lotte hesitated, as if going to say more, but she didn’t do it. Instead, she just met eyes with Sucy, who shrugged.

“Well, now what?” Sucy asked. Akko thought for a few seconds.

“Well, I am starving,” she said. “Let’s go find something to eat.”

And with those words, they started to search for a place to fill their stomachs.

Diana tried to sleep. She was unsuccessful. Despite her knowledge of the dangers to one’s inner clock while being in space and on a ship with constant even lighting, she had gotten a little careless. Back home, according to her clock, it would be midnight. She was normally asleep by eleven, unless she was planning to pull an all-nighter to study. Yet, with the nervousness of the travel and the emotions of the previous day, she had messed up her routine and now she wasn’t tired at all. She had been awake for only ten hours, which explained it, but she didn’t want to ruin her sense of time.

She kept her eyes closed, and she tried hard not to think about anything, but it was futile. Her efforts were met with nothing but constant thinking. What she found her mind going back to more often than not was the race ahead and Akko. They would have only two days to practice on the new planet, but Akko would have two days to practice on a new planet while being an absolute novice. At least the Shiny Rod appeared to be a broom with a simpler control scheme than normal brooms. That would help Akko, certainly, but Diana doubted it’d be enough. Flying was a lot more about experience than about being able to lift your broom from the ground and being able to steer it, and that was before having in mind the fact that the IPR was one of the most dangerous races to participate in.

Surprisingly, Diana wasn’t worried about herself. Maybe it was the simulation she had been in, but she felt like she still hadn’t tapped into the full potential of the Shooting Star. Sure, the Shiny Rod was probably the better broom, if the rumors were true, but in the hands of Akko, with Amanda at the gunman position… Well, it wouldn’t shine as it should.

Just a day to practice. Diana didn’t expect them to win, but maybe they would be able to get somewhere. Sure, the race was full of professionals that had years to train and practice, mentally preparing for the race of their lives, but they couldn’t be that… No, no. They were the best pilots of the explored universe, hoping Akko would match up to even the worse of them was nothing more than a silly fantasy.

Though, Diana had the feeling she was projecting. Akko wasn’t the only one lacking experience, or the only one with a new broom. Diana was better off, sure, but could she compare to those who had prepared for this far longer than herself?

Maybe it wasn’t the lack of tiredness what was impeding her sleep. Still, she needed to. They’d soon arrive at their destination and she needed to be in full energy by then, so she took a deep breath and tried to sleep again.

Chapter Text

Akko was restless as she waited by the special door.

“Jumping won’t make it open sooner,” Sucy said from behind. Akko ignored her, trying to keep herself from just punching the door until it opened. They had already landed, the door had to open any second now. She couldn’t contain her excitement, to the point where she stained the front of her helmet with her own breath. The planet they were on – whatever it was – didn’t have breathable air, sadly.

“Come oooon!” Akko complained. “I wanna see it already!”

“Could you please keep calm, Akko? Remember what we were told. We’re Earth’s representatives,” Diana said, voice even.

 Akko didn’t pay the warning any heed, instead keeping her sights on the door. And then, it opened.

She almost ran outside, bursting with anticipation, and the world she was greeted with was… Amazing.

They had landed on water – water-ed, maybe? –, but  there was land up ahead, far closer than it had been on Earth. The sky was of a deep, plain and saturated blue, so much so that Akko considered the possibility of it just being her eyes getting adjusted to the light of the small white sun. The ocean, however, was violet. How’d that work, Akko had no idea. Wasn’t the ocean blue because it reflected the sky or whatever?

Did it even matter?

She exited the ship. The first thing she noticed once she got out of the gravitational field of the Dragon’s magic was that she felt surprisingly large. The second was that she was slightly cold, but not enough to be a bother.

The rest of the passengers wouldn’t be allowed out yet, to give time for the team to prepare without dangers. Akko ran down towards the docks – not without some stumbling as she tried to adapt to the new gravity - which connected to the land a couple hundred meters away. She touched the water – not with bare hands, but her special suit wasn’t that different from her anti-g suits – and found it surprisingly warm. Was it because of the Dragon? She then looked at the land, considering running towards it. The shore was in front of a hill, so she couldn’t make out much, but from here she could already tell the grass – assuming that was grass – was different from Earth’s too, its color being marine green.

They were in Sídhe, the world of the Faerie race. A planet brimming with magic, so much so that there were people on Earth arguing that the world should be invaded to take its resources – completely ignoring the fact that if one did that, the other twenty five races of the Planetary Alliance would probably destroy humanity. So this is where the first race would happen, huh?

Someone touched Akko’s shoulder, and she turned expecting to see one of her teammates. Instead, she found a black wall. A black furry wall.

When she looked up, the wall turned out to be a fairy. It kind of looked like a minotaur, with a bipedal strong body, very broad shoulders and a bull-like face and horns. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth. He snorted in Akko’s face, her visor getting small bits of something on them. “H-hello,” Akko said. The creature mooed and pointed to her group with a serious expression.

Not sure that she wanted to get on the minotaur’s bad side, she followed his instructions.

“Akko, this is not our planet,” Lotte said softly when she approached. “It could be dangerous.” Sound seemed to carry pretty similarly to Earth, though Akko did feel a little deafened for no reason.

The group, all in their spacesuits, was looking around curiously. Akko wished she could take off her helmet and smell the place, but that would probably be a bad idea. There were no more faeries around, which Akko found regrettable. She wished she could see the small flying ones. They looked to cute on TV.

To their right, from the side of the ship, their Brooms started to come out. The two Shooting Stars, followed by the Shiny Rod, were being handled by the Dragon’s crew. Akko had been very specific in telling them to not touch the Rod under any circumstances whatsoever. They had obliged, if reluctantly.

“Ok, girls, here’s what we’re going to do,” Ursula said, her voice slightly muffled by the helmet. “Reaching our quarters will take about an hour. From there on, the four girls participating in the races will start practice right away. We only have about forty eight hours until the race starts and you need to grow used to flying and moving in Sídhe,” she was looking at something written on a notebook. “The others will be allowed to wander around the city along with the guide. You’ll probably be among other races there too, so be careful. Then we’ll stay here for two days before coming back to the Dragon and moving onto the next planet. Is that clear?” As she talked, three other brooms had been taken out of the ship. Three broom-busses. One of them was already full of people, the second one was half full, and the third one was empty.

Everyone nodded, and Ursula took a deep breath. She waved for them to follow.

The walk towards land was a long one, but Akko enjoyed it. The sound of the waves, the feeling of the breeze, the relaxing color of the ocean. She had always wanted to come to the land of fairies, but this hadn’t even been a planet on rotation for the last IPR. It wasn’t usual for planets to appear two times in a row for the event, since twenty-one of the planets were viable for racing and there were usually eleven races – not counting the qualifiers of each specific planet. Earth had been missing from last time, so it was almost certainly going to be part of this one. Akko hoped it wouldn’t be during the middle of the race. Going back home and then to space again would be a pain in the ass.

“The gravity in this planet is about thirty percent less than on earth,” Ursula said as they walked. “Be careful when jumping, you’ll probably go higher than you expect, and please be careful when dealing with the faeries, their bodies are usually less dense than ours, you could hurt them pretty easily.”

Akko couldn’t help but think of the minotaur following from behind. That dude did not look any less dense than they were. Not that Akko was eager to test it.

They finally crested the hill on shore, and the sight left everyone breathless.

The geography in front of Akko was surreal. They weren’t on a hill, they were on a mountain! Looking down the mountainside gave Akko some vertigo. It wasn’t particularly steep, but there were no trees or anything like it on this particular slope. It wasn’t unique, either, as Akko could already tell they were in a mountain region. They seemed to be in the highest one around, but mountains surrounded them in every direction. Different kind of trees dotted the landscape – Akko could barely tell the difference between a pine and a normal tree – with yellow and red leaves and white bark. Was it already fall here? But that was not the most impressive feat. Each mountain – except the one holding, apparently, the ocean – had protrusions coming off them. Big, like giant fingers coming out of the earth itself. Sometimes they even connected mountainsides to each other, creating natural bridges that Akko just knew she had to traverse at least once before getting off this planet.

Curiously enough, even the downside of those protrusions had grass and trees growing on them, like bizarre upside down forests.

In the valleys between the mountains, some rivers of also violet water ran. No, scratch that. In every valley a river ran. No exception. They all met in a bigger one slightly to the right of where the humans were positioned, this one going unnaturally straight into the horizon. In this direction, too, Akko noticed a lot more of those natural bridges coming out of the mountains. Something was off about the horizon, however. As if it was a little too close.

“That way is the faeries’ biggest city,” Ursula said next to Akko, probably noticing how she was staring. “We don’t really have a translation for its name, so we call it the Seelie Court. I think you’ll like it,” she looked at Akko with some fondness.

“This place is crazy,” Amanda said. “Look at that animal,” Akko turned to see where she was pointing. There, just a few paces away from them, stood a small dog-like creature. However, it had hooves and a long, fox-like tail. It barked something, looking angry.

“That is not an animal, Amanda,” Diana said. She nodded apologetically to the weird dog. “There are no ‘animals’ in Sídhe. Every creature that you see is sentient. That is the nature of the Faerie race. And don’t forget, they can understand us, even if we don’t understand them. Don’t say anything that you don’t need to,” her voice was that she used for classes, and Akko almost rolled her eyes on instinct. Did she really need to lecture everyone whenever she had the opportunity?

The empty broom-bus from before stopped next to the group and the driver looked at them with some impatience.

“Get in, girls. Let’s go.”

Amanda tried not to let it show, but she was awed beyond herself.

Forget the race of magical people, all as if taken straight out of fairytale books. Forget the weird color scheme of the world, world she had gotten to appreciate a lot as their bus hovered down the big river, passing through small forests, under those finger-like protrusions, seeing all kinds of fairies living in the tall grass and leafy trees.

The Seelie Court: That was truly something.

The structure, from afar, hadn’t even existed. The raw magic in the air of the planet – which was also the reason why humans couldn’t breathe it – had reflected light in a strange way and hidden it away. However, when it appeared, Amanda had almost thought they were in the middle ages. A stone wall surrounding the structure, battlements on the top of the four towers at the four cardinal points and the big one sticking out of the middle of the castle, and the castle itself. Amanda hadn’t understood, at first, just how massive it was. The central tower was taller than the tallest skyscraper back on Earth. The Structure was so wide, the entire front wall didn’t fit within Amanda’s field of vision, the towers so big that they were probably four times the entire width of Luna Nova, New Moon tower included. And that was not to mention the gorgeous, sparkling purple tiles topping every part of the castle that didn’t have battlements. The walls had stone walkways everywhere, and even from down here, Amanda could already see the thousands upon thousands of faeries walking through them.

She smiled while looking at the central tower. She was going to climb that, even at the cost of her life. She was going to climb it, look between those crenels and see the world from the top.

For the first time, Amanda truly understood why Sídhe was called the World of Fantasy.

As they passed under the massive archway – at least seventy meters high and fifty meters wide – of the wall, they could finally see the castle in its whole splendor. Except, it wasn’t actually a castle. What had looked like a castle from the outside was actually a city, a city built upon itself over and over again. What had at first appeared as a single, massive roof turned out to be a collection of smaller roofs on top of the towering buildings with near impossible architecture, a lot of them thin and leaning on each other, bridges built between them near the upper levels. Wait, were those bridges or just wooden beams put there to stop the buildings from falling?

All windows had only shutters, no glass or crystal in sight. Entrances were always arches, not a single one of them having actual doors. The cobblestone streets, besides the main one they were traversing right now, looked more than alleyways than actual streets, and given the connections every building had, Amanda suspected that most faeries would use those to move around the city. She certainly would. Why touch the ground if you could avoid it?

As they moved through the city, little details started to pop out. Not a single wall was painted, but there were a lot of banners and flags hanging from walls or from ropes between buildings. Some of them had writing or coats of arms, but most of them were simple, plain colors hung with no discernable pattern. Fearies moved around, bustle and noise around them as their bus marched towards the central tower. Small fairy-like flying creatures, quadrupeds of all kind, big and mean looking things like ogres or cyclops, all of them called fairies. She wondered if they had other ways of referring to themselves given their differences or if that would be racist, somehow.

Constanze, sitting next to her, was looking out the window with interest too. She would probably be thinking how she could make use of this place to test some of her inventions. The constant ‘oh’s’ from Akko were annoying, but with Ursula explaining things next to her, there was not much anyone could do to stop her.

Before they could get close to the central tower – which was still far away – they suddenly turned left, through one of the narrow – if ever so slightly wider than the others – streets.  

The change was instantaneous, the world suddenly growing darker. The sun didn’t shine its light upon this place, and it showed on the humid walls around them, full of moss and looking more brittle than their main-street counterparts.

About two streets into these alleys, the bus stopped. There was nothing but a single archway in the whole segment of wall, and the only thing distinguishing it from the others was the fact that it had a door. A simple, wooden door.

They got off the bus. The air here was warmer than back in the ocean or whatever that was. Amanda looked up to the sky, which was nothing but a slit up above. She wanted to take the damn helmet off, but breathing or touching the sheer amount of magic in Sídhe’s air could have lasting effects on humans. Magic handling, like medicine, was already a pretty messy subject that was only taught on facilities like Luna Nova. Potion making was one of its many branches, for example, and the Magic used for those was always minimal and heavily filtered. Like any medicine, if used in excess it could lead to horrible, lasting effects. What Sucy’s little capsules usually contained was already enough to affect the human body, any more than that…

Not that Amanda knew what exactly would happen, she had slept through those classes and she didn’t care.

The door was opened from the inside, and a six-armed clay-man stepped out of the building. His features were harsh, and he moved rather stiffly. However, he wore a kind of earpiece that Amanda recognized, and he was carrying more in his many hands. He stepped forward and handed them, one for each girl. It connected automatically to the helmets they were wearing.

Then, the clay-man grunted. The grunt was automatically translated. “Welcome, Humans,” he said. He didn’t sound angry or anything, but his voice was harsh and intimidating. He stepped aside and pointed inside the building.

Everyone stepped in, some of the Dragon’s crewmembers carrying their luggage for them. The ceiling was tall, at least double of Amanda’s height, the walls were still made of plain stone blocks and the entrance was a long corridor that led to another exit on the other side of the building. There were many archways leading to rooms, and in the middle of the corridor there was a stairwell going up.

Amanda hoped they would get a room high up into the city, but the clay man pointed at five rooms right in this floor. All of them were marked with little flags that had badly drawn Earths on them. Amanda sighed as the crewmembers started to leave the luggage on place.

“The bathroom is that,” the clay-man pointed at a door that wasn’t any of the rooms. “Use it for washing,” the translation wasn’t precisely eloquent, but as long as it was understandable, Amanda didn’t really mind. She did notice something weird, though.

“Hey,” she spoke to the crewmembers. “You’re putting those bags in the wrong roo-” she had noticed her luggage being put in a room different from Constanze’s.

“No,” Ursula put a hand on her shoulder. “You and your teammates will have wildly different schedules while we’re here, so your room setups will be a little different. The four of you participating in the race will sleep together, and we’ll see how the rest goes,” she sounded slightly uncomfortable while saying that.

The reaction from three of the girls was immediate. “What?!” Amanda, Akko and Hannah cried at the same time.

“No, no, no,” Hannah said instantly. “You can’t really expect me to sleep with those two!” She extended her hand towards Akko and Amanda, who had the same kind of dumbfounded expressions she had.

“I agree!” Amanda said. “Why do I have to sleep with this prissy thing?” She complained.

“I wanna sleep with my friends!” Akko joined in the complaints.

“Hey, who are you calling prissy?” Hannah turned to Amanda.

“Oh come on, don’t even try to deny it,” The redhead gave her a flat stare. She was, always acting like if she was nobility and making Amanda want to barf.

“See what I mean? You can’t let me sleep with this punk!” Hannah turned to Ursula again. The coach was looking at the three girls with a nervous smile, as if not knowing how to handle the three angry teenagers. Amanda couldn’t blame her, not fully.

“Hey, who are you calling a punk?” Amanda was not a punk just because she was a little rebellious!

“Who’s trying to deny the obvious now?” Hannah glared at her.

“I can’t sleep with Diana,” Akko was speaking mostly on her own. “She goes to sleep early and wouldn’t allow me to have fun!”

Amanda ignored her. “I just pointed the facts, you’re insulting me, mind you,” Amanda said. She and Hannah were now face to face. Despite being the taller of the two, she felt looked down on.

“Oh, yeah, because ‘prissy’ isn’t an insult, right?”

“It’s still not as bad as ‘punk’.”

“Allow me to disag-”

“If you all don’t shut up I’m going to put you to sleep with a potion,” Sucy said. Somehow, her voice broke through the discussion and Amanda felt a shiver running down her spine. This was Sucy, she would do it. Amanda and Hannah shut their mouths tightly, crossing their arms and looking away from each other.

“Plus, I like talking with Lotte and Sucy before going to sleep. I don’t know what to talk about with Diana or Hannah,” Akko continued in her own world, looking down. Sucy sighed and hit her in the back of the head, making her snap back into reality.

“Girls, please,” Ursula took the chance to speak. “You’ll go back to your normal sleeping arrangements after the race is over, I promise, but for the next couple days bear with it, ok?”

The three girls grunted in agreement. Diana had been the only one to not make a fuss about anything, which annoyed Amanda. Was she really ok with sleeping like this? She was probably just trying to look like the mature one by not speaking up. Classic Diana.

“Ok, now what?” Amanda asked.

“Now it’s time for practice,” Ursula said. That was enough for Amanda to stop being annoyed.

Amanda crawled under the Shiny Rod, feeling slightly stupid, and waited a few seconds. Then, a small panel lowered below the Shiny Rod, allowing her to climb onto it. “If we crash how the hell am I going to get out of here?” Amanda asked as Akko climbed on top of the broom. To their right, the Shooting Star was casually starting up.

“I dunno,” Akko said. “But don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine!”

Amanda sighed. Yeah, she wasn’t convinced, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She got into the small cabin that didn’t have anything but a small vent.

And when she said nothing, she meant nothing. As the panel closed, she was left completely in the dark. Confused, she wondered if there was something she had to activate. Maybe the Shiny Rod was ignoring her because she wasn’t Akko. “Uhm, Alcor, are you there?” She asked. The dumb Familiar didn’t appear. “Akko, ask your dumb bird if I’m doing this right,” she said with annoyance through the communicator included in the helmets.

Akko didn’t answer for a few seconds. “It says the gunman’s already recognized and that nothing’s wrong. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to shoot anything when I can’t see anything, or don’t have any kind of controls,” Amanda explained, trying not to run out of patience.

“Maybe it’ll change if I start the broom, gimmie a sec…”

The engine turned on.

The world changed.

Amanda was not Amanda anymore. Suddenly, she felt ascended. She understood everything, she could see anything, her mind was no longer in one fixed place but everywhere.

And then she came back into herself, but not fully. Still dazed by the strange experience, she opened her eyes. But she no longer had eyes. She could see a landscape that should’ve confused her, because of the multiple different and opposite angles. She was looking at the sky and the ground and the left and the right, all at once. What should’ve overwhelmed her, however, felt natural.

Amanda understood now that her mind had been expanded. Or, maybe, connected to another one. A better one. She understood now that the Shiny Rod was no mere broom. She could feel its inner workings. However, there was a kind of wall, impeding her from taking control. She only had access to the seven glass balls around the ship’s bodywork. She tried to push, try to take full control of the broom-racer, but it was futile.

“Amanda?” The word didn’t enter through her ears, but through every inch of her consciousness. Akko wasn’t Akko anymore. She was the pilot. And Amanda’s mission was to protect her.

“I’m here,” Amanda said. “Its fine, I’m ready.”

Akko didn’t answer, but Amanda could see her nodding. Or, more like feel her nodding. It was a very surreal experience.

“Girls, the exercise is simple,” Ursula started explaining. “You have to grow used to piloting and shooting. You’ll go back to the Dragon and come back. With the broom-racers it shouldn’t take more than half an hour. I suggest you to keep as far up on the mountainsides as you can. Racing on Sídhe will require you to learn to control the near vertical landscape and to use the sìth." That was the name the finger-like protrusions received. “And, this’ll be a race. Feel free to attack each other as much as needed. We’re simulating a real race after all, and these will be the only IPR races that are one on one,” she paused for a second. “Are you… Ok, Amanda?” She asked. Amanda wasn’t surprised she had asked, though she wasn’t sure why.

“I am fine,” she said. Ursula nodded.

“At the count of ten you go. Get ready.”

Amanda didn’t need to get ready. She had been born ready. She wasn’t nervous, or excited. She was just focused.

The countdown ended, and the Shiny Rod began to move.

Hannah was sitting inside the turret – which, in truth, was just another cockpit, just smaller, in the middle of the ship. She had connected the visor of her helmet to the Shooting Star’s sensors, allowing her to see in a variety of different ways her environments. Right now she used it on the standard mode, watching as Diana took the Shooting Star up a mountain with care. The gravity on this planet was weaker, so she was probably just getting used to the feel of the broom

Meanwhile, she kept her sights on the Shiny Rod. The two guns of the Shooting Star – below the ship, one on each side – aimed at the white broom as it crossed the marine-green fields and disappeared into and then reappeared from small forests of white, yellow and red. She wasn’t planning on actually firing. The other broom’s movement was erratic at best. Akko was having trouble keeping it going in a straight line, and she wasn’t even trying to climb the mountains, she was just going next to the straight river and miraculously avoiding to crash with every tree that came her way.

“Aren’t you going to shoot?” Diana asked through the communicator, making Hannah jump in surprise and hit her head. Luckily the helmet was there.

“You want me to?” She asked with some surprise. Diana wasn’t normally aggressive, and it wasn’t usual that she actively asked her to attack.

“Akko needs to grow used to the pressure and Amanda needs to learn to defend,” Diana said in an even voice. “Just, don’t do it too seriously. We only have one Shiny Rod after all.”

“Got it,” Hannah said with a smile.

Well, she hadn’t been planning on shooting them, but if it was just to give them a scare, then it probably wasn’t too bad. Plus, Amanda had insulted her earlier, this would be a fun revenge. She took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and aimed just ahead of the Shiny Rod. It was about two hundred meters away, and it was moving at around… what? A hundred meters per second?

With these things in mind, she pressed the button and started shooting in single-shot mode, each press being a projectile. She was aiming for just slightly ahead of the rod, to give Akko a scare.

However, the weapons of the Shiny Rod, those weird glass balls, started to glow. Each shot Hannah fired was met with one from the other broom, nullifying every projectile mid-air. Unlike what most people assumed, when magic crashed with more magic, it didn’t explode, or burst. It wasn’t flashy at all. Instead, both projectiles just bounced off each other and fell in different angles every time.

Beginner’s luck, Hannah thought, unable to accept that she had just been perfectly countered. She shot again, but again, each and every single one of her shots was met with another one. Frowning, she decided to get a little more serious, putting her weapons in rapid-fire mode. This time the projectiles were smaller and came in faster succession. Not exactly like a machine gun, but close enough. There was no way anyone would be able to counter this.

While the Shiny Rod kept moving straighter with each passing second, its weapons still glowing, a small force-field appeared on the side of the ship, stopping the barrage of magic coming from the Shooting Star. Hannah hadn’t even noticed that she was now aiming correctly at the ship. When she realized this, she stopped firing.

At that moment, the attack from the Shiny Rod began with a barrage of shots not unlike what Hannah had just done. “Careful, Diana!” Hannah said. She put her guns in laser mode – the one used for protection more than attacking, since it was a big waste of magic – and in a swift movement she managed to get most of the projectiles and throw them off the sky. Her own magic laser dissipated in a strange way, as if it was a water-gun. The few projectiles that remained in the air, however, Diana managed to avoid. Brooms weren’t really meant for fighting other brooms. On Earth, most races didn’t allow weapons. The only exceptions were the IPR and some shadier cups.

Still, Amanda had aimed perfectly. Hannah began to believe that she had lied about not having any experience as a gunman. Nobody could be that good from the start.

“Did you see that?” Hannah asked.

“That was a surprisingly accurate attack,” Diana said. Of course she had noticed. “I think we’ve let them have enough practice. If you don’t mind, I’m going to accelerate.”

Hannah didn’t answer, keeping her eyes on the white broom as the Shooting Star began to go faster. It was fully capable of breaking the speed of sound, but to be able to pilot at such speeds was the real puzzle, particularly on difficult terrains such as this one.

However, with the faster speed of their broom, Akko started to go faster too. She’s going to crash. She’s not used to these speeds, Hannah thought. Maybe it would be for the best if she did, they’d get disqualified for a pilot unable to fly and there would be no shame beyond one of their pilots having been on an unfortunate accident.

Kind of a grim thought, but it was hard not to have them when you saw a novice going at breakneck speeds.

Then, Akko had a horrible idea. To avoid crashing with anything, probably, she started hovering above the river of violet water.

Most brooms weren’t made for water. They could still keep in the air, of course, but they would soon start moving sluggishly. Hannah sighed at the action. Right at that moment, the Shooting Star started coming down again, aiming for a valley. It was a really strange angle right now. Hannah had seen a couple of the races through Sídhe, they usually required the pilots to know how to strike a balance between moving through the mountainsides, the sìth and the valleys. In the back of her mind, Hannah noticed how curious it was that every millimeter of dirt was somehow covered by the marine-green grass of this world, no matter the amount of light.

The Shiny Rod kept going in a straight line.

“I see,” Diana suddenly said.

“What is it?” Hannah asked, confused.

“The Shiny Rod can move even over water. That’s truly amazing,” Diana explained. “Akko probably doesn’t even realize how unique that is.”

Hannah looked at the Shiny Rod again. As Diana had said, it was still going… No, even more. It was gaining speed.

Hannah aimed her guns. Going in such a straight line made it an easy target. She changed to rapid-fire again and prepared to fire.

“Hold on, Hannah. I think this might not only be practice, but a test too,” Diana said. “She told us to get used to the mountains, so why did she give us a straight line to race?”

Hannah considered this for a second.

“So… The choice is to either win the race or get some actual practice?” She asked, unsure.

“I believe so, yes.”

“Then… What are we going to do?”

Diana answered by aiming the shooting star at the river and accelerating further. The sudden burst of speed threw some g’s on Hannah as they shortened the distance between the two brooms in a heartbeat.

They started racing next to the Shiny Rod, though they had to do it above the riverbank. The speed at which they were going right now was already vertiginous, but if Diana dared do it, then they would probably…

The Shiny Rod accelerated, moved to the side and put itself in front of the Shooting Star. “What!” Hannah exclaimed. “Is she crazy? She barely knows how to handle that thing! She’s going to get us all killed!”

Through the communicator, Hannah heard Diana’s breathing getting a little heavier. That meant she was actually kind of excited. Or maybe scared. Hannah was scared, she didn’t trust Akko not to hit reverse and just kill them all in a ball of fire and magic. She was so afraid, in fact, that she considered trying to shoot at the Shiny Rod and get it to move out of the way. But if she did that, she might’ve hit the wide golden engines and their constant stream of magic fire. The Shiny Rod was actually pretty well protected from behind. Directly hitting an engine was considered as an instant disqualifier, whether you were aiming at it or not, because it was considered an attempt on the pilot’s life, so it was hard to hit the white broom from behind. Hitting wings or hulls, on the other hand was perfectly ok. The reason why more brooms didn’t do it was because of the difficulty of balancing the ship with such a wide engine.

“Hang on, Hannah, we’re almost to the ocean. I will best them on the way back,” Diana said through the communicator. Hannah could hear her determination.

A minute later, the Shooting Star started to slow down. They hadn’t really reached the ocean, just the base of the mountain or whatever it was that held it, but Hannah suspected Diana had slowed down to avoid a crash with Akko.

They reached the top and, as soon as they touched the edge of the water, they turned back. The Shiny Rod had actually gone some distance into the water, probably due to Akko being unable to handle it correctly.

Soon, they were the ones ahead. They kept accelerating, now at a more steady pace, while looking back. The Shiny Rod followed, again, above the water. Hannah found it hard to believe that a broom from ten years ago would be able to keep up with the Shooting Star, but when people spoke about the amazing capabilities of the Shiny Rod they weren’t joking, as it was now approaching even though they were probably nearing the speed of sound already.

Hannah aimed at the nose of the other ship and shot. She expected another shield to rise up, allowing Diana to get ahead. This didn’t happen. Instead, the glass spheres glowed and with lasers similar to the ones Hannah herself had used, the entire round of attacks was completely eradicated. Hannah frowned and shot again.

Or not.

She pressed the button, but nothing happened. “Ehm, Diana,” Hannah said while pressing a button in the middle of her control panel. “I think we’re out of guns.”

“What do you mean?” Diana asked. Hannah waited a few moments to answer. When the status report came in, she caught her breath.

“We’re out of guns. I don’t know how but I think Amanda managed to blow them away,” had it been during the laser-show earlier? The movements had been pretty wild, but to be able to aim at the guns and only the guns, leaving the rest of the broom unharmed… What was Amanda playing at? Now Hannah knew for certain, the redhead was experienced in shooting. The Shiny Rod should’ve attacked at that moment, Hannah believed. Shoot both wings, take it out. Maybe Amanda was holding back because this wasn’t a real race, but Hannah felt strangely offended by the thought.

The Shiny Rod was now biting their tail. “I’m going to go faster. You ready, Hannah?” Diana asked.

“You can handle it?” Hannah asked as an answer.

There was no reply. It had been a rhetoric question.

The Shooting Star accelerated again, and soon, they surpassed the speed of sound. It didn’t feel any different. The sonic boom would’ve been left behind, and it’s not like there was an actual physical barrier to break. Hannah always expected some kind of sensation. Maybe a sudden burst or a shake or anything, but there was nothing. They just kept flying in a straight line and leaving the Shiny Rod behind.

And behind it was left. Maybe Akko had been shocked by the sonic boom, or maybe the shiny rod wasn’t able to break the speed of sound under normal circumstances – Hannah remembered the stupid special move the broom had. What was it called, again? – meaning that the Shooting Star was, indeed, the superior…

Wait, Hannah thought. Where is it?

The Shiny Rod was… gone. Or was it? They wouldn’t…

She turned the turrets around – if only to see, because she was now nothing but dead weight in the broom – and, as she had suspected, the Shiny Rod had appeared quite a distance in front of them.

“Those… Cheaters!” Hannah said. “Come on Diana, faster!”

“I’ll lose control if I go faster now, Hannah,” Diana said. They were still going faster than the other broom, but they would have to slow down if Akko tried the same stupid strategy as before. Didn’t she realize that would be useless in an actual race? Shooting engines was prohibited, bumping them not so much. Hannah considered suggesting Diana the possibility.

“But we need to do something!” Hannah said. “I can’t believe them!”

“Well, I believe there is still one thing left for me to try,” Diana said. “However, it could be dangerous and I won’t do it if you don’t…”

“Just do it!” Hannah cried, growing angry. The Seelie Court was already in sight, they would reach it in under a minute.

Hannah instantly understood, for the broom rocked forth. She had felt it once before, too. In the simulation.

The nitro.

At the same time, Diana barrel-rolled to the side, and Hannah saw the Shiny Rod pass by their side as they closed the rest of the distance to the Seelie Court’s outer wall in ten seconds.

When the Shooting Star stopped, it moved out of the way as the Shiny Rod passed through and barely managed to stop before hitting the relatively busy streets of the city. A few seconds later it approached on reverse and stopped next to the other broom.

Everyone got out of their brooms. Akko and Amanda looked a little out of sorts, looking at the broom with a strange reverence.

Hannah instantly walked up to Amanda and touched her shoulder. Amanda didn’t even turn back. Hannah insisted, but either something was wrong or she was being ignored. “Hey, dumbass, you awake?” She tried to get her attention. It worked, making the redhead perk up and turn around with narrowed eyes.

“What?” She asked in a rough tone.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Hannah asked, looking straight into the beautiful green eyes of Amanda. She already knew they were green, but even through the glass of the helmet, from up close they looked like a couple of gemstones.

“Learn to do what?” Amanda cocked her head.

“You know, all of what you did back there,” Hannah used her thumb to point at the river, which flowed into the Seelie Court a little to the left of the main archway and then was lost underground.

Amanda frowned, pressing her lips in thought. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she concluded.

Hannah started, not sure if what she had heard was right. “Oh, so you’re telling me that was no big deal to you?”

“No, I mean I don’t really remember what happened. What did I do?”

Hannah nodded slowly. “No, no, I get it,” she said, keeping her voice from rising. “If that’s how you wanna play, then let’s do it that way,” she turned and walked off in the direction of the teacher walking towards them.

So Amanda wanted to, for some reason, keep pretending that she didn’t know how to shoot. Well, that was fine with Hannah. It’s not like she needed Amanda to tell her – in hindsight, she shouldn’t have expected an answer in the first place – and knowing or not wouldn’t make a difference in the actual races.

She heard Amanda mutter something from behind to Akko. Diana fell next to Hannah, walking besides her. She didn’t say anything. Diana, more often than not, managed to transmit her cool-headedness through just being there. This helped Hannah think. She felt her anger slowly go away. Yeah, Amanda hadn’t answered her, and Hannah’s pride was a little hurt, but why should it be? If Amanda really was a good gunman then that only meant more chances for Earth to win.

Plus, she’d eventually get it out of her. Hannah was an expert of getting others to tell their secrets. Amanda would be no exception.

Chapter Text

Racing was sooo cool!

Akko now sat alone in her room, which was a simple stone chamber with four mattresses on the ground. The faeries lived simple lives. At the center of the room, however, stood a metallic rod glowing with pale green light. A magic field had been put up surrounding the human rooms. Or, to be more precise, an anti-magic field. With the magic gone from the air, they could breath it. It was a little thinner than Earth’s – maybe akin to being high on a mountain – but it was still breathable.

She couldn’t help but smile at what had happened. True, the speed had been hard to handle at first, but once she got the hang of it everything clicked in place and suddenly it was like one of her videogames! Well, kinda. Later she had almost crashed into a thousand trees, but a start was a start.

And the move Diana had pulled off right at the last second! She had been so impressed by that she had almost forgotten to slow down the Shiny Rod! Ursula had also praised both girls on learning to put the nature of the race over the training – it had been a simple test of mindset – and then they had trained for real. That training hadn’t gone so well for Akko, but she was slowly getting the hang of it. They had been training for three hours at the least before Ursula said they should take a break and maybe get some sleep.

During training, too, Ursula had kept both pairs separated. Akko wasn’t sure why, but she suspected it was to avoid rivalries. The coach was probably right, Akko would’ve most certainly turned any exercise into another race if she was given the chance. But it had also been a disappointment. She had kind of wanted to see Diana fly in a more complex environment.

Though, everyone had lectured her on not to use teleportation during races. If that was captured on camera it could very easily get Earth disqualified. Akko knew that, she just wanted to get ahead of the others. As long as she didn’t just teleport to the finish line it was ok, right? Apparently not.

Then, the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Diana entered with her cold, expressionless face. Today she seemed to be using a particularly deadpan expression. She had been since the end of the training. Akko looked at the blonde, uncomfortable, sensing the weird atmosphere between the two. It was hard to pin down exactly what was wrong. Was it the fact that Amanda didn’t remember anything from being in the turret of the Shiny Rod? Was it her cheating? The race? Something she had done during training? Akko had wanted to congratulate Diana on winning, but then she had gone on to scold her and annoyance overshadowed everything else. Now she wasn’t annoyed anymore, but it was kind of late to congratulate the blond girl for winning.

Diana sat carefully on her mattress. Akko had thought she’d be annoyed at having to sleep almost on the ground, but she had taken it in stride and hadn’t even questioned it. Now Hannah, she had gone upstairs to go look for that clay-man and try to get him to give her a proper bed.

Amanda, on the other hand, had disappeared, saying that she’d rather explore the city – against Ursula’s orders, of course – than sleep. And the rest of them were off on a tour that, if Akko thought carefully about it, was probably being given by the same clay-man Hannah had gone searching for.

During her thoughts, Akko hadn’t noticed Diana staring at her. When she met the light blue eyes, Akko froze, sensing the power of knowledge and aristocracy emanating from her.

“You adapted rather quickly to flying,” Diana said when Akko finally met her eyes. “And Amanda seems quite the natural gunman,” there was something else implied in the phrase. Akko couldn’t figure out what it was, but it was there.

“Uhm, yeah,” Akko said not sure of what else to say. “Surprised me too,” she smiled. Diana kept the same face. “You’re a good pilot yourself.”

Diana didn’t answer. She closed her eyes, as if thinking. Akko watched her. Sometimes, she wondered if Diana was an adult. She was supposed to be sixteen, like Akko was, but even if annoyingly, she so often acted like an adult rather than a teenager. Boring, always studying or working, ordering people around… Though this last one usually came with teacher’s authority. What could lead her to act like that? Did she get a kick out of considering everyone else a mere child? Akko didn’t throw away the idea, but she also thought that was probably too mean even for her. Instead, there was probably something to be gained from acting like that. Everyone seemed to love her, after all.

“Thank you,” Diana finally said. She had taken a full minute to answer. She opened her eyes again and then stood. She took her bag “I’m going to change and sleep,” she said before leaving the room. “I believe you should do the same.”

She exited, leaving Akko all alone again.

Well that had been a strange conversation. In all honesty, Akko hadn’t really spoken to Diana after the… exchange, to put it lightly, they’d had at the Dragon’s hangar. Akko tried not to think much about it, but whenever she did, she remembered that Diana was most certainly angry with her. Akko would probably never forgive herself, should the roles be reversed, so she was kind of surprised Diana didn’t act angry around her all the time. Part of being an adult too, probably.

When Diana came back, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, she nodded to Akko before lying down on her mattress and going to sleep.

Not five minutes passed before the awkwardness made Akko put on her helmet and walk out of the room. She wasn’t tired anyways, not after everything that happened. She carefully peeked inside Ursula’s room, which was just two doors down the corridor, and there she was, sleeping. Meaning it was probably safe to go, even if they’d later receive a scolding for going away.

Now, there were two ways to go. She could exit and walk through the streets of the Seelie Court, or she could walk through the many bridges connecting the upper world of it.

Well, climbing stairs didn’t seem particularly appealing at the time, and Akko was sure she’d seen some kind of elevators around the city, so she walked out the door.

Akko held herself back from running to the small fairy. And to the dog that had the beak of a duck. And to the cat with ears of a rabbit. Or away from the creature that looked more like a puddle of mud had woken up and suddenly started walking than an actual living being.

The Seelie Court was amazing. More amazing than Akko could’ve imagined. All sorts of magical creatures bustled around, some of them paying attention to Akko, but most of them ignoring her. She had seen a few human-looking faeries around, though most of them had something that distinguished them, like unnatural green hair, or a creepy translucent appearance. Akko was now walking down the main street of the city, also the widest and by a large margin. Where humans would have probably set up stores, restaurants and all sorts of distractions in a street such as this, the only difference it appeared to make for the inhabitants of this world was the amount of space they had to walk. Or fly. Or crawl. Or… slide?

The variety of faeries was such that she wondered if it was even possible they were even the same race. Magic sure did weird things to a species.

When looking up, the sky was almost impossible to see clearly. Hundreds of bridges, wooden beams or flags hung between buildings, connecting them. Flying faeries flew among them, from bird-looking ones to blobs that looked like clouds. Akko barely avoided stepping on a goblin as she walked. She was scared by a siren – the real kind of siren, half crow, not half fish – and amazed by a three meters high moving tree.

She sometimes peeked inside buildings, but the ground level floors never seemed to be occupied. Most of them were either completely empty or with faeries who were just using the stairs inside. Why did they do that? What was up with their obsession with living high up? Many of them didn’t look fit for that kind of thing. The tree from before, for example, or that one chest with hundreds of tiny legs. Akko would understand if they could all fly or something, but it sure didn’t look like it. Even now, she noticed that most of the faeries walking around the street were doing one of two things: walking to or back from the massive central tower or just changing buildings. No one stayed much time on the streets below. It was clear, when looking at the hanging bridges, that the traffic of the city occurred up there.

Well, whatever the reason, Akko also noticed something curious: The faeries separated themselves by type. Not two different faeries ever used the same door. Two big trolls? Sure. A basilisk and a small gryphon that had been definitely hanging out together? They accessed two completely different buildings. And the trend repeated: Faeries walking together, whether they were chatting like friends or even holding hands or more, if they were different, they all used different doors. Sometimes they went as far as to walk for a good while along the thoroughfare before they entered a building.

And, finally, Akko found an elevator. It was a wooden one, and it didn’t appear to be very advanced technologically. When Akko stepped in, she noticed a bunch of small levers at her side, all with writings she didn’t understand below them. Without doubting she pulled on the rightmost one, since the leftmost one was the one pulled at the moment she assumed that meant she had just pulled on the top-floor lever. It took about a minute, in which she almost stepped out thinking the elevator was broken, but it started moving eventually. It was a slow elevator.

While going up, Akko often found herself peeking through windows. At about ten meters in the air, she started to see the differences. Faeries actually lived in the rooms she saw. Some had furniture of some kind, though Akko was sometimes baffled by it. The really tiny beds hanging from the ceiling she could guess what were for, but what about that giant bowl? Or the room that was full of nothing but scratching posts. Sometimes, if the rooms were actually occupied, she earned a few stranged looks from faeries. Despite the fact that they all had probably entered through different doors, they shared buildings. Maybe those buildings that were next to each other actually connected? That might explain the obsession they had with connecting everything with bridges, too.

The fact that no one seemed surprised by her appearance spoke miles about the world. Akko wondered if all races would receive the same treatment. Probably not the Cyborgs, or the Shapeshifters. The Plants would maybe fit in, Akko had seen a few faeries looking like plants… Or, wait, maybe those had been Plants. No, no way. This was a race between humans and faeries to see who was qualified to take part on the IPR, there shouldn’t have been any more alien races around. Plus, Plants didn’t have world-hopping technology.

After reaching about the halfway point to the top, bridges started becoming more common. While there might have been one or two each couple of stories before, now each floor had at least one, and more commonly two or even three. Some went in a straight line, some extended to two or even three buildings down the street. Some went up, some went down, and all of them were being used.

Akko had thought the street below was a little more empty than it should, given the size and importance it appeared to have, but every inch of every bridge up here was being used. Faeries walked around with energy, going on about their lives in a casual manner. Akko wondered what they did, how and where they worked. What did they even eat? They fed on magic, that much she knew, but did they eat other stuff? Given that all animals were sentient in this planet, probably not meat. There was also sentient plant life, though. Maybe they didn’t eat after all. Yet, if they didn’t need to work for food, what were they working for in the first place?

Akko felt her head hurt as she tried to think. She was not an expert on societies, but she knew that humanity only worked as it did for that strive to survive. If faeries managed to exist only on the magic in the air, and there weren’t any predators in this world, what kept them going?

Well, she probably wasn’t smart enough to figure it out anyways. Instead, she tried to think about other things. How would racing through the city be like? The previous races ran in this planet all had the final stretch of it be inside the city and towards the central tower. Most brooms and ships didn’t fit in the narrow alleyways – so narrow, in fact, that Akko often noticed faeries just jumping from building to building, not bothering to walk the bridges – so it wasn’t a viable route, plus it would cause too much of a ruckus.

She finally reached the top floor. Just above her, the purple roofs of the buildings stuck out. They were kind of sparkly. What were they made of?

Next to her there was a bridge. It was less crowded than the ones nearer the middle, but it was still kind of intimidating to try and walk on it. They were solid, and all faeries with feet on them used them, no matter size. Akko wondered if maybe she was gone for too long – she must have been out for an hour now – but it was too late to turn back. She wanted to see how these faeries worked.

So, she stepped onto the bridge and walked among them. In front of her there was a humanoid looking being with chicken legs and feathered body.

They entered a building, of course. As everywhere else, doors were nonexistent. The long stone corridor inside the building was basically indistinguishable from the one back at their sleeping quarters. The stream of faeries – this one moving towards the tower, while other bridges lead away from it, like if they were actual streets – walked calmly, some talking with each other. The ones behind Akko, for example, didn’t shut up.

“Council not allow it,” one of them, a pig walking on two legs, said. As before, the translation was rough, but understandable. “Too much risk. Race not important,” Akko would have been surprised that they were just casually talking about the race just when she was there, but it was the most important event of the decade.

“Race will forward. Situation different. Stakes high,” the other, another goblin, answered. Akko cocked her head. She kind of remembered hearing something like that. Where?

“Late then. Days from now, more safe.”

“Tell you, not happen. Race important, race everything.”

Then, they branched off to another bridge. Akko was tempted to follow them, but she hesitated for a second too long and the tide of faeries pushed her to continue moving. What had that been about?

Well, it probably didn’t matter.

Akko was lost.

She should’ve seen this coming. The city was big, and every street, bridge and stair looked basically the same. Flags hanged around too randomly to be used as reference points and half the time she couldn’t even see the central tower of the main street.

It had been an hour since she had first walked through the lower parts of the Seelie Court, and she had slowly made her way down. She was now nearer the middle levels, and she was tired for real. Everything was constant movement. She had actually seen a few workplaces for faeries – carpentries, forges, sculptors, painters – and she finally understood what was driving this race: Art. It probably hadn’t always been like this, but once she noticed, she didn’t stop seeing it.

Now, whenever she looked inside a room, she looked where she hadn’t looked before. Walls with paintings – though, they were always small -, the furniture, as lacking in quantity as it was, had always amazing carvings and details. The stone walls often bore some kind of chiseling – only the inside of rooms, nothing outside the buildings – and all kinds of things like those.

This would’ve interested her a lot more, however, if she wasn’t slowly but steadily getting more worried over the fact that she had no idea where she was. She tried to follow, more or less, the direction her instincts told her to go to when going down. This damn city had no way of orienting oneself. She thought she might have been able to do it better by keeping herself up, but the problem was that every building was nearly the same size, so there was no way of getting a general picture of the area.

Going down seemed like the only choice, but the problem with this was that, well, she was still so damn high up. Walking down might have taken an hour, or even more! Faeries probably didn’t ever need to go all the way down, given how their city worked, with houses and shops being up here. She was starting to lose hope. She’d die here, this was it. Going to explore had been the worst decision of her life, her hyperactivity finally ruined everything and-

Wait a second, was that Lotte?

That was definitely Lotte!

She was looking down from the bridge she was currently in. Two stories down, crossing a bridge and accompanied by the four girls not directly involved in racing, the orange hair of her teammate had looked like a beacon of light in the middle of a stormy night. In front of the group the clay-man faerie from before walked, and he was obviously talking.

Everyone looked tired and bored. Well, Lotte was apparently chatting with Barbara. Weird, that.

Ok, I need to get there, now, Akko thought. But, how? By the time she managed to get down they’d be gone!

Or… All stories in these buildings seemed to be of about 5 meters. If she had in mind the lower gravity… She had absolutely no idea of how to do these calculations. Screw that, she’d learned how to fall from trees when she was little, she could do this!

“Out of the way, people!” She cried to the bridges below. The lines of walking faeries stopped – now it was rather less crowded than before. When the faeries saw what she was about to do, they scrambled to move, even if they didn’t understand her.

Below, the girls stopped and looked up. “Akko?!” Lotte exclaimed, when looking up.

She pushed herself over the bridge railings. When she hit the first bridge – slightly to the right of the one she was in before – she rolled forward, getting most of the strain out of her legs and through her body. Falls like these, when one was Akko, were a thing to get used to.

“Akko, are you nuts?” Barbara said from below, obviously angry. Akko looked down, judging the trajectory. Again, faeries and humans alike moved out of her way.

She jumped, repeating the process.

When she stood again, she looked at her friends. “I’m saved!” She said, running to hug Lotte and Sucy. “I thought I would die here!” She squeezed them tightly. “What are you even doing?”

“We were going home. Kinda,” Sucy said with venom on her voice, looking at the clay-man. “We’ve been telling this dude to take us back but he just keeps taking us around and explaining faerie history to us. It’s been like this for hours,” she explained. “My truth serum doesn’t work on him, by the way.”

Akko looked at the clay-man, who’s stiff expression didn’t really show much emotion. She looked up. The faeries hadn’t paid much mind to what she had done. In fact, the ones in the same bridge as Akko gave her annoyed looks, as if they just wanted the group to move on.

“Akko you could’ve seriously hurt yourself!” Lotte pushed her back, checking her.

“Or us,” Barbara deadpanned her.

Akko smiled awkwardly. She might had gone a little overboard, but she had been just so relieved to see them!

“Sorry, sorry. Let’s just move,” she gave apologetic looks to the faeries behind, and they started moving. “I was lost, I thought I’d never get to see you again and, well…”

“Akko,” Sucy interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“Your helmet has a communicator. You could’ve just called for us.”

Oh. “Oh.”

“Indeed,” Sucy said rolling her eyes. “Now, try not to jump off a building while we try to get the six armed man to take us back.”

Akko nodded. Wait, Sucy had just said that Akko shouldn’t jump off buildings! That meant she actually cared! Akko had always known that in her heart Sucy was just a big softie. Maybe being lost had been worth it.

Chapter Text

When Diana woke up, she found Hannah and Akko sleeping. It was still daytime – the day/night cycle of Sídhe lasted a hundred and forty-four hours, meaning seventy-two hours of day and seventy-two of night, on average.

She looked around, feeling the sluggishness of those who have overslept. She stood, looking at her teammate and her companion-rival pilot. It was hard to believe that the normally hyperactive girl would sleep so peacefully. She maneuvered around the room. She was not the kind of person to go back to sleep if she woke up, mostly because she normally did sleep the right amount of hours. Today had been just particularly taxing, it seemed. Or, well, maybe it was yesterday already. Did it matter, really? Her sense of time was bound to be completely destroyed by the time the IPR ended.

Well, assuming they made it to the main race, anyways. They had to beat the Faerie pilots for that, and Diana had been studying about them. She had stored a lot of study material in her wand before leaving Earth, mostly because there wouldn’t be internet outside the Dragon.

She had gathered all possible knowledge about faerie racers and piloting. That, of course, mixed with some books on the workings of Sídhe. As she walked to the bathroom, she peeked inside what was Ursula’s room. While Barbara slept there, the teacher-coach wasn’t in bed. Diana suspected where she would be. Mostly because she knew where she would be if one of her students was missing.

After finishing with her morning routine, Diana went back to her room. She didn’t have much to do, so she took her wand and started researching.

The faeries had a strange style of piloting. Their ships, up until now, had been made of mostly wood, fueled completely by magic in a way that humans didn’t understand. That meant that they couldn’t really take hits from the others, as their ships were too weak. This lead to small ships, a focus on dodging and, more importantly, a lot of tricks. The Faerie race had only participated in four of the eleven Inter-Planetary Races. In the four occasions – the last one being the one two decades ago – they hadn’t managed to go beyond sixth place.

They were, in most cases, considered low-tier rivals. Diana didn’t underestimate them for a second.

The reason they were often thought of as weak was their lack of motivation. The faerie had gone through a number of wars in the past and, in result, their current society was peaceful to a fault. They hated conflict and didn’t really enjoy competition. They only partook – kind of – in IPRs to participate more publically in the Planetary Alliance.

Maybe this year they wouldn’t be serious, but counting on that was weak minded and something she would not do. She connected the wand to her helmet and put it on, making it play a video. The video in question had been of the last race the faeries had run. The finals of the tenth IPR. The Second Category finals, actually. They had no opportunity of winning, but many said it was the best they had ever performed.

Ten racers, ten pilots and about seven gunmen – not all races carried gunmen with them – all of them waited at the starting line of a place that looked like Earth, but was actually Appal. The Appali hadn’t been a part of that iteration of the race, but planets weren’t decided on which races qualified. The place selected for the race was the one Appali always selected: The infinite plains, a straight line of plains that ran around the entire planet, interrupted only by the occasional small forest and some rivers. Appal’s surface, unlike Earth’s, was sixty percent land and forty percent water.

Besides the Faerie racer, one of the races without a gunman, the ones worth noting were, as always, Humans, Shapeshifters, Daemons and Medusas. The human broom was a long and slender design with wings only on the back and a fin. It had been designed with more speed than mobility in mind – which had backfired spectacularly.

The race started, and instantly the five expected races overwhelmed the other five. Daemons, with their boomerang-like black ship moved to take first place, followed by a particularly small Medusa inside a sphere of water. The humans were defending from a barrage of attacks from the Shapeshifters. Second Category races were usually a little more aggressive than First Category. Psychologists often theorized this was because of the feeling of inferiority the Second Category pilots often felt, but those were musings for another day.

And, in fifth place, the small wooden racer glowing with pale green light. The ship kind of looked like an acorn without its cupule. In size, it couldn’t be longer than Diana.

The race, of course, wouldn’t go around the entirety of the planet. Appal was twice as big as earth; going around it, even in ships that could reach the speed of sound or more, would take too long. The race would only go for a random number of kilometers, selected by some random appal in a lottery. This race, Diana seemed to remember, was about five hundred kilometers long. It had taken about forty minutes to finish. Appali liked races of endurance. Racing for such a long time on a high pressure environment… Diana didn’t want to think much about it.

The small faerie pilot maneuvered his ship in a perfect manner. It was the middle of the day, but its movements as it managed to get past the Humans and Shapeshifters while they interchanged blows left trails of light behind its back. The mutual attacks stopped once both pilots noticed who had gotten ahead of them, but it was a little late. The faerie accelerated in a burst of speed, passing below and leaving the two surprised pilots behind.

Diana watched with interest as the little guy moved closer to the two leads. It was hard to shoot at faeries. They often made their entire ship the cockpit, which made them basically untouchable. All the racers were going at near supersonic speeds, but not quite so fast. Human brooms couldn’t maintain such speeds for a long time back then, so they had to use it sporadically.

The Human and Shapeshifter had stopped fighting, now focused on getting ahead of the faerie. However, he didn’t let them, increasing his speed until he was tailing the Daemon, now fighting for the first place with the Medusa. The two tips of the boomerang suddenly disappeared, substituted by a couple of metallic rods. A bolt of red energy suddenly started bouncing back and forth between the two rods. The faerie fell back, and in that moment, the bolt of energy – a spear of red lightning – struck the Medusa’s water ship. The water ship popped like a bubble, whatever energy was keeping it together broken by the electricity. The medusa fell to the ground. Diana had heard about the incident. The Daemons had almost been disqualified, but the medusa had died from the fall, not the electricity, and the lightning had hit on the outer area of the ship, making it technically outside the cockpit. The racers kept going, not bothering to look down at the beautiful jellyfish-like creature as it crashed into the ground and rolled for a few seconds before stopping, completely still. Diana felt a stab of empathy. It was hard to watch.

The energy kept going back and forth between the two rods of the Daemon’s racer, now so fast that it only appeared to be single laser-beam. The Daemon had their own kind of energy, like Magic was for humans or Light Flames for the Shapeshifters. Many called it Black Magic, because the functioning of the energy was similar enough to Magic to make the comparison an understandable one. The official name humans had given it, however, was Inferno Energy. While in the past it had been considered evil, mostly by religious people, in the end it was nothing but another energy source. Inferno wasn’t more evil than Magic was.

The faerie’s little acorn moved to the side, but the boomerang got in the way. It was a simple strategy, the faerie couldn’t bump into the daemons without also touching the Inferno. From behind, the humans and the shapeshifters approached, and if they managed to bump into the faerie, it would be over for him. Well, maybe not if it got bumped by the smoke-like ship of the shapeshifters. They never actually hurt others by directly bumping.

He was surrounded. Diana started to understand something about how the race was working: They couldn’t allow a faerie to get ahead of them. Humans, Daemons and Shapeshifters had one thing in common: Pride. They were more often than not among the top places of every race. This was a final. Allowing a faerie to shine like this, even if it was a Second Category race, was unacceptable.

The pilot had to be aware of this, but it didn’t move from position. As the humans and shapeshifters closed in, it stayed right behind the daemons. 

And then dropped.

Most ships had a limit as to how low they could fly. Human brooms, for example, often hovered between three and five meters from ground level, and their limit was at two in the still, stable hovering. The Shiny Rod managed to float just a meter from ground, but as soon as it started it went up to two and a half. There wasn’t a ship, as far as Diana knew, that could go below the meter in hovering.

Except this one.

The acorn-like ship flew at almost ground level, so close that Diana believed it would, without a doubt, crash into some unevenness. But it didn’t. It’s speed went up, and Diana could almost feel the desperation of the other three racers in the scene as they saw the little ship get past them, unable to do anything. Could faeries always do that? Why didn’t they? What had changed for this race?

It didn’t take long for the Acorn to get ahead of the others. The daemon’s boomerang wasn’t the fastest of ships, but as always, their weapons were feared by all. Humans hadn’t quite managed to make weapons of Magic as effective as Daemons had managed to do with Inferno. Daemons had had a full extra century to do so, though.

These weapons kept the humans and shapeshifters at bay – it was often hard to get past daemons in races – but it also allowed the faerie to get ahead. It was fast, faster than it should’ve. It had broken past the speed of sound a few seconds ago, but magic alone shouldn’t have been able to do that.

However, the race was decided. No one could shoot at it, and it had maneuvered past everyone. The only way to stop it would’ve been to get past it, but the daemon ship wouldn’t do or allow others to do it.

Diana fast-forwarded, and as she had expected, the daemons did a marvelous job of making sure they came out in second place.

Then, she started to see how that strategy could be useful. Of course, it had depended completely on whether or not the daemons managed to keep the other two pilots away, but it had been a good gamble, in Diana’s mind. Go for all, hope that your enemy despises more your other enemies than he does you. Losing to a faerie would be humiliating for most, but in the strange sense of competitiveness the daemons had, losing to those they considered worthy rivals was even worse than losing against no-names.

She stopped the recording. She wasn’t interested in things past the race itself. Taking off her helmet, she stood again. She was famished. The last time she had eaten before going to sleep, but maybe all the adrenaline from being on a new planet had taken its toll on her. She walked over to the room the Dragon’s crew had taken, and in one corner were the supply boxes. They had been meticulously labeled as breakfast, lunch and dinner. She took one of the breakfast ones – a plastic tray with tree compartments – and a bottle of water, then walked back to her room, sitting on the edge of her mattress and opening the tray. In one of the compartments were a plastic fork and spoon, in the middle one, oatmeal, and in the last one dehydrated fruit. She waved her wand, calling for a spell. The little device came out of her luggage and drew near. It wasn’t bigger than a golf ball.

Diana handed it her water. The device shot some magic at it, and in a few seconds it was hot. She poured it on the oatmeal and mixed that with the fruit, getting a good paste. She slowly ate while thinking about the coming race. She didn’t like to worry so much about things, but it was inevitable that she would. Second Category or not, losing wasn’t in her plans. The qualifiers always worked the same, in this regard. This was the only instance where the First and Second categories were worth the same. Win the two, you were in. Win one, lose one, a third race would be held to break the tie between the two winner pilots. Then, the IPR would be more obvious with the differences. One of the sets of rules, for example, was a judge-based one. Winning gave you points, but other things did too, like good aim or sportsmanship, and in second category everything was worth a lot less points. Then there was the one from the IPR she had just watched, where the winner got a point and the rest didn’t. First Category got two points, Second got just one. And then there was the hoop-races, where the more hoops you crossed the more points you got when reaching the finish line. It was one of the more complicated rule-sets, that one. First Category multiplied the points depending on their position on the race, while second category just straight up added the amount of points they gained plus a bonus for position, meaning that pilots were out for blood during those ones. The two times those rules had been used the average of injuries had increased significantly.

Diana suspected this time that last one should be the one in place. She didn’t like it, but that was the nature of cyclical rules. And forget herself, would Akko and Amanda be ok? Everyone in the Planetary Alliance knew how dangerous the Shiny Rod could be. Dangerous didn’t begin to describe it. Her eyes naturally fell on the sleeping brunette as she thought about these things. The closer the race was, the more certain Diana was that it might be better if they just didn’t manage to go past qualifiers.

No, thoughts like that were something she should never allow herself to have. It might affect her flying. Never.

She finished her breakfast and drank down the remaining water, still warm. She would’ve loved to have some tea, but the Dragon’s crew hadn’t brought any. She stood and walked to where the box they’d been using as trash waited in the corner of the room.

And, as she did so, someone walked into the room. Amanda took off her helmet, the hint of bags forming under her eyes. She didn’t even take off her suit as she dropped on the bed next to Akko.

“Had a fun adventure?” Diana asked, unable to keep the disapproval out of her voice.

“No. The upper world is a labyrinth, if Ursula hadn’t come for me I would’ve died,” Amanda said without even bothering to look up. “I almost fell asleep on some random faerie’s empty room. So many of them have weird beds, thought you probably haven’t bothered to check. Now, please, I want to sleep.”

“And what are we going to do about training? Your circadian rhythm is going to…”

“Saywhat?” Amanda said, her words slurring together as she started to fall asleep. Diana rolled her eyes, of course Amanda wouldn’t know what she was talking about.

“I mean your inner clock, Amanda. You’re going to end up with a schedule opposite to ours,” Diana tried to explain.

“Whocares, tired,” the redhead’s voice weakened further.

“But Akko will need to practice with you there, she needs to get used to having you.”

Amanda shrugged. “I can’t even remember how I did whatever I did,” this time she sounded a little more lucid. “Just have Akko practice in learning how to fly like a normal human being,” and with that, she had said everything, for before Diana could think of an answer, she was asleep.

She took a deep breath. What had she expected? This was Amanda, of course she wasn’t taking things seriously. Diana held back her annoyance as she finished what she had originally planned to do and excited the room, hiding her annoyance.

She peeked inside Ursula’s room and she found her sitting in bed with a tired expression. There wasn’t a door to knock, so she cleared her throat. The teacher instantly looked up. “Did you want something?” She asked. She sounded as tired as she looked.

Diana wanted to ask if she was feeling well, but something stopped her. That was probably none of her business. “How are we going to practice today?”

“I think I’d rather explain it to you when we get there,” Ursula said. Her kind voice kept Diana from pressuring further, but she lingered on the door. There was something else she wanted to say, but she didn’t know if she should say it, lest she look weak. “You’re worried about something?” Ursula asked, reading her. Not many people managed to do that.

“Kind of. I’m not certain we will be able to perform well enough during the race. Particularly Akko and her… particular circumstances,” Diana confessed. “I… don’t know if we should move forward with the race.”

Ursula nodded slowly, seeming to understand her struggle. She smiled again. “I have the feeling Akko might surprise you, down the line,” she said. “But I’ll let her know you’re worried. Or you could do it yourself, that might get her to push herself harder.”

Diana paled. “I’d rather you don’t do that,” the last thing she wanted was having Akko thinking she underestimated her. Diana had come to understand the brunette enough to understand that was probably what would happen, and the last thing she wanted was having some kind of fight with her before the race.

“Well, if that’s what you want. But I think you might be underestimating Akko,” Ursula said. Wait, had she read her thoughts? Of course not, that was silly. Had she just been able to read her well? Or was she referring to some other thing? “Give me a few minutes,” Ursula said. “And I’ll get everything ready so that you can get some basic flight practice done. Assuming you don’t want to do something else. Real practice will begin in three hours.”

Diana was about to say she had nothing else to do and that she would very much appreciate the chance to get more practice in, but Ursula looked just so tired… “Don’t bother, I beg you. I still have some research I’d like to get done, so I’ll wait.”

Ursula seemed very thankful for this as she nodded. The conversation ended and Diana went back to her room. Putting the helmet on again, she decided to do as she had said, and went back to studying.

Chapter Text

Akko watched in amazement as Diana did a quick U-turn and the Shooting Star stopped. They had been training for three hours now – Akko was, maybe, getting the hang on quick movements, as long as there weren’t that many trees in the way – and it was time for a break. Diana had been gone a few minutes longer than Akko, though.

Diana stepped out of the Shooting Star, and Hannah used the emergency exit to get out of it. The guns had been fixed, though the mechanics had been rather annoyed that they would start to waste resources just for practice.

Akko didn’t fail to notice that Diana was sweating slightly, the light of the white sun making her face sparkle even through the helmet’s visor. Maybe it was because she was still tired, but she found the sight to be picture worthy. Of course Diana would look perfect even when tired and sweating, Akko thought. Couldn’t the blonde girl do something wrong for once?

Diana looked at her as she was sitting on the ground. Surprisingly enough, she sat in front of Akko. “I caught snippets of you flying. I believe you’re doing better today.”

Akko smiled. Getting praise from Diana felt strangely good. “Thanks. You’re as amazing as always, too,” Akko said. Before the u-turn, Akko had seen her cross a small forest without touching a single tree. The way she maneuvered the ship was other-worldly. In the rhetoric way of speaking, of course, since they were in another world.

“Where is Ursula?” Hannah asked, sitting next to Diana.

“She went to get Amanda,” Akko explained. The simple mention of the name made Hannah frown. She really seemed to have been offended by the fact that Amanda didn’t remember how she handled the Shiny Rod’s weapons.

They stayed in silence for a while. Akko was growing hungry, but eating in the middle of the field was impossible. Even if you managed to somehow get food into your suit without dying of Magic exposure, the food would have been exposed to the same Magic, and eating it would’ve had the same effect.

“How is it?” Diana suddenly asked. She wore her normal expression, but when meeting her eyes, Akko sensed something else. Some extra feeling. “Flying the Shiny Rod. It must be quite the experience,” she was looking with a strange intensity.

“I don’t really have anything to compare it with. It’s harder than it was in my videogames, if that helps,” it probably didn’t, but Diana’s expression didn’t change.

“Interesting,” Diana said, though it appeared she was speaking more to herself than to Akko. “Tell me, how do you feel about the incoming race?”

Akko paused. She had actually kind of completely forgotten about that. “I… don’t know?” she shrugged. “It’s so abstract, I still don’t really believe I’m here,” she looked up. “But I’m going to win. Somehow, I promise.”

Akko didn’t feel that confident, but she found it comforting to say it out loud. Maybe, by making the promise to others, she’d win to fulfill it. Diana nodded slowly. Akko was starting to be slightly uncomfortable. Something about Diana felt a little different. Maybe she was trying to get something out of Akko. That look was still in her eyes.

“You should try going slower in narrow spaces. It will help you maneuver. Not everything in a race is about raw speed,” Diana said. Akko opened her mouth, but she had nothing to say to that. Going slower through narrow spaces? Of course she did that!

But, well, did she? She was often so focused on trying not to crash that she lost notion of everything else.

At that moment, a small two-person broom – looking similar to a motorcycle – arrived with Ursula and Amanda. Amanda looked terrible.

“So, now we can practice for real,” Akko stood. Ursula, however, shook her head.

“Actually, it’s time for us to go meet the rulers of the Faerie race. Get on your brooms and head to the central tower,” she looked at it. Akko looked at Diana, who didn’t seem particularly surprised by the turn of events. Amanda sighed. Ursula had probably already explained to her what was going to happen. “Today, you will meet the Aos Sí.”

Amanda wasn’t tired. She was exhausted.

Her misadventures the previous day had not been what she expected. The upper world of the Seelie Court was a labyrinth of bridges and corridors where everything looked the same. By the time she had gotten bored of it, however, she was lost. Ursula had found her through the communicator, thing she hadn’t thought to use.

This led her to her eyelids collapsing as she climbed into the Shiny Rod’s turret. She had slept for like six hours, and now she had to go meet the kings of this people or whatever? She was not up for it.

She was so not up for it, in fact, that she was sleeping. Yet, her mind was still awake. She could feel her body asleep, but the mind was connected to the Shiny Rod. She wondered if she was going to forget this too, once she got out. She seemed completely unable of recall anything happening inside the rod until she got back in. This time, the connection was different. She was on standby, not allowed to do anything, including firing the guns. Maybe that was because of the sleeping.

They moved slowly through the city. Faeries turned their heads, some of them even followed. The tower was far, really far. Maybe it was because of its monstrous proportions but it had looked a lot closer when they had first seen it. They had been going at a steady pace for nearly an hour, and while it was close, they hadn’t reached it yet.

This part of the city was slightly different than the rest, too. Here, pieces of art hung around everywhere. The outsides of buildings wore paintings, big and small. There were statues of stone, wood and metal in every corner, and musicians played with energy in enough places that no ears were ever free of their music.

Sleeping or not, Amanda was amazed by some of these pieces. The music was upbeat and fun, some of the statues were amazing and most paintings were beautiful. Amanda wasn’t much of an artist, but even she could admit many of these pieces were breathtaking, and all of them lay on the street. Weren’t they afraid of thieves? Well, that was a stupid question. Of course not, that much was obvious.

The small following they had gathered stood behind as they entered the wide street around the central tower. The tower was constructed with the same stone as the rest of buildings, but the blocks were much bigger and wider. The entrance, another archway, was about twenty meters high, allowing Amanda, through the strange vision that being connected to the Shiny Rod gave her, to see that there were no floors on the tower.

And, as they entered, she confirmed it was, indeed, empty. Nothing but a staircase that ringed the wall in spirals. There were no faeries inside the tower. Amanda thought she recalled something like this being mentioned. The Faerie rulers didn’t allow their subjects to see them all at once, for some reason. That probably meant that in occasions such as these they weren’t allowed in the tower. Yet, outside and across the street, Amanda could see some faeries covertly trying to peek inside. Not that it mattered; there was no one inside the tower.

The broom-racers and the smaller broom Ursula was riding stopped in the center of the tower. Then, the massive archway closed. Or, more like, disappeared, substituted by stone, all the sounds from outside vanishing and leaving in its stead an eerie silence. The tower had windows, but they were super high – probably to stop faeries on the top floors of the city from watching. How did they deal with the flying ones, though? – so they barely got any light.

Everyone got out of their brooms, and as they did, Amanda woke up.

Wait, where were they?

“Where are we? Why’s it so dark in here?” She asked. Her voice had echo, and the only thing she had to see by were the Shooting Star’s and Shiny Rod’s lights. Since they weren’t in night mode, the lights were a dim pale green, making everyone look like ghosts.

“How long are you going to keep the act?” Hannah said with annoyance, giving Amanda a not very friendly stare.

“Why the hell would I be lying?” Amanda barked back almost instinctively. Why did Hannah find it so hard to believe what happened to her? Maybe Amanda should just have her ride the Shiny Rod in the turret and experience whatever happened in there by herself. Stupid broom, why did it steal away her memories? It didn’t do that to Akko! And it hadn’t done that when Amanda rode in the cockpit! She looked angrily at the Rod, feeling betrayed. She’d been riding one of the most amazing brooms in human history and she wasn’t even allowed to remember it. And, apparently, she was an incredibly good gunman too! It was almost enough to make her go and kick the damn thing.

“Well, you tell me. Who has ever heard of a broom that wipes memories?” Hannah said with sass embed into her voice.

“Oh, I don’t know, who the hell has heard of a broom capable of TELEPORTING and PERPETUAL HOVERING? Huh? If you gonna call something bullshit, Hannah, I suggest you start by the obvious ones," Amanda said. She was one word away from just slapping Hannah.

“Girls, quiet down. We’re about to meet the rulers of this planet,” Diana intervened. Hannah had been about to reply, but Diana’s intervention stopped her. Amanda didn’t even bother thinking twice about the warning from the ever-perfect miss goody-two-shoes.

“Oh no. You know, Hannah, you could just test it out yourself. Get into the Shiny Rod’s turret and tell me if you remember anything afterwards. Come on, go in,” Amanda gestured towards the broom, which as always floated about one meter above the ground.

“Maybe I’ll do it,” Hannah hesitated, surprised by the suggestion. Amanda smirked, once the girl tested it out herself, Amanda would have Hannah apologizing with a freaking written letter, she would.

“Akko, would you mind activating the Shiny Rod again?” Amanda asked with fake amiability. Akko seemed uncomfortable with the idea, but she ended up shrugging and climbing onto the broom.

Hannah looked back and forth between Amanda, Diana and the Shiny Rod. She seemed to be asking for Diana’s help with her eyes. “If it would help settle this matter, I believe you should do it.”

This made Hannah grimace, filling Amanda with satisfaction. Reluctantly, the auburn-haired girl walked to the Shiny Rod.

But, before she could reach it, something inside the tower changed. Maybe it was the air, or the pressure. Maybe the humidity, or maybe the lighting. No one knew what it was, but they all felt it. Something had definitely changed. Amanda lost her smirk. It was as if they had suddenly stepped on a boat, with the floor seeming to rock. Everything fell still. Unnaturally still. It was then that Amanda noticed, she wasn’t breathing. Her heart wasn’t beating. Time appeared to be frozen.

And behind them, they appeared.

Seven figures. At least fifteen meters high, each one of them glowing with the light of magic.

Time resumed. Amanda turned, and saw the figures looking down on them. Thrones had appeared in the room along with their owners. All of them looked humanoid, but that was about it. With varying proportions, Amanda realized they weren’t just glowing with that light, they appeared to be made of it.

Ursula stepped towards them and in front of the four teenagers – Akko still being on the Shiny Rod – and made a reverent bow. “I greet you, Aos Sí.”

Amanda instantly knew that she didn’t like them. An adolescence of rebellion and troublemaking had developed a sixth sense for authorities. There were good – or, rather, acceptable – authorities and there were bad – meaning, the most common – authorities. She didn’t even need to hear them talk to know they’d do it in a self-righteous and condescending way.

Akko scrambled to get out of the Shiny Rod, but she didn’t seem to do it out of fear but excitement. Diana also walked forward, bowing. Hannah and Amanda remained still in place.

One of them spoke. “Humans,” the middle one said. “I greet you.” His voice, deep and masculine, sounded strange to Amanda. That was until she realized, she wasn’t hearing it through the automatic translation device. This… being, it spoke directly in English.

“Hi,” Akko said. Everyone eyed her, including the Aos Sí. Her causal greeting kind of ruined the mood.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Diana added after a few seconds. Amanda rolled her eyes. They didn’t know yet if it was a pleasure to meet them or not.

“I see you’ve brought quite the artifact to our tower,” another one of the giants said. Amanda instantly knew what they were referring to. Everyone else probably did too. “I never thought it’d be quite so impressive,” the rather androgynous voice said. Before anyone could answer, however, the Aos Sí began to talk between themselves in some other language. Whichever it was, the translation device wasn’t able to translate it. The discussion was a calm one, but Amanda picked on some tension between the seven rulers. 

“We believe,” the middle one said, again, “that we should not… How do you humans say it? Beat around the bush? Let us get straight to the point,” he stepped and walked forward. Amanda cursed on reflex, as that step was definitely going to squash her. The squashing didn’t happen, luckily, as the Aos Sí changed size, coming down to being barely taller than Ursula. He started to pace around the group. “Tell me, humans, are you aware of the importance of this race?”

Diana was the first one to answer, because apparently she had the need to cater to figures of authority, no matter their race or planet. “Of course. The Inter-Planetary Race is not only the biggest event of the Planetary Alliance. It depends on which angle you aim it from, that being the cultural, economical or even psychological, but every society we know of has-”

“No,” he cut Diana off, leaving her slightly taken aback. Amanda took satisfaction in that. “While you are right, young human, I wasn’t speaking about the Inter-Planetary Race as a whole,” his tone got somber. “I’m speaking about this one.”

“Yes, we know it,” Ursula answered instantly. Suspicious, Amanda thought. Too fast. She was hiding something.

“We don’t,” Amanda said. Ursula turned her head towards her, the hint of panic in her eyes. The Aos Sí, however, kept walking around, not saying anything for what felt like an eternity before coming to a rest and looking the teacher in the eyes.

“I understand. Your name is Ursula, is it not?” He asked, ignoring what Amanda had said. Ursula nodded. “Allow me to make you a proposal, should you accept it, you and all the humans in this room could get riches beyond whatever your minds have ever imagined.”

Red flag. Amanda knew how to identify a scam and that phrase was how anyone would start one. Ursula took a step back, obviously recognizing it too. The Aos Sí, however, didn’t seem to notice the change in mood. Amanda looked around and thoughtful expressions on Diana and Hannah. Akko was just confused.

“Oh my, that sounds important,” Ursula picked a crystal ball the size of her palm from one of her pockets. A Magic-fueled communicator. “Wouldn’t you rather discuss it with my superio-”

“You,” the Aos Sí didn’t even bother finishing listening, “are going to lose this race,” he looked at Akko and Diana. “Do so, and you’ll be able to live as kings back on your planet.”

“Why do people like you always think that they can bribe their way into anything?” Amanda was the first to say something. The king of faeries looked at her with the kind of look she always got. Faeries ain’t that different from humans, she thought with satisfaction.

“Silence,” he said. He didn’t sound angry, but there was an underlying tone to him, a silent warning. “Humans, you don’t really get it. Are you aware of the change in the head of the race committee?” He asked to Ursula. She cocked her head.

“I don’t think so,” despite her neutral voice, Amanda could tell she wasn’t at ease with the situation at hand. “But I don’t see why that would…”

“I see,” he cut her off. “Then let me make my proposal again,” with a glare, he stopped Amanda from speaking. She felt an incredible pressure on her chest, as if her body didn’t want her to speak. Maybe taking the prize wouldn’t be so bad, after all. “You’re not worthy of winning the grand prize,” he said. “Lose and live in wealth for the rest of your lives. It’s something I’m sure you’ll…

“No.”

The answer, calm and collected, had come from an unexpected source: Akko.

And she was angry.

Diana heard the proposal and, for a second, she hesitated. Taking it could fix all her problems, including her fears respecting the race. Wealth beyond imagination? Maybe she could…

“No,” a voice answered before she could even finish considering this. Akko, despite her calm voice, had fire in her eyes. She walked forward, each of her steps sounding like thunderclaps in the resonance of the chamber – something that made Diana realize the Aos Sí didn’t have weight to his own walking – towards the glowing figure. Diana felt like she should intervene. The rulers of the faeries were beings of pure magic. They were older than humanity and more powerful than Akko understood. Diana suspected they had done something to Amanda, who looked angrily at the one standing in front of their teacher but had gone conspicuously silent after her initial outburst.

“Silence,” the Aos Sí leader looked at Akko, and she hesitated in place. He looked back at the teacher, as if to keep speaking, but Akko shook her head and strode forward, obviously surprising the being of magic as she stepped between him and Ursula. Determination obvious in her face, anger showing in her clenched fists, she spoke.

“We’re not taking that offer. You say we aren’t worthy? Then prove it,” Her voice was brimming with conviction as she pointed to where the archway had been. “Win the race.”

So simple, Diana thought. Akko hadn’t even considered the offer. She stood there, planting face to something that Diana was certain could kill her with barely a touch, without hesitating, looking it in the eyes. Akko might be a bad student, but for the first time since knowing her, Diana felt… respect, towards her. It was strange, that a situation where the brunette was doing something so potentially dangerous was the one changing Diana’s perception of the girl.

The Aos Sí – all of them – scoffed. “Are you suggesting we can’t win? We’ve seen your training, you’re not up to-”

“Prove it,” Akko repeated. Diana felt the hint of a smile appear on her face. The way she had said it made the leader of the faeries take a step back, surprised. It hadn’t been menacing, it had been pure, unaltered confidence. Akko had promised before that she was going to win, but Diana had believed it to be just a front. Now she found herself believing in her. No, not only believing. She was infected with the confidence. All considerations of taking the bribe were vanished from her mind. “If that prize is so important, then your dirty money isn’t really better than it anyways.”

“You insolent child,” one of the sitting Aos Sí, to their left, said. She sounded livid. “You dare mock us?”

“I believe,” Ursula said, “that she’s just using logic.” She paused a second. Akko, using logic. Something didn’t sound right in that sentence. “And that she’s right. Now, I would appreciate it if you’d let us go. We have practice to do,” unlike Akko’s, her voice was filled with menace.

“You’re throwing away your only chance at-” the leader started again.

“If you think you can get the prize,” Amanda finally snapped out of whatever had happened to her, “why would you need to bribe us? Or are you planning on bribing the other nine racers when you get to the Inter-Planetary Race?” She was glared at every single Aos Sí. “If you can’t beat us, then you’ll hold absolutely no chance during the real deal.”

The Aos Sí remained silent for a while. The one that had shrunk went back to his fifteen-meter form and sat back down. They looked over the humans, but while Diana had believed their looks to be wise and respectful before, now she saw only spite and childishness.

The archway reappeared, and suddenly Diana felt a strange pressure on her chest, as if someone was pushing her out of the place, without actually touching her. She didn’t fight with it, she wanted to leave anyways. She climbed into the Shooting Star, waited for Hannah to get in, and in less than a minute both broom-racers, along with the little broom of their teacher, were slowly leaving the central tower behind.

Diana now felt a lot more sure of herself, and of Akko.

She actually believed, now, that they would win.

Chapter Text

Akko wasn’t nervous.

Or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself. What she had said yesterday – or, rather, today? Time was weird here – still echoed in her mind. The feeling of betrayal, the anger, the confidence. She had told those glowing dudes how things were and she was happy about it.

Now she only had to make good on her words. The race would start in less than two hours, when the sun disappeared over the horizon. There were many reasons why Akko had started to second-guess herself. For starters, they hadn’t practiced at night! Things would be so different without light…  And the racers! She hadn’t the slightest idea how their rivals would look! How could she plan a strategy – not that she would’ve done it, but that was besides the point – if she couldn’t see them before hand? Everyone had seen their brooms!

She watched from the top floor of the building they were staying in – it was slightly taller than the ones around it, allowing her to see outside the Seelie Court – towards the straight river that led to the Dragon. And the weird ocean in a mountain.

What she saw wasn’t calming. The start of the race was to be in the very archway leading into the city. The route hadn’t been discussed yet, but Akko hoped it would be in the straight line along the river. This being a qualifier meant that they could allow themselves to have a simple race. It was a slim hope, but maybe…

She sighed. She was going to win, right? After what she’d said, not doing so would be so freaking lame. Plus, she didn’t want to lose to Diana, and Diana was most definitely going to win. She needed to win too. Guarantee their passage into the main event and…

“Akko, Ursula is looking for you,” Lotte appeared from the stairs behind Akko. There was wind up here, though she couldn’t really enjoy it.

“Those elevators are really interesting,” Sucy added. Because, yes, there had been an elevator in the building all along. It had just been on the side of the building Akko hadn’t checked out. She tried not to think of that as a negative, as it had allowed her to live an adventure and stuff.

“I’ll go in a few minutes,” Akko rested on the stone balustrade. It was the only piece of art actually attached to a building she had seen. This building, it seemed, was special, being the only one with a door and stuff. Apparently it had been the ancestral home of some important faerie.

Lotte rested next to her, and Sucy drew closer, but not too close. “You’re nervous?” Lotte asked. Her kind voice always seemed to put everyone at ease, Akko included. Shaking her head, Akko didn’t really know how to reply. She was nervous, but admitting it would be like admitting what she had said the day before was nothing but an empty threat. She closed her eyes and, with satisfaction, recalled the moment where the Aos Sí had stepped back. He had tried to do something to her, when she had first talked. She had felt a strange pressure on her chest, but she had overcome after realizing it wasn’t her own feeling.

“Do you even need to ask?” Sucy said. “When have you seen Akko thoughtfully look towards the horizon?”

Akko frowned, turning to her purple haired teammate. “Hey, I can be thoughtful if I want.”

Sucy chuckled. “Sure, if the topic is food, you can think about it for the whole amount of ten seconds. Fascinating.”

Akko was going to reply, but instead she crossed her arms. “Hmpf,” she let out as she looked away. Near the entrance of the city, the crowds had already gathered. There were thousands of humans and faeries in stands, small floating brooms or just straight up flying. The Planetary Alliance cameras had already arrived and two enormous screens lazily floated around the place. A small tower had been set up for commentators just outside the walls. Well, ‘small’ compared to the city’s buildings. Being taller than the outer wall meant that it was pretty damn tall.

“See?” Sucy said. “She isn’t even bothering to scream like an idiot even after what I said.”

Lotte put a hand on Akko’s shoulder. It felt comforting. Way more than it should’ve. “You’re going to do just fine,” she said. Her glasses reflected the strangely red light from the setting sun. It wasn’t like earth’s orange. It was a deep crimson, making the fields of marine grass look brown and the forests look like blood on the landscape. It made Lotte’s hair look like it was on fire. Rather cool.

“I’ve had only two days of flying and actual practice,” Akko said. “Do you really think that?”

“I think,” Lotte said after some thinking, “that as long as you try your best it’s going to be fine.” She squeezed Akko’s shoulder.

“I mean, if you lose then everyone is going to think you’re lame,” Sucy added from behind. Akko grimaced. Lotte shot the girl a glare, but quickly turned back to Akko.

Akko understood what Sucy was trying to do. In her own way, she was trying to help. In her own very special and messed up way, yeah, but trying to help nonetheless. Either that or she was really just mocking her, but Akko preferred to think it was the first case to avoid getting depressed.

“Don’t listen to her. I won’t think you are, at least. And neither will Ursula,” Lotte said. It wasn’t much of a relief, but Akko felt like she had sulked enough. She smiled at Lotte and Sucy, taking a deep breath.

“I’m fine now. Come on, let’s go,” she walked towards the stairs. “I have a race to win.”

The sounds from the outside were muffled through the windshield. The crowds cheering and booing, the obnoxiously loud voice of the human commentator – humans were, in fact, one of the only three races with commentators – and the roar of the Shiny Rod’s engines. Akko stared in front of her. The race would take them around the city counterclockwise. Touching the wall was instant disqualification, but other than that everything was fair game. The sun was about to disappear, and Akko feared the imminent darkness. Right after the sun set, everything would…

But, she noticed something strange. The grass that appeared to be brown due to the mix of red and green now appeared to be… purple?

“Good luck, Akko,” the communicator in her helmet allowed a voice to pass through. Ursula.

“Akko, don’t stick close to the wall,” another voice said. Diana? “They’ll want to disqualify you. Before trying to get ahead, even if it would be the faster route, keep near the mountains and the sìth.”

Akko nodded. She still failed to grasp the fact that no one was seeing her.

The sun disappeared, and the world changed.

Akko didn’t have time to process this as a loud gunshot was heard and both racers shot forward next to the wall. The faerie ship, this time, was a short and flat wooden heart-looking one. Well, like a heart if someone had taken a couple bites off its top.

Akko was on the side of the wall and, just as Diana had predicted, the first thing the faerie pilot tried to do was bump into her. She panicked for a second, but a barrage of magic from the weapons kept the faerie at bay. Amanda was really good. Too bad she didn’t know it. Akko kept accelerating. Rounding the entire city, even at near supersonic speeds, would potentially take about ten minutes. It was a large city.

A large city glowing.

The grass, previously marine green, was now pale purple and glowing. The sky remained slightly red, now more towards a maroon. The trees glowed with their original colors, but the most impressive thing was the city itself. Every stone, brick, nook and cranny. The wall, buildings and even the central tower, they all glowed with the pale green light characteristic of magic. If she weren’t in the middle of a race, Akko would stop to appreciate the dream-like landscape.

But in a race she was, and another barrage of attacks kept the faerie away again. Taking a deep breath, Akko steered to the side, as if to bump into the faerie. Amanda seemed to notice her intention and didn’t attack. The faerie pilot hesitated for a second, second that worked for Akko. Heart pounding, she tried to do something she had seen Diana do a couple dozen times during training, and that she’d done a hundred in her videogames.

Right before hitting the faerie ship, she jerked the joysticks with a quick movement. The Shiny Rod jumped and barrel rolled at the same time. The faerie pilot – a strange reptilian-looking humanoid – looked up in surprise as the Shiny Rod managed to jump over it.

Akko was now slightly disoriented, as the sudden spin was not what she had expected. She barely avoided crashing with a sìth – actually grazing it with the side of her engine – and with that she started flying through a mountainside. She could feel the broom pushing slightly downwards as she moved, but she had trained on how to do this.

She didn’t need lights, but she still had them all. A part of her mind took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the glowing landscape, but the rest of her mind beat it to a pulp. This was not the time to let her focus problems take over.

She expected the faerie to try and get ahead now that it was the one who could be pushed into the wall, but instead it decided to attack.

Wait.

It was so unexpected that Akko didn’t even react when the faerie, aiming with nothing but a stick, shot a laser of magic towards the Shiny Rod. Amanda was fast enough to get the shields up, but Akko felt the ship get pushed back by the strength of the blow. Right in that moment, Akko saw a sìth placed in a strange position. It led up to a mountainside, being far longer than most, and at the end of it… A cave?

She had seen some caves here and there during training, but this one seemed a little too perfect. The way the two mountainsides were just of a perfect steepness, the unnaturally wide sìth, the way it perfectly led into the tunnel…

Three Planetary Alliance cameras were following Akko – big water-drop like things that were about one quarter the size of the Shiny Rod – and another three were following the faerie.

Without thinking it through, she climbed onto the sìth and entered the cave. As she suspected, the faerie followed her. She instantly noticed something strange: the curve was a lot more pronounced. She slowed down, since the tunnel was narrow enough that the faerie wouldn’t be able to get ahead of her even if it wanted. The tunnel, made out of grey rock – this one didn’t glow, but the Shiny Rod’s lights were potent enough to let her see – was definitely man-made. Or, well, faerie-made. As she moved, she had to slow down even further. Diana had been right, of course. Akko had been panicking before, but yeah, slowing down was the natural solution to when you had trouble maneuvering. From behind, the faerie seemed eager to try and get past Akko. It couldn’t. Whoever had made this tunnel made it for one ship. Even in the narrow space, however, Akko was going at a steady two hundred meters per second. Still, why did this feel so off…?

“Alcor,” Akko called.

What is it, Not-Chariot? The green crow with the four-pointed star appeared to her side. She hadn’t bothered to call for the radar, since the race was pretty straightforward. Also, she really needed to change her username or whatever.

“Can you give me a map of the area? And I mean, the entire city.”

Alcor didn’t even reply as it turned into a small ball of light that started pulsing with the sound of a submarine’s radar. Slowly, with Akko at the center, the map got bigger and bigger even as she moved. It took just about a minute before the entire city was mapped.

Including the underground tunnel, which was a circle about half the size of the city.

Or, in other terms, an illegal shortcut.

Akko smirked, looking back. So that was it, huh? They were planning on cheating! They’d try to get her to go ahead to avoid getting disqualified by touching the wall, then go ‘casually’ into a tunnel that would be hard to tell, from an outside perspective, was actually way shorter than the set track. The faerie, from behind, was lit with the magic fire of the Rod’s engines, and while Akko couldn’t see his frustration, she could feel it.

Trying to communicate with others during the race was completely illegal too, so Akko couldn’t tell the others about this. This, however, gave her an idea.

Ursula looked, with a frown, as everyone in the audience booed. The race had been boring, really boring, since nothing had changed from the second they had entered that tunnel. No one had realized what the tunnel was. Ursula suspected not even most seasoned pilots would realize. Only those in the actual race would be able to tell, or someone like Ursula, who’s job the past few years had been all about looking at races from the outside and trying to find the best pilots on the explored universe.

The tunnel was obviously a shortcut. Akko had found it by accident, that much was evident, but the way the faerie kept moving around, impatient, made it obvious that it hadn’t expected this development. Ursula had to grit her teeth to keep from taking the leftover Shooting Star and going after the cheating bastards in the tower. However, Lady Fortune smiled at Akko tonight. Ursula wondered if Akko had realized what was going on with the tunnel. If she knew how to activate the mapping function of the Shiny Rod, she probably would have.

And she had obviously done so, because suddenly the Shiny Rod accelerated in a burst of supersonic speed. Ursula cringed, thinking she had done so on accident or something. Instead the, the Rod came out of the tunnel and came into view even for the spectators in the stands. The white broom had appeared just a minute away from the finish line – a race that should’ve taken ten minutes, despite the slow pace, had taken just five – approaching through a suspiciously straight valley at incredible speed. Oh, not suspiciously enough that anyone would believe it was tampered with, just enough to make it an obviously good choice to put the exit of your cheating tunnel in.

Behind it, the faerie came out, but in the screens it looked dazed and out of itself. It had taken the full force of the sonic boom inside a cave: Poor fellow would be lucky if it didn’t end up deaf.

The Shiny Rod was, obviously, the first one to cross the finish line, followed by the faint echo of the sonic boom from earlier. The cheering wasn’t particularly loud, not compared to the booing. People came to watch a race, not a couple of brooms peacefully go through a tunnel. And, Sídhe races were usually so exciting too. With all that in mind, Ursula could understand the frustration.

She would still have liked to make everyone shut up. Akko had managed to win!

“I can’t believe it,” Barbara said from her position next to Ursula. “She actually won.”

“By cheating,” Hannah said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

“I think,” Diana said. Was that a smile on her face? “that you got it the other way around, Hannah,” she said. Wait, had she noticed? Damn, this girl really was an expert in the craft with only sixteen years. What would she have been able to do, had she been chosen by the Shiny Rod?

Lucubrations for another day.

Akko piloted the Shiny Rod out of the way as the other pilot arrived. The reptilian like creature jumped out of its wooden ship and took of its helmet, throwing it away with anger.

A few minutes later, everyone had gone to the human pits – for lack of a better word – as the preparations for the Second Category race were made. Akko and Amanda stood next to the Shiny Rod as Akko explained Amanda what had happened.

Lotte was the first one to step forward and pat Akko’s back. “Congratulations!” she exclaimed. Akko smiled nervously.

“I don’t think the win should count,” she said instantly. Then, she explained everything to the others. Exactly as Ursula had suspected. “I think I’m going to explain everything and…”

“What?!” Hannah, who had been dismissing the win earlier, was now livid. “Don’t you dare! You crushed them in their own games! Plus, I don’t think you could win an actual race.”

Diana cleared her throat. Ursula was really curious as to what she would have to say. “While the last part was uncalled for,” Diana said, “I believe she’s right. The circumstances of your win were ones set up by your rivals. They will not go to the authorities with this and, maybe more importantly, you should not feel ashamed of having won fair and square.”

Akko didn’t seem convinced, so Ursula stepped next to her and grabbed her shoulder. “If you feel like you should speak about this to the committee, then I won’t stop you.” She hesitated. What she was about to say was bound to cause some distress. “But this won’t be the only cheating you’ll see during the race, Akko, and I’m afraid no one is going to do anything about it.”

Diana turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Cheating? On the IPR?” She cocked her head. “Sure, there’s been rumors, but nothing was ever…” She seemed to have a realization, and her eyes darkened. “Do you know for certain this is the case?”

Ursula paused. Diana was a smart girl. Too smart, in fact. Akko might have been a little too oblivious to figure it out, but she was another story. “Yes,” she said after some deliberation.

“Don’t you think you should’ve told us?” Hannah looked at her. “If they cheat, then we just have to cheat back on them,” she smiled while saying this.

Akko grunted. She obviously didn’t like the idea. “No,” Ursula said to stop the girl from going further down that line of thought. “Hannah, I understand how you feel, but just because a couple of jerks do it doesn’t mean we should, got it?”

“Not that we would need cheating to win anyways,” Amanda claimed. She was looking at the stands. The faerie Second Category pilot was already at the start – and also finish – line. “Those who cheat aren’t good enough to win on their own terms, after all.”

“I agree,” Diana said, to the surprise of everyone. “And I plan on proving it.” Ursula looked at the blonde girl, who was staring with cold anger at the faerie pilot. Ursula didn’t believe she’d ever seen Diana in an angry state. And even if the girl was more than ten years younger than her, she couldn’t avoid being thankful not to be on the end of that piercing stare. In a way, the intensity resembled Akko’s, but while the brunette’s was more of an explosive – wild and unpredictable – Diana’s felt more akin to a carefully handled gun – precise and focused.

“You just have to get in the tunnel before them, right?” Barbara asked.

Diana shook her head. “No. I don’t need such underhanded methods to win. Let’s go, Hannah,” she said, mounting on the Shooting Star. Before closing the windshield, however, she looked down. “You did well, Akko, please bear that in mind.”

The windshield closed. They were still connected by the communicator, but pointing that out would probably ruin the moment. Ursula eyed Akko, who seemed shocked to have received praise from the blonde girl.

“We’ll see you in a while,” Hannah smiled with confidence as she climbed into the turret. The Shooting Star started and took off.

Everyone watched in silence as the broom got in place next to the wooden ship of the faeries. “Wait, we can’t watch the race from here!” Akko said. “Let’s go!” she strode towards the stands.

“Coach, you think it’s going to be fine?” Amanda asked as everyone started walking, looking away. She and Ursula were a bit behind the others. Guess she couldn’t always keep up the tough girl attitude. “The IPR, I mean.”

What an inconvenient question. In all honesty, Ursula had no idea. “It will,” she said. What these girls needed wasn’t her inner doubts, however. She’d keep those to herself.

Amanda nodded, hastening to catch up to the others, and Ursula was left behind to think alone.

Diana closed her eyes, focusing. The world around the Shooting Star glowed purple, and the Seelie Court did so in green. This was the first time a race had been held at night: Faeries considered the night to be sacred, therefore always making sure the races were ran on daytime. This year, however, due to time constraints, there was no other choice. That might have been why there weren’t as many faeries as it should; most of them would be inside the city sleeping. Diana had read about the bioluminescent plant life of Sídhe, but she had been amazed nonetheless by its beauty. Too bad the memory of the planet would now be forever sour, linked with the memory of its rulers.

“Let’s do this, Diana,” Hannah encouraged through the communicator. Diana feared she would try to shoot at the other pilot, since their ship had very few safe spots to aim at. But then again, Hannah had an incredible aim and an ever better judgment, at least when flying. She wouldn’t do something stupid.

The race would start, this time, when the little old faerie walking across the finish line stepped inside the city walls. She looked like an old lady, if that old lady had four legs in a line and a couple of dove wings lazily flapping behind her without doing anything. Her hair glowed with a faint blue light.

She moved awfully slow, making Diana wonder if it was some kind of tactic too. Still, it was close to the end, so she found it hard to relax. She knew she should relax, being tense could cause problems when piloting.  She looked at her arms, dressed in marine-green. It was a color very similar to how the grass had been during daylight. Diana didn’t care about the appearance of the uniforms, but she had to admit they weren’t among the best Earth had to offer.

Everyone had already wished her good luck through the communicator. She found the wishes awkward, as she didn’t feel like luck would have much to do during this race. The faeries had prepared a way to cheat, they had definitely a backup plan. And now they needed this win. Diana could lose and Earth would still have a chance. That chance, however, would be Akko. Diana didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on the brunette.

The old faerie was now just a few steps away from the wall. Ten seconds at most.

Then again, the pressure of not putting that pressure on Akko now fell on her, and she felt her shoulders heavy with it.

Nine.

In all honesty, Akko had won the last race on luck. It’s not that Diana didn’t believe she could win on normal circumstances…

Eight.

… but it just so happened that Akko had realized something was off with that sìth and tunnel, getting into it before the faerie.

Seven.

Of course, this didn’t mean Diana was in a better situation. After all, she was still a novice, no matter how much practice she had from beforehand she had never been in an actual race.

Six.

And the faerie had those powerful weapons, too. A faerie, attacking. Whatever the grand prize for the race was, it was something serious. Far more serious that Diana had believed the day before.

Five.

The Shooting Star didn’t have defenses like the Shiny Rod’s, so she had to avoid that laser at all costs. Magic manipulated directly from a simple stick, it was almost as if Magic Energy could work like, well, actual fantastic magic.

Four.

Diana started to think of ways to avoid it. Depending on the angle, accelerating or falling back would be good options, while in others going up or down would be best. She would remain at about four meters above the ground to have some dodging margin. A meter was more than most people imagined.

Three.

A sweat drop ran down Diana’s cheek. She was nervous, way more nervous that she would ever be willing to admit or even accept. This was not the time for nervousness, she needed to remain calm and collected. The entirety of Earth counted on her.

Two.

This thought didn’t help. She was used to people watching her, but statistics said that about sixty percent of earth would be watching this race. More than a half of earth’s population. It was crazy. Had Akko realized how crazy this all was?

One.

What were they thinking? Two teenagers against seasoned pilots on alien planets? It was outrageous! Was everyone freaking mad? How-

“You better win, Diana!”

 Zero.

A gunshot sounded, and Diana casted aside her worries as she accelerated next to the wooden faerie ship.

I can do it, she thought. Akko’s words had been unexpected and had startled her, but they had also helped her snap out of her stupid train of thought. It was too late to realize how troublesome her situation was now. What she needed to do was win the stupid race.

They started next to each other. This time, however, the humans had started on the outer side, meaning that they weren’t open for disqualification. Diana was tempted to try and force the faerie pilot – this one being a rather translucent humanoid being – into the wall and get this over with quickly, but she recalled the way that faerie ship from the recording dropped below what her broom would be able to and feared that was part of the plan. If Diana overdid it she would crash into the wall herself.

She still was amazed by how responsive the Shooting Star was. Even the slightest movement of her hand commanded the broom to do as it was told. It wasn’t far before they reached near supersonic speeds. The landscape passed around her, purple to her right, green to her left. It was at these speeds that Diana thanked the magic of brooms. Normally, at these speeds, a human wouldn’t be able to react. Hell, even with the magic, most humans wouldn’t be able to do so. But brooms enhanced reaction time many times. It wasn’t perfect, but it had been a necessity. Other races could keep up with those speeds naturally, for one reason or another. Humans weren’t made for it.

Some humans had better reaction times than others – Akko seemed to be pretty good at that, despite being rather clumsy – while others trained to better themselves, like Diana. However, going faster started to get really dangerous. Even enhanced reaction started to fail at supersonic speeds, which was why most kept those speeds for straight lines with no obstacles.

Next to the wall there was about ten meters of free space where there was nothing, and the Faerie was keeping the Shooting Star out of it. So it was that Diana feared something would appear in her way – a sìth, a three, maybe even a random flying faerie.

They passed the tunnel Akko had found, the faerie making no attempt at using it. Diana tested moving a little faster. She started to get ahead of the faerie, but then it took out a stick and aimed. In a swift movement Diana fell back right as a laser shot in front of her, not hitting the Shooting Star by a shadow’s width. The laser hit a mountainside and Diana barely caught a glimpse at the burst of dirt and magic.

Amazing weapon, she couldn’t help thinking. She slowly moved to the side, a new idea hatching in her mind. Her broom was way heavier than the wooden one the faerie was using, maybe she could force it to move. Again, the faerie aimed. Diana moved up in time to avoid another laser, keeping up her push. Slowly, the faerie drew closer to the wall. Maybe she could make it…

And, right as she expected, the faerie dropped until it was almost touching the ground. What Diana was about to do wasn’t cheating, probably.

“Hannah!” Diana called. “Shoot in front of the faerie, heavy projectiles.”

“In front? Why would I shoot in front, all it would do is… Oh,” even through the communicator, Diana could tell Hannah would be smiling. It didn’t take more than two seconds before the Shooting Star attacked the ground in front of itself. The faeries didn’t use windshields, trusting magic to protect them. Well, maybe this would backfire on them.

Magic projectiles hit the ground and craters were created on the earth as explosions of dirt popped into existence in front of the faerie racer. With the Shooting Star on top of it, Hannah making sure to keep the right-side gun firing so that the wooden ship had only one way to go: Back.

Diana’s plan worked, the rival pilot panicking and falling back at the unusual strategy.

She claimed the free space completely. “Keep it busy, Hannah. If he aims, warn me.”

“Got it!”

Diana pressed the nitro, and the broom burst with speed.

Hannah had her back. All she had to do was keep up the speed. The landscape started to become a blur, and the force of the g’s was being handled by her suit. Focus. Just focus. Winning. It was a simple race, she didn’t need to over-think anything. Just get around the city and everything will be fine.

Or not.

Her body reacted before she realized what she had done, but she tilted the Shooting Star to avoid destroying one of its wings with a massive stone block sticking out of the outer Seelie Court wall. She instantly slowed down. That hadn’t been natural, she had done a couple rounds around the city before and that brick hadn’t been there.

“Those bastards!” Hannah cried, and while she wouldn’t have phrased it like that, Diana had to admit the sentiment was better expressed in Hannah’s words.

Going outside the ten-meter range outside the wall meant risking trees and sìth, and going further into the mountains meant an irregular terrain that, while maybe useful during IPR races, it would be nothing but a hindrance in the current race. Those giant blocks of stone sticking out could easily be passed as something natural or coincidental. The faerie pilot would know where they were, giving him the advantage. So this was their plan B.

Another block appeared. It was sticking out just three meters out of the wall, nothing too obvious, but this one was placed strategically as a small grove started. With how massive it was, the Shooting Star couldn’t get over or under it. She barely had time to react before something shot forward. A magic laser – the Shooting Star’s – that obliterated the trees to the right. Diana used this to pass through the cloud of smoke and leaves, avoiding the block. The faerie, however, passed just under it, getting ahead of them in a burst of speed. Diana gritted her teeth.

The next block was in a similar situation, where a mountainside had been cut off forming a wall to the right too. Climbing it would make anyone lose precious seconds, but the faerie pilot just passed under the block again. This one, too, was sticking out rather more prominently than the others. There was just a four meters gap between the wall and the block. Even tilting the ship wouldn’t be enough, she’d have to fly vertically if she wanted to pull it off.

Only problem was, the mountain wall was inclined in just the right way to stop them from doing that too. They were basically forced to climb the mountainside if they wanted to pass through. The mountainside with trees, plants and other obstacles that would make them lose a lot of time.

She wasn’t going to let those cheaters get away with it.

She climbed the mountainside. It wasn’t that steep, not at this point, but it quickly became more so. It didn’t matter to Diana. Right before she hit the first line of trees – trees that Hannah was aiming at – she pressed the nitro again and jumped off the artificial precipice. Brooms couldn’t fly, but they were aerodynamic enough to glide, particularly with the angle Diana was using for the fall.

She glided over a long distance, which didn’t feel that long due to her speed. It was a tricky moment, since at this height she couldn’t control the broom, but she fell down, almost touching the ground, and rebounded up to five meters right behind the wooden faerie racer. She slowed to avoid crashing into any of the walls.

“Try to stay stable, Diana!” Hannah said, and then the guns started attacking.

Diana tried to focus on keeping the ship in a stable flight, but she was worried about more blocks. The corridor created by the mountain ended, followed by a small plain, where two rivers joined and disappeared underground – the water also glowed, beautiful streams of violet light dancing in the purple landscape.

Diana hadn’t noticed, but her breathing had become heavier, and her heart was pounding. Sweat pearled her forehead, but if the helmet detected it would become a problem, it would automatically release a small current of air to cool Diana down.

Hannah’s attacks weren’t effective. They hit, but they rebounded off the wooden racer as if they were nothing but rubber balls. “Damn it,” She said. Diana hummed in the low. Interesting, the faerie had found a way to keep their ships protected from energy blasts. No other race had managed to do that, energy was very hard to channel into something like a shield. Most used either other methods of defense or focused on dodging.

Diana tried moving to the side, but the faerie blocked her way. It wouldn’t allow Diana to get ahead again. “Hannah, keep the guns in laser mode. Maybe I’ll need you to destroy something else,” she made sure to keep her teammate focused.

The faerie didn’t realize in its attempt to block Diana’s path, but she had been slowly drifting away from the wall. They were now a fair distance outside the safe ten meters. In front of them a sìth raised, pointed straight upwards from the plain, like a pillar.

This was the moment. She checked her fuel. She had already used one third of it. Going fast used up a lot of energy, but Diana was surprised it wasn’t lower. The Shooting Star really was amazing. Then, she pressed the rightmost pedal to gain a burst of speed again.

The faerie pilot instantly moved to the left to avoid collision. Diana wouldn’t manage to get ahead of it before the pillar forced her to get out of the way. Diana took a deep breath. This was why she had put effort into getting away from the wall subtly. In a swift moment, she aimed her broom at the faerie racer. When the pilot noticed what she was about to do, it dropped below the height the Shooting Star could reach. “Eyes forward, Hannah,” Diana said. Hannah made a noise of acknowledgement through the communicator.

The faerie instantly fell back, probably remembering what had happened before. However, the ease with which he did that made Diana suspicious. So there were more traps ahead. Fine, that was perfectly fine.

She kept up the speed. The other racer started to do some sudden movements, as if desperate. It had probably realized how far away they were from the wall, which had allowed Diana to pull off the movement without fear of getting disqualified.

Trees ahead, more blocks out the wall. They were going so fast that Diana instantly knew she wouldn’t be able to determine if she would be able to pass through the narrow space. Using this speed and the laser at the same time would be a real waste of energy, but they couldn’t really do anything else. “Hannah,” Diana called.

“On it!”

The laser instantly went off, creating a path through the trees. The faerie racer had been left behind – the Shooting Star really was faster by a fair amount, but Diana would have to slow down before she crashed into something or ran out of fuel.

She passed through where the trees had been a second ago, leaving trails in the smoke.

“Diana!” Hannah suddenly called. Diana reacted by instantly barrel-rolling to the right, and a second later a laser passed through where she had been. The barrel roll, however, forced her to fly inclined through a mountainside. With her speed, this quickly deviated her to the side. She got off the mountainside, trying to get back before-

The wooden racer appeared. Diana had been outside the safe zone for less than ten seconds, but this damn cheater… It really was more experienced than her. Another block up ahead, and like before, next to a wall created from a mountain. The Shooting Star had to slow down as Diana grit her teeth. She didn’t want to risk gliding again, if she hit the wall or damaged the ship by crashing it against the ground…

An idea suddenly popped into her mind. If she wanted to do this she would have to stop using supersonic speeds, but… “Hannah, shoot the block, make it look like you were aiming at the ship, try to create a ramp.”

“With the laser? Diana, we’re going to run out of-”

“Trust me.”

Hannah didn’t argue a single word more and shot. Her aim was perfect. The shot cut the upper half of the block, making it slide down.

The faerie pilot panicked, and stopped.

Diana didn’t accelerate like before, she needed to save the energy. Each one of those blasts would take a good portion of the power. Lasers were not efficient, but at least they were effective. With a sudden pull, the Shooting Star jumped over the Faerie ship. Diana wished she could look down to see the pilot’s face. The slid block had fallen in a way that would allow the broom to climb over them and a second later Diana was gaining ground on the other pilot without needing to go at great speeds. “Ha! Screw you, asshole!” Hannah cried.

Diana was down to half the fuel. If her orientation wasn’t failing her, they were already past the halfway point of the race. And for a full minute – in which Hannah destroyed another two blocks – the faerie pilot wasn’t able to catch up to them. However, it eventually came back. “Aim at the ground with one of the guns,” Diana said. Hannah understood why she was saying it, not answering. The faerie wouldn’t be overtaking them from below.

Surprisingly enough, there weren’t any blocks for another full minute. Three fourths of the race were done, just two more minutes to go. They could do it, they could-

“Diana!”

Diana tilted the Shooting star, not wanting to barrel roll into a mountainside again. She had figured out that the faerie’s laser had some kind of cooldown, because if not it would be spamming it. The laser, as expected, passed under her right wing.

And impacted on a mountainside ahead, creating an explosion. An explosion that was way too big for magic. An explosion of fire and earth that caused big boulders to fly into the sky. An explosion caused by, well, explosives, probably hidden below the earth.

It was too risky to try and fly under that. Diana would be forced to slow down, let the faerie catch them. But being so close to the finish, the risk of letting it get ahead was… No, their lives came first. Brooms weren’t invincible. Diana was about to gear down when Hannah interrupted. “Don’t you dare do it, Diana, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Let’s show that dumb redhead how a real gunman shoots,” her voice was a mixture of anger and excitement. “No cheating bastards are going to win on my watch!”

The guns started firing in single-shot mode. It was the most hard of the modes to use, but also more powerful than rapid-fire and wasting way less energy than the laser. Diana was amazed as each shot took down a different rock falling from the sky. Big or small, Hannah vaporized them all.

The Shooting Star didn’t need to slow down in the end – in fact, Diana sped up. Not to supersonic speeds – she still feared more blocks – but to the optimal limit before starting to waste fuel for speed. From behind, she could sense the desperation from the opposing pilot. “Diana!” Hannah cried, but Diana didn’t bother. Indeed, what the faerie shot at them was no laser. It hit a wing like if it had been fire from a water-gun, doing nothing but a scratch.

The finish line came into view, a big red-neon sign hanging in the air. No more stone blocks in the way. Diana allowed herself to smile. The faerie pilot was a full five seconds behind her. She didn’t need to, but she accelerated anyways, traversing the remaining distance in a blink.

She stopped a long ways from the finish line and looked up, at the central tower, now a pillar of green light against the black, starless sky – as one might guess, the ambient luminescence of the land didn’t allow the stars to shine in the night. The Aos Sí hadn’t come to watch the race, or so they claimed. But beings like them could probably watch the race without bothering to actually show up for it, even if they didn’t have TVs. She tried to look defiant, but after a few seconds she felt rather silly, so she stopped.

“Now who’s the unworthy one, suckers?!” Hannah chanted from the turret loud enough that Diana probably wouldn’t have needed the communicator anyways.

She waited until the faerie ship stopped. Unlike the First Category pilot, this one just looked down in shame. Good, at least someone had some common sense.

Satisfied, hearing the cheers of the crowd, she went back to the human pits

Akko stood atop the dais, feeling the grimace on her face as she received praise from the minotaur faerie she had seen back when she first stepped out of the Dragon. Well, she thought it was the same. Maybe it was another minotaur. She hadn’t had time to congratulate Diana on her win, because the second the blonde girl stepped out of the broom they had both been carried to the stage.

It was hard to enjoy the moment. Akko felt strangely disconnected from the world around her. The cheering of the humans was just white noise in the back of her mind, the flashes of their cameras not helping. She didn’t feel like she had really won. It was hard to feel good while knowing the opposing team had cheated, and a lot. Akko had seen Diana’s race and noticed all the cheating, how could no one else do it?

Or maybe they didn’t care?

It was something she didn’t want to consider, but it didn’t look like her brain would give her a choice on the matter. In all honesty, all she wanted was to race for real. But, racing for real… She looked at Diana, who wore her usual expression. She had won even against all odds. The cheating during her race had been so much harder to deal with than a secret tunnel. Akko knew, while watching that race, that she wouldn’t have been able to pull through all those situations.

Diana noticed she was being watched, and looked at Akko with some discomfort. Akko didn’t notice. She was looking in the general direction of Diana, but she was now lost in thought and not actually looking at her.

Such an amazing pilot, Diana was. And Hannah had been amazing too. Amanda was good, but Akko wondered if she would’ve been able to do what Hannah did or if she would have just set up a shield. Though, she had countered what Hannah had done…

“Ehm, Akko,” Akko snapped back into reality. “Would you mind not staring at me like you are doing right now?” Was Diana blushing?

She looked around, suddenly remembering where they were. She tried to smile and wave, but it came out stiff and robotic. Diana took a few glances at her to make sure she wasn’t still staring, but now Akko was trying to focus. On her surroundings. On the cheering humans, the sad faeries, her friends in front of the dais smiling. She didn’t feel happy, or excited. Not angry or disappointed, either. She probably would’ve been much more excited to just see Diana climb in here. She did deserve the praise.

In the end, Akko realized, she was just tired.

Suddenly, the prospect of another three months of this seemed like a lot.

Chapter Text

How could anyone sleep in this damn planet?

Hannah was lying down, eye twitching with frustration, as she tried to get some rest. It was impossible. The stone glowed! There was no way of turning off the lights! The stone shouldn’t be glowing here, they had an anti-magic field! And she wasn’t the only one. Amanda and Diana didn’t look particularly happy with the situation either. The only one actually sleeping in the room was Akko, and her snoring didn’t help with the dilemma.

Though, Hannah had other reasons that kept her mind going. She was angry, very angry, at those cheating bastards who called themselves the Aos Sí. And at herself for being so useless during the race. Sure, she had done a few things, but usually keeping enemies at bay felt so much more real. This time she had to use what were basically environmental hazards. And that against the Second Category pilot! Not that the first one was better, probably, given how he was given the easier way of cheating. Not to mention, she was half afraid faeries would start coming for them in anger that they’ve won. No matter how much Diana assured her they were peaceful creatures, she had seen how that pilot shot them with hate in his eyes.

“Screw this,” Amanda suddenly sat up and jumped off her mattress. “I can’t sleep with this light,” she crouched next to Akko and started shaking her shoulder. Hannah frowned.

“And because you can’t sleep you’re going to wake her up?” She asked.

Amanda snorted and looked back at her. “Since when do you care about Akko?”

“I don’t, but what you’re doing is outright mean.”

“I have to agree. Akko had a hard day, you should allow her a few hours of rest,” Diana added from her mattress next to Hannah’s. She looked frustrated and angry, which just showed how tired she was, since she normally wouldn’t ever let those feelings show.

“Oh shut up, she can sleep later. I’m bored,” she kept shaking Akko, who grunted, still asleep.

“Can’t you have fun with us?” Hannah asked, though she instantly regretted the way she had phrased the question. Amanda didn’t make the obvious joke, but her smirk proved she could’ve.

“Yeah, I’ll ask to hang out with you when I’m in need of a lecture or a lesson on how to wipe twenty kilograms of makeup off my face,” Amanda shrugged. Hannah blushed slightly, though she didn’t know why. Wearing makeup was normal, and she didn’t wear nearly as much as Amanda made it out to be.

Diana sighed. “May I ask what is it you want to do that Akko is needed? Couldn’t you wake up one of your teammates?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “My teammates can’t ride the Shiny Rod,” she said, as if that explained everything. Akko grunted again, mumbling something. Damn, that girl really had a heavy sleep. Hannah slowly sat up too, deciding that she wasn’t going to sleep anyways. Diana followed.

“If what you want is a ride, I can take you,” Diana said. “Assuming we don’t take too long,” she added, uncomfortable with the idea.

“Diana, if I could use the Shooting Star to get where I want to, I would’ve hijacked it and fucked off on my own,” she explained.

“What?” Hannah asked. “Where would you want to go that the Shooting Star-”

“Top of the tower,” she pointed up. It took Hannah a few seconds to understand what she meant, but when she did she deadpanned the redhead.

“Why don’t you climb it yourself instead of trying to get Akko to take you?” Hannah asked.

“‘cause I don’t want to enter the tower again. Those old farts are there, right?” Amanda paused for a second. “Yeah, no need to see them ever again,” she shuddered.

Hannah stood right as Akko half-opened one eye. Her head moved sloppily around, and she cringed at the light. She looked rather dumb, which fit her just fine. Diana stood and made her bed. Hannah would’ve done it, but they were already sleeping on the floor, so what was the point anyways? Sleeping on the floor… Each time she recalled that, she wished they’d just been allowed to sleep at the Dragon. Uncomfortable as they were, at least they had real beds over there.

“Can’t you wait until she wakes up?” Hannah wasn’t particularly interested in protecting Akko’s sleep, but she was just annoyed at Amanda’s attitude.

“And risk Ursula being up too to tell us not to do it? Yeah, sure,” Amanda didn’t even turn. Akko finally opened both eyes, focusing them on Amanda.

“What?”

“Come on, get up, let’s go do something fun,” Amanda prodded her arm. Akko sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes.

“What do you want to do?”

Hannah pressed her lips. It annoyed her how… not-annoyed Akko was. She looked back at Diana, who appeared to be on an internal debate of her own. In the end, Hannah decided to stop caring. If Akko didn’t, why would she? The brunette was stupid, Hannah didn’t know why she expected more from her.

Amanda explained her plans to Akko, whose eyes slowly went from tired and confused to awake and excited. When she moved she still did so kind of sluggishly, as if her body wasn’t as awake as her mind. Still, she managed to put on her suit and helmet and, when both girls were finished, they waved goodbye while striding to the door.

“Wait,” Diana said, standing. She had finished putting on her suit too. “I’m coming with.”

Hannah’s eyes widened. Why was Diana going with them? Had she somehow gotten infected with the same idiocy the other two had? No, no, they had spent roughly the same amount of time together, Hannah would be infected too. “What are you doing?” She asked, looking at her.

“I am fairly certain I just stated it,” Diana answered.

“I mean, why?”

“Yeah, what do you plan on doing? Snitch on us?” Amanda said with a hostile expression.

Diana shook her head, completely unaffected by the redhead’s attitude. “I am simply curious as to what the look is like at the top of the tower. Plus, I know for a fact two people fit inside the cockpit, so we all should be able to go,” she explained in a calm voice. Hannah started to get nervous. Were they going to leave her alone? Well, the other girls were still in the other room, but Hannah was fairly certain they were all asleep. Maybe the race had affected the participants more than anyone assumed.

“I’m fine with her coming,” Akko shrugged. Diana nodded as a sign of thanks, and Amanda rolled her eyes.

“Ok, whatever.”

“Wait, I want to go too!” Hannah cried. The other three girls looked as she quickly dressed up. She had said that in the heat of the moment, but the truth was she really didn’t care about the tower, she just didn’t want to be alone for god knows how long while not being able to sleep. Her fear of faeries was similar to her fear of monsters when she was a child.

“I don’t think we’ll fit, though,” Akko said, looking uncomfortable. “Guess we could squeeze ourselves a little in the cockpit…”

Hannah started. Oh, right. Space was something she should’ve thought about that beforehand. Amanda opened her mouth and hesitated, drawing attention. She looked away, but still spoke in a half grumble. “In the turret there is enough space for two people, if you’re fine with losing your memory afterwards.”

“Oh, that sounds fine, then,” the Shiny Rod was pretty small, so Hannah assumed its turret wouldn’t be particularly big or something. It must be pretty spacious for two people to fit in, she thought. The Shooting Star’s turret barely had enough space for Hannah alone.

“Well then, it’s settled,” Akko said. Amanda mumbled something, and everyone walked out of the building, helmets on. The outside streets were empty and silent. Faeries slept. They slept the entirety of the night, long as it was. That was amazing to Hannah. But, well, they also stayed up the entirety of the day, so…

They walked a few hundred meters away from their building, to another one where the front wall was missing. That was their temporal hangar, where the Shiny Rod and the two Shooting Stars remained. It was rather precarious, but it wasn’t as if anyone on this planet would know how to pilot the things.

Hannah approached the Shiny Rod first by chance, touching it. The white broom instantly started sounding a really loud and annoying alarm that only lasted for like two seconds before it just vanished in a flash of light. Slowly, she spun with an apologetic smile, meeting the slightly startled faes of the other three. “It’s really jumpy, huh?” She tried not to sound too embarrassed. Why did it do that? How did it detect the user? Same thing happened when anyone but Akko touched the key-wand. There was no other broom in the world – or universe – that managed to recognize its Witch or Wizard by touch. Now that she thought about it, no information about the Shiny Rod had ever been given. How had Chariot ever managed to get it approved for use, if no one had inspected it? Just who had built it?

Akko waved her key-wand, and the Shiny Rod reappeared, making Hannah jump back. No one looked particularly annoyed at Hannah. Akko quickly climbed into the cockpit, leaving the three remaining members of the group standing around uncomfortably.

“Uhm, so, who’s going down there with me?” Amanda asked, stepping closer to the broom-racer.

Diana and Hannah looked each other. “I’ll go!” Hannah jumped. Diana would volunteer without hesitation if Hannah let her, but she wasn’t deserving of having to go next to the annoying troublemaker. Well, no, Akko was the annoying troublemaker. Amanda was the mean annoying troublemaker. Diana didn’t deserve to go with Amanda, was the point.

“Are you sure?” Diana asked with a raised eyebrow. She knew how much Hannah hated Amanda.

“Sure, sure.” Hannah waved a dismissive hand as she walked to the back of the ship, half-pushing Amanda along with her to stop any kind of further arguing.

While they waited for the turret door to open, Amanda eyed her.

“I don’t think you’re going to like it,” she said nonchalantly.

“I’m going to forget it anyways, right? Who cares,” Hannah shrugged.

Amanda narrowed her eyes, probably trying to figure out if the comment had been made sarcastically or not. The answer was yes. Hannah didn’t believe for a second she was going to forget what happened down there. The door opened, and both girls crawled under the ship and climbed into the turret.

It was a narrow, empty space of white. When getting in, they both had to lie on their sides, face to face – well, visor to visor – to fit. “You said two people fit in here,” Hannah complained as the door closed.

“Fairly certain we do,” Amanda said with a shrug, which also moved Hannah. It was hard not to notice that the redhead had quite the bust, cramped as they were. Hannah rolled her eyes. She probably would’ve tried to come up with another way of complaint, but the Shiny Rod started.

And nothing happened.

A few seconds later, the broom had already teleported and stopped, opening the door again.

Amanda and Hannah stepped out, and Hannah raised an eyebrow in inquiry to the redhead. Amanda looked slightly awkward as she answered. “It was too fast, the turret didn’t even start, don’t expect it to work like always, I guess…” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Aha,” Hannah put up a poker face. She didn’t know what she had expected. Maybe Amanda wasn’t lying, but she had just gotten a chance to prove it and it hadn’t gone well for her. Amanda sucked in her lips, shrugging again. “No, it’s fine, I get it,” Hannah turned as Diana and Akko left the broom. Diana appeared to be slightly amazed by the sights. In truth, when Hannah started to look around, she also was.

The top of the tower. The battlements surrounding it were amazing. Curiously enough, they were human-sized, so they could look through the square openings and down towards the city.

The city glowed. That wasn’t news, but seeing it from up above, what had been an expanse of green before was now an expanse of mostly blue with thin lines of green here and there. The roofs of the Seelie Court glowed, of course, but to Hannah’s surprised they did so in a dark blue rather than purple like they had been during day.

They could see past the city walls and towards the purple hills and mountains of Sídhe, but a few hundred meters after the wall, the world seemed to end, the black wall of the sky cutting the sight like a curtain. It was beautiful, yes, but Hannah wished she could see to the real horizon.

It almost made her forget about Amanda’s lies, but when the girl jumped over the battlement to perch on a merlon, Hannah almost had a heart attack. First she tried to look at Diana for support, but the blonde girl had gone to the opposite side of the tower.

“Amanda what the hell are you doing?!” She said quickly. “You’re going to fall!”

Amanda didn’t answer. She sat with her feet dangling over the edge, looking down. Hannah hesitated, wanting to jump and pull the girl down to safety. However, for a second, she stopped. Amanda made fun of her – well, she made fun of Amanda too, so they were probably even on that. Amanda, however, was reckless and annoying and a real pain in the ass. And a liar, too.

But Hannah didn’t want her dead, mostly. Just to be sure, Hannah reached up with her hand, grabbing Amanda by one of the little straps around the suit that served to hang things on them, kind of like pockets but way less useful. Most only hung wands in those.

“Don’t you ever feel like you want to fly?” Amanda asked, not looking at her.

“Look, if you want to get philosophical, you can do it while not staring down to a horrible death,” Hannah said in annoyance. She wasn’t in the mood to humor Amanda. She doubted she’d ever be in the mood to humor Amanda, period.

“I do,” Amanda completely ignored her. “I often climb to high places just to get a grasp of that feeling, you know?” She now looked up, leaning back and helping Hannah relax, if just a little. Hannah felt the horrible need to say ‘yeah, I know,’ but she found that saying it would be super weird. Why would she know? She didn’t. Yet, she felt like she did.

“Well, if you fall, you’re probably going to feel it for a few seconds before you become a mass of blood and bones on the ground,” Hannah said. “What the hell is going on with you, anyways? You high or something?”

“I mean, we’re in a tower that’s as tall as a mountain,” Amanda replied, looking down to her. Hannah gave her a flat look. “I guess the thin air this high might be getting to me.”

That was stupid. The helmet would automatically fix that to make sure she could breathe normally. Hannah was about to point this out when she caught something on her eyes. Emerald eyes that shone reflecting the green light from the tower. They looked almost like actual gems.

“You were good, out there,” Amanda looked towards the outside of the city. “Honestly, how you blasted those rocks blew my mind.”

Hannah narrowed her eyes, feeling like Amanda was mocking her. “You’ve already countered something like that, though,” she recalled their mock race with bitterness.

The surprised look Amanda gave her was… genuine. “I did?” She asked with a frown.

“Are you seriously going to pull that now?” Hannah pulled her lips into a line. “Fine, whatever, I don’t care,” she let go of Amanda.

The girl had apparently been using her hand as some kind of support, because she suddenly stumbled in place. Her eyes widened in a second of fear. Out of instinct, Hannah instantly reached up and grabbed her waist, making sure she regained stability. “Boy, that was scary!” she cried. “And I still don’t know why you think I’d lie about something so stupid,” she finished by turning around and getting down from the block of stone, falling next to Hannah.

Hannah hesitated. In truth, she still hadn’t thought of a reason why Amanda would want to lie about it. And she had some good points. Still, something drove her to keep pushing. Maybe she was just being stubborn, but well, she had just ridden in the ship and she hadn’t lost her memory, though the short travel part was true… “It’s fine, really, I don’t really care anymore,” Hannah lied.

Amanda parted lips, but closed them again. Whatever she had to say, she decided to keep it for herself.

Hannah sighed. “You did it pretty well too,” she praised. “You saved Akko back there, during the race.”

Amanda looked at her with uncertainty. It was really hard to tell if that was just acting or she was genuinely unsure of what she had done. “Thanks,” she said. Hannah pursed her lips, but didn’t say what she was thinking. Mostly, that just saying that was pure cowardice.

Without saying anything more, however, both girls turned to look over the battlements. At least the view was nice.

Akko was amazed by the sea of blue and green buildings, surrounded by a line of purple in the distance. It was sooo pretty. The sky, like a black canvas on the background, made it all the more amazing. Like a pocket dimension where dreams could come true. While looking down at the city, she could almost forget about her worries. She smiled softly while looking down. She wished she had brought Lotte and her camera; it would be nice to send a photo of this breathtaking view to her family.

She rested her head on her arms, tiredness slowly slipping in.

“Are you tired?” Diana, who was just a few openings to her right, looked at her. “We have probably seen all there is to see. Amanda has already gotten her wish, and you probably want to go back to sleep, am I wrong?”

Akko yawned. Yeah, Diana was right. The race, the anger, the excitement, everything weighed down on her. But she wanted to stare a little longer. Diana’s wavy hair and pale skin were tainted completely green. Akko had to hold back a chuckle. She appeared to have painted herself all over.

“I’m fine,” she said. She could sleep when they went back. Diana nodded, going back to her own landscape admiring. After a few seconds of silence, Akko started to feel slightly anxious, as if she should say something. Or maybe the anxiety came because she wanted to say something but she was afraid to make Diana mad? The memory of the race was fresh in her mind. She didn’t look mad, sure, but her race had been so much harder than Akko’s just because she was the Second Category pilot, while Akko had won with barely an effort…

“What you did today,” Diana suddenly said, to Akko’s surprise. “If it were me, I am nothing but sure that I wouldn’t have entered that cave,” she didn’t look at Akko while she spoke. “It was reckless, and you were lucky.”

“I wouldn’t say it was reckless,” Akko answered. She wasn’t sure of how to take what she was saying. A lecture, now? Really? And she'd been thinking about trying to be nice, too. “I mean, it was pretty suspicious…”

“It could’ve been a trap. What if it had explosives, and the cave collapsed? What if it was just a dead end, meant to trick you?” Diana shook her head.

“I would’ve lost the race, I guess,” Akko sighed. Well, Diana was definitely mad. Not that Akko had doubted, really, but she had held onto the slim hope that she wouldn’t be.

“Not that,” Diana finally looked at her. “You could’ve gotten hurt, or worse. Going into a cave in an alien planet at near supersonic speeds? What were you thinking, Akko?”

“Hey, you didn’t sound particularly angry when I won,” Akko frowned, frustrated. She didn’t like when people chastised her for things that could have gone wrong. By that logic, she could go and chastise literally everyone because they could trip with each step they took, so dangerous!

“I hadn’t really thought about the matter back then,” Diana admitted. “But after thinking it through, it becomes fairly obvious that what you did was not ok.”

“In the end nothing happened, though,” Akko argued.

“It could have.”

“But it didn’t,” she was starting to grow frustrated. Who did Diana think she was? Her mother? Her expression, like stone, remained unchanging. Akko had seen her show emotions before, but other times, like this one, she genuinely considered if the girl was just a robot. She talked with calculated coldness and a hint of superiority to her voice, like she knew she was right. It was at moments like these that Akko regretted trying to be nice.

Diana remained quiet, which didn’t really help Akko’s growing frustration. “I suppose you are right,” Akko perked up, raised eyebrows, surprised at what she heard. Had Diana just…? “But I still suggest you try to think things through a little more. It can be hard on a race, but luck won’t always be on your side.”

And she had to ruin it. Well, at least she admitted that Akko was right! “I’ll try,” Akko said. Now that she wasn’t blinded by the boredom of being lectured, she saw that Diana did have a point.

She nodded appreciatively. Both of them stood, watching each other, for a few long and awkward seconds.

“Also, thank you,” again, it was Diana who broke the silence. She was really talkative today.

Akko cocked her head, unsure. “For what?”

“For your encouragement, right before the race started. I would be lying if I said it didn’t help me.” Diana’s stone expression dropped for a second, and Akko caught a glimpse at a smile that quickly went back to normal.

Akko blushed lightly. “Oh, I just said that ‘cause I can’t have my rival losing when I won, you know,” she laughed nervously, scratching the back of her head.

“You consider me a rival?” Diana asked, sounding amused. Akko blushed a little further, realizing this had been the first time she’d put the feeling into words. Or into thoughts, really. Diana was so many leagues above her, it was silly to consider it.

“Yeah,” she still said. Silly or not, the feeling of wanting to surpass her was one of rivalry, at least in her mind. “I told you, didn’t I? I’m going to be better than you, one day!”

“I believe that what you said was ‘I’m going to be the best witch’, nothing specific about me,” Diana explained. Akko paused. Was that what she had said? Why did Diana remember it and not her? “But I’m flattered you consider me to be your rival, since it must mean you see me as the best.”

“Well, you are, aren’t you?” Akko said. “You earned the spot on the Inter-Planetary Race, after all.”

Diana’s eyes darkened at the mention of this. Akko mentally slapped herself. Stupid! They were having a relatively nice conversation! Why’d she bring that up? Yeah, Diana had earned a spot, a spot Akko had stolen!

Amanda and Hannah, who had been on the other side of the tower, had slowly been approaching the Shiny Rod. Diana looked towards them and, before Akko could try to fix it, started walking. “They seem to be bored already. It would be best if we went back now,” she said, coldly.

“… Yeah,” Akko said without energy. Well, at least she had probably made some progress. Assuming the last thing she had said hadn’t made her go back to square one. Either way, she still had a lot of time ahead. I’ll find a proper way to apologize, one day, she thought with resolve as she followed Diana.

If this conversation was anything to go by, Diana wasn’t half as bad as Akko assumed her to be.

Chapter Text

“Get up, girls, now!” Ursula’s voice, alarmed, made everyone stand up in confusion. “We need to go, now.”

“What’s happening?” Diana asked, snapping out of her sleepiness quickly and dressing up. In the corridor she saw the members of the Dragon’s crew run around.

“Magic storm,” Ursula simply said. The others looked at her in confusion, but Diana had read about the event.

Oh, no, Diana thought.

Magic storms were rare, and faeries could sense when they would come – approximately. They were a natural phenomenon caused by the planet’s own rotation. There were places in Sídhe that had a lot more magical charge than others, and they were dangerous even to faeries. Eventually, the movement of the planet itself caused those zones to release their magic, creating the storms. They didn’t affect the plant life much, but faeries could die, and non-magic beings like Humans…

“Where are we going?” Diana asked. She assumed they would climb the buildings, since the storms had a height limit.

“To the Dragon, that much magic energy can destroy the entire system, we’re making an emergency take off. Get ready,” she threw something at Amanda, who barely had the chance to take it. “Amanda, you’ll be piloting the Blue Star,” Ursula said. “Go, girls, get to work.”

Amanda started to change with more energy, excited at the prospect of piloting one of the Shooting Stars. Diana didn’t know how she felt about the whole idea, and she didn’t really have much time to think it through.

“How much time do we have?” Diana asked.

“The storm will reach the Dragon in about three hours, three and a half here. Drive the Brooms, get to safety, and ask for the crew to guide you to your rooms. You’ll get different ones this time. Now get moving!” She stormed out of the room and started giving the other girls the same speech.

Diana started to grow nervous. The faeries knew this was coming, didn’t they? Why did they chose to run the race on such a dangerous night?

Amanda laughed as she raced both Diana and Akko to the Dragon. This is what she had been looking for! Sure, something felt off, but that was probably because she had never driven a Shooting Star before. And that feeling, it was nothing compared to the sheer speed and awesomeness of the broom. No gunmen, just pure piloting ability. Akko was behind them, even though she had chosen to go over the river to gain an unfair advantage. It didn’t matter, the Shooting Stars were crushing her. Side to side, the blue and red brooms fought for every advantage they could. Try to push the other into trees, or force them into the water. They had crossed the river a couple dozen times already, and Amanda felt alive.

The broom was impossibly responsive. Amanda understood it wasn’t just a vehicle, it was an extension of herself. With each passing second, she was more and more sure the thing had been built exclusively with her in mind. The smile wouldn’t leave her face and hell if she wanted it to, she was genuinely happy for the first time since this damn thing had started! She rolled to avoid a sìth and then used another one to jump over the river, since there was a small grove ahead on her side of the riverbank and she was not about to lose speed because of it. Diana had to go into it, making Amanda gain seconds on her.

The Dragon appeared in the distance, and Amanda had chosen the right side of the riverbank. She pressed the nitro, and broke into supersonic terrains. Diana followed her just a second behind, but Amanda broke into the ocean first.

She came to a halt in front of the world-hopper, and she got off the broom with some reluctance. She wanted to gloat to Diana, but the blonde girl just handed her key-wand to a member of the crew and turned to enter the ship.

Amanda frowned, ready to go and get her gloating in even if Diana wouldn’t let her, but she paused when she suddenly noticed a little headache. She was too tired…

Guess I’ll gloat tomorrow.

Diana watched, from the bow of the Dragon, as the massive wave of magic passed below them. They were quickly rising in the air as the takeoff had been made in the nick of time.

“Well that was close,” Barbara said, standing next to Diana. The group of students, minus Amanda – who had gone to sleep, claiming that she felt bad. Diana suspected she had hit her head or something during the earlier race, with her crazy piloting – looked down from the windows. It moved like water, like a tsunami of green light against the purple and violet of the grass and ocean. A single touch of that wave could easily kill you.

“Talk about luck,” Akko said. “Good thing the Dragon has all those super sensors or whatever.”

The only one among them who didn’t seem to be feeling relieved was Diana. She was worried, not about the wave, but about what it meant. That wave, she was certain the faeries knew of it. Most of them were half animal, they could sense when these kinds of dangers would arrive. They’d known for days, if not weeks. Yet, none of them warned humans. Not a single one of them.

Their morality would be different than that of humans, Diana understood that. But their rulers, they were definitely persons. Nevermind the species, race or planet, they definitely acted for their own gain. It felt ominous, somehow. Did they want to get rid of humans? Was there a reason for it? Was she looking too much into it?

They soon left the planet, everyone going to their rooms to finish the sleep that had been interrupted. Diana was tired, really tired, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Instead, she encouraged her teammates to go and sleep while she was going to grab something to eat. She’d be back in their rooms in no time.

With this excuse, she set off and started walking around the ship. They were in the Gold Deck, with the Shopping Town and the artificial park. But this wasn’t a good place to think. Too much people. She considered the corridors of the ship itself. Their small metallic frames would be great for focusing, but she didn’t want that, sitting in there would be weird. She lingered in the main street of the deck for a while, looking at the small door to her favorite restaurant. Entering would have been a treat for sure, but she felt like if she sat down there she was going to end up falling asleep.

So, instead, she decided to go for a quiet place where she could relax.

She climbed into the elevator and pressed the green glowing button. The Magic Deck one. It examined her fingerprint before allowing her to go up.

When the doors opened, she found herself in the most luxurious of all decks. Being around the same size as Bronze Deck, the Magic Deck was nothing if not absolute proof that people liked commodities no matter what they were doing. It was an ‘exclusive’ place, where only a handful of passengers had access. Diana wouldn’t have paid money for it, even if she had it, but she wouldn’t refuse to use it if she had access to it. The deck didn’t connect to the outer hull of the Dragon, so there were no windows. It had no shops, no restaurants. It was a dark place, only lit by magic lanterns – big sticks of magic – and the glow of different screens with ads. No. What the Magic Deck had was a spa. It was dark to create contrast with the other decks, and to hide most of who came here from view. Usually, those who could afford this place were among the most powerful men on earth, either by political influence or economic one. More often than not, sadly, by both.

It was a silent floor. People came here alone, and with a clear goal in mind. Diana too. However, when a member of the staff approached her, she simply raised a hand and strode into the relatively small place. The floor was cobblestoned – Or at least it felt like that. Diana doubted they’d used real stones, due to the weight problems that could cause.

There was a section, in the far end of the small deck, dedicated to one particular thing Diana was very fond of.

Personalized baths. It was the darkest place in the deck, barely enough to see where you were putting your feet. It was also empty. Rich people preferred the more fancy treatments. Another member of the staff – a lean woman in a white uniform – approached her. Diana couldn’t see her face. Diana explained to her what she wanted, and the woman, if slightly confused, nodded and went to prepare it.

Five minutes later, Diana was slowly dipping into cold, bubbly water. The cold sent a shock through her senses, helping her stay awake, and the bubbles… Well, Diana played around with them while thinking. This was mostly the reason she hadn’t wanted her friends to follow her. Playing with bubbles wasn’t particularly impressive.

Then, she allowed herself to relax. With the cold, and the fear of drowning, she was sure she wouldn’t fall asleep. But she wasn’t like others, thinking while walking could be fine, but she preferred quiet and stillness to meditate.

She didn’t need to close her eyes with how dark it was, but she still did it. The faerie had wanted to get rid of them? But they had prepared ways to cheat, they probably expected to win. So, why not warn them? Or, maybe… Maybe the magic wave was the ultimate cheat. Maybe they held onto the information to get one final shot. If the Humans won, they could still get to the race in a simple way: Get rid of the humans, which would disqualify them, and since the race hadn’t officially started they would get the human spot.

Of course, Diana didn’t want to believe such a thing. No one would do such a thing just for a race. Kill thousands of people just because you wanted a prize, that was ridiculous. And yet… What did Diana know of the prize? What could it be? Ursula hadn’t told them, though Diana had forgotten to ask, weirdly enough. She would do so next time she saw Ursula. Assuming, of course, the teacher knew. Not that Diana thought she wouldn’t share it, but maybe she hadn’t been given the full information, as often was the case with chains of command.

Ursula, she was their coach, but up until now she hadn’t really done much for them. Simple practice exercises, things Akko and Diana could’ve figured out alone. Hell, she hadn’t given them a single piece of advice on how to pilot yet. All of this mixed with her sudden appearance started to make Diana suspect. Maybe she wasn’t really a pilot. Maybe she was here because of nepotism, or some hidden reason by the Planetary Committee.

Suddenly, Diana started to feel current inside the tub. She had made herself a beard out of bubbles while thinking, and had proceeded to covering her hair with them. The current kept the water at the temperature she had asked for.

Someone stepped into the tubs zone of the spa. Diana panicked for a second, wiping her face, but whoever it was had the tall build of a man, so no one she knew. Still, this made her slightly more self conscious, and she stopped messing around with her face, choosing to just build figures that were backlit by one of the magic lanterns.

She ended up with a figure that looked one heck of a lot like the Shiny Rod. She sighed, destroying it. I earned my spot, huh? She thought with bitterness. She had barely won against a Second Category pilot, cheater or not, and she had been supposed to be the First Category one? What a joke. Maybe her entire mistrust of Ursula came from here, from her own lack of confidence.

Her next figure looked like a girl. She first saw Akko in there, followed by Barbara and then Hannah. After a few seconds, everyone had been that figure in her mind. She destroyed it. Sometimes, Diana thought she could be a little too harsh. Akko was obviously intimidated by her. Even if she wanted to hide it behind brave words and determination, Diana had seen the looks Akko often threw her way, of uncertainty and doubt. It was annoying, Diana didn’t want anyone to be afraid of her. But she didn’t know what the source of the problem was, therefore could not fix it, and asking Akko directly would be too much. They didn’t know each other that well. Maybe one day she’d get the courage to ask, but for now, she’d deal with the intimidated Akko. In truth, it didn’t help that Diana often decided to just run away from conversations that made her uncomfortable. She knew of this flaw, but hadn’t ever made an active attempt at fixing it. Being almost always sure of what you said gave you confidence, but when insecure, Diana basically shut down entirely.

Luckily, there weren’t many times like that. She was a knowledgeable person. Akko just had a gift to speak about things that made Diana uncomfortable.

You better win.

For some reason, the words still echoed inside her head. Diana had been about to snap from the tension. Akko had helped her with her cheering. It was… weird, at best. When doing things, people didn’t try to cheer her. They may wish her luck, but she was expected to do things right. No one doubted. Hannah and Barbara sometimes cheered for her, but they did it for others, more than her. As if reassuring that Diana was indeed the best.

When Akko had said it, it had felt… genuine. She had ordered Diana to win. She hadn’t taken it for granted, she’d felt the need of making sure Diana gave it her best.

Diana took a deep breath and submerged completely, feeling the stab of cold water on her face help her stay focused. After a few seconds, she came back out. Cold water normally didn’t help one relax, but Diana often found that hot water made her feel groggy, and she got distracted more easily. Hannah and Barbara were often surprised by the fact that she didn’t stay in the shower for long, unlike them.

Hannah and Barbara. Friends, teammates, and followers, all at once. Diana didn’t really know where she would be nowadays without them. Sure, they had flaws – some of them worse than others, but they were still good persons and, even if some wouldn’t believe her, kind people. During their first day at Luna Nova – or, rather, the pre-school of Luna Nova, which wasn’t obligatory but highly encouraged - both of them had approached Diana, even before having been teamed up. They had seen her alone and decided to talk to her, despite knowing who she was. Not many people did this. Sure, they had been a little fan-girly, talking as if she was a celebrity, but Diana had been relieved that someone had talked to her. That fanaticism had never gone away, but their interactions had become a lot more natural over time. Their biggest flaw was maybe how they treated everyone else when comparing them to Diana, but well, they had never done anything too mean. She didn’t have the heart to tell them off, even if she should have.

She realized how her thoughts had gone off the rails. She had looked for this place to think about… What? Ah, yes, the magic wave. The fact that everyone could’ve died, just for whatever was the prize of the race.

Enough thinking, she thought, pressing a button next to the tub to activate the process of washing to get rid of the bubbles. I need to ask Ursula.

Ursula sat alone in her new room. It had a single bed and a desk, coupled with a small locker and drawer. It was small, but with the retractable bed and desk it could become much bigger. She sat on the floor, eyes closed, trying not to panic. It was hard. She had expected some dangers during the IPR, but this? They had been lucky someone was actually checking out the magic readings on the planet instead of partying. Humanity had left Sídhe victorious, but with a grim reminder of the fact that it was an alien planet, with disasters that they hadn’t even imagined. And that was one that functioned fairly similarly to earth. The planet they were next going to, well…

A knock on the door distracted her. She stood slowly and went to the door, opening it just enough to see who was outside.

A red-eyed face smiled at her from the other side. “See, I told you she was going to be awake…” Akko turned her head and covered her mouth from one side, as if that would keep Ursula from hearing it. She spoke to Sucy, her purple haired teammate. “Hey, coach, wanna hang out?” Akko asked. Ursula raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to react. “We couldn’t sleep, and I thought it may be nice if we brought you along. You haven’t explored much of the ship, have you?”

“I appreciate the offer,” Ursula started to refuse, “but I really should be getting to-”

“Come on!” Akko’s hand shot forward, clinging onto Ursula’s forearm. “We’ll just go eat something and come back. It’ll be fun!”

Ursula smiled awkwardly. Akko was being a little too pushy for comfort, but Ursula had the feeling she wasn’t going to let her go. That glimmer in her eyes… Ursula suspected what this was about. She nodded slightly, making Akko beam, but raised a hand to go back into her room and put on more comfortable clothes. She was wearing the Luna Nova g-suit that was her uniform, but she wasn’t forced to wear it while inside the Dragon. She put on her track suit and stepped out of the room. Sucy was wearing a long cloak that completely hid her body, and Akko wore a blue t-shirt and shorts. Did that girl wear anything other than shorts when not in uniform?

“Where is Lotte, if I may ask?” Ursula noticed the absence of the third red team member.

“Oh, she said she wants to read something and get to sleep,” Akko explained, happily walking towards the elevators.

“She said the reading part so that Akko would let her sleep, though,” Sucy clarified, making Akko pause. The brunette seemed to be considering going back for her, but she shook her head.

Suddenly, behind them, a door slammed open. The three of them jumped in surprise as two little kids ran into the hallway, going the opposite direction from them. A few seconds later, a man and a woman exited the same room, throwing apologetic looks at them. Then, they were gone.

“People are just waking up,” Sucy noted. “Wonder how many will be surprised to find out that we’re already in space.”

Ursula hadn’t really thought about that, but yeah, the race had been about ten hours ago already. While probably all humans watched the race – either from inside the ship, those too afraid to get out, or from the stands – with the different time zones a lot of them went to bed right after it, missing on the entire magic wave drama. No humans had been left on Sídhe, thanks to the strict policies of the space cruiser.

They climbed on the elevator, and Akko pushed the silver button.

They stood in silence for a few seconds before the doors opened, and Ursula stepped out and into the Silver Deck, also known as the one everyone was always in. It had a giant pool – or, rather a giant series of interconnected pools. It was about half the length of the ship, and people bustled about in swimsuits. The deck appeared to be split in two, mostly. Behind the elevator, and occupying about one fourth of the deck, were the kid pools and attractions. While not too fancy, due to height limitations, waterslides were everywhere here. Kids were absolutely prohibited from leaving that area, however. Ursula didn’t agree with that, she liked kids, but too many people didn’t like them, so sadly they got the short end of the stick in this situation.

As she walked around, Ursula checked the insane amount of food stands. No restaurants here, just… Stands, with all kinds of food, everywhere. Mexican tacos, Chinese or Japanese noodles, hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, corn dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, gum, chocolate… She was starting to get a little overwhelmed.

“So, whaddya wanna eat?” Akko asked, speaking too fast, to neither Ursula nor Sucy in particular as she looked around with excitement. Sucy looked back at the kids’ area and nodded solemnly, as if thankful for the separation. Truth was, the adult area was a lot cleaner and less noisy.

Sucy grunted. “You would be the only one to pick a place to eat based on food stands instead of an actual restaurant,” she said.

“Hey, food stands are awesome! They give you the food on the spot and you don’t have to wait sitting around until it comes, and you can leave right after!” Akko explained. Ursula kind of understood her point, but she’d rather sit down and enjoy a meal than chug it down. Nowadays, at least.

The deck was packed with people. Bronze and Silver Decks had a very similar ratio passengers per square-meter, after all. Since room payment and deck payment came in different packs, lots of people pushed for the second deck while getting smaller rooms to be able to pay for it. Gold Deck was probably out of the question for a good half of the passengers, but Silver was in the limit of what was affordable… For those who could afford these kinds of things in the first place.

Maybe she was getting too old for this, and she was only in her late twenties…

“Sure, whatever, let’s just eat so that I can go back to my experiment-” Sucy eyed Ursula and froze. “Uhm, sleeping.”

“Sucy, you know it’s extremely against regulations to manipulate any kind of magic outside the labs, right?” Ursula said, raising an eyebrow. Sucy looked away.

“Tch, I’m not going to mess up or anything…” she said. Ursula sighed, holding back from scolding her. Sucy was a student most teachers seemed to be at a loss about, back on Earth. Ursula hadn’t had much time to meet her, but the girl was definitely something of a particular case. Studying medicine through magic, she focused mostly on the creation of potions that changed the way humans functioned, instead of trying to use it on a more mundane medical way. Ursula had heard other teachers say they had confiscated from her potions that could make someone drunk with a single drop or others that changed the colors of the eye and skin. Nothing she did was ever particularly harmful, but using unregulated medicine like that was downright illegal. Apparently, though, her guinea pig was Akko, and the brunette hadn’t ever bothered to actually complain about it to a teacher, so they could let it slip. Sucy had, after all, very good grades. Not Diana-tier good, but she was among the top ten students at school. Even higher than Lotte, something that, after meeting them, had surprised Ursula.

They walked for a while, not in silence, since there were a lot of conversations around them, plus shouting and laughs. Ursula watched as people walked around pools that weren’t particularly deep. The deepest one probably only reached two meters. Men, women and everything in between lay at the pool. A couple persons even had done some genetic modifications to themselves, exhibiting animal ears or proudly displaying colorful skins. Sadly, what most people imagined the future would be hadn’t come quite yet. Magic allowed these things to happen, sure, but trying to change too much could overload you with it. Scientist were working on that, and progress was being made, but they’d probably have to wait a couple more decades until people could really start modifying their bodies.

“Well I don’t know about you but Imma get some ramen,” Akko said, stepping up to one of the stands – a big one, more of a small bar than an actual stand. She sat on one of three small stools and patted her sides. Sucy sat with a grunt, and Ursula sat on the other side. She smelled the ramen and flinched slightly at the wave of nostalgia that it produced. Memories of the past assaulted her, accompanied by feelings she didn’t want to recall. It’s been ten years, she thought. I need to get over it.

The man in the stand was definitely Japanese. Or at least he looked the part. The Dragon cared for nothing if not authenticity in these things. He was so Japanese, in fact, that when he spoke, Ursula didn’t understand. After a few seconds, she realized he hadn’t talked in English.

Akko answered him, making him slightly surprised. After a short chat, Akko turned to her companions and asked what they wanted.

“I thought you didn’t want to sit down,” Sucy said after they had ordered, her voice a grumble. Ursula started to heat up, noticing that the temperature was higher in the Silver Deck. She looked up, to where a series of yellow bright lamps stood, definitely the source of it. That hadn’t been there the last time she’d been here.

“This is different. The food will be done in no time and I can pay and leave without having to worry about etiquette or whatever,” Akko answered with a defensive tone.

“You can do that any-” Sucy paused herself. “You know what? I don’t care, let’s just eat this ramen.”

Right on cue, three bowls of the food appeared in front of them. Ursula’s had some meat in there. Akko’s had a lot of meat in there. Sucy’s had mostly vegetables and an egg.

It was good, but Ursula found it hard to eat. Despite her best efforts, it probably showed in her face, because Akko eyed her with her mouth full and swallowed quickly. “Do you not like ramen?” She asked, somewhat uncomfortable.

Ursula was quick to shake her head and smile. “It’s not that, I’m just…” excuses were not her thing, “not really hungry.”

Akko considered this, then nodded and went back to eating. Ursula was sure she’d just shove her face in the bowl, with how close her face was to it already. On the other hand. Ursula noticed that Sucy hadn’t bothered trying to use the chopsticks and was using a fork. Ursula hadn’t eaten with chopsticks in years, but her fingers still remembered the motions. She had eaten with them so much, during her youth…

More painful memories. She shoved them away, trying to continue with her food.

Akko finished her bowl in a heartbeat, asking for another. While she waited, she looked at Sucy, who was only halfway through hers. “How is it?”

“Edible,” Sucy said curtly. Ursula smiled at this, finding it funny. Maybe she was just too stressed. Akko puffed her cheeks in annoyance, looking at her coach instead.

“So, Ursula, do you remember when was the first time Chariot won a race? Before becoming famous, I mean,” she asked as another bowl appeared in front of her.

Ursula had seen this coming, so she simply kept eating and then looked at Akko. “Sorry, not really. I… I don’t think she was particularly good, back then,” she looked away.

“What do you mean? She won the annual Luna Nova race!” Akko said. Ursula started, recalling that. Well, yeah, but that had been mostly because of someone else’s instructions… “And then the Moonlit Witch race!”

Ursula parted her lips. Yeah, she had actually won that one, but it had been during her last year, after having practiced a lot. “Well, I guess you’re right,” Ursula wasn’t particularly eager to explain these details to Akko, however. “It’s just been so long, I don’t really remember most of it.” Ursula took off her jacket, starting to really feel the heat.

Akko nodded, buying the excuse. However, Sucy looked at her with a weird expression. The longer she stared, the more Ursula looked away. She picked up on a kid crying nearby, where a guard was carrying him over to the kids’ area. Sucy stopped staring after a while, shrugging. Whatever she had thought, she kept to herself. Ursula was tempted to prompt her, but she’d rather not force the conversation.

“I mean,” Akko said after finishing her second bowl. She hesitated, probably wondering if she should get another one. “If I had been on the same year as Chariot I’d probably remember everything about her, but not everyone is as big a fan as I, sadly.”

“If everyone was as big a fan as you, she probably would’ve even come back for this second race, despite what she did in the first one,” Sucy commented. She had already finished her own bowl. Akko had decided not to ask for another. Ursula had advanced steadily, but she hastened her pace to not make Akko grow impatient.

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Akko said. Sucy rolled her eyes, not bothering to answer. The girl was wrong: Chariot would’ve never appeared again in public, even if the entire population of earth still loved her and wanted her back. Luckily for Ursula, most people seemed to hate Chariot nowadays, or at least dislike her.

She drank the broth left and then they paid. There were three main ways of paying in the ship: Physical, credit cards and fingerprint recognition, for members of the staff and other important people. Like, for example, the pilots, the coach and their companions.

Ursula was about to use this method – they would get most things for free – when Akko pulled out a bill from her pocket.

“Akko, what are you doing?” Ursula asked.

“Paying…” The girl said, confused.

Ursula stared at her. Then at Sucy, who wasn’t paying attention. Then at Akko again. “Ehm… Akko, you know you don’t have to pay for stuff here, right?”

“What?” Akko’s expression of utter shock surprised Ursula. She tried not to treat her as a kid as she explained how paying worked. Her face turned into one of rage. “Hey, I’ve spent like thirty dollars inside the ship! This is outrageous!” Akko stood. The cook turned, surprised, as Akko took off at a run. His expression darkened for a second before Ursula offered her hand. He sighed, then put Ursula’s hand against a small tablet. After a few seconds, the payment was made and he waved Ursula and Sucy goodbye.

Ursula tried to run after Akko, but Sucy put a hand in front of her to stop her. “Don’t. I know where she’s going. I’d figured she’d do this when she learned about this.”

Ursula turned to her, unsure. Sucy didn’t walk so much as she slid across the floor. Ursula wondered how she did that. “Wait, so you knew about this and didn’t tell her?” She asked.

“Unlike her, I read the information about the place I was going to be spending the next three months of my life basically living in,” Sucy said with a shrug. “I wanted to see how long it’d take for her to figure it out. I was betting on a month. You ruined it,” she didn’t sound particularly upset about this.

“I… am sorry?” Ursula said, stepping aside as a little old lady passed by them.

“Well, that was it for me. If you really need to know, Akko will be in the deck below, probably arguing with some stand owners in the fair.”

Then, she started to move faster, leaving Ursula behind, and slightly confused. Why would Akko be arguing with… Oh, no, she thought, taking off at a run.

Amanda woke up to the feeling of a hangover. Why do I feel so bad? She didn’t really have a hangover, she knew that. It was probably that her messed up sleeping schedule from the last couple days was starting to kick her mental ass. She could feel she hadn’t slept well at all. However, the piercing pain she could feel across her head, as if someone was shoving a nail directly into her brain, was proof that maybe something else was wrong with her.

She tried to stand up, but the stab of pain made her stumble. The new rooms they’d gotten were bigger than the ones before. They actually looked similar to the ones they had back at Luna Nova, but with an extra bed and a bathroom. Amanda tried to climb back onto the bunk bed, but she slipped on the sheets and didn’t have the strength of dexterity to do so.

Aw, fuck this, she thought, annoyed. There had to be an infirmary somewhere where she could take some medicine or something. Maybe Sucy would have something to help.

She walked, with some difficulty, to the door. This room actually had a rug, so her steps were silent. She was wearing nothing but a shirt and a short, but it’s not as if it was dangerous to walk barefooted in the corridors of the Dragon, unless a party had been thrown around.

The light outside burned her eyes, and she closed them. Aw, hell. She understood that this was going to be harder than she expected. Well, better to go to the closest place first. What a horrible way of celebrating that she had beaten Diana.

She knocked on the next door down the hallway. No answer. They were all probably asleep…

Right as she walked away, the door opened. The ship was a little inconsistent with doors, some opened manually, some were automatic. Probably had something to do with money. Everything had something to do with money, as far as Amanda was concerned. Actually, she suspected that there was some kind of super-big bet going on around the rulers or representatives of the different alliance planets, and that it was the reason of the faerie’s attitude towards the race.

From the room, a redhead appeared in the corridor, tired eyes and yawning. “Amanda?” Lotte asked. Amanda nodded weakly. She was using the wall as support to walk. Lotte closed the distance between them after realizing the state Amanda was in. “Are you sick?” She asked.

Amanda cringed. “Speak lower, please,” she said in a whisper. Lotte nodded.

“Where do you want to go?” She said in a whisper.

“Is Sucy awake?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then the infirmary.”

Lotte instantly slipped under Amanda’s arm to help her walk. She was shorter than Amanda, but it helped. Both redheads started moving towards the elevator, though Amanda had no idea where Lotte was actually going. Right now, the girl could probably throw her into the dumpster of the ship and Amanda wouldn’t have had the strength to fight back. She had started to feel really bad after piloting the Blue Star – that was how they were starting to call the Shooting Star that was painted blue, for simplicity’s sake – and she had attributed the pain to tiredness. She still half did, now. Maybe the medics of the ship could just force her to sleep for a good eight hours.

They walked in silence. The elevator ride went downwards, and they slowly made their way across the repetitive landscape of the corridors of the ship. Amanda grunted in pain from time to time, but she kept it down. She wasn’t a kid, she could deal with a simple headache.

Amanda didn’t realize how long they had walked until they half-stumbled into a room that, unlike everything else in the ship, was completely white. It smelled of hospital, which made Amanda cringe, but she didn’t have the will to complain right now.

A lady in a white uniform instantly went to them, recognizing Amanda and helping Lotte carry her to a stretcher. They laid her down. Amanda’s head was pulsating with the pain. “Can you speak?” The woman asked.

“Not so loud,” Amanda begged. That answered her question, too.

“Ok, can you tell me what hurts?” The woman now spoke in a much lower voice.

Amanda was half tempted to say ‘everything’, but that wasn’t precisely right. “The head, mostly. I feel like it’s going to burst or something,” she said with a grimace. The woman nodded. The room was empty, other than the three girls in it right now. This was probably one of the minor infirmaries around the ship. The big one was near the upper levels.

The nurse started to check a few things in Amanda. She lit one of those lantern-thingies into her eyes – which made Amanda want to die –, she shoved a stick in Amanda’s mouth to check her throat, and then she took her temperature.

“Hmm, nothing obvious,” she said after checking the thermometer. “Guess I’ll bring out the big guy,” she said with some reluctance.

She didn’t ask for Amanda’s name; she didn’t need to ask for Amanda’s name. Amanda was surprised more people hadn’t recognized her, actually, given her status as First Category gunman. Or maybe they just hadn’t approached her. There was this unspoken rule about not bothering pilots or gunmen, and she was half grateful for that. She didn’t like the attention. Well, at least not that kind of attention.

The woman went to the end of the room, disappeared behind a curtain and then came back with a not-so-big machine that she carefully set down next to the stretcher. Amanda recognized it as a M.M.U. or Medical Magic Unit. Lotte looked at it with curiosity. Amanda hadn’t even noticed, but she was wearing baby blue pajamas. She’d have to apologize for making her come with her later.

Apologizing… Ugh. She didn’t like doing that, but she wasn’t an asshole. At least not to her friends.

With a big needle in hand, the nurse stepped closer to Amanda. The girl offered her arm. Surprised, the nurse tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear before nodding approvingly and carefully stabbing Amanda’s wrist. Amanda didn’t know much about MMUs, or medicine in general, but she understood the basics. The machine would inject some magic into the system, manipulate it somehow, and then come back with a full analysis of the body. Amanda didn’t feel much pain from the needle, but she was uncomfortable in the position.

The MMU took a full three minutes to finish its analysis. Amanda didn’t like staying still, but she wasn’t Akko. She took it in stride and didn’t move a muscle during the whole analysis. Then, the nurse’s eyes widened. Lotte looked at the screen it had, but Amanda doubted she’d understand what it said.

“Tell me… O’Neill, right?” The woman asked. “Did you happen to enter in contact with Sídhe’s magic while on the planet?” Amanda shook her head. She hadn’t. Or at least, not as far as she knew. “Were you nearby a magically charged place recently? Or maybe took too much Magic medicine?” Again, Amanda shook her head. She hadn’t taken any kind of medicine in months. The nurse seemed dumbfounded. “You see, you have a bit of Magic poisoning on your system,” she sounded puzzled. “Oh, don’t worry,” she clarified, seeing Amanda’s expression, “it’s not high enough to kill you, but… It is strange. Are you certain you have no idea how that magic could’ve gotten into your system?”

Again, Amanda shook her head. She tried to think, hard. Nothing in her recent memories seemed to fit the premise of her somehow getting magically overcharged. Hell, she had started to feel sick after reaching the Dragon. She had flown the Blue Star back to the ship – probably the most fun experience she’d had in her life – and then she had started to feel a light headache and had decided to sleep it off.

That didn’t work this time. Magic poisoning? She was lucky her brain hadn’t melted.

The nurse then started to manipulate the MMU. Amanda waited patiently. It was kind of humbling, realizing you could’ve seriously fucked up your entire life for not bothering going to check up because of a headache. Lotte stood in place, fidgeting with her fingers. She was surely tired, but the scare of learning about Amanda’s situation had slapped the sleepiness out of her.

“I’ve taken all the magic out of your system,” the woman said after a while. “You should do a checkup of your helmet and suits, maybe one of them had a small leak. I’d suggest getting completely new ones, just in case,” she started. Then, she reached into a series of drawers near the door and gave Amanda a small white pill. “Painkiller. You should try to rest until the headache disappears on its own though.”

Amanda nodded, taking an offered glass of water and drinking the pill. The pill took effect instantly, bless modern medicine. She looked at Lotte. With the pain gone, the lack of sleep suddenly became very apparent. For both of them, actually. “Let’s go back,” Amanda said, standing. She would have trouble walking now, but because her eyelids felt heavy.

“Before you go,” the nurse gave Amanda a little paper. “If you start feeling pain again, show this to any member of an infirmary and they should give you some painkillers. Tell them to check you for magic again then, just in case.”

Amanda took the paper, nodded in thanks, and then pointed with her head at the door while looking at Lotte. The glasses-wearing girl waved goodbye to the nurse and they both left.

“Sorry,” Amanda said, not giving herself time to think it through. “Man, what a pain.”

“It’s fine. You’re feeling ok?” Lotte had a really kind voice and demeanor. Amanda was sure someone had taken advantage of that in her past. She sure would’ve, a few years back. She had gotten past that phase, but…

“Yeah,” Amanda let out a yawn. “Just tired.”

“Me too,” Lotte mimicked the action.

Then, they walked in silence for the rest of the way. Before splitting, however, Lotte said one more little thing to Amanda. Amanda smiled, because she liked the idea of waking Akko up like that.

Inside the green team’s room, Constanze and Jasminka still slept, completely unaware of what was going on with their teammate. Amanda was perfectly fine with that. Feeling relieved, she finally managed to climb onto her bed and rest.

She’d figure how the hell she had gotten poisoned tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Hannah woke up and found herself surprised by the fact that Diana was still sleeping. It felt wrong. Diana was usually the last one to sleep and the first to wake up. She must’ve been really tired.

Of course she is, you idiot, Hannah chastised herself. She shook her head, tip-toeing around the room and making as little noise as possible to avoid waking her up. Moving too much would turn on the lights, too. The light from the bathroom told Hannah that Barbara was already up, which was nice. Hannah wasn’t accustomed to being alone, ever.

After dressing up, she knocked on the bathroom’s door. It slid open, showing the black-haired Barbara half-naked. She was the kind to go to the bathroom first, then prepare. As was evident, Hannah was the opposite.

When Hannah came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, Barbara was also dressed. Diana hadn’t moved an inch – she was a very quiet sleeper. Sometimes Hannah was tempted to check her pulse and breathing just to make sure she was still alive.

“So, what now?” Barbara asked. Hannah smiled. She already knew what she wanted to do today.

“Did you put on a swimsuit?” she asked her friend.

Hannah tackled Barbara into the water, since the coward had been complaining about it being too cold or whatever.

They fell into the pool – one of the deeper ones – and struggled underwater for about ten seconds before coming back to the surface, coughing. Hannah laughed, Barbara punched the water and splashed her. “Are you nuts?”

“Sorry, had to do it,” Hannah said, still half laughing. “Come on, pools are the best.” She tried to apologize with a look while shielding her face from the water Barbara kept throwing at her. Soon, she started counter-attacking. This particular pool wasn’t that crowded. It was near one of the corners, and they had chosen it precisely because of that. It was middle-sized, and there were only three other people in it. Pretty surprising, when the next pool over – and even the small canal between both pools – was completely full.

The other three people in the pool were a man in his fifties, a younger man and an older woman definitely in her golden years.

Soon, the water fight between Hannah and Barbara had come to an end. It was, in Hannah’s estimation, her win. She rejoiced in the lightness of the water, in the wetness and coolness. Swimming was something she enjoyed more than anyone would expect from her.

“Why the pool, though? It’s not particularly hot,” Barbara said after a while.

“Temperature has nothing to do with it. Being in a pool is just fun,” Hannah shrugged. She… Hadn’t really talked to Barbara about her love of pools before. She couldn’t even remember when the last time she’d been on one was. Sure, they had gone to the sea together, but a pool had its own particular charm.

“If you say so…” Barbara went underwater and reappeared at the other side of the pool. Hannah was about to follow when, for the first time, she actually looked at the other people on the pool. Then she froze.

She recognized them. Paul Hanbridge was one of them, head of the IPR committee on Earth and Dorlin – Hannah couldn’t palace her last name – the older woman who was another big shot in the world of races. She was head of… Some important cups, back on Earth. Diana would probably know.

She swam to Barbara, nudging her with energy. The girl raised an eyebrow at her before turning to see at what was Hannah was pointing at.

“Ohmygod,” she whispered as soon as she saw him. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” she kept saying. Hannah agreed with the sentiment, but she was too stunned to speak. Next to his father, the one and only Andrew Hanbridge stood, his slender body now shirtless, his dark wet hair combed back and showing the most handsome face Hannah had ever seen. His green eyes and perfect jaw could have made anyone faint.

They three of them were arguing calmly. Well, Andrew wasn’t actually speaking, more like listening. He was a student of… well, everything from aeronautics to foreign culture – meaning, alien culture - and, as far as Hannah had heard, he was among the best of his generation. Everyone knew he aimed to become the next head of the IPR Committee, arguably one of the most powerful positions to be in on Earth. The Inter-Planetary Committee was technically more important, but the IPR one moved the real numbers when the race arrived. During an IPR, the amount of contact made with other races was tenfold that of a normal year. The head of the IPR committee was probably the most important ambassador Earth had.

And damn, the next one was hot.

“Should we talk to him?” Hannah asked in a low voice.

“He’s busy, don’t you see?” Barbara splashed water into her face.

“Hey!” Hannah returned the splash. Another water fight started before both of them became self conscious of the fact they were acting like fools in front of the hottest guy in the ship. “Come on, go talk to him.”

“Why me? You want to go, you do it,” Barbara pushed her away. Hannah pouted, looking at the guy. What would she even say to him? She only knew about him because his father had brought him along in some events at Luna Nova. The woman, Dorlin, was a retired Witch, and she had been at a number of events for alumni in the school.

“I can’t,” Hannah said, turning around. “He’s half naked, and he seems busy. We’ll get to see him again sometime,” she said, swimming away.

Barbara followed. “You’re a coward!” she teased. Hannah started to kick harder at the water, to bother her. Barbara caught up to her and grabbed her ankle. They struggled for a while before deciding to just float around and chill out. Hannah didn’t really understand why everyone had fled the pool. At first she had assumed someone had peed on it or something, but the water had chemicals that glowed if you did that, and there wasn’t any of that here.

And the chemicals worked, she had checked the kids’ area and half of their little pools were actually glowing. Thank goodness she wasn’t younger than ten years.

Still, neither her nor Barbara left the pool. If everyone else was intimidated by the three persons, then that was their fault. Hannah was here to have fun, and getting an unobstructed view of Andrew’s beautiful body was definitely the kind of fun she’d welcome.

Diana exited her room with her goal unchanged. The previous day she had resolved to asking Ursula about what she knew, but the teacher hadn’t been on her room, so she had given up to tiredness and decided to try again after waking up. She walked a few corridors down the one where the three teams resided, to a lower-tier series of rooms, and knocked on the teacher’s door.

It took long enough that Diana considered the chance of the teacher still sleeping or maybe off doing some work, but the door opened slightly – it was a manual door, curiously enough – and Ursula’s face peeked from the other side. After checking, the door opened completely, allowing Diana in.

“Hello, Diana. Is there something you need?” Ursula’s kind voice always struck Diana as kind of fake. Not that she thought the teacher wasn’t kind, but it felt as if it wasn’t her natural way of speaking. 

“Yes,” Diana simply said. She stood there until, awkwardly, Ursula pointed inside the room and let her in.

Diana took seat on the desk’s chair, noticing the paperwork on top of it – well, it was written with her wand on a virtual sheet, but it was still called paperwork. Reports of some kind, she guessed. Her handwriting wasn’t particularly good or, well, readable. That seemed to be a common thing for a lot of adults nowadays, with writing recognition software being a thing, as long as what was on the documents resembled a letter, the software could translate it. Diana didn’t bother with those, as she much preferred just typing with a keyboard. More practical.

Ursula sat on her bed and looked at Diana. “Is something wrong?” She asked, concerned.

Diana nodded. “You could say that, but I believe it is you who should answer. I’m here in the hopes that you can tell me about this grand prize the Aos Sí mentioned,” she didn’t beat around the bush.

The teacher looked taken aback, eyes surprised and lips parted in an expression of uncertainty. She regained her composure, however, and cleared her throat. “That, I fear, is classified-”

“They tried to kill us all,” Diana said, narrowing her eyes. “Miss Ursula, I understand there are rules in place, but I would like to know what I’m risking my life for.”

Ursula held her stare, but was the first to look away. She sighed. “Guess there’s no way around it, huh,” she removed her glasses, looking Diana straight in the eyes. Suddenly, she looked far older than she was. “I don’t have that information. Sorry. I just have orders to ‘win the race no matter what’.”

“So it’s something we can’t even know about?” Diana started tapping a finger against her lap. “I don’t know how to feel about this,” she confessed. She was tired of just thinking, and Ursula hadn’t been able to give her the answers she sought.

“If it helps,” Ursula’s eyes went back to her more kind expression, “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want, no matter what the higher ups say.”

“What if I want to drop out of the race?” Diana raised an eyebrow.

“I highly doubt you’ll do it,” Ursula smiled. “You’re far too smart for that.”

And she was right. Diana wouldn’t drop out of the race just for something like this. If the grand prize was as important as the faeries had made it to be, then letting it fall into the hands of any other race would be a mistake. Diana didn’t like conflict, but she was aware of the tension between different factions of the Planetary Alliance. Conservatives, who wished to stay put. Who needs more space exploration? They were fine as they were. Explorers, who wanted to go further and further for the sake of knowledge. Conquerors, who wanted to take over all of the sentient races that weren’t part of the alliance – just two, but there would be more for sure.

Earth was a neutral force in all of this, but their enmity with Appal automatically put them at odds with the Conqueror faction. In all honesty, Diana was fine with that. She didn’t exactly like Appal’s cultures. Well, mostly. Their food – when edible – was wonderful.

“You’re correct,” Diana said with a sigh. “I won’t,” she stood, looking down at the teacher, who put her glasses back on. “Thank you for the information,” she turned to go.

Ursula stopped her by putting a hand on her forearm. “Also, one more thing,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t… tell others. About this, I mean,” it was a request, not an order. Diana nodded. Her questions had only worked to make her worry more, but at least she knew the teacher wasn’t hiding anything important from them. Or she was lying, but that wasn’t the case, probably.

Again she turned, ready to go spend the next three days they were going to spend on the Dragon worrying.

Until someone knocked on the door.

Akko woke up to the sound of a party horn. She jumped, exalted, hitting her head on the top bunk and crying in pain before looking, still half asleep, to what had made the noise. Lotte stood next to her bed, party horn on her mouth, little party hat on her head. “Wha…?”

“Hey Akko,” Lotte spoke. “We threw you a party!” She stepped aside, letting Akko get a view of the room. There, all of them wearing party hats, were Sucy and the members of the green team. Constanze and Sucy didn’t show particular emotion. Amanda was chuckling, probably thanks to the hit Akko had taken, and Jasminka was eyeing a cake set up on the desk of the room with desire.

Akko was barely able to process what was happening.

“Uhm, thanks?” She said, voice sloppy. “For what, exactly?” She rubbed her eyes, yawning.

“For winning the race, of course!” Lotte explained. Akko frowned at this. Had they forgotten how she felt about having won that race?

Lotte seemed to notice the change in her expression, but before she could say anything else, Amanda sat next to Akko. “Now, listen to me, Akko,” she threw an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t you dare say you didn’t win that race. You won, and not only that, you won against freaking cheaters,” she raised a finger in front of them both. A middle finger. “I say fuck the faeries, you bested the guy. The race, really, was up until the entrance of that tunnel. You entered first, so you won.”

She kept saying ‘you’, which kind of weirded out Akko, until she remembered that Amanda wouldn’t actually know what happened. She probably had seen it later on a recording. “But…” she received a slap on the back of the head.

“No buts!” Amanda said. “Enjoy the damn cake, it was the best we could get up in the Shopping Town. Who the hell gets a bakery inside a space cruiser anyways?” She stood, shaking her head. Akko eyed the others. Constanze was nodding, agreeing with Amanda’s assertions. She met Sucy’s eyes, and then remembered that she was supposed to be angry with her… But she was Sucy, she never did things out of bad intentions. Just out of… wrong intentions. That made sense, didn’t it?

“Something like what Amanda said,” Lotte encouraged her. “Akko, you won that race. Easy win or not.”

None of these arguments really convinced Akko, but she understood they made sense. Yet, the problem was deeper than that. She didn’t even know if she was angry about the race per se; she was starting to suspect the anger came from somewhere else.

“Fine,” Akko stood. “But first, let me wash my face.”

“Come on, come!” Akko tried to drag Diana out of the room.

“I must respectfully decline,” Diana was trying to free her arm, but Akko was obviously stronger. “I am not in the mood for something such as a party,” she explained. Ursula watched with amusement as the brunette girl, wearing a party hat and having a chocolate smudge across her left cheek, fought to bring Diana with them.

“They made a party for me, but you did it so much better! You deserve a party too!” Akko explained.

“And don’t ‘respectfully decline’ us again! You think you’re too good for our party or what?” Amanda, who was next to Akko in the hallway, narrowed her eyes.

Diana’s expression hardened, and with a strong movement, she freed her arm from Akko’s grip and pushed her out of the way.

“Told ya,” Amanda said with a snort. “She hates fun.”

Akko grunted, determined, and walked away from the room, probably tailing Diana.

Ursula stood to close her door with a smile. It was good to see the girls having fun despite everything. Mostly, it was good seeing that Akko had gotten over being ‘scammed’. Then she walked back to her desk and started writing with her wand. She could’ve used a keyboard, but she liked to feel like she was actually doing something. She stretched her legs, placing her feet on the edge of the bed, while working. You didn’t need a hard surface to write with a wand, despite how easy it could make it. It took some time getting used to it, but writing mid-air was perfectly possible.

When she finished her report – why did she have to do a report, anyways? There were a ton of recordings of the race. Surely the committee didn’t need another person covering the events – she dropped on the bed. She hadn’t slept at all since the previous day, and she was beyond exhausted.

She still had so much work to do, though. She needed to talk to Captain Kannazuki, make sure the brooms were being properly maintained – well, the Shooting Stars, at least, since no one was allowed to touch the Shiny Rod – and then call headmistress Holbrooke to give her a report on how the students themselves were doing.

She needed…

The auditorium was full. Every student, old or new, got a chair. Every teacher and member of the racer teams stood at the edges of the room, with its red carpet and immaculate white walls. In the back of the room there was a stage, and on it, a small dais. Chattering slowly came to a stop as a small lady walked to it, wearing a massive hat, like that of an actual witch. She had a kind smile on her wrinkled face, and her eyes, behind some spectacles, shined as she looked over the new students of Luna Nova.

Chariot could barely contain her excitement. Her legs shifted in place and she fidgeted with the slider of her zipper, bringing it up and down constantly. The girls around her gave her annoyed looks, but she didn’t mind them. Or, more like, she didn’t read them. She was smiling broadly as the headmistress gave a speech, a speech she didn’t really hear. Sure, she got the gist of it, but who cared about that? She was at Luna Nova! The most amazing academy in the world! And she had gotten here without the pre-school, which was quite a feat!

She wondered which team was she going to be put on. Hopefully one with a good gunman. A lot of people didn’t care about gunmen, mostly because they didn’t aim for Inter-Planetary Races. That was fine, but in Chariot’s mind, there was no point to racing if you didn’t aim to be the best.

Chariot had barely made it into the school, and she was among the lowest scoring students to make it in, but scores meant nothing next to practice!

The headmistress finished her speech, and then pointed at the rows of seats. “Now, our best student will come and give her own little speech,” she said, waving for whoever it was to approach. Someone raised, and Chariot found with amazement that she recognized her. She didn’t remember her name, but it was a student one year older than her. She had won the previous year’s Moonlit Witch race. She would have probably won the Annual Luna Nova Race, should she have been allowed to participate, but that was a different event, where every year competed within itself, while the Moonlit Witch race allowed participants from all years.

Chariot wouldn’t be allowed to take part in this year’s annual race – first year students weren’t divided into specializations yet, so she wasn’t technically a ‘pilot student’ – but if she managed to somehow get a broom she would be allowed to take part in the Moonlit Witch one.

The student climbed onto the dais. She had long, lavender hair, paired with a couple of teal eyes hidden behind glasses. Colorful hair wasn’t completely natural or even standardized, but it had become more common over the past century. Chariot got her crimson red hair because her mother had been in constant contact with magic during her life. Maybe this student – She had presented herself as Croix… something – had something like that too. Despite the advancements made with genetic modification, changing the color with which hair grew was harder than most assumed, so it was that or dye. Or a wig. Maybe it was a wig. Either way, at first glance, Chariot found her beautiful.

Now, that was not the point.

Croix finished her speech – It was the boring kind of ‘this school is great you’re going to love it here’ speech that was always given at these events – and bowed slightly as the audience started clapping unenthusiastically. Chariot followed her with a nonchalant glance, as did everyone else. Yet, during a split second, Croix looked her way. It was probably Chariot’s hair what called attention to her. Either way, during that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, their eyes met.

Chariot felt something. She didn’t understand it yet, but she knew it was important. A connection.

She wanted to talk to that girl…

Ursula woke up to find the lights of her room off. If there wasn’t movement inside the room for a long enough time, the lights would automatically turn off. For a few blissful seconds after waking up, she believed herself to be in her Luna Nova room. Her two teammates would be sleeping, Croix would be waiting for her in the library or cafeteria for some practice…

Wake up already, she thought as reality clicked into place in her mind. How long had she been out? She felt like it had been a long time, but like she hadn’t rested well. She was in a weird position and she was still wearing sneakers. With a sigh, she got up, moving slowly to avoid turning the lights on. She undressed and then threw on some pajamas. She was still very tired, and now she also felt depressed.

She’d deal with whatever she had to deal with tomorrow, or whenever she woke up. Hopefully her inner clock wouldn’t be destroyed, but right now she didn’t care much.

After a quick visit to the bathroom, she went back to bed, and this time she fell asleep properly.

Chapter Text

Amanda exited her room only to find the blue team exiting theirs. They all wore light clothing, and were obviously going to the pools. “I wonder if we’ll get to see Andrew today…” Hannah was saying. Amanda found herself lingering in place, wondering if she should say something. Diana had been kind of ignoring her for the past two days, since she’d said that at Ursula’s door during the party.

She hadn’t meant to offend her; it had been more of a… friendly banter. Kinda. She had been in kind of a bad mood because there hadn’t been any cake left for her, and maybe she was a little bitter by the attitude of nonchalance Diana had to having lost their little race. But she wasn’t friends with Diana, and that showed. The blonde still looked at her with a particularly icy stare. “Hey,” Amanda said, raising her hand.

This time, the three girls shot her glares before turning a ninety degrees and striding off in the other direction. “Well, goodbye,” Amanda said to herself. She wasn’t eager to apologize. In the end, what she had said was true. Diana did consider herself better than all of them. It wasn’t like Amanda should care. Or cared at all. Though, it was weird having one third of the only people she knew on the cruiser mad at her.

With sigh, she followed the blue team. Not that she meant to, the elevators were just that way. As she walked, she caught more of their conversation across the corridors. Sound carried marvelously inside the metal bowels of the Dragon. “…You’ve talked about nothing but him for the past two days…” Diana was saying, with annoyance. Who were they talking again? Andrew? Who was that? She felt like she should recognize the name, but she was as interested in guys as she was into piranha-tank diving. Actually, diving into a tank of piranhas sounded kind of fun…

“He was just so… Perfect! He looked like one of those Greek statues, I swear!” Hannah continued.

Amanda decided she had heard enough of that wonderful and interesting conversation. Before reaching the corridor of the elevators she waited and allowed the other girls to disappear before walking and calling for one. She wasn’t going to any of the decks today.

The elevator went down, and for the second time since the travel started, she found the doors opening up to the ship’s hangar. She didn’t need to look far to find the Shooting Stars and the Shiny Rod. She stared at the white broom, covered with a giant black cloth to stop anyone from accidentally touching it. She frowned at it.

“Why do you take away my memories?” She asked. As expected, there was no answer. She had a lot of questions that she knew wouldn’t get answers anytime soon. How does it refuel? How does it keep to the air? What’s with the crazy security system, how does it detect who touches it? Why did it choose Akko?

And, maybe more importantly, how come I become such a good gunman inside the turret?

Again, she climbed on it. During the past two days, after recovering from her magic-sickness, she found herself wanting… No, needing to come again. She just hadn’t found the chance, with the party, and then with the extra day of exploration she had planned with Jasminka and Constanze. They had found nothing interesting for the second time in a row, sadly. Still, the ship was so massive, there had to be something interesting out there. And then she had gone to the pool with her team and the red one. The blue team had gone to the pool three days on a row now. Hannah really seemed to love it, though now Amanda considered that maybe she was just obsessed with this Andrew guy.

Finally, this morning, she had resolved to come. Seeking answers from a source she knew wouldn’t give them to her. Yep, she was that smart. Tomorrow they’d be arriving at the new planet, and the first one to officially be a part of the IPR race. They’d be practicing every day of a whole week. They hadn’t been informed which planet would it be, as to not let any race have unjust advantages. Except the planet residents, of course. Curiously enough, the win-ratio on home planets was very low across the entire Planetary Alliance. Some called it the home-race curse. The only ones who hadn’t ever suffered from that curse in the race were the Shapeshifters, since their planet was too hostile for most other creatures in the alliance. Amanda had seen a few images of it, but they were too dark to see anything.

She knocked on the surface of the Rod, the cloth muffling the sound. “What about teleporting?” She asked out loud. “How the hell do you do that? And you have a ton of other crazy abilities, if I remember correctly,” There was that hook-thing Chariot had used that one time, or the time the broom’s front had become kind of bulky and sharp, completely destroying a barricade of rocks, or that time where the broom just obliterated the competition by completely changing shapes and starting to go at speeds that should’ve been impossible for any broom.

It was a box of mysteries, yet Akko didn’t seem interested in it. Hell, she barely seemed to think about the broom at all if she wasn’t piloting it. Why was that? Amanda could barely go an hour without something about the Shiny Rod in her mind. And now, laying in it, feeling it below her, brought her a peace she hadn’t felt in a long time. She wanted to ride it again, even if she wouldn’t remember it. Maybe it was the curiosity. Who knew, maybe the next time she might keep her memories.

She sat up, getting down from the broom. She looked around. No one. She was fairly certain she was the only one in the entire Dragon who actually came down here for anything more than guard duty. And this time there wasn’t even a guard. She crouched and then lay with her stomach on the floor; then she crawled under the broom. The floor was dusty, but this didn’t bother her. She watched the broom from below. Four of the seven glass balls that worked as its weapons were visible from this angle. Two near the back, placed under the ship, two near the front placed on the sides. The top three were directly in front of the cockpit and almost at the tip of the broom. She was supposed to know how to work them, but of course, she didn’t even know how the controls looked.

The opening to climb into the turret wasn’t obvious either. And, now that she thought about it, she didn’t recall where the emergency exit was, either. Absent mindedly, she extended a hand, touching the belly of the broom. Instantly taking it back, she cringed as she waited for the alarm to go off. It didn’t. Instead, the trapdoor to the turret lowered. Stranged, but curious, she climbed into it.

When the entrance closed, she panicked for a second. But, somehow, the panic was slowly overtaken by another thing. Trust. She felt at ease, inside the broom.

And then, something happened. She… connected to it. She got a strange feeling, as if the ship itself was talking to her. The feeling was familiar. Was this what happened to her every time? No, she understood that wasn’t the case. “What do you want from me?” She asked in a whisper. “What’s going on?” It was silly, trying to talk to a vehicle, but…

Again, as if in a wave, she felt tranquility. “That’s not an answer you piece of scrap,” Amanda said. Her voice didn’t come off aggressive at all. “Can’t you give me a hint? I know you’re somewhat intelligent. I mean, Alcor is a thing,” she tried, but her only answer was silence. Well this isn’t helping much, she thought with a deadpan expression. Would the broom realize she was getting tired of it? Hopefully.

She stayed there a while, thinking. She hadn’t figured out what had poisoned her, in the end. Her suits had been in perfect condition, but she had received new ones anyways.

The turret was comfortable, despite lacking any actual comfort. Sure, it could get a little claustrophobic, even to someone who wasn’t particularly so, but the peace she felt counteracted everything.

Well, everything except boredom. “Ok, I’m done,” she tapped the sides of the turret. “Can you open up or…?”

She didn’t know what she had expected, but she was surprised then the door actually opened. Careful, she climbed out of the turret and watched it close up.

Then, she rested in the floor below the broom. That had been a weird but strangely nice experience. Then again, now she had more questions than ever about the workings of the damn thing. Maybe she should get Akko to go inside the cockpit and make her ask Alcor directly.

But for now, she got back on her feet and back to the elevators. Jasminka and Constanze would surely be awake by now.

Diana sat on the rim of the circular pool, her feet under the water. She watched with satisfaction as Barbara and Hannah swam around, having fun. She was a little tired, not in the mood for swimming, but she had come on Hannah’s insistence. She had been obsessing over Andrew Hanbridge for the past couple of days. She always did, after seeing him. Diana would’ve told her she didn’t need to come to the pool every day to see him, as they’d be spending time with him in the near future, but there was no need to kill her enthusiasm. If anything, Diana was hoping Hannah would forget about the guy. He wasn’t bad, he was just… annoying, to put it lightly.

Well, at least to Diana.

She wore a one-piece black swimsuit, rather conservative compared to the countless bikinis around her, but she didn’t care about that. Even then, she drew some looks, probably because of her hair, proof of her heritage. Sometimes she wanted to hide it, but she was more proud of it than self-conscious about the attention she got. Plus, even if she hid it somehow, now she was one of Earth’s pilots, every passenger in the Dragon would recognize her by figure alone.

She stood, starting to slowly walk around the pool, distracting herself. She didn’t want to stay put and focus. Instead, she looked around. The amount of people on the second deck was still amazing to her, particularly when there was very little to do besides swimming. Eventually, she found herself near the nose of the ship, where giant glass panels allowed a view of the universe outside, but it got very old very fast. Even with the speeds at which they moved, the universe seemed static. Sure, sometimes something would come close, but the space between planets was a whole lot of nothing. Maybe some space rocks, but the defense system of the space cruiser vaporized them all just in case, so at best you’d get a fireworks show.

Diana continued walking, not interested in looking outside. It was strange, how normal space had become to humanity. Sure, the Dragon was the only world-hopper, and she was slightly interested in the astronomy and astrology of other cultures, but in most planets where humans could comfortably remain they already did, and where they couldn’t… Well, that didn’t stop them from trying. Diana was confident that in less than twenty years they’d make the first steps to setting down a little colony on Poseidon, the Medusa’s planet, and hopefully they’d manage to find a way to settle on Darkworld at some point during her lifetime. She also expected humanity to find a way to land on Erebus, home of the Daemon and the only known source of Inferno Energy so far.

She came to a halt as she saw a series of figures walking nearby on another pool. The Red team. Akko was trying to get Sucy to dive into the pool but the creepy girl was under a cloak and had obviously no intentions of swimming. Lotte was trying to get Akko to let go of Sucy.

Always so nosy and annoying. Like the other day, with the party thing. She had been knocking at her door for ten minutes straight. Diana suspected she had also wanted to apologize for what Amanda had said, but that was not her job. Still, Diana had been kind of avoiding her. Diana had confirmed, up in that tower, that Akko felt bad for taking ‘her’ spot in the race. Diana couldn’t face her, because in that moment, she had almost thanked her. She had realized just how much Akko had lifted the weight off her shoulders. If they lost no one would blame them, if they won they would get praised, and leaving Diana in Second Category, despite her almost-breakdown, had actually help her feel a little more worth of the spot.

Of course, she couldn’t say any of this to anyone. Be relieved for being number two? Being glad that, should they lose, the weight wouldn’t fall entirely upon Diana’s shoulders? Yeah, no. That was the image of weakness she had fought her whole life to stop.

The red trio was now in the pool, Akko having tripped them all into the water. Sucy’s cloak floated in the water as she swam behind Akko to, presumably, strangle her. Lotte was trying to hold Sucy back but was instead carried along for the ride. Diana smiled for a second at the scene. What a silly situation.

Then, she realized Akko was swimming in her direction. The brunette jumped out of the pool almost like a damn dolphin and rolled on the ground, standing and running away in the direction of Diana while begging for her life.

When she saw Diana ahead, however, she stopped. Or not, because she slipped on wet feet and fell on her butt, skidding for a while before coming to a halt in front of the blonde. “Ouch,” she said, putting a hand on her back with a pained expression. She was wearing a red bikini with some frills on the chest. In Diana’s estimation, it was cute.

Diana chuckled. “I believe,” she said extending a hand, “that if you bothered to read the signs – or to have common sense – you would have avoided such an accident.”

Akko blushed while taking her hand. “Well, I-” she stood with grunt and looked back. Sucy was climbing out of the pool, her cloak behind her. “Sorrygottago!”

She ran off, diving into another pool, far more crowded than the one she’d just been in and disappearing between the crowd. Sucy walked slowly. She met Diana’s eyes, but beyond that, she didn’t seem to acknowledge her existence. Diana watched as the girl started circling the pool Akko had dived in. Akko was basically trapped, as to get away from a pool you needed to cross the small canals into another one, and those were made for crawling more than swimming, it would be impossible not to spot her.

Unless…

Not knowing why, Diana decided to carefully lower herself in the pool. Sucy raised an eyebrow at her, but shrugged as she kept looking for Akko. From outside it wouldn’t be visible, but Diana was quick to find the red-eyed face barely sticking out of the water in the middle of three different groups of people that chatted calmly. Akko looked at her with panicked eyes, as if she was going to give her away, but Diana lowered herself too.

“Uhm, hey Diana, sorry for what I just did,” she said in a whisper, barely moving. The water here reached up to Diana’s armpits when she was standing. Akko was in a pretty uncomfortable position.

“Would you find of interest a way to get out of the pool?” Diana asked. While she made the conscious effort to keep her face straight – well, at this point in her life, the line between conscious and unconscious had become blurry – she couldn’t help but feel a small thrill for the situation. Akko nodded, and Diana went underwater, nudging her to follow.

They swam to one of the edges of the pool – one opposite to Sucy – and, still underwater, she kicked open a metal grill. Akko gasped in surprise, which made her let go of her air. Diana swam into the opened tunnel – barely big enough to allow her through it, and with a path to the left that was so dark no one in their right minds would take – and kicked open the grill at the other side, going out into the next pool over and resurfacing to get some air.

A few seconds later, Akko came out of the water coughing and taking deep breaths. She didn’t have the usual strange ponytail she liked so much, and she used her hands to get the hair sticking to her face out of the way. Diana had tied her hair up to avoid such annoyances. They submerged again, swimming to the other end of the pool, far enough that Sucy would probably take a while to find them.

“Holy moly Diana, how did you know about that?” Akko asked with surprise. Seeing her without bangs was kind of strange. Her face was completely exposed, and her red eyes looked bigger than ever. “Diana?”

Diana shook her head to get back into reality. “Oh, sorry. Well, this is not my first time traveling in the Dragon. I had the occasion to do so one other time, ten years ago…”

“I didn’t think you’d be the kind to break rules!” Akko said with a smile.

“It is not breaking the rules,” Diana said. “I just… broke some grills and swam through the inner systems of the pool to make a shortcut and aid a friend in need.”

“So you broke the rules for me?” Akko smiled even more broadly, but then she frowned. “Wait, then we are friends!”

“Oh, sorry. We’re supposed to be rivals, am I wrong?” Diana felt strange. She hadn’t even considered it when she used the word friend. Speaking to Akko made her loosen up a little too much. She instinctively hardened her expression. Akko pressed her lips into a line.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “Guess I jumped to conclusions,” she sighed. Diana opened her mouth to reply and say that they could still be considered friends, probably, but then Akko looked up and hid underwater, swimming away as a purple-haired figure approached. She wore a dark blue one-piece swimsuit not unlike Diana’s.

When she neared Diana, she scoffed. “Where did she go to now?” Sucy asked.

Diana nonchalantly pointed in the opposite direction. Sucy followed it with a grunt.

Then, Diana went underwater again. Why did I do that? Well, she had done it to help Akko, that much was obvious. But the question was deeper than that. What had compelled her to actually do it? Maybe it was the cold way she had treated the girl back at the tower and then at Ursula’s room. She had been feeling bad for that. And she had shown Akko a way into the inner… Oh god, she realized. I showed Akko the way to access the inner system of the pools.

Going up for air, she found people had kind of done a small perimeter around her. She sighed. It was the hair. Blonde and tea-green, the Cavendish Family had been one of the first families in the world to get a mutation out of magic. And the genes modified were strong, for every female in the Cavendish family for the past hundred years had cabbage hair – the way in which they jokingly called their strange hairs.

She went underwater again. Hopefully Akko wouldn’t try anything crazy… Yeah, she wouldn’t count on that. Maybe Diana would have to give her a talk about it. But Akko disliked being lectured, and a lot. Diana knew this, but how could you teach someone about something without explaining it to them? She never understood how the brain of people like Akko worked.

Maybe… Maybe she should try to just ask her to not go in there. As a friend.

Friend.

Were they? They… Hadn’t had much interactions, and a lot of them hadn’t been pleasant. Akko had obviously tried to get closer, but Diana had shut down her every attempt. Either on purpose or not. No, they were not friends, but they could be. Akko was the kind of person who would probably just accept it if Diana asked her, but Diana felt as if there should be more to it. Hannah and Barbara were her only friends currently, and it had taken them some time to get Diana to warm up to them.

But, well, having a potential extra friend… It felt nice.

Diana didn’t even realize it, but as she came out of the water, she was smiling.

Chapter Text

The Dragon’s announcement system started, the voice of the captain resounded everywhere. The ship would be landing in eight hours approximately. No information about which planet it would be, though. Hannah understood why they did it – it was thrilling for it to be a surprise, on the one side. On the other, pilots were supposed to be forbidden from any information about their next destinations – but she didn’t like it. At one point during this race they were bound to end up in the Trashcan, a barren planet that was the dumpster of three different races before the Planetary Alliance had found it had inhabitants. Now it was still a dumpster, but only for controlled garbage.

She shivered. She didn’t want to end in there.

They had just come out of a little game corner in Shopping Town, having taken turns to test out a VR racing game that was supposedly super realistic. Diana said it felt a little stiff. Hannah and Barbara had loved it. Still, as advanced as VR technology could be, it wouldn’t work to replace real Magic simulators. No amount of virtuality could prepare the body like reality. Or magic-simulated reality.

“Well, I’m beat,” Barbara said while eyeing the different fronts of the shops on the narrow street. “Should we go take a nap before arriving?”

“I find the idea appealing,” Diana nodded. She had been in a strange mood since they had gone to the pool, her voice a little too upbeat compared to her normal one, but Hannah didn’t mind it.

“I’m hungry tho,” Hannah confessed.

“We just ate snacks in there,” Barbara frowned.

Hannah shrugged. “Snacks can’t satiate my appetite.”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Don’t you wanna grab some McDonalds and go home?”

“Fine, you go back, I’ll grab something quick and meet you there,” Hannah dismissed them with the hand, walking ahead. “You sure you don’t want anything?” She turned.

“Nah, I’m fine,” Barbara gave her a thumbs up.

“I am quite full, thank you,” Diana nodded to her. Again, Hannah shrugged and walked off. Where did she want to go? As she walked into the main street – as always, busy with all kinds of people walking this way and that – she looked around. The Goodwill? Nah, that felt like Diana’s special place, and she didn’t want to go in there without her. Maybe she should just take Barbara’s tip and grab a burger to go. Yeah, that…

“Oh, hey Hannah,” an annoying voice said from behind. Hannah turned with narrowed eyes to find a group of six girls looking at her with various expressions. “We’re going to dine something, wanna come?” Akko asked.

Hannah would have normally declined, making an excuse to go. But she was going to spend the next week sleeping with all of them, or at least in close proximity. Hell, next week? More like a quarter of a year.

“I… Where are you going?” Hannah asked, trying not to sound too annoyed. She noticed that Amanda was giving her a weird look, so she took a second to glare at her. Diana had explained to her what she had said. Of course, Diana was better than all of them, but she didn’t believe that, and whenever someone said that to her she would always be blue for a while after.

“To McDo-”

“Of course you are,” Hannah sighed. “Yeah, I guess I can go.” She approached the group. She tried to stay as far from Amanda as she could as they walked, but that put her next to Sucy. The girl gave her the creeps. Lotte was fine, she guessed, but calling her ‘plain’ would already be giving her too much of a personality, in Hannah’s mind. She was the girl with the glasses. Actually, Hannah didn’t even remember if she had heard her talk ever.

Well, more than Jasminka and Constanze for sure. Most of the time, Hannah completely forgot about their existence. The machine obsessed girl and the black hole girl. Hannah wondered how she could eat so much and not be rolling. Chubby or not, Hannah would pay to be able to eat as much as her and not die of a heart attack.

“So…” Akko turned around to look at her. Hannah raised an eyebrow. She didn’t feel like chatting, but she had accepted their invitation after all. “How’s it going?”

“Akko, we see each other almost every day,” Hannah said flatly. Akko gave her a nervous smile, which in turn made Hannah roll her eyes.

“Oh, you were at the pool yesterday, right? Or was it earlier today…?” Her brow furrowed as she thought. It had been less than a minute and Hannah was already regretting accepting the invitation.

“Yes, I was. I saw your slipup, when Diana helped you up. Pretty fun,” Hannah smirked, remembering the event. It had been oddly satisfying. “I think everyone saw it in fact.”

Akko nodded, as if what Hannah had said was good, and then turned around again. How strange, Akko usually reacted more aggressively to Hannah’s taunts. Maybe it had gone over her head? That was the more likely scenario. Well, it was for the best, probably.

Suddenly, Hannah noticed the small cube floating above the group. A camera spell? No, it moved on its own. A camera spirit, then. Hannah had a few camera spells in her luggage, but she was no good with spirits. Sure, she could manipulate them well enough, but using one on the daily would’ve been too much of a pain. Plus, who’d care about such a stupid thing anyways?

They reached the fast-food place without any trouble and entered. The mega-corporation didn’t spare any expenses in making sure their place looked as modern as possible. The seats and tables floated in the air thanks to magic. A robot – with a spirit inside, most likely – was taking orders behind the counter, and the smell of burgers that hadn’t changed their flavor in like two hundred years slipped out of the kitchens. It was not as crowded as Hannah expected, but it was crowded nonetheless.

Luckily, with Akko there, they didn’t have to bother with lines. As soon as they approached the counter, the spirit recognized Akko’s facial features and allowed her to make orders instantly. Akko ordered for everyone, though Hannah’s pride was a little hurt, since the robot didn’t even bother looking her way. She was the Second Category gunman, she should’ve had the same privilege.

Five minutes later they were all sitting and eating.

Wait, I was supposed to go back quickly, Hannah realized. Oh, well, I’ll explain later.

The other girls chatted among themselves while eating. Even Jasminka joined in from time to time. However, Amanda only made short comments and kept looking straight at Hannah. The blue team member tried to avoid looking back while she slowly ate her cheeseburger. Diana often asked for salads when coming here and Hannah tried to accompany her, but she was about to spend a whole week on an alien planet living off rations prepared to keep them alive and little more. A cheeseburger wouldn’t kill her. Plus, eating salads when going to McDonalds… Well, it felt silly. At least for her, because for Diana it was what one expected.

When she finished eating the burger she started with the fries. She put one in her mouth and Akko instantly stopped talking about whatever she was talking, looking shocked. “Aren’t you going to put ketchup on those?”

“I’d rather eat them alone,” Hannah said. Akko’s eyes widened. Oh, Hannah realized, she’s one of those.

“You can’t be serious,” Akko said. “These fries are made for eating with-”

“Akko,” Hannah interrupted, “I have this discussion every single time I come here,” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “If Barbara hasn’t ever convinced me, I can assure you, you won’t do it either.”

The brunette seemed almost offended by the comment. She pressed her lips into a line and narrowed her eyes. Barbara had made the same expression the first time Hannah had explained to her that she just liked the taste of the fries alone. What was up with people and their obsession of putting ketchup on these damn things.

“But you’re missing on the best part of the McDonalds experience!” Akko claimed. Hannah wanted to bang her head against the corner of the table. Was she cursed to live this forever?

“Leave her alone,” Amanda suddenly said, earning a surprised look from Hannah. “They’re just some fries.” She had already finished eating. Wait, when did she finish?

“Why are you taking my side?” Hannah asked. Amanda was still giving her that weird look that, before, Hannah had assumed was some kind of disgust. Now it just looked doubtful. Meeting her eyes, Hannah recalled how they shone back in the central tower of the Seelie Court. She had a lot of problems – a lot – but no person could deny that those eyes were beautiful.

“I’m just stating the obvious,” she shrugged. “Even though Akko’s right and ketchup on fries is the best, if you want to miss on it it’s none of our business.” Hannah deadpanned. Well, at least she hadn’t insulted her. Still, Hannah didn’t really want to receive help from her. No after what she had said to… “And,” Amanda interrupted her thoughts, “I wouldn’t mind if you could tell Diana that…” her face contorted into one of almost pain, “I’m sorry.”

Hannah’s jaw dropped. Everyone’s jaw dropped. Except Lotte’s. “Did you just…?” Hannah asked in disbelief.

“Yes, I apologized, fuck off,” Amanda looked away, crossing her arms. “Look, I’m just trying to stop every interaction we have from being too weird, particularly when we’re most likely going to be sleeping together the next week.”

Hannah didn’t answer. That sounded like a reasonable excuse, but her sixth sense had activated. There was something Amanda wasn’t telling them, but pushing for it in such a public environment would lead her nowhere. What she needed was to get some moments alone with the redhead, if she wanted the information. Who knew, maybe she’d finally get the reason of her lies out of her too.

“You should’ve apologized when I told you to,” Akko said to her.

“Or just not apologized at all. You didn’t say anything untrue,” Sucy added. Hannah glared at her, but when Sucy glared back, Hannah couldn’t hold her stare. Damn scary girl, Sucy was. Hannah had been known in previous school as the glare queen. She could usually intimidate whoever with a look. But Sucy didn’t just glare, she threatened with her eyes – or, eye, since one of them was usually hidden behind her hair. When looking at that red ring, Hannah could almost feel the poison running through her body. Sucy could probably kill her with a potion that made it look as if she’d fallen sick and died because of it or something.

“I’ve apologized now, so shut up,” Amanda stood. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she declared and walked in its direction.

Now? No, the bathroom in these places was always full, following her there wouldn’t be of any help to anyone. Hannah watched her go and then focused back on her fries. Only when she had finished them Amanda came back. Everyone was already done, so they stood and left the place.

Hannah yawned. She was tired too, and with her stomach satiated, now there was nothing stopping her mind from realizing it. She started to fall behind the group of girls, ready to excuse herself, when she saw a chance. Amanda had stopped a second to look at a small shop that sold little replicas of old brooms. A bathroom wasn’t good enough, but a place where this much people bustled around them, it was the same as being in private.

She took a deep breath, stood next to her, and asked.

“Are you alright?” Hannah asked, making Amanda turn her head. She was a little too close for comfort.

“What do you want?” Amanda was suspicious, and that was putting it lightly. Why had Hannah suddenly taken an interest in asking after her wellbeing?

Amanda was looking at the model of one of the first hover vehicles created. Not a broom, as it didn’t work on magic. It was a bulky thing that looked more like a car than an actual ship. It was a ionocraft, the little plate in front of it stating that it was the third functional model produced nearing the half of the twenty first century. How far had technology gotten.

Hannah sighed. “Can’t I ask because I… No, of course not. What’s your real reason for apologizing?”

“Yeah, I figured,” Amanda smirked. Hannah was many things, but unpredictable was not one of them. Well, mostly. “Why do you care? I apologized, that’s all that matters.”

“I won’t pass on your apology unless you tell me the truth,” Hannah shrugged and turned around. “You do you.”

Amanda scoffed. God, she hated that girl. She really knew how to pull her strings, make her feel as if she wasn’t in control. Amanda had always been in control before, but this girl… “Look, I just don’t want to be in bad terms with the few human beings I know on this ship,” she confessed. Hannah turned around with a smile.

“I see, but that’s not all, is it?” She walked back, and rested her shoulder on the window. The old man inside the shop looked at them with some annoyance, but Amanda ignored him. “Come on. Do you want to apologize or not?”

Amanda’s eye twitched. “Ok, you know what? Forget it,” she was not going to be manipulated by a little piece of shit who thought too highly of herself. Apologizing wasn’t worth her pride.

“Ok, ok, sorry,” Hannah said with obvious reluctance in her voice, springing into motion when she realized Amanda had no intentions of coming back. “But if something else is bothering you, I think Diana has the right to know.”

Eyeing her, Amanda tried to determine if the girl was being honest or not. She seemed honest enough, but that meant nothing if the girl was a practiced liar. Also, there was the problem that Amanda didn’t really know what she meant. What other reason did she have to apologize? What she had said was what she had first thought of when doing so. “There really isn’t…” Or, wait, maybe there was. “Tell me, what did Diana thought of our race?”

Hannah cocked her head, lips pursed. “Huh? Race?”

“You know, when we were coming back from the Seelie Court to the Dragon that last night,” Amanda explained, moving her hands as if they were brooms and mimicking their movements for some visual representation. Hannah’s expression turned to one of someone who just remembered something not that important.

“Oh, that. I don’t think Diana really considered it a race,” Hannah shrugged.

Amanda froze, frowning. “What? Did she tell you that?”

“Not really. She just didn’t mention it, at all,” Hannah explained, turning. “What does that have to do with this?”

Amanda was in disbelief. Had Diana really not mentioned their race at all? Despite the fact that she had lost against Amanda? “Ah, that must be it. She didn’t mention it because she was ashamed of having lost, is that it?”

“What? No,” Hannah chuckled. “Diana isn’t that pitiful. She was probably just going with the flow, not racing for real”

“Bullshit,” Amanda instantly claimed. “I beat her. You weren’t in the Shooting Star at the time, but I definitely beat her.”

“Did she congratulate you on a good race?” Hannah raised a knowing eyebrow. Her stare, it was the kind of stare Amanda hated. The stare of someone who thought they had already figured out exactly how she worked. It made her grit her teeth as she answered.

“No.”

“Then she didn’t consider it a race. Or you cheated. If not, Diana always congratulates her opponents, whether they win or lose. Though she has only lost a handful of races in her life, and all of them simulated,” the smirk on her face was really pissing Amanda off. “You still haven’t told me what this has to do with what I asked, though.”

“I…” Amanda was at a loss for words, and her voice was strangled in growing anger. “I originally told her that because it pissed me off that she hadn’t acknowledged our race at all. And now you tell me that she actually didn’t even take it seriously?”

“What does it matter?” Hannah asked. “It was just to get the brooms to safety, no big-”

“No!” Amanda snapped. No, of course she wouldn’t understand. Some of the people around them turned their heads towards her, but to each one she answered with a glare. “No. That…” Amanda brought a hand to her temple. “That was probably the only time I’d ever be allowed to pilot a Shooting Star,” she explained, looking down. “That’s why I wanted to race her. And you’re telling me she half-assed it?”

She looked up at Hannah again, who seemed a little taken aback by her outburst. She pressed her lips, then bit them. “I… think so,” she confessed.

Amanda clenched her fist. “Ok, you know what? Scratch the apology, tell her to go fuck herself,” Amanda started walking again, striding past Hannah. That blonde bitch, she would’ve gone and punched her if not for the Dragon’s regulations completely forbidding any kind of violence. Hell, she would’ve done so anyways if not for the fact that tomorrow they’d have the opening ceremony of the IPR and having one of your pilots with a black eye wouldn’t give a good impression.

And, the more she thought about it, the less that mattered to her.

“Wait,” Hannah fell into step besides her. “You can just ask Ursula to let you practice a little with the Blue Star and race her again, don’t you…”

“You think she’d let me?” Amanda didn’t bother looking at her. Right now she was looking for their group, which had gone missing among the crowd. Jasminka’s and Sucy’s hair should’ve been a giveaway, but those were nowhere in sight. “She only let me ride that time because it was an emergency and there wasn’t time to carry them normally.”

“You’re being melodramatic,” Hannah said in a rather petulant tone.

“No, I’m not.” Amanda had to hold back from shouting. “Diana disrespected me.”

Hannah didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Oh, I see. You’re angry because you gave your all, thinking you’d achieved a great victory, but it turns out Diana hadn’t put a real effort.”

Amanda stared daggers at her. “Your little guesses are starting to really annoy me,” she said in a cold voice. When she spoke when that voice, normally, people backed off. Hannah didn’t, instead rolling her eyes, paying the silent threat no heed.

“Am I right or am I right?” She asked. Amanda didn’t answer, instead scoffing. The worst about this situation was, Amanda realized, she was right. And this only made her angrier. She started walking faster. “Hey, don’t run!”

Still walking, Amanda turned. “Fuck off, Hannah. I don’t want to talk to you – or your team – again. You can all go fuck yourselves,” she said in an angry tone, then she turned and walked even faster, not looking back.

She could meet with Jasminka and Constanze back at the room. She didn’t trust herself not to punch someone in this state. And if she talked any more, she might have even…

No, she would never.

Screw Diana. Screw Hannah and screw Barbara too even if she hadn’t done anything right now, she was still a bully and an asshole. Amanda regretted even trying to apologize to the rich bitch. She didn’t need someone like that to socialize with. She’d make some new friends after the week they’d spend on the next planet they were going to, whatever it was.

When she reached her room, fuming, she didn’t say anything to her teammates as she climbed onto bed and decided to sleep.

Chapter Text

Akko felt a strange atmosphere around her as she waited for the door to open. This weird tension in the air stopped her from showing her excitement or complaining too much about the door taking so long.

Amanda was obviously avoiding the blue team. As in, she always stayed as far away as she could from them. Jasminka and Constanze seemed to know why she did this, but when Akko had asked, Amanda had refused to answer. Hadn’t she apologized earlier today? Had Diana refused the apology or something? This didn’t sound like something Diana would do, but maybe she was just really offended or something.

Nobody was wearing helmets, though they still carried them. This planet had a breathable atmosphere, which narrowed down the options, according to Diana. She had claimed she’d figured out which planet it was, given the time it took and this information. She had refused to say it. Akko was ok with this, since she liked surprises.

Akko was about to try and talk to Amanda again when the door started beeping, announcing its imminent opening. She jumped in front of it so fast that she almost hit her head. Finally, the door opened, and she tried to stop her legs from jumping out on their own. She was only half successful.

Outside was… Nothing. It was night time, and there was barely any light outside, thought the stars were visible. There was a moon, but it was very little. Or maybe it was far away, no way of knowing. And the landscape was… ocean. In all directions. They were in a landing dock like Earth’s. She couldn’t even tell if the color was different or not, which was disappointing at best. She stood still as the other girls calmly walked down the boarding dock.

None of them looked like they cared about this massive disappointment.

Akko stepped further from the Dragon and, when she exited the magic field around it, she was hit by a feeling of… Energy. No, wait. Her breathing, it was different. And she felt a little heavier. It felt as if her lungs filled faster than usual. She looked back, where Diana had also exited the field and was nodding with a serious expression.

She noticed Akko looking and pointed upwards. “The atmospheric pressure and oxygen levels in Machina are slightly higher than on Earth,” she explained to Akko. Akko cocked her head. Why did Diana assume she would understand that? Akko expected a roll of the eyes, or some kind of dismissive expression. Instead, the blonde stepped a little closer and explained. “Atmospheric pressure and O2 levels are crucial for our survival. If there is a good balance, then it’s all fine. Too little oxygen would give you hypoxia, too much would poison you.  However, should it be too little pressure, no matter the oxygen, you would still die. Same in the opposite case.”

Akko nodded weakly. She didn’t know what a hippoxia was, but context clues allowed her to figure out it was probably a fancy word for asphyxiating or something like that. Either that or she had completely missed the point of the explanation. “You may grow dizzy with things as they are now, since you are getting more oxygen than normal into your lungs, but it should be fine,” Diana continued. “We’ll grow used to it before the race, probably.”

“Uhm… Thanks,” Akko didn’t really know how to reply. Had Diana always been so nice? She didn’t think so. On the background, Amanda glared, following Diana with her eyes. What had happened between those two? And, what was Constanze doing with that thing in her hands? It looked like a gaming console. Maybe she was playing some games. Akko was tempted to go and check it out, she was in real need of some videogames, particularly with the disappointment that ended up being this planet. Maybe it would be better during the day, assuming the day-night cycle didn’t take like a bajillion days or something.  

Ursula finally appeared, looking at the girls. “Ok, everyone, come here,” she clapped her hands to get their attention. Once gathered – the green and blue teams were using the red one as a barrier between them – Ursula looked at them somewhat stranged, but didn’t make any comments as she looked at a notepad in her hand. “First things first, this planet is Machina, home of the Cyborgs. Too bad we arrived during night, but we did arrive about twelve hours earlier than anticipated. This planet’s cycles are similar to earth, with a full day being of about twenty-seven Earth hours,” she flipped a page. “Oh, hope you have your sunscreen with you, days can get real sunny in here, and temperature will be up to thirty-five degrees Celsius this week, and we’re not even in the hot season. Carry your Witch Hats everywhere, try to avoid a heatstroke.”

Akko had noticed that the ambient was kind of hot. They were wearing their g-suits, but if it wasn’t dangerous, then they would be allowed to just wear normal clothes, right?

She wasn’t a fan of hot days, but their suits were built to keep their bodies at optimal temperatures. Maybe she shouldn’t use casual clothing. Now that they were close, Akko took the chance to look at what Constanze was doing. Her screen showed some numbers and a spiky line that constantly moved. If it was a game, it looked boring.

“To the racers,” that included pilots and gunmen, “we will begin training as soon as we’re settled. You’ve all slept and this planet’s gravity is somewhat stronger than Earth’s, if only by a little. Still, we don’t know what the rules for this iteration of the Inter-Planetary Race will be,” Ursula paused for a while, “even if it should be a hoop-race, first we’ll get you used to the terrain.”

“In the middle of the night?” Amanda asked.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, not in this planet at least,” Ursula explained. “Oh, here’s the bus. Come on, climb in.” She pointed at a broom that was coming out of the ship. It was slightly different from the previous bus they’d been in. This one had weird metal parts below. Maybe it was different because it needed to go through water? “The trip will take a while, so if you have any way of entertaining yourself, please bring it. If not, the staff will put a movie or two, I think.”

After everyone fetched their things, they climbed in. Akko ended up sitting next to Sucy. Curiously enough, Lotte sat next to Barbara and they quietly engaged in conversation about something. Akko’s leg started bouncing in place. Traveling in the Dragon felt nice because you could walk around, but being in here instantly triggered her hyperactivity. At least, until Sucy softly put a hand on her thigh. Akko looked at her teammate with some embarrassment until she noticed the wand pointing at her side. She instantly gulped and nodded, and Sucy retrieved her hand. It was hard, but Akko managed not to get any one of those nervous tics again.

She noticed Diana wearing her helmet, which was in turn connected to her wand. She wished she could do that, but the Rod’s key-wand held no files at all.

She looked at Sucy, wondering if she could start a conversation, but the girl appeared to be already asleep.

Akko sighed. This was going to be a long trip.

Akko didn’t know how much time had passed. At least a couple hours. But after that couple of hours, she was finally able to see something. In the distance, in the middle of the dark night – where shadows of strange shapes dotted the starlit landscape – she saw a light. At first she dismissed it, but after just some time she was finally able to confirm it had to be artificial. And huge. How far was it? No way of telling, but she started to get impatient at the prospect of getting the hell out of the vehicle.

She watched intently as the light approached. Or, the lights. The many, many lights.

Or, maybe, the many, many buildings. What Akko was looking at was like straight out of science fiction. In a city that glowed in lights of all colors – neon seemed to be a theme all around – skyscrapers raised like beams of whiteness among the smaller but colorful buildings. It didn’t take long before Akko noticed a crazy amount of those lights moving. Flying vehicles. As they drew closer, she noticed that they were going down a hill of some kind.

The city seemed to be like human ones. The center of it was where most skyscrapers stood, while the outer parts of it had more humble buildings, where not everything glowed neon. Akko was so entranced by the colors that she didn’t even notice as they entered the outer parts of the city. Here, houses were about six meters tall and the lighting was a plain electric white. There was a crowd of cyborgs, ranging from three to five meters tall, neither cheering nor booing, but looking with interest. Most cyborgs had a darker skin, probably from the amount of sunlight they received, but the impressive parts were their mechanic – or cybernetic – ones. Some had pieces where big gears were visible, made with metals like bronze and where everything appeared to have been taken out of the inside of a clock. Others – the minority, at least in this part of the city – had parts that looked rather human – or, well, cyborg – but they didn’t bother trying to paint them like their skins or, well, they didn’t paint them at all. The metal glistened in the lights. Many of them, in general, had extra arms. Most remained at two, but it wasn’t uncommon to see three and four-armed cyborgs. Some had their faces looking robotic too. Sometimes just an eye or a jaw, others the entire head looked robotic, however that worked. Some eyes glowed, which kind of intimidated Akko.

“Holy shit,” Amanda said. “Are those steampunk cyborgs?”

“Something like that. The lower classes here can’t afford the more scientifically advanced appendages,” Ursula explained. “But every cyborg has a right to their limbs, so the government gave them those. Functional, but often way less useful than the ones you might seem from the rich.”

“Ah, of course, give the poor the lesser technology so that they remain poor, isn’t that right?” Amanda hissed. She was in a bad mood.

No one replied to her. Akko didn’t really understand much about social politics. Or politics at all. But she could see what Amanda meant. If you gave the poor people the inferior tech, then how would they ever compete against the rich with their high tier ones?

Though, that was only Ursula’s data. Maybe she’d need to talk to some of the inhabitants of the world to learn more. Apparently, despite their early arrival, word had spread about it, because the streets of the city – completely paved – were lined with curious spectators.

And, Akko noticed, most of their houses were built with wood. She found this so interesting because she had assumed they were, well, like human buildings. Particularly as they approached the center of the city, where buildings were taller and taller with each passing intersection. Yet, despite the paint, it was obvious that most of these structures were wooden. Could one build skyscrapers out of wood? Akko doubted it, but this was an alien planet, after all.

Right as she was thinking of that, Ursula started speaking. “Here in Machina they have a particularly strong kind of wood that we’ve named Diamond Wood,” Ursula said. “It’s not nearly as strong as Diamond, of course, but the cyborgs use it a lot for buildings, as you may have noticed. This city particularly, called…” She was reading something out of a notebook. She tried to pronounce the name, but it was a jumble of noises that no one in the bus understood. “Well, let’s just call it Wood City, prides itself in their little waste of resources.”

“Wood City? Really?” Amanda raised an eyebrow, and though it was hard to see, Akko was sure Ursula’s face had gotten a little red.

“Little? Isn’t this entire thing built of wood? I’d say that’s a waste,” Barbara commented.

“Ah, of course, to us it might. But Cyborgs find much more value in stone and metals. Particularly metals, since their entire lives depend on it,” Ursula explained. “So when the founder of Wood City proposed to make an entire city out of pure wood, cyborgs really liked the idea.”

“Don’t they need trees to, like, keep breathing?” Hannah asked with some skepticism.

Ursula smiled. “This planet has double the amount of plant life Earth has,” she explained. “Their oceans are far smaller, and they don’t have deserts. Plus, they don’t use the stuff for much. Even building entire cities out of it, they use it far less than us,” she explained. “But that’s not all. What little ocean they have, it’s infested with coral.”

She remained silent for a while. Akko looked around, but only Amanda seemed as confused as her.

“So, coral is important because…?” Akko asked.

“Coral and algae are a really important part of the oxygen producing, at least on earth, and I suspect it is so here too,” Diana had removed her helmet at some point and explained. “So, in that way, this planet works like earth.”

Akko pouted. “Wait, so we’re basically in another Earth? That’s boring,” she complained. Ursula looked at her with a kind smile, and was about to say something when Diana interrupted.

“You will be surprised, then,” she said. Ursula nodded, and no-one said anything else. Akko looked out the window, but there wasn’t a single plant in sight. Not even grass.

There were, however, a lot of taller buildings than the ones before. The windows were also big, which made sense given who built them. Well, not only that, even the wood planks – when visible – were probably twice as wide as Akko. The architecture of the city reminded Akko of old British mansion, with tall gable roofs and square windows. Most buildings were painted white, probably to reflect better the neon lights on them. Many windows were bay or bow windows and many others led into narrow balconies that were often decorated with bits of hanging metal, and while Akko watched a few of those, she noticed that some of the cyborgs in them lacked arms or legs, but they didn’t seem bothered by it, and the metallic glimmers on the places where they should be told her that they had probably removed them by themselves.

What from the distance had looked like a cyberpunk city now looked like a ‘what if sixteenth century british architecture was used to build a city.’ And then someone threw lots of neon lights in there because they could. The style remained consistent for at least another fifteen minutes, in which the buildings got progressively taller and more illuminated. However, then it started to shift. Elegance gave way to utility, and what had looked like a strange amalgam of mansion and apartment buildings was now indistinguishable from normal human buildings – proportions aside. Still, it looked strange. It was probably just Akko’s brain trying to process the difference of what she had expected from what she actually got, but the city was too evenly illuminated. There were street lamps that were completely circular, lighting both upwards and downwards, and some even changed colors.

Up, the amount of flying vehicles was amazing. These varied wildly in designs, from circular Appali-like constructs to sharp, long and fast ones that appeared and disappeared in a flash. The Cyborgs lining the streets as they passed had started to become crowds and Akko couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed at their lack of enthusiasm. They looked the Human caravan as if they’d seen it before. They’d probably had, at least with those teams arriving before Earth.

“If there’s a fire,” Amanda said, “won’t the city burn to the ground?”

“Well,” Diana started. “Diam-”

“I asked Ursula, not you,” Amanda interrupted, coldly. Diana paused, pressing her lips and not saying anything. Barbara and Hannah stared daggers at the redhead, who didn’t even bother looking at them.

“Diamond Wood is rather resistant to fire. Not that it won’t burn, but it’s not as dangerous as normal wood would be,” Ursula explained somewhat awkwardly. She had obviously noticed the tension between the teenagers too. Akko wished she would do something about it. Mostly because Akko herself had no idea of how to fix it, but she wanted to.

After a while, Akko noticed that the style changed again. Buildings started having wider and wider windows, often with polarized glass in them, and their paint stopped being white but started being metallic. At first she mistook the paint for actual metal, but she happened to see a crew of cyborgs hanging on the outside of a building, painting it. The natural color of the Diamond Wood was light beige.

And finally, they came to a halt.

They stopped in front of a skyscraper. Not the tallest one, they weren’t quite yet to what Akko assumed to be the metropolitan area of the city. The walls were painted in a dark metallic tone, and the windows had to occupy at least two thirds of the entire surface of the building. No balconies. Akko would’ve much preferred the buildings from before. Those looked cozier.

When they came out of the vehicle, a cyborg was waiting for them. Both of her arms – of the high-tech kind – were silvery, but Akko wasn’t sure which metal it was. She was no expert. The tall woman – did you call a female cyborg a woman? Did you call a male one a man? – had a skin darker than most, and one of her eyes was completely mechanized. The entire section from the right eye socket to the right ear was metallic, and a metallic eye globe moved in sync with the biological one. Both eyes were green, but the mechanic one glowed. She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt along with some sandals.

The humans put on their translation devices – they were designed to be worn with or without helmets – and the cyborg lady spoke. “Welcome, ladies,” she said. Akko looked around. Truly enough, not a single human man was around, the bus driver notwithstanding. Where was the Dragon’s crew?

“Akko!” Lotte exclaimed into her ear. Akko stopped being distracted and noticed the hand the lady had extended to her. She was twice as tall as Akko. Actually, probably more than twice and with proportions to match. Akko took the hand with some fear. Well, ‘took’ is an overstatement, she just allowed her hand to be completely engulfed in the lady’s, who smiled at her. Akko couldn’t suppress a small gasp at the fact that she had black teeth. No one had mentioned that before! Why were they like that?

The lady proceeded to shake everyone’s hands, and Akko was surprised by her delicate touch. It was easy to assume they would all be brutes, but as Akko saw her figure better, she noticed that, should she have human size, she would be considered a perfectly standard woman. Her matte black hair was tied at shoulder length and left to hang. Akko followed the tail that fell all the way to the woman’s knees. Only then she noticed that one of the woman’s legs was also robotic.

“Follow me,” she said after finishing greeting everyone. The girls followed, and the inside of a building made Akko open her mouth in awe. It kind of looked like a hotel lobby, but if someone wanted to make a workshop in it. There were couches, but all of them had stains of what looked like oil. The floor was bare stone, and the counter was full of different little pieces of machinery or electronic and cables.

To no one’s surprise, everything was cyborg-sized, which made Akko feel like if she had shrunk.

“My name is Memory,” the lady said. Akko cocked her head. Why did she have a name in… Oh. She mentally face-palmed. Her name probably meant ‘memory’ in the cyborg language and the translation device had picked it up and translated it. “I’ll be your guide during your stay. Please, let me show you your rooms.”

She guided them to the back of the lobby. There was no-one else in the room, not even someone behind the counter. There, an elevator waited. Akko didn’t know if she should be surprised or not. Well, not everything could be built out of woo-

The elevator was wood too, and it had been painted like the buildings. However, it moved totally like a human one. Better, even. Memory didn’t need to press any buttons, she just said something Akko didn’t quite get and the elevator started moving. As they climbed, Akko suddenly became aware that everyone got into the elevator. The lady, the nine teenagers and Ursula. Yeah, the elevator was tall, and speaking of that, it was taking its sweet time. The building had looked to be twenty stories high from the ground, but then again, it was a cyborg building, so with each floor being twice as tall as a normal human one… Damn. Akko was feeling more and more like a child every second.

When the door finally opened, they were greeted with a red-carpeted hallway that in symmetric intervals led into a lot of smaller red carpeted hallways. The doors were also massive, with no handles. They had electronic locks. The locks had normal numbers. This wasn’t surprising, since most sentient races in the alliance used decimal numeric systems. After some deliberation, everyone had just accepted to use the Human numbers to write them, because if humans excelled at something that was being stubborn.

Akko was probably the most guilty of all of them.

After a long walk – these corridors looked shorter than they really were – they reached the end of the corridor. Here, there were four doors painted with Earth’s colors. Memory pointed at the final right one. “This is where you’ll be staying,” she said kindly. The translation device picked up the cyborg language way better than the faerie one, so it actually sounded rather natural, except for the little bit of robotic reverberation. Wait, maybe it actually fit the cyborgs…

“Come on girls, get in,” Ursula said. Memory had opened the door for them. It was probably a really heavy door. Akko wondered if she would even be able to open it alone.

“Ehm, everyone into the same room?” Hannah asked.

Ursula nodded. “This time we’re bringing a lot more of us, and these rooms are rather spacious. You’ll be sharing one, though the sleeping arrangements aren’t decided yet. Just remember, this week we’ll have a lot of things to do, not only training. That goes for you all too,” Ursula looked at the non-racer teenagers. “So we’ll have a tight schedule, unlike what happened in Sídhe.”

Everyone nodded, though there was some electricity in the air as Amanda made sure to let her opinion of this known with a glare at the blue team. Diana seemed not to notice, but Akko doubted that was the case. It was pretty hard to miss when, whenever she wasn’t looking around, Amanda was somehow being passive-aggressive towards her.

They entered the room, and Akko was relieved to see that it had human-sized furniture. The ceiling was still absurdly high, so the room felt empty, even if it wasn’t. This, however, allowed for the first thing to catch Akko’s attention: The sphere.

The room was enormous, and at the end, there was a giant sphere, metallic. Akko didn’t pay attention as Memory explained some things about the room. She was drawn to the sphere, her curiosity getting the better of her. It was an absolutely perfect ball. Not a single bump or scratch, just a smooth metallic sphere. It was floating a few inches from the floor, Akko noticed.

She placed a hand on it.

Or, in it. The surface of the sphere was semi-solid, and her hand sunk in it. For a second she feared it would be something like mercury. Mercury was supposed to be very poisonous. But then, this wasn’t liquid, it felt more like… gel. She tried to get her hand out of the thing, but she couldn’t.

And was sucked in.

Diana watched, in a mixture of horror and amusement, as Akko disappeared inside the ball. “Excuse me, Miss Memory?” she called to the cyborg – with some panic slipping into her voice –, who was now explaining how the refrigeration system worked. While similar to earth, Machina’s animal and plant life was extremely toxic to humans, due to some elements in the soil of the planet. Actually, eating this life is what allowed the Cyborg race to adapt so quickly to mechanical parts, whereas humans still to this day and age hadn’t managed to find a way of making prosthesis as permanent as Cyborg ones were – even with the data of how the aliens did theirs.

Memory turned, focusing her eyes on Diana. Her glowing neon green eye made Diana feel as if she was analyzing her. “What is it, miss Cavendish?”

Surprised at hearing her name, Diana paused for a second. But, then again, of course she would know, so she got out of her confusion quickly. “Our other pilot was swallowed by that giant sphere,” Diana pointed. The ball was now completely still.

Memory laughed. “Oh, she’s an impatient girl, is she not?” She said. “Worry not, she is perfectly fine. That sphere is a-” The name wasn’t translated, and what she said was nothing but gibberish to Diana’s ears. “It would take too long to explain, but in short, it’s a muscle relaxant,” she explained. “It’s perfectly compatible with humans, I assure you.”

“Oh,” Diana relaxed visibly, looking at the sphere. For a second she had believed Akko had managed to get herself killed due to her impatience. “Could I know what is it made of?”

“Sure. It’s an alloy of-” again, the names of the metals she mentioned were nothing but gibberish to Diana. “I don’t believe you have that particular variety of metal on your planet, do you?”

Diana shook her head. Discovering some of these alien planets had opened up many doors to humans by letting them know of materials outside of the periodic table. It was still unclear why mankind had never managed to find them or build them in a laboratory, even after a hundred years. Truth was, inter-planetary commerce wasn’t something common. Every race feared the others would somehow use their own tech against them – and it was a well founded fear. In the early days of the alliance, far before Earth joined, the sibling race of the Shapeshifters – nowadays just called ‘the white menace’ by humans – had taken their knowledge and used it to try to conquer all other planets. Diana wished to study it, but there wasn’t much information available on Earth about it.

“So, how’s she going to come out?” Amanda asked.

“Once the metal synchronizes with her, meaning, once the tension in her muscles is gone, she’ll be slowly released. You’ll see one of her body parts – probably the legs – popping out of the sphere and then you’ll be able to pull her out.”

“And if there’s no one?” Lotte asked, worried.

“Then she’ll probably hit her head.”

Everyone stared at Memory, but she wasn’t joking. “How long will it take?” Asked Ursula.

“A few hours at most,” Memory said. Ursula bit her lip.

“Isn’t there a way of pulling her out?”

“You’ll probably just get swallowed up too.”

Ursula bit her lip with more strength. Diana sighed. Not five minutes into their new room and she had already managed to mess up Ursula’s schedule. That had to be a talent of some kind. If not because this was a completely alien planet, Diana would’ve assumed Akko did that on purpose.

Memory moved on to keep explaining how the room worked. The bathroom had been re-sized too, but now the bath was more of a communal one. And, of course, cyborgs didn’t use hot water to take baths, just natural one. Diana heard Hannah and Barbara almost fainting at the information, but there was nothing they could do about this particular fact. Out of all the differences cyborgs had to humans, this actually was one that interested Diana the most. Did they develop that sphere metal thing because they were used to showering with cold water? Hot water probably messed up with their circuits, but it was a common way of relaxing.

She was probably jumping to conclusions, but exploring these ideas was exciting. She had never heard about those metallic spheres. Were they, maybe, a recent creation? It was compatible with humans, sure, but it was obviously sized for cyborgs. So many possibilities, so many questions. She’d have to ask Memory or someone else, but as of now, doing so would feel out of place. Or, well, it would eventually, since once Diana started asking she would probably not stop until she knew everything about this planet.

“Well, that should be all. I hope you enjoy your stay. If you need anything, just remember to use the button under that table,” she pointed at the center of the room, where a wide table sat. In the end opposite to the sphere there were three beds. They had been cut so that humans could climb onto them comfortably, but, well, they were still cyborg sized. They would sleep on the wide, instead of the long, because it made the most sense.

“Thank you,” Ursula said, and she followed as the cyborg went and closed the door. Ursula turned to them with a defeated expression. “Akko is gone for a few hours,” she stated, “so Diana and Hannah will start practice on their own. The rest of you, be here and take care of the luggage. The Dragon’s crew should be arriving soon. And Amanda, as soon as Akko comes out of there, if she isn’t covered in that thing, please contact me.”After that, she exited the room.

Amanda nodded, but she didn’t do it with conviction. Diana was tempted to try and talk to her, but she stopped herself. The redhead was mad with her, and maybe she had a reason to be. It was true, Diana hadn’t taken their ‘race’ seriously, to the point that she had actually kind of forgotten about it. Diana understood her frustration, but after what Amanda had said, she was not in the mood to try and work things out. In the end, if Amanda wanted to prove she was better than Diana, she would have to wait.

“Careful,” Amanda said on the low, “Diana might not take the training seriously, since she’s so good.”

Ursula wasn’t even in the room, so it was obvious who this was directed to. Hannah took a step towards her, as if ready to start a fight.

“Let’s go, Hannah,” Diana said. Hannah turned with surprise, looked at her and followed as Diana strode out of the room – the door was surprisingly easy to open, despite the uncomfortable handle – not before making sure to shoot an angry look at Amanda one last time.

Amanda watched the two blue team members go without blinking.

To her side, Constanze grunted and set off to explore the room in more detail. She would probably look for any kind of mechanisms she wasn’t familiar with and tinker with them. It was what she had done the first time Amanda showed her the Broom Graveyard back at Luna Nova. She had gone nuts. Amanda suspected most of her parts she stole from there, but she didn’t know how. The tiny girl was real talented with machines. She probably would’ve brought all of her little robots if not because she wasn’t allowed. Stanbots, she called them. Worked on magic, they had basically become her familiars. Literally, too. She had fine-tuned the spirits inside them so much that Amanda suspected they would have been called familiars by any expert.

Jasminka instantly went to the refrigerator, but it was empty. She seemed incredibly disappointed. Luckily she had brought a handbag full of snacks. What surprised Amanda the most was how Lotte brought out her wand to read something and she instantly hit off a conversation with Barbara. Traitor, she thought. Anyone fraternizing with the blue team was her enemy. Of the remaining people she could hang out with, only Sucy was available. She was waiting with a grumpy expression for her luggage to arrive. 

Amanda drifted closer to the creepy girl. “Don’t come to me just because you have nothing better to do,” Sucy instantly said.

Amanda gave her a flat look. “Hey, maybe I want to talk to you for real,” she protested. Sucy raised an eyebrow – well, maybe she was raising both, no way of knowing – at her, and Amanda didn’t say more. No, she was totally right. “Still… How you liking the trip so far?”

“Do you want the polite answer or the honest one?”

“Honest, of course,” Amanda said with a smile.

“Well, I’m tired. I don’t like trips, I like being in control of my surroundings – well, not that I was in control with Akko around, but you understand me – and the constant bitching between you and Hannah is driving me nuts,” Sucy said with a tone full of venom, particularly that last part.

Amanda crossed her arms. “Not my fault the entire blue team is full of stuck up bitches,” she said with a rather childish tone.

“You know what is your fault? That we’re here together in the first place,” Sucy said with even more venom. Amanda was taken aback by her words. “And don’t fool yourself, Akko isn’t guilty here. She’s just an idiot. You brought us into this and now you’re acting like an immature prick just because you couldn’t win some race? Well boohoo, why don’t you at least try to be amiable to the girls who actually won their spot here?” her voice had turned into almost a growl. “I don’t like them any better than you, but I’m not making our entire group awkward for some stupid rivalry.”

Amanda was left with her mouth open, words unable to form. That came out of nowhere, she thought with some annoyance. What had she done to Sucy, or at least Sucy particularly, that made her snap like that? I know, Amanda looked down, unable to say it.

She stood and went to the bathroom, which was near the entrance door. The bathtub looked more like a roman bath than anything, and the toilet was simply a bowl-looking thing. Without the tank in the back, it felt wrong. Not that she would use it right now, anyways.

The mirror was enormous, but it had been lowered so that it was in line with the sink. Amanda looked herself in it. Her bags had gotten worse, despite her having sleeping relatively well the last couple of days. They were now starting to darken. The mirror on the ship had been so uncomfortable to use that she had just decided to not use it, so this was the first time she got a good look at herself in four days.

She noticed that she was still frowning. She had been basically scowling for the past six hours without pause, so it made sense. Man, what an asshole, she thought, though she wasn’t sure who she was referring to. Sucy? Diana? Hannah? Herself?

Despite not using it, she remained in the bathroom for a while. What Sucy had said felt like if a bucket of cold water had been dropped on her. She sat on the edge of the tub and let her mind wander.

Hannah could feel her chest burning with frustration. “I mean,” she was saying to Diana, “it’s her fault, not yours,” she sounded angry. She knew she sounded angry, she was angry.

“Hannah, you’ve been talking nonstop about this since yesterday,” Diana said. “Part of the fault is still mine,” she explained for the tenth time.

“No it’s not! You had just been nearly killed like five times during the race that same day! She couldn’t expect you to give it your all again!” Hannah explained. Diana sighed, understanding that arguing with an angry Hannah wouldn’t be productive. The door of the elevator opened and they walked through the building’s lobby – horribly decorated, in Hannah’s opinion – to come out. Outside they found the Shooting Star already waiting for them. Hannah put on her helmet and got ready as Diana climbed in the broom. The teacher appeared from around the corner wearing her Luna Nova uniform – if slightly darker than the normal ones – and a helmet Hannah didn’t recognize. The normal ones looked like motorcycle helmets, but with a larger visor and some lines here and there, where the materials on the outer layer overlapped with each other. Ursula’s, however, looked like if she had a polarized fishbowl on her head. All glass.

“Are you ready?” Her voice was muffled by the thing. Both Hannah and Diana stared at her wordless. They didn’t move. Hannah wondered if maybe Ursula had gone crazy for some reason. “Oh, the helmet?” She took it off – it popped softly – and stared at them. Her face was slightly blushed. “They gave it to me. Thought I’d give it a try. Is it too ridiculous?”

Hannah nodded weakly. Diana didn’t answer, but her face as she looked down showed the hints of a smile.

“Well, it’s not that bad,” Hannah lied. It was awful. “Just… weird.”

Ursula sighed, putting it in the back of her little broom-cycle and taking out the normal one. “That one doesn’t have a radio, so I’ll just keep it as a souvenir, I guess,” she said with obvious disappointment in her voice. Her reactions made her look slightly like Akko. Well, like a more mature version of her. Akko would’ve probably just kept the thing on until she asphyxiated herself or something.

Without more delays, Hannah entered the broom’s turret and they started moving through the city. They didn’t go to the outside of the city, however. They moved towards the center of it. The tall metallic buildings glowing with neon lights with absurd proportions made Hannah feel as if she was in stupid toy city. Cyborgs had the aesthetic sense of a blind man, apparently.

“Seriously though, aren’t you angry with Amanda?” Hannah asked for the trillionth time.

“I’ve told you, I am,” Diana said. “But not for what she said yesterday.”

“But-”

“Hannah,” Diana sighed. “You’ve been talking nonstop about this. I would greatly appreciate it if you would just let it go. I would rather hear you talk about Andrew again than this.”

Hannah blushed. Had she really been talking so much about it? It was just so… infuriating! It was as if Amanda was the only thing she could think about. How could someone be so annoying? Stupid pride, stupid determination. Diana had done nothing wrong, how could she have said what she did? Sure, Hannah was often a little too passionate about her anger, but this was completely justified!

She tried to think about Andrew, but she was just too mad for even that.

Instead, she tried to focus on the systems. She did a routine checkup. Nothing wrong. Well, she didn’t know what she expected. Maybe she was just too bored.

“Wanna try the sphere thingy when we get back?” She asked, trying to not think about Amanda.

“I do find it intriguing,” Diana said. “How can a metal ‘synchronize’ with a human? And what even are those metals? I don’t know if I’d want to go in it, but I am interested in experiencing the effects it could have in my body.

“Wonder if it’s like a massage. Or even better, probably,” Hannah said.

Diana didn’t answer. It had been a shallow conversation, but in all honesty, she didn’t know what she should say. She usually talked with Barbara and Diana just offered comments at random times.

She didn’t have to think of anything else, though, because they quickly reached their destination. Hannah instantly recognized the prepared street from recordings of previous IPRs. The barricade, the heavily armed cyborg guards, the wide and absolutely empty street beyond the barricade… This was the ‘racing circuit’ the Cyborg used. It had probably changed somewhat in the past twenty years, but Hannah doubted it would be much of a change.

They approached the barricade and the guards didn’t even bother asking for any kind of identification. It was fairly obvious from the size of their ships that they were humans.

As soon as they stepped into the track, something flashed by at an incredible speed. Something completely black. Hannah instinctively aimed at it, but from behind she could see nothing but a giant wall of crimson red fire. Only broken by a little black Or, maybe it wasn’t fire?

“Seems like we aren’t the first ones here,” Ursula commented. Hannah looked around the street. This was the longest section of the track. The starting line was at the far right of it, and they would be going to the left in a straight line before entering the city proper with its many corners. Tall buildings lined the street, making it feel a little cramped, unlike Sídhe’s open spaces. Here, neon lights were lighted with blue, purple and red, always in that order. Machina’s team colors.

“Who were those?” Hannah asked. “I don’t recall any team with those kinds of engines,” a lot of the best racers had ships without engines. Daemons, Armor, Shapeshifters and Medusas were the more obvious, though the Faerie also lacked those. Cyborgs used engines, but theirs were special. Appali also used them, though the hadn’t been to a race in ages.

“I believe they were Daemons. No other race should’ve landed here yet,” Ursula explained, though she sounded unsure. “Maybe it’s a new kind of Cyborg ship,” she obviously didn’t really believe those were daemons. They were much more practiced with Inferno than humans were with Magic, and their ships functioned without the need of engines – somehow.

“The ship was too small to be from Machina,” Diana said. “Unless they have a child piloting it,” she obviously didn’t believe this to be the case, if her voice was anything to go by.

Then, almost in unison, all of them hummed to themselves, which was transmitted through the communicators. Hannah had noticed before, but there was a small crowd of Cyborgs outside the barricade trying to get a view of what was going on in here. And, if she looked up, she noticed shadows behind the glasses – most of them polarized. Wait, she realized, they don’t have damn curtains? What a strange society. Now that she thought about it, the mansion-buildings in the outer parts of the city lacked shutters, too.

“Maybe we should wait until they’re finished and then get in. Wouldn’t want to have an accident,” Ursula suggested. Diana agreed with the idea.

Hannah took the chance to ask. “Hey, Diana, do these people have something against blocking their windows or something?” she asked.

Diana took a few moments to ask. “I don’t really know,” she said. “While I’ve studied a little on the planet, not much information on the society was available back home.”

Not even Diana knew, then? Damn, that was a bad signal. If she didn’t know, then no one she knew would…

“It’s religious,” Ursula said.

“Huh?” Hannah asked. She had forgotten to change to the private channel with Diana for her question.

“It’s religious. To the cyborgs, sunlight is sacred. That’s why the more rich they are, the wider their windows. The more sunlight that enters their houses, the better,” she explained. “They believe their sun – which they call Provider, or at least that’s how we would translate it – is a sentient being that favors those who bathe in his light the most. It’s an interesting religion.”

Hannah was a little surprised by this. Both for the information and the fact that Ursula knew it. “Huh. So, what about the countless of other stars in the universe?” She asked.

Ursula turned to look at the guns and their cameras from her broom-cycle. “It’s a little complicated. Every single star in the sky is sentient and has a personality. Actually, their knowledge on astronomy is quite greater than mankind’s. The human scientists living in this planet are, sadly, on the other hemisphere right now, but I believe they will come to us later this week. You can probably ask them about Cyborg culture and they’ll be able to give you more complete answers.”

“But not all cyborgs have this belief, do they?” Diana asked.

“Of course not,” Ursula was quick to answer. “But it is the most widespread religion across the world. They’re all connected through the internet, you see. Or, well, their version of it.”

“Wait,” Diana sounded interested. “They have it inside their heads?”

“Basically.”

Diana didn’t say anything, but Hannah could almost hear her mind working. To Hannah that was kind of a weird concept. Having the internet inside your head? Sounded awful. The internet was one percent useful stuff, ninety-nine percent a cesspool of bad memes, edgelords who thought themselves better than anyone else and lots of shitposting. And then it was another hundred percent of cats and porn. With overlapping between the two, of course.

“How long is the circuit, again?” Hannah asked. With the tight turns due to the layout of the streets, no ship could go particularly fast. Breaking a wall or two was acceptable, but doing it too much could get you disqualified. She had asked wondering just how much it would take for the mysterious racer to appear. From what she recalled, the race could take up to fifteen minutes. But if one was practicing and not having to worry about others, it could probably be less.

“I don’t know the exact data, but it does go around the entire center of the city. Smaller than the Seelie Court, but it makes up with its restrictive layout,” Ursula explained. “While piloting, Diana, I suggest you always keep your feet on the gear down pedal. I’ve noted you’re the kind of pilot to go for moves that don’t hinder their speed too much, and it works on open spaces, but here, a good timed stop will do you much better than a well placed burst of speed. Remember, this won’t be a one-on-one,” that had been a little unnecessary. They didn’t need to be reminded of the fact that they’d be racing another nine ships at once. It was daunting enough as it was. “And Hannah, you’ll need to be keener. You can’t warn Diana the moment you see an attack coming, you need to learn to predict them, ok?”

“Yes,” Hannah felt a little weird. Was Ursula coaching them?

“If I may ask,” Diana said, “why is it that you decided to start teaching us now?”

Basically the same Hannah had thought. Ursula smiled, curiously enough. “I wanted to see how you performed without my interference. I needed to get a hang of how you flied and worked together,” she explained. “And, while you’re remarkable, and probably better than many of the pro-racers I know back on Earth, you’re far from perfect.”

Diana didn’t say anything else. Hannah found this strange. Usually, Diana would’ve asked either for more advice or shrugged off the praise as exaggeration. What was she thinking about? Hard to tell.

“It would also be best if you girls could try to fix your relationship with the green team,” Ursula said. Hannah frowned instantly. “I know teenagers can be a little… emotional, but these kinds of things can be as much of a burden as lack of sleep or some injury.”

“We’ll do it,” Diana said before Hannah had the chance to tell Ursula to mind her own business. Diana’s approach had probably been the correct one, but all Hannah knew was that she wouldn’t do it.

She kept the thought to herself, though. Great, now she was in a bad mood again.

The mysterious ship appeared again. “Wait, what-” Hannah looked at the clock: It had barely been four minutes, “the hell?”

“That was certainly fast,” Diana commented. And, as the mysterious ship approached more, Hannah frowned. It was vaguely triangular in shape, but with a couple of smooth indents on the sides, and it lacked wings. It was also rather flat looking, and while Hannah had already noticed, it had a couple of massive engines behind, leaving some space between them. Around its bodywork it had red glass spheres.

Hannah felt her stomach sinking. It was bigger, and proportionally longer, not to mention black and red as opposed to white and green, but that sure looked like…

“The Shiny Rod,” Ursula was the first one to voice it.

Chapter Text

Ursula felt a chill running down her spine. Impossible, she thought as she recognized the shape of the black ship.

The ship came to a stop just a few meters from there. As it shut off, three little wheels deployed, and the ship went down. “Well, it’s obviously just a cheap knockoff,” Hannah commented. “It can’t float permanently like the real one.”

Ursula sighed with relief. Maybe they had just copied the design for some reason. Yes, of course no one could actually emulate the real- “The wheels,” Diana pointed out, “are too small to actually be able to hold it up. It may not be exactly like the Shiny Rod, but…”

With dread, Ursula had to admit she was right. They were too thin and small. Unless this black Shiny Rod was somehow absurdly light, it had managed to achieve at least partially the same as the original model. And that was a big problem. The cockpit of this ship – polarized, of course. Ursula felt like she had barely seen any non-polarized glass since she’d arrived at the city – opened, showing the pilot inside.

A bipedal, humanoid creature that climbed out of the cockpit with energy. Its skin was almost completely black, monotony only broken by red dots at the tips of its many horn-like protrusions all around its body. Well, not ‘it’: ‘Him’, or at least that’s what the race had wanted humans to call them like, probably because they had come to associate humanity’s males with ‘strength’. A Daemon, and a mean looking one at that. Daemons didn’t have sexual dimorphism, so their entire race was completely made of basically sexless beings. He didn’t have a single strand of hair, but his eyes were electric blue. Entirely electric blue. No iris, no pupil. And they were also completely round, unlike the more elongated eyes from humans. He had a nose, but his mouth had no visible lips, and Ursula knew for a fact it would open in another perfect circle, showing rings of teeth inside that would completely tear apart anything that entered in it. He had only three fingers on each hand, in a triangle formation – not unlike the claw of a crane – and both arms and legs were a little too long for human standards, opposing a proportionally smaller head. He also had a horn in the middle of the forehead. Not two Daemons had the same shape and amount of protrusions, kind of like fingerprints to humans, but Ursula knew it was unusual for them to have any on their heads. He wore no clothes, but he lacked any kind of obvious genitals.

“Humans,” he said as he jumped off his knockoff Shiny Rod, “I greet you.”

The translation device worked rather well with daemon language, but it made a horrible job at conveying how… grind-ish his voice sounded. Like fingernails scraping blackboards. Ursula stood, stepping closer to him. She extended her hand. He looked at it for a second with his pure blue eyes and, after some deliberation, took it. The shake took longer than Ursula expected or wanted. His hand felt rather cold to the touch. “Hello. I’m Ursula. What’s your name?”

“I’m Horn,” he said. Again, as with the lady cyborg earlier, the translation device had probably picked up the meaning of the word. “Pleasure to meet you, Ursula.”

Ursula was taken aback by the fact that Horn had managed to pronounce the name in his horrible, chilling voice.

She tried to get over it. While many people feared the Daemon, mostly because of their appearance, they weren’t more aggressive than humanity. Sure, they’d had their wars and one of their teams in a previous race had been a little more violent than needed, but then again, Earth’s fourth team had almost killed another competitor by finding a loophole in the rules – they shot the support of the ship’s engine, not the engine itself.

True humanity right there.

“Same for you, Horn,” She hoped the translation device didn’t modify his name. When a race had many words for a single thing, the translations could get a little crazy. In the past, Ursula had been called “carriage” more than once. Humans often called her that as an insult nowadays, probably because of this.

“You’ll have to excuse our… Inspiration in your own ships for this year’s race,” he pointed at the knockoff, “but I believe you’ll agree with me when I say, we did a pretty good job.” It was hard to read him - Daemon didn’t show emotion with their faces, but only with their body language – but Ursula was sure he was making fun of her.

“It is interesting,” she refrained from remarking the differences in designs, like the split engine or the flatter top, “I have to wonder, though, did you figure it out all on your own?” No one had blueprints for the Shiny Rod. They didn’t exist. If they had managed to get it down so well with just observation, Ursula feared what would happen if they ever got a closer look at the legendary broom.

“Well, we did have some help,” he explained. Was he being sassy or was Ursula reading too much into it? “But a lot of it is actually ours. You will find out during the race…” Suddenly, from below the black ship, another daemon appeared. This one was shorter than Horn, and had more protrusions at the stomach level, opposite to Horn’s more crowded shoulders. Curiously enough, this one had horns sticking out of the tip of its fingers, making them look a lot more like claws. “Ah, let me introduce you to my gunman,” he said. “This is-” this time, the translator device couldn’t pick up the meaning of the word. The name, to Ursula’s ears, was a mixture of a screech and grinding noises that, at least in her estimation, sounded a lot like ‘greed.’ With the e's extended for a while. So, more like “Greeeeeeed”.

Ursula nodded to the newcomer, whose eyes were far darker than the pilot’s. “Then, are you done using the track? Would you mind if we practiced?”

“Of course not,” the Daemon stepped to the side, gentlemanly pointing to the street. “I do have to point out, I don’t see your First Categories around.”

“They decided it would be best for them to practice after some rest,” Ursula lied. Horn’s shoulders perked up.

“I see. Would you wish to have a training partner?” He asked. Of course, it was just a way of studying them. But the same could be said for the humans. If Ursula agreed to this, they could get a much better idea of just how close this knockoff was to the real deal.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Diana said. Ursula nodded. She had probably reached the same conclusion. Horn looked at Ursula with some impatience, shown through small twitches of his fingers and legs. After some deliberation, Ursula concluded that it couldn’t be that bad.

“Same rules as the official races?” She asked, just to be certain.

“Of course. No shooting at engines or cockpits, if a ship is down you can’t keep attacking,” those were the most basic of rules. They had some extra explanations in the official book, but they narrowed down to that.

Ursula nodded, extending her hand. “Then let’s have a little practice race. No grudges against the winner, of course.”

“Of course,” Horn said, shaking her hand again and turning around. “By the way, the name of our ship, it’s Noir Rod,” he pronounced the name with his own voice, somehow. Ursula shivered. It was easy to see why those things had inspired stories to scare children.

“So we’re going to be running against the bootleg Shiny Rod?” Hannah asked.

“Yes,” Ursula remained in place, looking as the Noir Rod hovered away. Noir. He used noir. That was a French word. The official Earth language is English, so why use French? Do they know who I am? My origins?

She pressed her lips. This whole thing was giving her a bad vibe.

Diana stretched her fingers. The g-suit fixed any friction problems that could’ve arisen due to continuous piloting, but the fingers could still get a little tired. The Shooting Star hovered in place at the starting line, next to the Noir Rod. Black Rod. What an original name. Why was it in human language? One would’ve thought they’d at least put something according to their race.

Ursula was at the side, behind the barricades. She had her wand on hand, and there was a little spell floating between the racers. A noise spell, which could reproduce in absurd volumes basically any sound.

One beep.

Two beeps.

Three beeps.

Gunshot.

The start, the long, straight line, was where Diana had to get the advantage. She instantly went at full speed.

The Noir Rod shot her down.

It hadn’t been a second. No, it hadn’t been half a second. Diana had pressed the pedal, got ahead, and her wing had instantly been severed. The Shooting Star hadn’t even gotten a chance at gaining speed. It hit the street, skidding for a while and grinding against the floor before coming to a stop. Diana hit her head, but she was, of course, wearing the helmet. She still felt disoriented. She looked to the side, where her left wing came to a halt a little ahead of them. “What just happened?” Hannah’s voice came through the communicator.

Diana, shocked, stuttered. “T-they…” she took a few seconds to process things. The Noir Rod stopped in front of the destroyed broom and the daemon pilot opened his cockpit and stood on the broom while it was still in the air.

“I suppose this is our win,” he said. He wasn’t particularly loud, but the shooting star’s systems still worked, picking up his high pitched voice. Diana swallowed with a dry throat. She couldn’t move. Shooting someone down at the start of the race wasn’t illegal, of course, but it wasn’t a widespread practice. Particularly for Daemons, who usually cared so much about having proper competitions.

But, in every society there were those who deviated from the standard. “You asshole!” Hannah jumped out of the emergency exit of the turret. “That was your idea of a fair race?”

His fingers wiggled. “It is not my fault, young lady, that you were so predictable,” the other daemon came from under the ship, rolling his shoulder.

“I just aimed at where I believed you would be. I was kind of surprised to find that I hit,” he explained. Hannah said nothing, turning around and forcing open the cockpit. She looked down at Diana with a mixture of rage and worry.

“Are you ok?” she asked, hesitant. Diana nodded, taking the offered hand to get out. She looked at the daemons, and something dawned on her. They’re better than me. It was not only how they had predicted her, their entire demeanor spoke of years of piloting.

“You’re the Second Categories, right?” the pilot said. “Don’t feel so bad for your loss. We are First Category, after all,” he explained.

It didn’t help. It didn’t help one single bit. Diana was still wordless. She could barely think. Their shot, it had been so… perfect. She should’ve seen it coming. Of course she was going to try and take the advantage at the first moment. Everyone did that in the races here. But before it had been about who did it better. These daemons, however, they just took the chance to take Diana out.

She removed her helmet, running a hand through her hair. The city smelled rather nice, in her opinion. Kind of like eucalyptus. A soft breeze cooled her head as she tried, and failed, to gather herself. “Good race,” she managed to say before robotically getting down from the now unpilotable broom.

She walked away, not slowing as Hannah scrambled after her. “Diana, you sure you’re fine?” Hannah asked.

“I am,” she said, bringing a hand up to her chin. “But now I wonder if Akko will be.”

Akko panicked. Anyone would, had they been swallowed by a ball. It didn’t help, not one bit. She noticed she couldn’t breathe, but somehow that didn’t matter. It felt unnatural, but then again, she was in some kind of weird alien metallic ball.

Time passed, and as it passed, she felt more and more relaxed. Eventually, she fell asleep.

And when she woke up, she was in the hands of Amanda and Jasminka, who were pulling her out of the sphere. All of her muscles felt… wrong. Loose. Weak. She felt as if she was really, really tired. So much so that she took a few moments to process that Amanda was trying to say something to her.

“Akko,” she repeated. “You alive?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled. Her feet finally came out of the sphere, hitting the floor. Amanda tried to make her stand, but her knees gave up and she was forced to keep helping. She and Jasminka brought her back to one of the couches near the windows of the room. Akko was too weak to try and turn around and look out the window, but the glimpse she’d gotten had been impressive. Their building was higher than the ones surrounding, allowing a nice view of the city – one Akko would enjoy as her body started working.

“Akko, pal, stay with me,” Amanda shook her a little. “You look as if you’d just been fucked mindless,” she paused to think about what she had said. “Let’s leave metaphors aside. You sure that thing isn’t made of some kind of weed?”

“Wouldn’t know. Haven’t ever tried it,” Akko said. “Not planning to, either.” Her mother had been very thorough in explaining her how her life would go in a downwards spiral of chaos and mishaps the second she ever so much as stared at a joint for too long from a hundred meter distance. It seemed fair enough.

“Well, at least you’re fine,” she seemed a lot more relaxed than earlier, which was nice. Slowly, too, Akko felt her body get into motion. Her fingers started responding, along with her toes. And, what before had been tiredness had now faded, leaving behind a strange energy. Akko’s troubles didn’t seem as bad anymore. She felt cheerful, even.

“What was that thing, anyways?” Akko pointed at the sphere.

“Long story. In short, it’s a massage machine,” Amanda summarized rather inaccurately. Akko didn’t know this, though, so she nodded with interest. It made sense, to her, since her muscles were indeed very relaxed.

“Where’re Diana, Hannah and Ursula?” She asked, noticing they were the only ones not in sight in the giant room. Lotte and Barbara were arguing over something, while Sucy was doing some kind of experiment, as always. Constanze was not in sight right now, but Akko had seen her disappear behind the enormous bar that was near the door.

“Went to train, since you were too busy doing nothing,” Amanda said. Akko blushed. That was right, they were supposed to start training as soon as they got here…

The door opened, and three figures strode into the room. Diana’s first thing was approach Akko and look down on her. “If you’re done goofing off,” she said in a serious tone. “I believe you should use every second of every day training, if you want to survive the next race.”

Akko frowned. “What?” Diana’s hair was slightly unkempt, which was weird for her. She was sweating and breathing slightly heavier than she normally did. “Are you ok? You look… worked up.”

“I am,” she said without hesitation. “We walked back while the repair crew retrieved the Shooting Star,” she explained.

“Wait, what?” Amanda said. “The repair crew? What happened to the Shooting Star?”

“Lost a wing.”

“How?”

“We’ll explain everything later,” Ursula said in a kinder voice, approaching. She looked better than Diana, far better in fact, but something about her expression was off. Hannah stood near the door, waiting for them. They really intended to go right back out. “For now, Diana is right, Akko. You’re going to need every bit of training you can have.”

Akko was starting to feel a little suffocated. All three of them looked shaken. Particularly from Diana, this didn’t feel like a good omen. Whatever had happened had to be big. “Can I at least get a summary?” She asked, hopeful. Diana sighed in annoyance.

She still obliged. “We raced- No, we tried to race a copycat of the Shiny Rod. And the pilot is far better than me, which means he’s absurdly better than you.”

Akko got slightly annoyed at the comment, but Diana was obviously in some sort of distress and probably hadn’t meant it in an offensive way. “I’d ask again, but if you’re gonna be like that, can I at least get something to drink? I’m thirsty.”

Diana raised a finger, as if she had expected some kind of discussion, but was surprised when there wasn’t one. In fact, Amanda seemed on the verge of just straight up tackling Diana for what she had said, but she held back.

Ursula went around the bar and came out with a bottle of water. “Since we’re on the topic, just remember not to drink water here. It’s as poisonous as the food, even if it looks the same. And be very careful if you want to take showers. Make sure none of it gets into your mouth, nose or eyes, and if you have any wounds…”

“I got it, I got it,” Akko managed to move her arm and grab the bottle. She drank it all in a single go. “Ok,” she tested her legs. They seemed strong enough. She managed to stand, but she stumbled. Diana caught her with a stare that could cut through diamonds.

“All of your muscles are relaxed. You’re not used to the lack of tension,” she said, though it appeared to be a general comment, not directed at Akko. With a sigh, Diana let Akko go.

When Akko managed to stand on her own, she took a step. Weird, but at least she could walk. She took another one. This was going to take a while, but there was a slight spring to her feet. She was getting the hang of it. Diana sighed and walked ahead. However, she stopped and turned. “Would you care if I help you?”

“I’m fine,” Akko instantly replied. She could do this alone. With another sigh, Diana turned again and left. Akko noticed her hands were strangely stiff to her sides. Amanda walked next to Akko’s slowly increasing pace. They reached the door and, by the time they were midway to the elevator, Akko’s walk was normal speed. Hannah had been mumbling something about her stupidity, but Akko didn’t care none. She felt absolutely, positively, completely and incredibly wonderful. She tried some stretches, and it was as if her body had been unleashed from invisible chains she didn’t know she had before.

We need to get one of those to take home, Akko thought. What a cool thing.

After exiting the building, Akko waved her wand and the Shiny Rod appeared in the middle of the street. Despite that first teleport where it had destroyed a simulator, it hadn’t ever crashed into anything else. Maybe that had only happened the first time ‘cause the Rod was rusty or something.

However, as soon as it appeared, something fell from the air. Akko jumped forward with an exclamation, worried, but paused.

It was an animal. It kind of looked like a bird. It was big – Akko-sized big. Its feathers were absurdly long. The ones sprawling from the neck went all the way down to its tail – a short one, not longer than Akko’s hand - and the feathers on the tail extended a full body length behind it. However, the wings on its two pairs of wings were shorter. Two of them came out of the back, while the other two appeared to come out of its butt. Its beak, straight and pointy, appeared to be made out of gold, which contrasted well with its dark blue feathers. It had big eyes, in proportion to the face, completely black except for some colorful dots here and there.

“What is that?” Amanda was the first to ask.

“Why, that’s a-” the cyborg guarding the door of the building said its name, but it didn’t get translated. To Akko, it sounded like ‘okkorin’ or something like that. She hadn’t heard particularly well either. “It means ‘Metal Bird’! It’s our national bird!” He sounded really excited as he said that. Akko, who understood how languages worked, noticed the difference in pronunciation even through the translator. That meant, the original name probably came from an older cyborg language and they had just kept it. “Seeing one in the city is strange, though. You’re in luck!”

Akko marveled at the majestic creature. It had three legs, curiously enough, all of them like little black sticks coming from under it. Each of them had only one finger and a talon with claws as golden as the beak.

“What does it eat?” Diana asked, curious.

“It eats mostly rocks, but the raw bits of minerals on them goes to their beaks and claws, making them look like that,” the guard explained. Diana seemed to be wanting to say more, but she refrained. Akko nodded. It was an alien, it didn’t strange her that it could eat rocks. Didn’t Armor eat rocks too?

Amanda looked around. “Tch, there’s no rocks around.”

“You wanna feed it?” Akko asked. It sounded fun.

“I want to get it away from our damn broom. Look, it’s scratching it.”

It was, in fact. Akko hadn’t noticed, but the claws had created scratches in the… paint? Behind the white was more white. The scratch was visible because it glowed slightly with magic. “They’re harmless,” the cyborg said, “only attack us if we try to feed them organic stuff.”

Akko cringed. Those claws were sharp, and her instinct told her that they would be as hard as metal. That beak, too. Did cyborgs hunt? She was certain humans would’ve hunted them down for how cool they were.

“We don’t have time to mess with this bird,” Hannah said, walking towards the Blue Star, which was waiting in front of the Shiny Rod. Diana snapped out of her trance-like admiration of the bird, nodding and following.

“I don’t want to start the broom if that thing’s still on it…” Akko mumbled, but she approached. As the cyborg had said, it didn’t do anything to her as she climbed on the broom. In fact, it seemed curious. Akko looked it in the eyes, beak to nose, and found that the little dots of color inside them were moving independently from each other. Some of them were pointed to Akko, while others pointed at Amanda as she moved. Akko cocked her head at this, and the Metal Bird mimicked her.

“He likes you!” The guard claimed. Akko wondered how he knew, but she disregarded it as something he had said just because she had gotten close to it.

She entered the cockpit, and as she sat, the Metal Bird took a few steps closer to her. She closed the windshield as the bird still looked at her curiously.

Then, she started the broom. The bird didn’t seem scared at all, but just mildly annoyed, as it rose to the standard two meters in the air. With a flap of wings, it lazily took off to the skies, long feathers on the tail looking like a trail of blue light as it reflected the neons of the city.

Ursula started guiding them with her broom-cycle, and as they moved, she started explaining in more detail.

“The demons built a copy of the Shiny Rod,” she said, despite the fact that Akko had kind of completely forgotten about that. Akko hummed in acknowledgement to prompt her to continue. “It seems to work similarly, but we didn’t get much of a chance to see it in action. It took down the Shooting Star in a single shot an instant after the race started,” she had on her explanation voice, but Akko could tell something else was in her mind.

“How did they build a copy of the ship, though? I thought Chariot claimed there were no blueprints of the ship and that people should stop offering her money to buy them,” she remembered that interview. It had been a funny one.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But just by what little we saw, it seems they’re close to the real thing. They used a laser to completely cut the Shooting Star’s wing. It was… powerful.”

“Isn’t it illegal or something? Copying other’s ships…” Amanda sounded annoyed.

“Well, it hasn’t really happened before,” Ursula explained. “And most races can’t actually copy each other. The methods by which we have all achieved this level of technology differ greatly from society to society. It just happens that Inferno is absurdly similar to Magic in its workings, so they could probably use it to emulate the Rod,” as her explanation went on, she sounded more and more worried. “Their Noir Rod – that’s what they called it – definitely got close to the Shiny Rod. It had some semblance of permanent floating – it was just weaker than the Rod’s. But we don’t know the extent of its capabilities. It could be some kind of trick.”

“Well… Why do we care, anyways?” Akko asked. She felt like she should be angry, but she wasn’t. She could feel the stares looking at her, despite the fact that no one was actually looking. The silence was enough to tell. “I mean, it’s just a copy, it can’t be better than the original.”

“Akko, that’s not how…” Diana sighed. “Anyways, even if it isn’t better, I can assure you, the pilot is. Akko, he’s got experience, I could tell. Far more than you. Whatever his ship lacks he can probably make up for with training.” Even through the communicator, Akko heard a sense of defeat to her voice. “It completely read me. Just imagine what he would do with you.”

Again, Akko understood this comment probably came from a place of worry. It didn’t really help her self esteem.

“Maybe you’re just a bad pilot,” Amanda suggested. Diana didn’t bother answering. “In any case,” Amanda continued, “I agree with Akko, who cares if they copied the Shiny Rod? A good ship can only take you so far, it’s the pilot that matters.”

“You saying you could beat the Shiny Rod with a HFV-1800?” Hannah asked with a snort. Akko had no idea what that meant.

“If you’re going to come with ships from sixty years ago just ask me if I can beat it with a car,” Amanda snorted back. “You yourself proved my point a couple times already. The Shooting Star is inferior to the Shiny Rod, yet you’ve beaten Akko more than once.”

“And the Daemon with the copy beat me,” Diana repeated.

“Point is,” Amanda spoke exaggeratedly, “we just have to become better. Well, Akko does, since I don’t really know what I do most of the time whenever the turret is activated.”

Through the communicator came a mumbled ‘as if’ form Hannah, but no one paid attention to it as Ursula started speaking. Half of her hair stuck out of the helmet and whipped behind her in the wind, and it was obviously tied in a ponytail. “Which is why we’re going to practice as much as we can,” she said. She sounded determined, but worried.

Akko tried not to think too hard about the whole thing. Maybe it was because she hadn’t seen it, but some second-rate Shiny Rod would certainly never match the original!

Amanda activated the shield. The Blue Star was the enemy. As they raced through the city of neon and wood, all that mattered was making sure Akko was ok. With a mere thought, Amanda shot two bullets in the Blue Star’s direction – in front of them, turning left in a tight hundred and thirty degree corner, where a crossroad of five different streets had been barricaded so that only this one remained a viable path. Back on Earth, cutting a portion of the city like this would’ve been very impractical, as the majority of vehicles hovered instead of flied.

The Shiny Rod could fly, under the right circumstances. She knew this instinctively. The Blue Star dodged her shots, but the point wasn’t trying to take it down, but hinder its turn so that Akko could gain some advantage. It didn’t work, as the Blue Star managed to turn in just the right way to avoid both projectiles. Amanda wasn’t allowed to tell Akko about all the things the Shiny Rod could do. She wasn’t ready.

“Akko, you’re focusing too much on trying to get past Diana and not enough in actually piloting,” Ursula’s voice came through the communicator. Amanda barely heard them, but she understood them. She was right. Akko was so focused on trying to get ahead that she kept trying to gain speed on the short straights of the city and then having to take wide turns because of it, losing time instead.  The Blue Star was definitely better at curves than the Shiny Rod. Or, well, better than the Shiny Rod in its current state.

From time to time, Amanda shot. Sometimes lasers, sometimes magic bullets. She wasn’t taking it too seriously – she sensed Akko’s reluctance to hurting Diana, therefore she held back – but she couldn’t explain that to Akko. Her seven eyes watched the city pass, but Amanda wasn’t bored. In fact, she didn’t feel anything. She wasn’t allowed to feel. All her feelings were Akko’s, and Akko’s feelings were almost as important as her direct orders.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. There was an underlying rage in Amanda that the Shiny Rod hadn’t been able to quell. It had been dampened, a lot, but deep inside it was still there. However, after the outer layers of superficial anger had been stripped away, all that had been left was the core. A core of rage frothing inside her chest, little tendrils tied around her heart. It was almost suffocating. She wasn’t angry at Diana, or Hannah. Those were excuses, ways of projecting her anger in ways she could deal with on a normal basis. It wasn’t even her mistake at messing up the selection, ending up as a gunman instead of a pilot. No, it went deeper. It was rage at her life, at her family. At her grandmother specifically.

Akko bumped into one of the side barricades. Amanda felt a stab of pain in her body, though it wasn’t her actual body. “Akko, did you hear what I said?” Ursula asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Akko said. However, she made no efforts to slow down. They were now in a relatively long straight – not half as long as the starting one, but double in length as the standard seemed to be in this track – and Akko pressed the nitro, trying to gain on Diana. “Akko, no!” Ursula said.

Amanda understood why Ursula had said that. Akko almost collided with the Blue Star, but Diana elegantly lowered her right wing and allowed Akko to fly past. Akko let out an exclamation of victory before realizing she had made a mistake.

The Shiny Rod hit the tall, metallic barricade at the end of the street. A defense mechanism activated instantly, a giant airbag suddenly bursting from the ground and catching the Shiny Rod before it could crash into the building beyond. The airbag was made of some sort of metal, so it managed to hold the Shiny Rod as it shut down.

Amanda felt her consciousness being shoved back into her body, and when she snapped into reality, the broom was shaking and moving strangely.

“Akko?” She asked. “The hell’s going on?” She asked, confused. It was really annoying to just wake up as if from a dream whenever the Shiny Rod shut down, particularly when it was in weird situations.

“I just crashed,” Akko said with annoyance. Soon after, Amanda heard the sound of another engine nearby, and assumed it would be the Blue Star. “Damn steering is broken or something.”

“Or maybe,” Diana’s voice came through the communicator. “You should’ve listened to Ursula’s advice, Akko. She is our coach for a reason.”

“Yeah but if I don’t go fast how will I ever catch you?”

“Remember what I told you about slowing in curves?”

“Yah.”

“Well, just imagine all of those little straights count as curves too,” Diana explained. “For you to make the turns efficiently, you need to learn to handle your speed first.”

Amanda could sense the arrogance through the radio, and she wished to tell her to fuck off and leave Akko alone. You’re acting like an immature prick. The thought assaulted her mind, stopping her. Sucy had a point. As much of an egotistic ass as Diana was being, she at least kept being civil. Not that Amanda would ever say sorry, but she could probably keep her comments to herself.

“Amanda,” Ursula commented. “When shooting, always aim to take a ship down. Don’t hold back just because you know Diana. She’ll need the practice at dodging.”

“I don’t even know what I do when-”

“I know,” Ursula interrupted her. “But I’m certain you’ll be able to keep it in mind.”

Amanda was starting to grow tired of being trapped in here. However, it did remind her of something… “Hey Akko, while we’re at it, why don’t you ask Alcor about things?”

Akko sounded confused as she replied. “Asking about what?”

Amanda tried not to sigh too strongly. This was Akko she was talking to. She needed things explained to her with drawings half of the time. “I’m talking about all the weird shit the Shiny Rod can do,” she started. “Perma-float, how it doesn’t need refueling, why the heck it keeps wiping my memory. Stuff like that.”

“Oh. Yes, I guess I could,” she cleared her throat. “Hey, Alcor?”

Yes, not-Chariot, the bird replied immediately.

“Why does Amanda lose her memory whenever she comes out of the turret?”

Alcor took a few moments to answer. Password needed.

“What?” Amanda cried out. “You birdbrain, answer us!  What password? How the hell are we supposed to get a damn password for a ship that’s not even ours?” Of course, there was no answer for her. She grunted in frustration. Would she be cursed to forever lose her memory of whatever went on the ship? “Also, can we please get moving, Akko? Don’t activate the turret please, I just want to get out of here.”

Akko didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she asked another thing. “Alcor, what’s the energy source of the Shiny Rod?”

Password needed, the familiar replied. Yeah, of course. Amanda wondered why did it need a password. It already didn’t answer to anyone but Akko anyways, so what was the point?

“Ehm… Noctu Orfei Aude Freator?” Akko tried.

The ship suddenly moved and shifted, stopping as suddenly as it had moved.

“Did we teleport?” Amanda asked. She’d be giving Akko a flat look if she could.

“Yep, back to the hotel” Akko answered nonchalantly. She repeated the words, and when they reappeared, Amanda kicked the floor and got out of the broom. They were back in the track, though a little further down the street than where they had been. Ursula turned to them with relief. “Well that wasn’t the password, obviously. Chariot probably knew it, and that’s why she could do a lot of cool stuff we can’t…” She sounded more amused by her idea than annoyed, like Amanda was.

“Stupid piece of scrap,” Amanda grunted. She took off her helmet – completely cutting off her communication with the others – and started looking around. The buildings here were tall. It felt like being in the center of any metropolis, but after having shrunk to half your normal size. Not that the neon lights helped, making everything look like out of some cartoon. However, something did catch her eye. The sky was changing colors. Where it had been a star-covered black, it was now turning a greenish grey. A couple stars were visible, though most of them had already disappeared. One of those stars was almost definitely red, and it twinkled with energy.

Dumb Shiny Rod. Amanda hadn’t really expected to get a straight answer out of it but a damn password? Come on! Whoever built that thing was stupid. Had Chariot ever figured it out? Maybe the password would unlock the blueprints of the broom, that would probably be worth to put behind a password… But what about hacking? No matter how good the security was, there was no way-

Amanda smiled mischievously. She had just gotten the idea of the century.

She turned to find Ursula hovering slowly in her direction. “Are you better?”

“No,” she said. “Damn ship won’t give us answers, and Akko fails to grasp basic piloting concepts.”

“If you wish for us to take a break…”

“We already took one, right now,” She sighed. She wondered, wouldn’t the buildings, with their metal paintworks, get really hot during day? She didn’t really know if paint worked that way, but she felt like it probably did. “Let’s just get this over with,” she turned to go back to the Rod.

“Amanda,” Ursula made her stop. “If it helps, I think you’d be a great pilot,” she explained. “I’m sure you’d have gotten an amazing score, should you have been allowed to compete, back on Earth.”

Her comment gave Amanda some pause. “Would you let me practice with the Shooting Stars?” She turned to the blue haired woman. She shifted uncomfortably at the question.

“I’ll… think about it,” she said. “There are many reasons why I should say no,” while saying this, Amanda got the strange feeling she wasn’t just talking about bureaucratic reasons, “but if the opportunity arises, I will let you do it.”

“Opportunities like the magic storm?”

“Yes!” She answered, making Amanda frown. “I mean, kind of. I can’t promise you’ll really get the chance, but, well, a couple times shouldn’t hurt too much.” Hurt? Was she assuming Amanda would somehow harm the shooting stars? Or was she talking about general pain for those involved? She took off her helmet, staring her in the eyes. “But, if I’m going to let you do that, you should try to cool down your temper. You let your emotions rule you too much.”

“I’m not half as bad as Akko,” Amanda replied, crossing her arms.

“And Akko is not half as bad as a baby,” Ursula crossed her arms back. “No one mentioned her.”

Amanda grunted. She wasn’t wrong. “I’ll see what I can do. But you should speak to Diana about getting off her damn high horse,” she made a fist with the hand that wasn’t holding her helmet. Maybe, if Diana didn’t make comments that so often annoyed her, she wouldn’t be always annoyed.

She walked away, not waiting for Ursula’s reply. Instead she tried to focus on the good idea she had gotten.

She just needed to get one tiny girl to help her.

Diana lay on bed, feeling defeated. She had done a good time of the track, but Akko had crashed another two times. She could understand where the brunette was coming from, the sheer need to accelerate, but the lack of foresight on her still surprised Diana. It was as if Akko couldn’t or just wouldn’t try to plan ahead. She was the impersonation of living in the present. Except maybe with her obsession with Chariot.

The sky outside had turned a beautiful golden. The sunrise hadn’t quite finished yet, and from her bed – the one she’d have to share with the other team members – she could see out the enormous windows. The sun was rising right in front of them, and from here, it looked green. Golden sky that would, apparently, turn into a more yellowy color as the day advanced, and the sun would go from the mint green it was now to a soft cyan. The vision of the city from this height was amazing, too. With the neon lights having been turned off, the city was nothing but a silhouette against the sky. Lotte was, in fact, making sure her little camera spell took photos of it.

“What an amazing view,” Hannah said, laying next to Diana at about an arm’s length. “Green sun, huh?”

Diana didn’t answer. Those kinds of comments were barely conversation starters, and she didn’t want to bother. Plus, Hannah already knew Diana well enough. Her comment had been a statement, not a real attempt at chatting. Diana was bothered by Akko. She seemed a little too eager. Maybe the presence of another Shiny Rod pushed her to be more reckless than before? Hard to know. Ursula had told Diana to get some sleep, while Akko remained to practice some more. Ursula wanted to try and explain things to her without her trying to compete with Diana in hopes that maybe it’d stick that way.

Hopefully she’d manage to take away some of Akko’s stupid recklessness. Diana could try too, but as of now, the bed was so comfortable and the stress of what had happened earlier had her on edge and…

“Diana,” a voice called. She rolled her eyes, she just wanted to sleep. “Diana, you’re going to be late,” the voice was worried and obviously uncomfortable. Was that Barbara?

“Barbara, I have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about, but I believe you’ve mistaken the times. We have nothing to attend to,” Diana said. Her eyes were closed. When had she closed her eyes?

“Barbara? What? Diana, are you ok?” Diana felt a hand on her forehead, and she opened her eyes with a flat look. The long hair at first did make her think it was Barbara, but when her vision cleared, she found a disheveled brown hair and tired red eyes over her. Akko had her I-just-woke-up face mixed with a worried one, and her hand was still on Diana’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever, I think. And I don’t know how you would’ve gotten sick, anyways. Maybe it’s an alien virus or something…” She yawned.

“Akko!” Diana suddenly realized what was going on. “How are you here, how did you arrive so fast?”

“Diana, I think you’re hallucinating,” Akko got down from bed and took her suit.

Diana wondered if she was right. She had just closed her eyes, but she was starting to realize, what she had felt as a simple blink had been several hours of sleep.

Indeed, if she looked out now, the cyan sun was up in the sky. It was a lot more saturated than she imagined, and a lot less…. bright. The metal city sparkled in the sunlight, and below their level, a lot more of flying vehicles moved around, giving life to the city. It had been pretty active at night, but now, Diana suspected that she could jump out the window and she’d have an incredibly good chance of surviving by falling on those flying vehicles. Well, as long as she hit one of the slow ones.

“What is it that we’re late for?” Diana asked. She didn’t feel rested at all. Hours or not, it had felt as a mere second. Usually, when sleeping, you could tell you had done it and how long it had been, or had an approximate. Diana had never been through something like this before.

“The opening ceremony!”

Wait, was it?

Akko moved to the bathroom, coming out after an eye blink wearing Earth’s uniform, the green and blue one they’d been given for official matters. With a sigh, Diana took hers – the white one – and went to change.

The bathroom was small, like the ones in the ship, but she managed to get changed and come out. The sky was a beautiful golden color, and a blue bird was looking out the window with her.

Then, it clicked.

“I’m dreaming?” She looked at her hands. Yes, her uniform wasn’t really white, was it? And where had the bird come from? A vivid dream, and a lucid one too. How absolutely strange. She didn’t let her emotions get out of control. Lucid dreaming, as she had learned, depended on you being able to keep a level head. What a strange sensation.

She looked back, and now that she had realized her mistake, Akko was back to wearing the black and green horrible uniform from this iteration of the race. “You’ve got your uniform the wrong way,” Diana pointed out. Akko had her zipper on the back, which would be impossible in real life. Well, maybe not for Akko.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Come on, we’re late!” Akko exited the room. Diana followed carefully. It was strange, realizing you were in a dream, trying to keep dreaming. Still, she could slowly feel her consciousness more and more agitated. She’d wake up soon. Realizing this, she tried to play around. She increased her speed. She was still walking, but she caught up to Akko in a second. Akko looked kind of fuzzy now, and her face was slightly different from what Diana remembered.

They reached the elevator, and it lead directly into a city square. It was definitely an Earth one at that. Of course it would, after all, Diana hadn’t seen any of those around Wood City. This square was strange, not one she recognized, but the size of the buildings and the blue sky confirmed where it was. It was full of people, of whom Diana couldn’t see faces. All of them were shadowed, which was eerie at best.

Akko walked among the crowd. At some point Amanda had appeared next to her, and Hannah was behind Diana. “come on, come on,” Akko repeated. Her voice was slightly more childish than in reality. As she walked, she phased through the faceless persons in the crowd, crowd that seemed to shift its numbers constantly. She felt lost, but it was natural.

She tried to fly. She didn’t do it. Diana had read about lucid dreams. Sometimes, doing stuff that you wouldn’t normally do was straining for your imagination, particularly if you couldn’t see yourself doing it in real life. She was afraid of trying to concentrate too much. The dream was losing detail with each passing second, but it was a really interesting experience. She thought she heard some noises, but her subconscious realized those were coming from the outside world.

Now they were in a stage. When had Diana gotten there was a mystery, but it was fine. Diana looked over the crowd, with the other three members of the team and Ursula to her side, and a microphone appeared in front of her.

What to say? She tried to speak, but couldn’t. That was normal for dreams, and it was normally stressful. Here, however, she just imagined she had actually said something. The crowd cheered. What had she said? It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

However, the cheering of the crowd slowly turned into booing. Diana felt a stab of anxiety, though she didn’t know where it came from. When had it turned to night? Why was the sky starless? Her dream was slowly turning into a nightmare, apparently. Rational thinking allowed her to realize this, and she finally decided to give up on the experience.

She opened her eyes.

She looked around. The noises she had been hearing came from Akko and Amanda as they changed and climbed on the bed. Diana now could finally feel her tiredness. She closed her eyes, trying to push away the anxiety she still felt. She was just nervous about the opening ceremony. That was what her dream had been about. In all honesty, she should’ve realized it was a dream from the second Akko was the one waking her up.

Amanda and Akko made sure to sleep as far away from the blue team members as they could. They looked tired, and Amanda was chastising Akko for something Diana didn’t quite get.

Without paying more attention to them, she looked out the window, and she was surprised to find them covered with boards. They had probably realized Humans would want to be able to keep the sun out at some point. Boards seemed a little unpractical, but Diana didn’t have the energy to care right now, so she just closed her eyes and, this time, went back to sleep willingly.

Chapter Text

Akko tried really hard to not hide. Being surrounded by all kinds of aliens was already scary enough.

Being stared at by thousands of them was just straight up terrifying. She looked at the crowd. It was formed of all kinds of different races, some more than others. Cyborgs, of course. Humans, too. There were a lot of Appali, if one had into account that they didn’t have world-hoppers. Or maybe they had developed one? Akko didn’t know. She barely knew what races had world hoppers. Daemons were rather lacking, which was weird. Some Armor stood in the crowd, but they were probably just members of the crew. Not a single Shapeshifter that Akko could spot, but Shapeshifter spectators were rare anyways. What surprised her more than anything, however, was the amount of Medusas. They all floated in giant bubbles of water on top of the crowd, and there were at least three dozens of them. Medusas never traveled with more than a couple of members.

There were also some races whose teams did not usually make it. Plants were the obvious ones, but Akko was surprised to see some Centaurs – quadrupeds that looked very similar to a horse, but lacked a neck and instead had their faces on the front of their chests. They were kind of unnerving, in Akko’s opinion – and even some Electrics – a race of spider-like creatures that could create static electricity with their legs. Scary, but super cool too. Too bad they weren’t particularly good at making ships.

Earth’s team – along with Ursula and some of the Dragon’s crewmembers – stood in the middle of a giant stage set in the Central Park of Wood city, the only place big enough to hold all the audience. And big it was. Akko called it a park, but like in the rest of the city, there wasn’t a single thread of plant life in sight. It was just a big, giant square in the middle of the city, and behind Akko stood a monstrous statue. It depicted the sun, high up between the buildings, supported by three pillars. The sun was lit with holographic light that constantly shifted colors and moved to simulate solar flares.

In the stage, with Akko, stood another nine teams. Their rivals. Next to the Humans were the Armor, with their rock-like bodies and giant shell-thingies. Their leader looked at Akko with a face that appeared to be out of rock. It resembled more that of an animal’s, with a small snout and tiny eyes. Akko couldn’t read it, but she still gulped. It was probably an angry stare. Or maybe a pitiful stare.

On the other side, Akko saw two Shapeshifters in their natural, shapeless forms. They didn’t use teams, just pilots. Some suspected they didn’t even have a ship, that the Shapeshifters just transformed into that – but Akko was sure that couldn’t be the case, since Chariot in one interview had explained how she had invited a Shapeshifter pilot to eat with her ‘right after he came out of his ship.’

The Human team was near the end of the stage, though Akko didn’t understand exactly why they had been organized like that. Right next to Akko stood Diana, and behind them their respective gunmen. Ursula stood behind them all among the crew. Akko looked back at her, and she gave her an encouraging smile. She had been harsh during yesterday’s training, but she was still a good person. And in the end, Akko hadn’t understood why she kept missing curves and crashing against the sides of the track, but Ursula hadn’t been too mad, and the Shiny Rod hadn’t taken that much damage.

The crowd was loud. The chatter of different languages came to Akko. She could distinguish each different kind. The Armor’s cracking of lips, the daemon’s screeching, the fairly similar but with an absolutely different accent idiom of the Cyborgs… She even saw the medusas communicating by touching their tentacles and the Electrics zapping each other lightly. A cacophony of cultures that Akko found strangely captivating.

Every single building surrounding the square was a skyscraper, and most of them were painted either gold or silver. However, the single exception was the tallest building of the city. It was painted black, but one would barely be able to notice, because it appeared to be made of polarized glass. Akko didn’t know how tall it could be, but she would guess it was, maybe, super tall. Seemed like a good description.

Probably not as tall as the Central Tower of the Seelie Court, but it was amazing nonetheless.

Akko noticed something strange. Diana had her arms crossed, but she was tapping her finger against her arm. It wasn’t audible, so it wasn’t a bother, but Akko found it curious. Even Diana could get nervous from time to time, huh? Akko wished she could see her face, but the sun’s reflection on the visor of the helmet stopped her. Still, she doubted she would show her nervousness that way anyways.

Of course, every human was wearing a Witch Hat. Whether they liked it or not, it was basically a portable air conditioner in the hellish heat of the day. Thirty six degrees Celsius, as the little window of information in her visor showed. And cyborgs found this a ‘mild’ temperature. It was around midday right now, and the cyan sun shone directly above them, the sky being a very bright yellow.

And finally, the crowd started to quiet down. Of course, the only ones that kept talking were humans. All races had their flaws but humans seemed to be the most arrogant of them all. Even Appali, with how similar they were, at least had the decency of knowing when to shut up.

Akko was included in the human race, of course, and she cringed internally remembering all the times she’d done the same as the human audience was doing right now. Maybe she should just take the wand, call the Shiny Rod and get the hell out of there.

She didn’t do this, but she really wished she could. She tried to shoot fierce looks at the humans in the crowd, but other aliens were doing that effectively enough. Akko looked around, curious as to who was the head of the race committee. The Aos Sí had said it had changed recently, but that mattered not to her since she didn’t know who it had been anyways.

The first surprise came, however, when someone appeared floating on top o them. She was riding a tiny, circular device that was glowing with red Inferno Energy. The other surprise was that it was a human. A woman of lavender hair wearing a long red cape and a strange red harness over a black sleeveless shirt, but… Akko’s head started to feel dizzy as she tried to understand this woman’s wardrobe. And her hair was pretty crazy too.

Akko decided not to look at her anymore. All she had to do was listen to her, after all.

Ursula felt like a flying kick from a cyborg martial artist had hit her when the woman, whose lavender hair she had believed to be a coincidence, spoke. Her voice was slightly different, but it was still impossible to mistake.

“Welcome!” she cried. She wasn’t speaking English, but instead a perfect Cyborg. “Are you ready for the twelfth iteration of the Inter-Planetary Race?!” her voice sounded everywhere. What Ursula assumed to be a normal sound system turned out to be a bunch of those little flying disks spread around the air. When had they appeared?

The crowd cheered, though not too eagerly. This wasn’t normal. Opening ceremonies were about presenting the participating teams and showing respect for other cultures. “Today is a great day, peoples of the planetary alliance!” her Appali was superb, to the point where the translation device worked perfectly. Wait, when did she change? When had she learnt those languages? “For today, it is the start of a new era on the IPR!” She waited for a few seconds. Some more cheering came, this time a little more natural sounding, but it was still weird.

The woman turned to look at them, and her eyes confirmed what Ursula had known. Beautiful teal eyes, eyes that focused on her for a split second. She knew. Others might have mistaken it by simple chance, but Ursula understood immediately. She knew.

“I am Croix Meridies!” she said, looking at the crowd that was behind the stage. Now she was speaking English. “I’m the new head of the IPR Committee!” How? How did she get there in just ten years? Ursula thought as her brow slowly furrowed. “Now, without further ado, let us announce the ten participating races of this race! Boy, we really need better words for this. A race between different races, human language is rather stupid, isn’t it?” She spoke lower, but the voice obviously traveled through the flying disks. A lot of the crowd laughed, though Ursula didn’t find it particularly funny. She had never found Croix’s jokes particularly funny.

“First!” Croix pointed suddenly at the Shapeshifter. “Thousand Lights of Soul!” Wait, had she just spoken in Shapeshifter? How? But, the weird translation of the name was proof of that. Maybe… Maybe Croix wasn’t actually speaking those languages. It clicked. That’s why she had her own sound system around. It was also an automatic translator. And, Ursula noted, the microphone in her hand could easily be a wand. The first shapeshifter moved forward, floating in the air slowly, though Ursula wasn’t able to tell them apart. “The chosen Shapeshifter, he defeated a hundred pilots to earn his place in the race! And second to him came Moon of Eternal Eclipse!” The second one matched his companion. “He’s actually the prince of the Shapeshifters! Really impressive!”

She waited for a second. Noone cheered. Shapeshifters weren’t hated, but most held a small grudge about how good pilots they were.

“Next!” Croix turned. She had a self-satisfied smile, and her eyes shone with confidence as her disk brought her closer to Earth’s team. “Atsuko Kagari! No one knows how she made it, but she did! And she’s only a sixteen-year-old student!” The way she said this made Akko look down, obviously ashamed. Ursula narrowed her eyes. Was she doing it on purpose? “And Diana Cavendish! Now, let me tell you, ladies and gentlealiens, one cannot investigate five minutes about the piloting situation on Earth without hearing about the impressive feats of the Cavendish heir!” she turned to the crowd. “One would think she’d end up as first category, huh?” She said in a whisper, as if she was talking to herself. Again, the crowd laughed. Diana didn’t show any obvious sign of being uncomfortable, but she had stopped tapping her finger – which was the only reason Ursula noticed she had been doing it in the first place. “And then there’s the two gunmen, Amanda O’Neill and Hannah England yada yada yada who cares about them,” Croix added with no energy, moving on to the Armor.

“Hey!” Amanda and Hannah exclaimed at the same time, pointing at the lavender haired woman. They looked at each other with annoyance.

“Then we have…” Ursula stopped paying attention to what Croix was saying. She didn’t care about the names of the Armor, or any of the other participating teams. She was trying to focus on just what the hell would she be doing now? She never did anything, definitely not something like becoming the head of arguably one of the most politically important organizations in the explored universe, without some kind of goal in mind.

Croix moved on to present the cyborgs. She was making a show of the presentations. The previous opening ceremonies were tame and boring, but she was trying and somehow managing to entertain the members of the crowd with her flamboyant movements and exaggerated speaking. The way she constantly shifted languages was also kind of curious. Inferno, Ursula realized. She’s using inferno for her machines, not magic. Daemon energy.

She’s the builder of the Noir Rod.

It struck like lightning. It made so much sense. Of course it was her of all people. Croix kept flying around the stage, looking at the crowd, presenting the participating races. Shapeshifters, Humans, Armor, Daemons, Medusas, Cyborgs, Appali, Plants, Octopuses and Reptilians. Curious lineup, particularly on part of the Plants and Reptilians. Sure, Appali hadn’t participated in some time, and Octopuses had been in and out intermittently, but Plants had only participated twice in the entire history of the race, and Reptilians just once, on the first of them all. Chariot leaned to see beyond the Armor and saw their figures. Curiously enough, reptilians had been one of the first races to attain world-hopping technology, but due to a revolution and anarchy in their relatively small world their technology had remained stagnant for centuries. They were almost certainly the inspiration for their namesakes on earth, though they looked incredibly different. Their slim and long bodies lacked legs. They moved slithering, like snakes. Even though they had developed no arms, their real way of functioning came from their ability to split the lower half of their bodies into smaller tendrils that were incredibly fast and precise. As far as Ursula knew, they had no limits as to how much they could split them, so they could easily create hands. They were probably the inspiration for dragons. Their faces were big and menacing, full of fangs, kind of shaped like a diamond, and they had spines running from their heads to the middle of their body, which marked the place up to where their tails could split. They were scaled, though each of the four of them onstage had a wildly different color on their incredibly long bodies: A metallic scarlet, matte black, pure white and glistening silver. All of them had the same golden eyes.

The plants, on the other hand, looked like various different types of plant life, but enormous and way more dangerous looking than your average flower. Plus, they were all carnivores. Ursula had once seen one eat an entire cow in under two minutes. Gruesome, but interesting.

“And these are all our participants!” Croix finished presenting everyone, and Ursula paid attention again, since now started the part that interested Ursula the most. “So you know what this means, huh? What rule-set will we use? Can you guess it?” She was speaking Cyborg again. “No you can’t! You know why? Because the rules will be decided on a race per race basis, completely at random, and no one will have that information but me until the ten minutes previous to the race!” She raised her arms into the air.

The crowd went silent.

There was a soft tension in the air as everyone slowly tried to process what Croix had just said.

“What?!” An Armor pilot roared. “How will we prepare, then?!”

Some shouts of agreement came from the crowd. Croix turned with her self-satisfied smile and shook her head. “My good man,” she now spoke Armor, “the true nature of this race is to find who the best pilot is. Are you saying you can’t handle some randomness?”

The Armor was taken aback. The logic was kind of stupid, but anyone with pride would remain quiet after such implication. Ursula considered arguing, but what good would it do? Croix was the head of the race committee and she had basically all the power on how the race was handled. She always did whatever the hell she wanted, usually trying to get some kind of crazy result. Worst part was, she usually got away with it. “However,” she said. “For this first race I will give you an advantage: The rules are standard. Reach the finish line, your position determines your score. Double points for First Category, single points for Second Category. Easy peasy, don’t you think?”

Sure, if you knew nothing about races. When there was no objective other than win, shooting others down was a priority. Sure, they weren’t quite as aggressive as the hoop-races, but then again, few things were as aggressive as hoop races. Ursula closed her eyes for a moment, trying to keep down her rising anger. Whatever was Croix’s plan now she needed to find out. Flashes of her past came to her. She would not repeat the same mistakes.

She looked at Akko, who seemed to not be paying attention. Instead, she was cocking her head and tapping her foot, in thought. She was too eager, and too impatient, to be an effective pilot. Why did the Shiny Rod choose her? Whatever the reason, Ursula could only think of the girl’s earnestness as a positive point. She had potential, but a potential that would take years to develop.

They had what, about a week to try and get her up to the level of the most talented pilots of the explored universe? Yeah, talk about impossible odds.

“But hey, why should I keep boring you? This is the ending of the ceremony. Everyone go home or to your hotels or whatever. Teams, please remember that this evening we’ll have a lovely party for you to get to know other teams and maybe exchange some advice, you know how it goes,” Croix pointed at the teams, and in less than a minute, everyone was being guided off stage by those flying disks – that, from up close, looked a lot like roombas.

Ursula didn’t miss the look Croix gave her. This time it wasn’t subtle. The scientist clearly looked at her and waved a hand in her direction as her roomba spun and took her away.

What are you up to now, Croix?

Later that same day, Diana slowed the Blue Star and moved it aside to allow Akko to blast through, making her crash again against the barricade. There was a collective sigh heard through the communicator as Hannah, Ursula and Amanda did so at the same time. Diana didn’t join, instead trying to figure out what drove the brunette into such a frenzy. She waited a minute as the Shiny Rod managed to get up again, and then they restarted the race.

Akko saw the small straight line and pressed the accelerator on instinct. Sure, she had already failed a dozen times, but as they say, thirteenth time’s the charm! “Akko!” Ursula said with exasperation, but Akko ignored her. She got past Diana and managed to slow down right on time to not collide, but Diana overtook her again in a tighter curve. Akko was sure there was a secret to this. She had to be able to keep the speed while turning. If not, then what was the point?

Diana moved calmly to the side as the Shiny Rod shot past. Again, it didn’t crash by more luck than skill, allowing the Blue Star to get back to first place easily.

“Is she brain-dead? She’s brain-dead, it’s the only explanation,” Hannah said with a grunt. She tried shooting, but as always, the shields of the Shiny Rod easily deflected the magic. “Damn Amanda, can’t she explain to Akko what she’s doing wrong? She’s supposed to be her friend, right?”

Diana didn’t answer. Hannah was just rambling, not speaking to her specifically. She got frustrated with stupid things and, as much as Diana didn’t wish to say it, Akko was being extremely stupid. ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results’ Einstein had said. Maybe he had peeked at the future, saw what Akko was doing now, and came up with the quote.

Ok, I’ve got this, Akko thought as she, again, pressed the accelerator. However, the street was shorter than she anticipated, and she was tricked by perspective since the building at the end of it hadn’t been far away, it was just a particularly small building when compared to the ones next to it.

She hit the barricade at full speed, but her body lightened up and she was trapped in a bubble made as if of air. That was just the magic of the Rod protecting her.

“Ok, Akko, get out of the ship,” Ursula’s voice came through the communicator.

“What?” Akko asked, wondering if she had heard wrong.

“If you’re not going to listen to me,” Ursula was using her ‘teacher’ tone, “then I’m afraid I can’t let you pilot and keep putting your life in such a constant risk.”

“Wait, I’ve almost got-”

“Akko,” Diana intervened. “You don’t. Just do as Ursula asks of you so that we can go back to actual flying, if you please.” She sounded as always, but the words hit Akko hard enough to get her lips to turn down as she furrowed her brow.

“You don’t get it!” Akko tried to explain. Couldn’t they see? There was a technique here that everyone was missing, but she was on the brink of figuring it out. “I just need some more tries!”

“Well, you know what?” Amanda’s voice intervened in the conversation. “Count me out. I’m starting to get a headache from coming in and out of consciousness so frequently. Hey Diana, got any room on the Shooting Star?”

Akko gaped. The fact that Amanda preferred to climb into the same ship as Diana and Hannah spoke miles of her mood. She hardened her face, offended. She wasn’t crazy! Sure, she kept going onto the barricade, but with each try she was a little closer to the perfect curve! She could feel there was a way, somehow, of making it!

Amanda got out of the Shiny Rod through the emergency exit of the turret. When had she found it? She looked at Akko, shook her head and hopped off the broom. She walked a few steps towards the Blue Star, stopping, and then sighing. “Ursula, could you come pick me up?”

“Weren’t you going to get a ride with Diana?”

“I’d rather not.”

Ursula hummed, but agreed in the end. Hannah snorted, while Diana’s reaction was unknown to Akko.

Diana kept trying to figure out why Akko was so absurdly reckless. She had to have a reason; no one could be that idiotic by nature. Probably. Sure, Akko could be dumb, clumsy, impulsive, reckless, hyperactive and a little too dense, but she did have some basic understanding of piloting.

But, she obviously couldn’t explain it, or she would’ve done so instead of saying what she had said. Probably. When speaking about Akko everything seemed to have a ‘probably’ stuck at the end of it. Diana didn’t know her much, or more like, she didn’t know her enough. How did she think? Everyone worked on logic, even if a twisted version of it. Akko would be no exception. As she heard Akko and Ursula argue over the communicator, she noticed something curious.

The sky started to darken. It was barely a few hours past noon, no way it would… Clouds. Clouds were covering the sun. Dark clouds. Not black, but almost. “Rain,” Diana said. “Miss Ursula, I believe it’s going to rain,” she explained carefully. Suddenly, Ursula stopped arguing with Akko.

“Is that so?”

“Fairly certain.”

After a few seconds, in which she probably checked the sky, Ursula grunted. “Then we should head back to the hotel.”

“Why? Because of a little rain?” Amanda, in the middle of the road, looked up. Without the neon lighting, the city appeared to be some kind of mock-up city, with the metallic painted buildings made of more crystal than actual wood. All the flying vehicles going over their heads went in constant, perfect streams around the buildings. Diana had noticed they kept to certain altitudes, rarely going up or down. It made sense, if not, things would be chaotic. “Are you afraid of getting wet?”

“You will see why it is wiser to go back once it starts.”

“You sure it’s going to rain?” Hannah asked. “I mean, do Cyborgs even have weather forecasts?”

“They don’t really need them,” Ursula explained. Diana didn’t hesitate to start moving back to the hotel. As she slowly hovered between the tall buildings, following the track at a normal speed, she heard what Ursula was explaining. She already knew this – she had a basic knowledge of how most planets on the Planetary Alliance worked – but maybe Ursula could add something to her data. “Machina is a planet with very predictable weather. If you see clouds in the horizon moving in your direction, it will most certainly be rain. Well, it could be snow, but the chances of snow in an average century in most Machina cities is of 0.0001 percent. I think last time it snowed was four hundred years ago here in Wood City, when a storm happened to cross one of the poles and carried over a cold wave. Some in Machina will probably tell you they remember it, though none of them live that long.”

It didn’t add much, but it was a nice distraction.

“This doesn’t really answer why we should stop training because of rain. We don’t use the ground, we can’t slide on water and such,” Amanda insisted.

“Amanda, is it that hard, for once, to just follow an order?” Hannah said with a tired voice.

“Shut up, England, unlike you, I don’t follow orders blindly to suck up to my superiors. I like to know why I’m being told to do shit,” the redhead’s tone wasn’t as much aggressive as it was annoyed.

“I don’t-” Hannah barked back, but was cut by a sudden turn Diana made sure to take particularly fast. Sometimes she wondered if she was the only one that cared about things. Hannah was so easily irritated, and Amanda so irritating, that they seemed to be made just to oppose each other.

The trip back to the hotel was uneventful. As they entered the room, the first obvious thing was the lack of any other humans in sight. “Where is everyone?” She asked, turning to Ursula.

“Oh, they must be exploring the city. Lotte asked me about it after the ceremony,” she pressed a button on her helmet, changing communicator frequencies to contact with the other group.

Akko came into the room with a frown. Diana wondered if, maybe, asking her about why she kept doing it would work. Maybe it’d help Akko understand what she kept doing wrong. But that seemed to be a touchy subject, at least right now. Hannah walked straight into the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said with a grimace. She wasn’t a fan of cold water – and that included anything that wasn't nearly boiling, no matter how hot it was. Diana wasn’t either, but it was not as if she dreaded the thought of doing so like Hannah and Barbara did. Amanda instantly walked to the other end of the room and dropped on the couch next to the big windows, where the boards had been removed to allow light to enter.

Akko, instead, went to the fridge. The Dragon’s crew had already filled it with food and other things. She took out a can of soda – with the more modern technology, the supplies this time could be a little better than they had been back on Sídhe – and opened it. It sizzled and started to leak out.

“Aw damnit,” Akko said, quickly raising it and drinking half of it in one go. It ran down her chin and stained her uniform, but at least that was waterproof. When she put it down, she wiped her face with her arm and sighed.

Diana approached her, earning a look of narrowed eyes and betrayal.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I should stop and-”

“Actually,” Diana interrupted. “I would like to ask you something unrelated to today’s events.” Akko looked at her with suspicion, but her expression softened and she shrugged. “How did you come to be a fan of Chariot?”

Akko’s eyes instantly lit up. She smiled, giving Diana the look of someone who had been waiting ages to have that question asked to her. “I was just five years old,” Akko started, “the first time I saw her race. It was in the preliminaries of the IPR. I remember the caster saying that she had signed up last moment with a completely unknown ship. That caught my attention.”

Diana remembered the event. She was there, though she tried not to think too hard about it. It was true. Chariot had appeared out of nowhere with the Shiny Rod. Even among the insane amount of brooms, the Shiny Rod had stood out for its weird shape and size.

“And then, the race started. The preliminaries were absurd! Races between thirty three pilots with shooting allowed and all? I thought no one could end up alive after such craziness!” Akko gestured wildly with her hands. Diana also recalled that. Years later, when she had decided she’d become an IPR pilot, she thought back to those preliminaries and shivered a little. They were truly dangerous. “But then Chariot piloted like a madwoman. She blasted through everything and everyone. And her gunman was amazing too! In the end, she won by a mile. I was so… Amazed!” Akko clasped her hands together, getting a dreamy expression. “It was like if I were watching some kind of anime, but it was real!” She looked Diana in the eyes. “From then on, I never missed a race from her, even if it was in the middle of the night…” She looked down, and her expression saddened. “Guess I suck when compared to her, huh?”

“Well,” Diana wasn’t sure of what to say, “I highly doubt her involvement in the race was an accident like yours. You’re doing fairly ok, for someone with so little experience.”

Her ‘encouragement’ didn’t seem particularly effective, but Akko soon got over her blue mood and smiled again. “Yeah, and even then, I still have the Shiny Rod! I’m sure I can’t lose!”

Diana wanted to say that the ship wasn’t the important part, but she had enough social awareness to realize that would’ve just ruined the entire conversation. Instead, she chose to try and continue down this path. “Tell me, what do you appreciate on Chariot’s flying?” Chariot was now famous for her reckless way of flying. She often took absurd risks with a very small chance of actually being rewarding, and most of her successes were attributed to the Shiny Rod’s strange capabilities. It was fair, most of what she had done would’ve been impossible to pull off with a normal broom.

“Well, how she was never afraid!” Akko said. Diana cocked her head, unsure of what that meant. Akko noticed her inquiry. “You see, when I look at other racers, they’re all like ‘oh I shouldn’t try to get ahead right now ‘cause that would make me a target’ or whatever. Chariot didn’t do this. Right when I believed she should move ahead, she did. It was so cool! See during her third race in the tournament, she was against this black broom,” Diana recalled that race. She had been against a MAB-2300, one of the most feared brooms of the competition for its amazing arsenal, “and she had been having trouble getting ahead, but then in the final curve I was like ‘It’s now or never! Come on Chariot!’ and she suddenly accelerated and BAM she took the win,” she clutched her chest. “My heart still thumps whenever I remember that.”

What Chariot had done back then was a gamble. She hadn’t been able to get ahead because of the power of the MAB-2300’s arsenal. However, the race had been going for long. Chariot didn’t know for certain, but she had assumed the other broom was low on magic, so she took the chance. Luckily, her rival seemed to be a simple minded pilot, because if Diana was the one piloting, she would’ve reserved some magic and taken the chance to attack. But it didn’t happen. Chariot got ahead and won, and until years later, no one would question her reckless move.

“She did an interview about her flying methods, did she not?” Diana asked. Akko’s face appeared to shine as she took another drink from her soda. “Do you remember any of them?”

“Of course!” Diana felt a little silly for asking if she remembered them. This was Akko, after all. “She talked about it about seven times. She always explained that she allowed her gut to guide her, as if she could feel the flow of the race.”

Diana recalled the interviews she had seen. That was about right. Of course, no one could ‘feel’ the flow of the race. Media nowadays was of two minds on the issue: Either the Shiny Rod had some weird feature that allowed Chariot to pull off her stunts – the most common belief – or all the races were rigged. The last one came mostly from people who didn’t understand that planetary pride was even more powerful than patriotic pride. Humans, Daemons, Shapeshifters and Medusas particularly would never agree to lose to anyone on purpose.

Mostly because they wanted to show off. Diana wasn’t any different. In fact, the three times rigging had been found related to the IPR, it had happened between planets whose importance in the race was relatively irrelevant. Skeptics existed everywhere, of course, but Diana was actually rather surprised at how cleanly the entire race was run.

Guess it came from it not being run only by humans. Though, now that the head was that Croix Meridies woman… Why did that name sound familiar? Now that she thought about it…

She’d have to ask Croix herself in the party later today.

“Is that how you’re trying to pilot, maybe?” Diana asked. She wanted to slowly steer the conversation.

“I… guess?” Akko pressed her lips. “I mean, I don’t really think when I’m piloting. It’s like… I dunno, I sometimes think I feel like that. And then I fly straight into a barricade. But I almost got it, I swear.”

Diana stared at Akko for a while. The brunette obviously grew a little uncomfortable, but Diana wanted to choose her words carefully. Talking to Akko felt a little like walking on shards of glass, either because she would say something to annoy Diana or vice-versa. “How do you feel, when accelerating?”

Akko paused to think. She looked up, fidgeting with her fingers. “It’s like, something tells me I can turn faster. I know it. But, when the time comes, I just… can’t, for some reason,” she sighed. “It sounds dumb, I know. It’s probably lack of experience or something, but…”

“Would you like to try it with the Shooting Star?” Diana suggested. Akko perked up, cocking her head. She sounded confused. “I have noticed the Shooting Star has a better steering than the Shiny Rod. Maybe if you feel the difference, you will be able figure out what’s failing on your technique.”

Akko’s face of pure bafflement made Diana reconsider her offer. Akko didn’t…

“I don’t know how to pilot anything but the Rod, though,” Akko voiced her thought. However, the way in which she said it made Diana feel bad for having thought badly of her. If no one gave her a chance, she wouldn’t learn.

“I’ll teach you the basics so that you can try it,” Diana offered. Contrary to the reaction expected, Akko narrowed her eyes and stared at her as if trying to analyze her. She so unpredictable that Diana was learning to never try and anticipate how she’d react to anything.

“Why are you being so nice?” She finally asked.

“I don’t believe I’m being particularly nice,” Diana answered. “I’m just trying to help a fellow pilot,” she explained. She almost added that she did it because she wanted Akko to get better, but with Amanda around, she didn’t want to have another discussion with her thinking Diana thought herself above any of them.

Akko doubted for a short time before extending a hand to her. “Fine, I’ll take your offer, but this doesn’t mean we’re no longer rivals.”

Diana allowed herself to smile a little as she took the hand. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

Right at that moment, the sky fell. It wasn’t the sky, obviously, but it felt like it. The sheer impact of the rain falling seemed to shake the building. Diana felt her hand being squeezed a little too hard thanks to the surprise the brunette felt. She let go of the hand and ran to the window, where Amanda was already looking outside. The neon lights of the city had lit thanks to the darkness the clouds had brought, and so, thanks to the water in the glass, all they could see was a series of colorful distorted lights dancing along with it.

Diana couldn’t help her curiosity, walking closer to the window as Hannah ran out of the bathroom, body covered with a towel, hair still with some shampoo bubbles on it. “What the hell was that?!” she exclaimed.

“This,” Diana gestured as she approached the window, “is why we came back when I noticed the clouds.”

Amanda mumbled something that was probably offensive, but Akko instead looked at the window with awe. “How?”

“The Cyborgs,” Ursula, who had been sitting near the table in the middle of the room while talking to Lotte, had also approached to look out the window, “consider rain to be a messenger of the sun. It’s an agent created to remind everyone of its power. It blocks the sun and brings forth a punishment for those who deserve it.”

“That sounds pretty generic,” Amanda said.

“Most religions are, in some ways,” Ursula explained. “But the rain rarely kills anyone.”

Diana noticed that there weren’t any vehicles flying around the city anymore, as proven by the lack of moving lights. Hannah had gone back to the bathroom, probably cursing the rain. However, this did bring something to mind. “And what was going on with the others?” Diana asked.

“They stayed at an arcade. The rain will last the entire day and night, according to the cyborgs,” Ursula sat down next to Amanda, who looked at her with some awkwardness. “They have really good senses for this. You should probably rest and start to prepare. Tonight we have the party.”

“We’re still going? Even with this rain?” Akko asked with some annoyance.

“Yeah. And you shouldn’t be the one questioning it, you’re the one with the ship that can teleport.”

Akko pouted. “Don’t you like parties?” Diana asked, curious.

Akko shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t like parties, I just don’t like these kinds of parties. They say it’s a ‘party’ but it’ll probably be just a boring meeting with a bunch of important people who I don’t know. My parents always did the same with weddings and stuff. So annoying.”

Diana could understand her. She had been to a lot of these parties, and in her youth, she had been bored to tears by them. But with time you came to appreciate them better. Akko didn’t seem like the type who would ever come to appreciate such diversions, though.

“You could think of it as a chance to talk to the people who run the race and maybe gain an advantage,” Diana suggested. Akko instantly seemed more interested, bringing a hand up to her chin. She had taken it a lot more seriously than Diana expected. She should really stop ‘expecting’ Akko’s reactions.

The brunette nodded, as if the idea made total sense to her, and stood. “Ok, I’m going to prepare. I should take a shower, since important people really care about being clean and stuff…”

“I… I don’t think only important people care about it,” Diana said. Akko’s comment had, for some reason, hurt her pride a little. She didn’t seem to listen, though, as she walked and absently entered the bathroom, earning a piece of soap thrown to her forehead. Hannah had really good aim, even if not in a turret.

Chapter Text

The party was not what Amanda had expected.

And she loved it.

The enormous room – twice as long as it was wide, with the ceiling well over ten meters above – was lit with nothing but neon blue lights. The music was loud and upbeat. Nothing like what Amanda had ever heard, but she liked it. It wasn’t as full as it could, but moving around was still annoying. The far end of the room was occupied by nothing but a bar. Amanda didn’t fail to notice the smaller section in the left, where there was a human bartender.

At the other end of the room was a table full of food, but she wasn’t hungry.

She had gotten separated from the others, mostly because she grew tired of Hannah and Barbara complaining about this ‘not being a party, but a rave’ or some idiotic stuff like that. They obviously had no idea of what they were talking about. The music was loud, sure, but it didn’t blow your eardrums away. People – human or not – danced in the center of the room, where there was a dance floor about twenty centimeters tall, but it was a casual sure-why-not  dance, as opposed to the more HELL-YEAH-LET’S-DO-THIS dance one usually found in raves.

Amanda moved through the dance floor, since she didn’t want to round it. Normally, it wasn’t that hard. Here, however, with all of these aliens dancing, it became a little more complicated. Many of them had erratic movements Amanda didn’t know to expect, their ways of dancing completely new to Amanda. Armor, for example, seemed so enjoy faking seizures with how they moved. Shapeshifters moved around in elegant ways, changing shapes constantly at the rhythm of the music, but never harshly. A plant that looked like a giant leaf with four legs was constantly doing back-flips. There was even a medusa in the middle of the floor that had allowed a cyborg and an appal in its water bubble and they were dancing inside it.

Still, after some time, Amanda made it. The bar consisted of three different sections: A really tall one, probably for cyborgs and maybe reptilians, a medium one, slightly taller than Amanda, probably for armor and plants, and a smaller one that was obviously aimed at the smaller sized races. However, what Amanda had thought was a human bartender was in actuality an appal one. It was hard to tell at a distance, but his absurdly square jaw and strangely thin arms made it clear. He also had a hair so black that it didn’t reflect a single bit of the blue light surrounding them.

“Hello,” Amanda said.

“Hi, miss O’Neill,” the bartender said to Amanda’s instant disappointment. So he knew her. Well, it made sense, but this meant she probably wouldn’t get what she wanted. “What do you want?”

This was the moment of truth. “Gimme a beer,” she said as nonchalant as possible.

The bartender nodded, reached below the bar, and brought up a small bottle of beer and opened it for her. It wasn’t a brand Amanda had ever heard of, but she took it. “Thanks,” she said as she walked away and took a swig. It was softer than she expected. Wheat beer, maybe? And it had a hint of fruit. Not the best she’d had, but it was fine anyways. She was surprised she had been given it, given the fact that she wasn’t legally allowed to do it.

Maybe law was different, here on Machina. Maybe she’d enjoy her stay here more than she expected. If the rain ever stopped.

She walked around the room. She wanted to go dance, since she liked these kinds of parties, but first she’d check out how the other races danced. Dancing was more than just moving your body. It was about respect. When you danced, you tried not to annoy others. Sure, bumps here and there are inevitable, but if you aren’t able to read the dance floor, you better stay away from it.

She decided to rest her back on a wall near some windows. People were smoking nearby. The size of cyborg cigars surprised Amanda. They had to be as long and thick as her entire arm.

She had done right in wearing comfortable clothing over the fancy dresses the Blue Team had chosen. Their looks of disbelief when they entered the party, which was happening in the same building, but in one of the middle floors, had been absolutely fantastic. She took another drink. Yeah, that was some kind of fruit alright. Strawberry, maybe? Cherry? Hard to tell.

The song that had been playing stopped slowly, and then it shifted to another one. This one was a little less energetic, but with a steadier rhythm. Kind of sad. Probably a song of love. Like ninety percent of songs in the universe were about love. It was an universal constant, at least for races with more than one sex. Daemons, apparently, didn’t really have an emotion like love. They didn’t form couples or anything like that. They were friends at best.

Sounded like fun, not having to deal with romance bullshit.

“Amanda?” A voice called to her. With the music it was kind of hard to tell who it was, but it was without a doubt her name.

She looked to the side and almost dropped the beer at seeing a cross-armed Ursula looking at her with disapproval. Amanda considered drinking the whole thing in a single go and throwing the bottle out the window to hide the evidence, but that would probably be a little overkill.

“Hey coach,” Amanda said, taking a casual swig.

“What are you drinking?”

“I dunno,” Amanda looked away. It was hard to lie to Ursula, since she wasn’t an asshole like most adults.

“Give it to me,” Ursula extended her hand. In the blue light, her pale skin appeared to be glowing. Amanda hesitated for a second. Well, here goes nothing.

She turned around, drank the whole thing, burped and then gave the bottle to Ursula. The coach looked at her with a frown. Amanda tried to keep a straight face as she smelled the bottle. “Beer. Why are you drinking beer, if I could know?”

“Because I like it,” Amanda said, preparing for the scolding.

Ursula sighed, expression softening. “I’ll overlook it this time,” she said, “because I was a teenager too. But please, try to drink something non-alcoholic next.” She gave the bottle back to Amanda and pointed at a nearby trash can, leaving the redhead alone in her surprise. Had she just not scolded her for drinking beer? Damn it! Now she’d feel bad if she actually drank more! She’d rather been scolded!

“Whatever,” she mumbled. She threw the bottle away. I guess I’ll drink soda or whatever, she thought with dissatisfaction.

After a while, Amanda felt ready to go and dance. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, plus some sneakers. Not the best attire for dancing, but it could be much worse. So, she stepped onto the dancing floor. Dancing always cheered her up.

The party was not what Hannah had expected.

She hated it.

Instead of a brightly lit ballroom where high-class beings would mingle and chat, where there would be slow dances and canapés and everything would be beautiful and calm, she found… this. A blue room full of crazy aliens dancing and music so loud that it barely let her think. If she’d known it’d be like some night club she wouldn’t have come in the first place. She was standing in one of the corners of the room along with her teammates and Sucy and Lotte. Akko had disappeared somewhere while they walked, Jasminka had instantly gone to the food table – hopefully she wouldn’t eat something that could kill her – and Constanze hadn’t even bothered coming to the party. In all honesty, Hannah was jealous of her decision. Even if the food table was in the same side of the room as them, it was so big that it was kind of a pain in the ass to walk back and forth, even if they were only crossing it on the wide.

Ursula passed from time to time to check on them, trying to encourage them to go and have fun, but how would they have fun? They had already gotten drinks, but beyond that, they knew nobody in the party. Dancing was out of the question. Not that Hannah didn’t enjoy some dancing, but she didn’t enjoy this kind of dancing. This wasn’t true dancing, this was just shaking your body at random and not caring about how stupid you looked. True dancing was elegant, careful. She didn’t even understand how people could climb onto that stage and not get knocked out, with how wildly everyone was moving.

She sighed.

“I can make you a brain-slowing potion if you want,” Sucy suggested with a smirk. “It’ll slow your brain activity so much that five hours will feel like five minutes.”

Hannah stared daggers at her, but it had no visible effect. “No thank you,” she simply answered. Sucy shrugged. She was messing with something in her wand, too. Had she brought potion capsules here? She was crazy. Barbara and her had basically ran out of things to complain about, so the black haired girl had slowly gone to talk with Lotte about something she couldn’t hear. They seemed to talk a lot lately, but well, Barbara didn’t have to train and she probably had to have someone to talk. Of all the options, Lotte did seem like the most normal one.

“Aren’t you bored?” Hannah asked to Diana. Diana took a few seconds to answer.

“I wouldn’t say so,” she said. “It’s interesting, seeing how these alien races interact with each other,” she explained. Yep, that was true Diana right there. “I do wonder, though. Plants need a much higher concentration of oxygen than us or cyborgs. Machina doesn’t really have such a thing, or a particularly high atmospheric pressure. How do they breathe?”

When she got like that it was best not to bother her. This meant, she could try to chit-chat with Sucy or try to go and find something else to do. And she was not going to go back to their room. That would make her look like an idiot. She had decided to come so she would stay.

Walking around the room just helped her prove how much she hated this. At least five people bumped into her as she moved, and none of them apologized. Plus, it seemed like their group had been the only one not informed of the nature of the party, since every other human seemed to be dressed casually or even for a dance party such as this one.

With apparently one exception.

“Why, if it isn’t my second favorite gunman,” someone said, and as she turned, she saw herself staring at the eyes of an old man with grey hair and green eyes. He wore a fine brown suit and glasses. She instantly recognized his face, of course. Paul Hanbridge.

“H-hi!” Hannah exclaimed. “I’m Hannah England!” she said as she took the hand offered.

Paul chuckled. “I know who you are, girl. I’m basically the one who had to make all of the paperwork to get you out of the planet,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

Hannah blushed. Yeah, of course he knew who she was. “Sorry, I just…” Hannah looked around and was a little disappointed not to see Andrew nearby. “How are you enjoying the party, mister Hanbridge?” She asked, trying to be polite.

“Not at all, actually,” he frowned and looked around. “I was not informed of the nature of this party,” his face showed clear signs of disapproval. “Nothing that a good beer won’t solve, though,” he raised the bottle he was carrying on the other hand. “But well, you’re probably enjoying it a lot more than I do. I’ll leave you be. I’m expecting great things from you,” he patted Hannah’s shoulder and turned around, walking away. “Now where did Andrew get to…” he mumbled as he left. Not ten meters after, he stopped to talk with a Shapeshifter.

Hannah wished she could have some alcohol to deal with the boredom. She had never tried anything beyond some wine at big parties, but people sure seemed to be a lot happier when drunk. She stared at the bar, but even if she wanted to, they wouldn’t serve a minor anyways, so she didn’t even bother. Instead, she looked at the dance party. So many aliens. Wait, was that an appal and a medusa wrestling inside a bubble? And why was that daemon mounting an armor and swinging around a… shirt or something? Daemons didn’t even wear clothing. Wait, she recognized that daemon. It was Horn! The red tips of his horns looked purple with this lighting. Hannah herself was wearing a blue dress that she had found beautiful, but it kind of didn’t stand out at all in this damn room.

She continued walking. She noticed a place near the windows where a bunch of aliens were smoking. She grimaced. So even aliens smoked? Maybe it wasn’t as bad for them as it was for humans, but… All she could do was shake her head. Seemed like this party would be nothing but disappointment after disappointment.

However, as she kept walking, she paused. Through the music and countless conversations, something stood out. Cheers? No, some kind of chant. People repeating a word in a rhythmic way.

It came from the dance floor. She noticed a place near the center where everyone, instead of dancing, appeared to be looking at something. An act of some kind? It poked Hannah’s curiosity. Maybe she was too bored, but…

She started walking through the dance floor. She almost got knocked out by an armor’s rocky arm, and then a cyborg shot his hand to the ceiling and then got pulled up by a cable. This would get out of hand soon, if it hadn’t already. Still, she managed to get on the outer circle of the spectators. Her translator device started to pick up the voices of those surrounding her, and most of the translations were ‘dance’. ‘Dance, dance, dance’ was what everyone was saying. She pushed her way to the center, earning herself some annoyed looks, and when she arrived, she was met a view she did not expect.

Amanda was jumping like crazy. Her jeans had been ripped to form shorts and she was sweating. Not only jumping, she was doing it with only her hands. Then she jumped to the ground and started to move erratically, but with a rhythm. It didn’t take long before she dropped to the ground again, and started dancing with her hands and moving her legs around and… Breakdancing. She was breakdancing. Hannah didn’t know much about the style, but she sure as hell knew what it was. The way Amanda seemed to bounce around, sometimes pausing in strange poses and just moving almost too fast for Hannah to process it was almost numbing.

Before she even realized it, Hannah had forgotten this was Amanda and she joined in the chant. “Dance, dance, dance,” she said, bouncing her head. How long had this been going? Hannah was between a big cyborg and a particularly random-shaped Shapeshifter, so Amanda hadn’t noticed her yet. When she stood, her feet seemed to move on a slippery floor, and while she was on the floor, she made sure to let everyone know how strong her arms were. When she stood completely on her hands, her t-shirt dropped, showing her sports bra, but she didn’t seem to care.

The most impressive thing was, definitely, when she just used her hands and started spinning. It was probably the signature move of breakdancing, since it was the first thing you thought about when thinking about it, but it didn’t make it any less impressive, particularly when Amanda lifted her whole body on a single hand and started spinning at a forty-five angle, jumping from hand to hand and awing everyone in the audience, Hannah included.

When she finally stopped, everyone started cheering. “Thanks!” Amanda extended her hands, panting. “I’d continue but I think my arms are going to fall off,” she explained, all while wearing a confident smile. She then took a deep breath and ran her hands through sweaty hair, which made it stand up in a funny fashion. Her eyes seemed to be a darker green than usual, thanks to the lighting, and her hair had turned into a deep maroon.

Amanda saw Hannah, and they both froze. Amanda was the first to come out of her stupor, frowning and retracting her lips a little. Hannah couldn’t hear it over the music, but she suspected Amanda was growling. “What?” She barked. “Gonna tell me to stop?”

Hannah frowned back. She had been chanting with the others! But of course, their relationship wasn’t exactly smooth. It made sense Amanda would assume the worst.

Maybe it had been the amazing dancing. Maybe it was the absolute boredom. Maybe, just maybe, Hannah didn’t hate Amanda as much as she believed. Whatever the reason, instead of coming up with a sassy comeback, she just gave Amanda a flat look and snorted. “You’re pretty good at dancing,” she said, though she was still a little more aggressive than she needed to.

Amanda shrugged. “I know a lot of styles. This one just happens to be one people seem to enjoy watching at parties.”

Hannah felt irritated by how nonchalant she was being. It wasn’t modesty, Amanda wasn’t modest. She was probably just saying that to get Hannah to go away. In any other situation, she would have done so. Hell, she was about to do it, but her stubborn nature and the knowledge of what Amanda was trying to pull just pushed her the opposite way. “Where did you learn to dance like that?” Hannah asked. She noticed the people around them had started to dance again. Horn was still riding that armor, and she realized that what he was swinging wasn’t a shirt, but one of the torn pieces of Amanda’s jeans. His blue eyes were a strange violet color now. Maybe that’s how daemons showed drunkness? Could they even get drunk? Given that attitude, Hannah would have guessed yes.

“There was this small gang I used to hang out with,” wait, had she just said gang? “They were really into breakdance. If you think what I did was good, boy, you should have seen them.”

“But I saw you,” Hannah looked around. “Maybe we should get off the dance floor to talk…”

“I don’t wanna talk, though,” Amanda said. “I’m tired, but I wanna keep dancing,” she was already sweaty and obviously tired. Hannah suspected the only reason she wanted to ‘keep dancing’ was to stay away from her. She almost took the bait and just left, but right at that moment, the room changed.

The blue light was substituted by a warm, orange light that was apparently mimicking fire, by how it flickered. The music changed too, now consisting of softer and wind-based instruments.

“Ok, nevermind that. I’m going to grab something to drink and wait for the music to get good again,” Amanda said and turned. Wait, was she going to walk through the middle of the dance floor to the bar? Was she nuts? Even then, Hannah didn’t have trouble recognizing the pattern of the music. It wasn’t exactly as it would be on earth, but it had definitely changed to a slower type of dance.

“So, you say you can dance many styles, right?” Hannah asked. “Can you waltz?”

Amanda turned with a raised eyebrow. “What in hell makes you think I would waltz with you?”

Hannah smirked. Amanda’s type was predictable when it came to these kinds of things. Around them, a lot of different aliens had paired up and had started to slowly dance. Most of them weren’t actually doing waltz, though. They were just… walking around. Cyborgs and appali appeared to be the only ones with some sense of what was going on. “So you don’t, got it.”

“Bitch I won three waltz competitions in middle school,” Amanda said with a puffed chest. “I could outdance everyone in this room in the blink of an eye,” she said.

Hannah extended a hand. She didn’t give herself time to think this through. Dancing with Amanda didn’t seem like a great idea. In fact, being near Amanda in general didn’t seem like a great idea. Hell, this could go from a dance to a fistfight in the blink of an eye, if any of them said the wrong thing.

But it was too late to jump off the train. Amanda had ticked her off, and Hannah would experience the train wreck from the passenger wagon. Whether she liked it or not, no one dismissed Hannah, even in the middle of a crazy party and even if it was someone she basically hated.

Amanda hesitated, but then a couple of cyborgs bumped into her and she stumbled forward, taking Hannah’s hand on reflex to stay on her feet.

Hannah smirked. Amanda’s hand was kind of slick with sweat, but Hannah made the effort to not be too grossed out by that. “Fine, whatever,” Amanda said. “Hope you can keep up,” with a swift movement, she put herself and Hannah into position.

She was wearing sneakers. Hannah was wearing shoes with short heels. Even with the extra height, Amanda was still taller than her. When she started moving – being the lead, as Hannah expected – Hannah let herself start to move too. Hannah was instantly surprised by how well Amanda moved. Not only the dance itself, but how she was able to guide them both around the dance floor. “You’re not half bad,” Hannah said as Amanda made them turn in the spot and walk back the way they had come.

“'Not half bad'? I’m great! I may not be a pro, but fuck pros, if I wanted I could probably blast them right off the dance floor,” Amanda wasn’t looking at her. She was looking around, probably making sure they weren’t stomped by some of the bigger aliens. Now the appal and the medusa were, apparently, teaming up to beat the cyborg inside the bubble. They were losing.

“I mean, I’d say you’re a better breakdancer,” Hannah dropped the line casually. Amanda’s grip tightened on her waist and she guided her into a ninety-degree turn, avoiding a passing plant by mere centimeters.

“Of course I’m a better breakdancer. At least that requires some actual effort,” she explained. Hannah smiled.

“You must’ve practiced a lot.”

“A lot may be a tad much, but I did practice more than usual. The gang wished I would take it more seriously, saying that I was as good as them and that I could be much be…” She didn’t stop dancing, but she did shut up and looked at Hannah with a glare. Hannah did her best to try and appear innocent, but it was impossible not to let her half smile show.

They kept moving. Their steps were steady, Amanda had an amazing rhythm. “Done with the false modesty?” Hannah asked smugly.

“Fine, whatever, I’m good. This doesn’t change anything,” Amanda said in a half growl. She stopped them for a second to avoid hitting the giant bubble of the medusa as it floated in front of them. The cyborg was now trapped between the tentacles of the medusa. Hannah had seen enough jokes about hentai to think that she knew where this was going.

“It changes the fact that I got you to admit it,” Hannah shrugged. Again, Horn passed mounting that armor, but now he was hanging upside down from its shell, and he was wearing Amanda’s torn piece of the jean in one arm, for some reason. He seemed less excited than before, though his face was unreadable. His eyes were now purple.

“You’re a cunt,” Amanda said as she swung Hannah around right in time to stop her from being knocked out by a reptilian who hadn’t understood that this song was meant to be danced at a slower pace. Or maybe that was a slow reptilian dance? Who knew.

Hannah’s smirk turned into a straight up cocky smile. The insult hadn’t been heartfelt, like all the others. Amanda had just said it because she had nothing else to say. Hannah replied in the same manner. “Well, go fuck yourself.”

It wasn’t friendly banter, but at that moment, Hannah didn’t hate Amanda. For a few seconds, she realized the party had kind of become what she wanted: A brightly lit ballroom, slow music to dance to and a good dancing partner – even if she was wearing a t-shirt, torn jeans, a couple of sneakers and was covered in sweat.

And then Amanda answered. “Don’t worry, I probably will. Haven’t done it since this whole race ordeal started. I have my needs,” she said in a much more mischievous tone. She was looking down at Hannah from the corner of her eye. As much as Hannah wanted, she wasn’t able to stop a light blush from covering her face. She hadn’t expected such a blunt reply.

“Can’t you have a little more class?” Hannah said in a voice that came out a pitch higher than she intended.

“You’re the one who suggested it, though,” the music was starting to end, and with it, Amanda slowed down.

“Whatever,” Hannah mumbled. How quickly the tables had turned. Amanda was good.

The music ended, and they stopped dancing. Amanda sighed loudly and stepped back. “Welp, I really need a drink now,” she said running her hands through her hair again. She stared at Hannah, hesitating for a second. Then, she shook her head and walked away.

For a second, Hannah considered following her. But she didn’t. They’d had a relatively nice interaction, but pushing it further would be annoying for both of them. Hannah hadn’t forgiven her for what she had said, and Amanda had obviously not forgiven Diana for what she had done.

Hannah noticed they had ended near the edge of the dance floor and took the chance to get out. She didn’t understand how Amanda had managed to not bump into anyone, but she didn’t have that superpower, so she’d rather be away when the dancing resumed. Being knocked out by an armor didn’t seem pleasant.

She did notice that Horn had also walked out of the dance floor, the piece of Amanda’s jeans no longer in his possession. He was talking to a white being, but it took her a few seconds to realize it was also a daemon.

Horn seemed to notice her, and he waved. Hannah hesitated before approaching with another wave. “Good evening, Horn,” Hannah said politely.

“Hey, you’re the Second gunman, right?” Horn simply said. His voice still made Hannah cringe a little. “This here is Deep Darkness,” the translation of his name almost made Hannah laugh. Hannah extended a hand to him, and he took it. He said nothing, however. His horns were still tipped with red, like those of normal daemons, but his eyes were of a strange green that seemed to get lighter and darker in a pulse. “Yeah, he’s white, you may have noticed. Pretty ironic, I know. He’s something we call,” whatever that was, it wasn’t translated. The shriek-like speech almost made Hannah jump, scared. “But I think you humans call it… Albino?” He cocked his head, but Hannah nodded. “Yeah, I knew it. Well, daemons have a lot of different kinds of that. Deep Darkness is a great pilot, though, you’ll love him,” it was impossible to discern if he was being sarcastic or genuine. He didn’t emote with his face, and his voice didn’t shed any light on the issue either, being so absurdly different to that of humans.

“Hello, I’m Hannah,” Hannah said. Both daemons looked at her with their perfectly round eyes. They didn’t blink.

“Hannah,” Horn said. If someone were to record her name being said like that and then reproduced it in the middle of the night, Hannah would probably die of a heart attack.

“I saw your race against the faeries,” Deep Darkness said. His voice was definitely deeper than Horn’s – or at least, it wasn’t as painful to hear. A couple of pitches lower for sure. “You’re good.”

Hannah found herself standing a little taller. “Thank you. I’m… Not sure I’ve ever seen you fly, sorry,” she apologized. Horn’s body shook a little. Hannah wondered if he was laughing or something.

“You should check him out. He’s almost as good as me,” he explained. “Actually, my advantage comes just from the Noir Rod. If he were the one piloting it, he’d be the First Category pilot without a doubt.”

So they only have one, was Hannah’s first thought. She had considered the possibility of them having two. That meant she and Diana wouldn’t have to deal with the Noir Rod in the race, but with a more mundane ship. Kind of disappointing, but relieving as well. “Well, I hope we have a good race,” Hannah said. Deep Darkness – damn, that name was just so edgy, she could barely hold back a laugh whenever she thought about it – nodded. “I’ll see you around.”

Hannah left the place and walked away. Well, this had been kind of the point of the party, right? Talking to other teams and stuff. No one seemed to be doing that, though. She felt great now. Maybe she was a little hot thanks to the dance, but the room was pretty well ventilated, all things considered, and the temperature had dropped a good number of degrees thanks to the rain that was still coming strong.

She found herself smiling softly as she walked back to the group. Jasminka was still next to the food table, but now she had an audience looking at how much she could eat, and some servers were refilling every plate of food she finished. Hannah decided not to get involved in that.

Their little group had gotten smaller, Diana having left at some point too. Hannah didn’t mind. She felt good enough to even start a conversation with Sucy. Ursula was nowhere to be seen, though. She was probably busy with social interactions or something

And then, the lights of the whole room went out, along with the music that had just started.

The party was not what Akko had expected.

She didn’t really care.

The first thing she noticed as soon as they entered was the Medusa. She liked medusas, mostly because of their weird water bubbles. It was the only one in the room too, and its water bubble reflected the neon blue light in a manner that was almost hypnotic. So, without even realizing it, she got separated from her group as she tried to get a good look at it. With how big the room was, even after ten minutes of searching, she failed miserably in finding them. It wasn’t so full that she couldn’t move around, but it was full enough that finding a small group of six humans seemed impossible.

She considered dancing. She had gone to some night club parties, and knew some basic dances, but the music wasn’t really to her liking. Plus, Akko considered herself more of a spur-of-the-moment dancer, not one who would actively decide to do it. Unless someone played Chariot’s theme. It had been something a fan created for her, but it had completely skyrocketed in popularity when Chariot herself praised it. It was considered ‘official’ and it was absolutely fantastic. If you played it over any of her races right at the final minutes, the amount of hype multiplied by ten. The montages online were great.

Still, after being lost for what felt like hours, Akko finally found something that caught her interest. Croix herself, walking near the bar. Akko had wanted to speak to her and ask her how she had learned to speak all of those languages. There was one particular thing Akko considered herself good at, and that was languages. She had learned perfect English in under six months, Chinese had been easier than she expected – Cantonese, at least - and she wasn’t half bad at French, Spanish and German. She was meaning to learn Latin at some point, if only to be able to scare her family in the middle of the night and make them think she was summoning demons or something. Seemed like a good prank. Plus, maybe she’d manage to get some info on the races in the future. Sounded like a good plan.

Croix, however, disappeared from her sight as she walked behind a couple of dancing Cyborgs. When Akko rounded them, she was completely gone. Akko was left dumbfounded as she ran to the place Croix had just been in. It had been her. No one else in the universe could wear such a complicated outfit. The red cape had been too obvious to ignore, too.

It was in searching for her that someone tapped her shoulder. She turned, hopeful for a second, only to find a boy. He was taller than her. He was wearing a suit and had his hair perfectly styled to the point where Akko wondered how much time he spent in front of the mirror getting it to look so perfect. He had a couple of green eyes that looked at her without emotion. “Excuse me, have you seen miss Meridies around?” he asked with a serious tone. Was he dying or something? “I believe she was just here, but I lost track of her.”

“Me too,” Akko simply said. “She was just here and then poof, she’s gone,” she explained. Teleportation? Nah, only the Shiny Rod could do that. Probably. Could the Noir Rod – she hadn’t seen it but she had no reason to believe Diana and Hannah were lying about its existence – teleport? Not that it would matter, since Croix was almost certainly not riding it. Unless it could shrink. Or become invisible. No, no, invisible no, Croix was definitely walking.

“I see… Wait, aren’t you the First Category pilot?” the boy asked. Akko perked up.

“Yeah,” she said with some hesitance. “Why?”

“No particular reason,” he looked her up and down, obviously measuring her. “I just expected pilots to come a little better… Dressed,” he said with some distaste.

Akko looked down at her attire. She had chosen a couple of shorts and a t-shirt with some standard canvas shoes. “What’s wrong with this? I don’t look too ridiculous.”

She had completely failed to understand the question. The boy tried to make it obvious that he was wearing a suit, but beyond that, he didn’t continue down that line for the conversation. “So, I take it you were looking for miss Meridies too?”

“Yup, got a few things to ask her,” Akko was still looking around. She took a step, and then she noticed that it felt a little different than before.

“Ah, it must be about the race, like I… What are you doing?” He asked as Akko crouched and started knocking the floor.

“I think there’s a secret trapdoor here,” Akko explained casually. The guy cocked his head, baffled by the short attention span Akko seemed to have. “Ah, here it is!” she exclaimed as she managed to slip a finger under one of the floor boards and slid open a trapdoor to a small dark tunnel beneath the floor.

“Well that is rather curious,” the guy said. “Maybe we should go and ask- Hey, are you listening?” He crouched too, trying to stop Akko from slipping inside the tunnel.

“Whaddya say?” Akko asked, completely ignoring him as she crawled on the tunnel that was just big enough for her to get into on all fours. The guy hesitated for a moment before following her.

The trapdoor closed automatically a few seconds after.

“I don’t think we should be here,” the guy said, not being able to see anything. Akko could hear him behind her.

“Wait, who are you, again?” She asked, suddenly snapping out of her single-minded focus.

“I am Andrew Hanbridge, heir to-”

“Why are you following me, Andrew?” Akko interrupted, making Andrew stumble a little on his hands and grunt in frustration. The name seemed to ring a bell in Akko’s mind, but she couldn’t place why.

“I… am not sure. Guess I couldn’t let a girl go down a dark tunnel alone.”

Akko considered this for a second. Then she laughed. “What is this, the sixteenth century?” Andrew sighed from behind. The not-this-again kind of sigh. Apparently he got that phrase said a lot to him. “Anyways, since you’re here, do you have a wand?”

“I don’t endorse the usage of magic outside Broom Engines and-”

“So not, got it,” Akko hummed, thinking. “The key-wand of the Rod could make a lantern, I think, but waving that thing is kinda dangerous. If I accidentally summon the rod here…” She imagined the Shiny Rod appearing here in the tunnel and destroying the entire infrastructure of the floor. It’d probably kill her and Andrew, too. “Guess we’re gonna be blind for this.”

Then, a light shone from behind her. Akko turned as best as she could to see Andrew carrying a little device with him. A small earbud he was extending for Akko to wear. Ah, an Ear-phone. A new type of computer that worked completely without magic. Akko didn’t understand why they invented those. Sure, magic phones or computers could be expensive, but these earbuds were even more so, due to the crazy technology they employed.

Well, it did have a lantern. She took it and put it on.

The tunnel had weird markings on the floor – like something had scratched it multiple times. Not animal like, though. More of a someone’s-been-moving-furniture-around kind of scratch. They crawled for a full minute before Andrew broke the silence. “Do you really not know who I am?”

“Andrew Hanride, right?” Akko said absent mindedly.

“Hanbridge,” Andrew corrected. “I’m the son of the head of the race committee on Earth,” he explained. Akko nodded, making some noises of acknowledgement.

“Oh, look, there’s a light,” Akko said, pointing forward. It was far away, but it was definitely a light. Or maybe it was a reflection of- no, it wasn’t, as proven by her covering the light with her hand and the one far away being still there. “Wonder where this leads to.”

“Shouldn’t you pause and think? What if it’s dangerous?” Andrew asked.

“If Croix came through here it can’t be that bad, you know?” Akko shrugged. Andrew didn’t argue, probably because he realized that what Akko had said made perfect sense and had flawless logic.

They crawled in silence until Akko stopped, poking her head out of the vent-like tunnel. Looking up, she saw a small, white room. Barely big enough for two persons to stand in together, it had a single door on it with no doorknobs. It was lit with a single electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. This was not a room made for cyborgs.

“Could you move, please? My back’s starting to hurt,” Andrew said. Akko moved forward, stepping into the room. When Andrew came out too, they didn’t have much space to move about. Akko pushed the door with some hesitance, and it wasn’t locked. It slowly gave way to a bigger, darker room. “Are you even thinking before you act?”

“Of course!” Akko said in a whispered exclamation. “And, I mean, there’s no ‘danger’ or ‘staff only’ sign here, right? That totally means we can get in. Wasn’t even locked!”

Andrew grunted. “Then why are you whispering?”

Akko paused. He had her there. “Well there may be people working in there or something, wouldn’t want to…” She trailed off as she finally got to see inside the dark room. It was empty. Nothing. Croix was nowhere to be found. Akko stepped inside with a cocked head, looking around. Not even a light in sight. What was this room?

“Maybe it’s some kind of storage or vent,” Andrew said, stepping in behind her. “We may think it’s a little big, but,” he tapped the ceiling, which was just a few centimeters above him, “but for cyborg standards it could make sense.”

“Yeah but there’s no fan in here,” she said, pointing at… everywhere. “How can it be ventilation without that? Also, it doesn’t make sense, this would overlap with where the kitchen was, I think. We went in a straight line from near the dance floor and the vent wasn’t inclined, but this goes up, not down, which means right now half our body is in the space between floors, while the upper half is on the same level as where we were standing before.”

Andrew was frowning with confusion while looking at her. Akko cocked her head, why was he looking at her like that? “Oh, excuse me. I simply did not expect such a… Logical reasoning from you, given how impulsive you’ve proven yourself to be,” he explained. Akko nodded, not taking it as an insult but a praise.

Wait, that hadn’t been an insult, had it?

“But there isn’t any other way around here, so Croix had to come through here.”

“Don’t you think it would be best to just go back and…”

“No way,” Akko shook her head. “We already came this way, she’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Akko started to pace around the small dark room, the lantern following her. “You can go back if you want tho, no one’s forcing you to stay or anything.”

Andrew hesitated before sighing. “You know, I expected our First Category pilot to be a little more… careful,” he had obviously thought of another word first, but Akko let it slide. Yeah, me too, she thought, but luckily she was busy thinking about Croix and didn’t have time to fall down that spiral again. She looked around the room. There had already been one hidden passage, so why not another?

She started tapping the walls. Andrew caught onto what she was doing and started doing the same from the opposite side of the room.

About five minutes later, he paused in a spot and tapped it with special insistence. “I think this is it,” he said. “Though I see no openings.”

Akko approached. “Maybe it opens with those barometric security systems,” she said, putting her hand against the wall.

Andrew hesitated, eyes narrowed and lips parted as he tried to figure out what the hell she had meant. “Oh, you mean BIOmetric, right?”

“Yeah, same thing, you get what I mean,” Akko shrugged. The wall was doing nothing with her hand, so that wasn’t it.

“No, it’s not, barometric is nothing like… You know what? I don’t even care. I see no way into this door, so…” He turned around, ready to leave, until Akko thought of something.

“Maybe it works with a password of some kind,” she said. “Do you happen to know Croix’s birthday?”

Andrew, as expected, shook his head. Well, of course he wouldn’t know. While Akko thought, she looked at him for a few seconds, and suddenly it clicked. “Wait, aren’t you the guy Hannah was gushing about the other day?”

He seemed baffled by the question. “I… am not certain how I would know if that is true or not,” he said with uncertainty. Akko didn’t understand the answer, but she suspected he was. He had green eyes, at least. Hannah had mentioned green eyes, right? Or was that when she was complaining about Amanda? Whatever.

“Ah, I knew it!” Akko suddenly stood, having noticed something. The wall they believed to have the door didn’t merge with the floor. The corner had a slit.

She slipped her fingers under it trying to open it. It didn’t budge. “Hey, help me out,” she said with effort. Andrew sighed, approaching and crouching next to her.

“This is obviously locked,” he said, not putting much effort into it. Akko failed to notice this, continuing to pull. With a roll of eyes, Andrew started to take it a little more seriously. Soon, both teenagers were grunting with effort. Right as Akko was ready to give up, though, the wall quivered. “Hey, we’re-” The wall suddenly gave out, making them both fall backwards on their butts.

Behind the wall-door was a really narrow corridor. The false wall was probably to avoid having an obvious door. The corridor was dimly lit by red emergency lights, and the end wasn’t in sight. It was ominous, and that was before Akko heard the strange sounds coming from it.

“I don’t think we should…” Andrew started but stopped himself as Akko stood and strode into the hallway without thinking things through. He put on a poker face as he followed.

The corridor was even longer than the small tunnel from before. So long in fact that Akko was sure they had to be on a different building by now. Andrew for some reason still followed her, but he was obviously nervous. Akko would have been but the curiosity she felt overshadowed everything else. He made sure not to stick too close to her, but he obviously didn’t want to be too far behind. Well, Akko guessed she wouldn’t want to be left behind either.

The corridor gave way to another small, dark room. The sounds seemed to come from some sort of electronic device. “Argh, not this again,” she complained, walking forward. However, she had completely failed to see the cables on the ground.

“Wait, Miss Kagari-” Andrew tried but failed to stop her. She tripped, falling forward. She managed to catch herself on the wall. When she turned, annoyed, she looked at the cables. They led from one wall to the other, but they didn’t connect to them, they were just passing through. By how thick they were, it was probably the source of electricity for some machinery nearby.

Akko took one, pulling on it.

“Ehm, what are you doing?” Andrew asked for what he felt was the hundredth time.

“Seeing if this does anything,” Akko said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“It looks important, maybe you should leave it alone,” he suggested. Akko, completely ignoring him, started to jerk on the cable. “I’m not helping you with that,”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ve got this…” Akko said dismissively. Her brow was furrowed with concentration. Andrew watched her struggle with the thing. Akko started to consider that maybe she wasn’t really feeling like she could pull it out, maybe she was just feeling shifts on the positions of the cables or something. As far as she knew, this thing may actually be two hundred meters long and be connected in the basement of the building or something.

And then Akko found herself on her butt again, with the cable in her hand. The connector was still behind the wall, but she was sure she had pulled it off. She kept pulling on it, and with satisfaction she heard that the connector was now hitting the other side of the wall.

“Great, you pulled it off. Now what?” Andrew asked with some annoyance. It hadn’t changed anything for them, and there were still like four of those cables. Akko wasn’t about to…

“Ok, that’s it,” both Akko and Andrew jumped scared as Ursula appeared in the room. “You two are in big trouble,” she said with her scolding voice. Akko smiled awkwardly. Andrew didn’t seem to get out of his surprise so easily, though. “Now let’s get out of here,” she said. She looked around, as if waiting for something, before finally sighing and turning.

The party had not been what Ursula expected.

Not that it surprised her, Croix had a knack for subverting her every expectation.

Ursula had seen Croix go into that tunnel. Where had she disappeared into? Maybe along the way there had been another secret passage they all missed. Of course, she had been planning to follow her from the second she saw her vanish, almost instantly after Akko and Andrew had showed up and… Well, she had kind of ended up following them from the shadows. When she wanted to be sneaky, no one could catch her.

Sneaking around Luna Nova had taught her well.

She sighed for the tenth time in a minute. The party room was dark, and she suspected why that was. When they came to it, everyone was leaving. After all, what was a party without lights or music? Well, some of the creatures were used to darkness – Shapeshifters, Daemons – but most of them just left.

When Ursula guided Akko and Andrew out of the ballroom, she instantly found herself in front of Paul Hanbridge in a corridor lit by emergency lights. “Andrew!” He exclaimed. “Son, I was worried about you. Why is your suit so dirty?” He looked back and forth between him and Akko, whose clothes were just as dirty. Ursula’s were too, actually. Then he narrowed his eyes. “You weren’t-”

“Don’t,” Andrew interrupted, “even suggest it, Father. We both know that’s not it,” he said in a perfectly calm voice. It was reminiscent of Diana. Paul then turned his scowl to Ursula.

“Why were you with my son and Miss Kagari, Ursula?” He said in a harsh tone. Ursula didn’t feel offended, she could understand a worried father.

Ursula looked at Akko, who was giving her a puppy-eyed look. Trying to explain everything would take a lot of time, and Akko could get in serious trouble if anyone knew that she was the one who caused the lights to go out. After a moment’s thinking, Ursula stared Paul straight in the eyes. “I was looking at some things in the kitchens and found them there. When the lights went out we decided to wait to avoid getting hurt in the ruckus,” she lied.

Paul’s expression softened, and he nodded, turning to his son. And half-pushing, half-hugging him, he started walking down the corridor. “Now, why were you in the kitchens with the First pilot…” his voice got lost in the distance, and Ursula turned to Akko with a frown.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said. Akko shuffled her feet on the floor as she tried not to look to guilty. It didn’t work.

“I was just following Croix,” Akko explained.

“Yes, I’d figured that much out,” Ursula said. “Why did you think it would be a good idea to pull on that cable, though?”

Akko pressed her lips and slowly shrugged. “Sorry?” She said.

Ursula couldn’t bring herself to scold her too much. Probably because that was the kind of thing she probably would’ve done back during her teenage years too. “I feel like I should give you the chat about ‘never follow strangers,’ but I think what you did was a step beyond that,” Ursula said as she started walking down the corridor. It was almost empty, save for an appal and a cyborg, who lay unconscious in the ground and were completely soaked. Appali had a funny name, given its context in English, but it actually meant “Conquerors” in their language. They had been one of the hardest races to convince to join the alliance, as far as Ursula knew. The fact that they called themselves the same as their planet hadn’t been a good omen either, she imagined. At first, in the alliance, humans had been called ‘earthlings’, but after some protests they changed that. It had been a temporal name anyways, most races had a name completely different from their planets.

No new planets with sapient life had been discovered since Earth joined that alliance. A big casualty, but it did mean that humans were still considered the ‘youngest’ in everything. Most races didn’t care about stuff like that, but humans did. Ursula knew the Planetary Committee back on Earth usually pushed for more space exploration. They wanted more races to be discovered. They also pushed to include the two sapient races that hadn’t yet joined the alliance into it, but, well, if they didn’t want to join and they didn’t bother anyone, then no one else really cared.

“But where did she go?” Akko asked after a while.

Ursula had some theories, but none of them really made sense. The secret passage thing would mean too many modifications to the structure of the building, and if Croix had been appointed head of the race committee so recently, she wouldn’t have had time to build such a thing. And who’d let her do it, when all the time she was going to spend here was barely a week? Plus, that series of corridors and rooms were actually normal in Cyborg buildings. They were made for little maintenance robots – well, little for Cyborg standards. They were the size of a human, normally – and were basically built for practicality. The fact that Croix had gone into one of those is what worried Ursula. What had she done there? She wasn’t crazy enough to mess up with the building’s structure, right?

Whatever the reason, Ursula would eventually find out.

“Wherever she went, next time you should at least call for me, got it?”

Akko nodded, but she didn’t look particularly regretful. “Ok, party’s over, now what?” Akko asked as they climbed into the elevator – which was full of other aliens.

“We practice,” Ursula said. “You have a race in five days.”

“Oh, right,” Akko said, as if she’d completely forgotten why the reason of her being here were in the first place. She was so easily distracted it was almost unbelievable. Yet, when she set her mind to something – like trying that outrageous turn she so desperately wanted to make – it seemed impossible to get her to drop it. If she could only use that determination to study the basics of flying she’d probably end up being one hell of a pilot.

This, though, could only happen if she didn’t end up dying from all her crashes. If the Shiny Rod couldn’t repair itself, it would probably be already done for. No blueprints, no mechanics that could even touch it… Ursula was surprised that none of the girls had realized it yet.

When they reached their room, the others were already there. “Oh, Akko!” Lotte was the first to react. “Where were you? You disappeared!”

“Well, I…” She looked at Ursula, who made the slightest hint of shaking her head. The less people who knew the better. “Got kinda lost,” she said with an awkward smile.

“Only you can get lost in a room with no walls,” Sucy said with a roll of her eyes. Akko didn’t reply, though she was visibly bothered by the comment. Ursula feared she would try to defend herself when the door to the bathroom opened and a wet-haired Amanda stepped out of it with a towel around her body.

“Sorry, forgot my stuff,” she said as she walked to where their luggage was. Diana, who had been looking at Akko with some interest, looked at the redhead with a harsh look.

“You could have asked us to take it to you, instead of walking around naked,” she said.

“Oh come on,” Amanda said a little louder, since she was across the room now, surprisingly nonchalant. Ursula wondered if she was feeling ok. “We’re all but naked whenever we wear anti-g suits, and we’re all girls anyways,” she reached her stuff, bending and taking a bundle of clothes. She seemed to say something else, but Ursula didn’t catch it thanks to the rumble of the rain outside.

“Gender has nothing to do with public decency,” Diana continued. Amanda just ignored her and walked into the bathroom again to change.

Everyone was left kind of stupefied. Everyone but Hannah, who was more of pleasantly surprised to hear what Diana had said.

“Guess she took my advice,” Sucy commented. What advice? Who knew.

Slowly, everyone went to do whatever they wanted. Just to be sure, Ursula checked on Constanze, who had remained near the giant ball of semi-liquid metal and had been analyzing it with something. Whatever she was doing, Ursula didn’t understand, but she was fairly certain the devices she was using weren’t actually allowed inside the Dragon.

Well, as long as she didn’t cause much trouble, she supposed she could let her carry on…

“Uhm, miss Ursula?” Someone called to her. Ursula turned to see Diana, who was still wearing her simple black dress. It fit her, but she had obviously not really put much thought into it. “Could I ask you about something?”

“Sure,” Ursula smiled kindly. Diana was strict, but earnest and kind. In fact, she shared many qualities with Akko, even if their attitudes seemed polar opposites.

“Well, I have an idea for getting Akko to understand what she’s doing wrong,” Diana said in a low voice, “but I’m going to need your approval.”

Ursula raised an eyebrow. “I see. What’s your idea…?”

Diana explained her plan to help Akko get a broader perspective in piloting by letting her handle the Shooting Star for a while.

Ursula hesitated. It made sense, but that wasn’t the problem. No one but Ursula and Croix would know what the real problem was. Even then, it was just a little flight, how bad could it be? “I suppose I can allow it, if you’re in the cockpit alongside Akko to make sure it doesn’t go too wrong,” Ursula said.

Diana nodded, looking relieved. She thanked her and walked away.

Ursula was left with doubts, but in the end, she had agreed. She’d just have to be there and make sure Akko was fine. And Diana was trustworthy too. It’d be ok.

Hopefully.

Chapter Text

Diana crouched, cramped, behind the seat of the Blue Star’s cockpit. The one currently sitting on it was Akko, and she looked nauseated by all the controls in front of her. “It’s fine,” Diana said, “you don’t have to worry about most of them. Let’s take it easy, shall we?”

Akko nodded. Diana could hear the faint buzzing of the helmet as it cooled Akko off. She was nervous and sweating. She probably recalled what had happened back when they practiced in the simulator. It had barely been a couple weeks from that, but it felt like it had been way longer. Diana wished she could say Akko had come a long way since then, but truth be told, she really hadn’t.

“Ok, first, you make the broom hover,” Diana explained. Most of the levers, buttons and switches in the control panel were for little things that newbies wouldn’t need until way later. A lot of them were for slight changes on the different mechanisms of the broom to make it more efficient on different environments, but right now the broom was perfectly adjusted to Machina. Akko followed the instructions. “Then, the wheels,” Diana continued. Akko followed. “See? It’s not as hard as you thought. Now, slowly press the accelerator.”

Akko did. The first gear of the ship engaged, a relatively slow flying. The street ahead was still wet with water, but the skies were already clear and the few stars that managed to get through the light pollution shone down on them. “Nice. Ok, first things first, you should do a few test turns to-” suddenly, the ship lurched to the side and almost crashed into a building.

“Sorry!” Akko said, cringing. “It’s… More responsive than the Shiny Rod,” she confessed. Diana had to suppress a proud smile. So the Shooting Star was better than the Shiny Rod, at least in some ways. Akko tried again, this time more subtly. She nodded as she did so, understanding.

“Now, remember: Up and down are opposite of what you normally do. Pull for up, push for down, got it? And if you want to go up and down without leaning the ship, press this button,” she touched one of Akko’s fingers, the one that was over the button she meant, “and the same principle. However, going up and down like that uses more fuel than normal, so don’t abuse it.”

They were practicing on the long straight of the track, and now the neon lights at the sides of the metallic colored buildings shone with a constantly changing pattern of rainbows. Diana suspected that by the time the race started they would be back to being Machina’s colors. Akko had gone in a straight line for a while. Maybe she already felt comfortable with the steering?

They were nearing the first turn when Ursula spoke through the communicators. “Careful now,” she warned.

“Ok, Akko, all you need to do now is turn,” Diana explained. “Be careful, I know you can-”

Then, she noticed something. Akko’s head had dropped, and only one of her hands was on the joysticks, and it looked to be hanging rather than grabbing. “Akko?” Diana asked, a little worried. No answer. No movement.

Diana jumped forward, taking Akko’s leg out of the accelerator and pressing the emergency ‘break’ on the left joystick – it was under it, where it couldn’t be pressed by accident. It wasn’t an actual break, all it did was shut down all systems on the ship and extend the wheels, allowing the ship to drop and have a rough landing. Diana steered it as she could so that they didn’t hit the wall as they rolled, and after some seconds, the broom stopped.

“Something’s wrong,” Diana said to the communicator. She knew about first aid, so the first thing she did was take off Akko’s helmet. She checked breathing and pulse. Everything was fine. “Akko?”

“She’s unconscious?” Ursula said, sounding worried.

“Yes, how did you-”

“Figures,” The coach interrupted her, sounding worried but not alarmed. “Diana, get her out of the broom, I’ll be right there.”

Diana struggled to get Akko out of the ship. She was heavier than expected, and while Diana had the basic training needed to be a pilot, she had never excelled at lifting things. Still, she eventually managed to get out almost at the same time as Ursula arrived in her little broom-cycle. Diana looked with worry at Akko’s unconscious face. What had happened? The brunette’s face was getting slightly red, and she was sweating bullets.

“We need to get her into the Rod, now,” Ursula said. “I didn’t expect this to happen so quickly,” she seemed to be talking more to herself than to Diana.

“What do you mean, ‘so quickly’?” Diana frowned. “You mean to tell me you expected this to happen eventually?”

Ursula looked up, unfazed by the question. She wasn’t looking at Diana. Instead, she changed the frequency on the helmet and waited for a few moments. She was probably calling to Amanda’s wand. “Amanda, get on the Shiny Rod and bring it here… If that happens we’ll deal with it later, just try it out. Akko left the key-wand in her luggage, I think. No. I don’t know, just search for it, it’s an emergency, come on, don’t waste time.”

She stopped talking. Then, she opened one of Akko’s eyes to examine them.

They were glowing green.

Ursula bit her lips, and Diana brought a hand up to her mouth in shock. “Magic poisoning?” she asked, almost too surprised to speak. “How? What? She was fine just a minute ago. Miss Ursula, would you care to explain-”

“I don’t know,” Ursula said. Was she lying? If she was, she was good. “We don’t have time for this, anyways.”

“But glowing eyes… That’s stage four magic poisoning. It’s impossible to get that unless one has been in direct contact with a stream of magic, isn’t it?”

Ursula didn’t look up. She was uncomfortable with the discussion, but why? “I think she drank something she shouldn’t have at the party,” Ursula explained. “Must have taken some time to digest and cause this.”

Diana frowned. She had to be lying. No race ate magic food. Well, Faeries did, when outside their planet, but there were barley any faeries in the race, and certainly none that were invited to the party from earlier. “Excuse me, but I think-”

She was interrupted by a bright flash of light that appeared next to them. The Shiny Rod floated there, and Amanda jumped out of the cockpit. “I could pilot it!” She cried jumping down. “How? Last time I touched the key-wand it went nuts!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Ursula lifted Akko like if she was nothing but a feather, and without effort took her to the cockpit of the Shiny Rod. Then, she closed the windshield and did something inside. The Shiny Rod moved in circles for a few meters.

“What the hell happened?” Amanda asked casually. Diana frowned again. Something had changed in her during the party, but what?

She was a little too worried over Akko right now to think about it. “I don’t know. She was fine one second and the next just… Unconscious, and she got Magic Poisoning out of nowhere,” Diana explained.

What if the Blue Star has some sort of leak? She suddenly thought. She turned to the blue broom, climbing onto it. She checked the seat and all nearby magic circuits, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She frowned. Hadn’t Amanda gotten sick after piloting the Blue Star too, now that she thought about it? But Diana had been piloting it and there was nothing wrong with her.

She got out of the cockpit and sat on the wing of the broom to think. Amanda looked at her with mild curiosity before shrugging and climbing onto the other wing and lying down.

Diana thought. She could do nothing else as the Shiny Rod just kept going in circles. What was Ursula doing? Wasn’t she going to teleport Akko to a hospital? She had to stop herself from asking through the communicator.

She was worried. It was natural, but there was more to it. Diana thought many things of Akko, but all of them couldn’t be further from wanting to see her in harm’s way. Well, except that one time, but she still felt guilty for even considering it. Magic Poisoning was not something light, particularly if it was as high as Akko’s. Brain damage was highly likely, not to mention heart or kidney failure.

What would happen if Akko died? No, no, she wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t die, she was too young. But what if she got incapacitated? They’d have to go back to Earth, this adventure finished. But… They couldn’t. Diana still recalled Akko’s little speech in front of the Aos Sí. The way it had filled her with confidence, the way it still filled her with confidence, actually.

They would win. Whatever the prize was, they couldn’t allow others to have it.

Diana considered that maybe she had been a little harsh on Akko about her crazy turns. Maybe that had something to do with her magic poisoning, maybe the magic had been clouding her judgment. Maybe she should’ve tried to understand her better back in that moment and none of this would’ve happened…

The Shiny Rod finally stopped, and Diana held her breath. Akko was the first one to come out, looking absolutely fine, eyes normal. Diana let out a relieved sigh and jumped down from the wing. “Are you alright?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Akko said. She looked slightly dazed, but nothing more. “I’m sorry, is the Star ok?”

Diana shook her head. “Why are you worrying about that? You could have died. Are you aware of the horrible effects of magic poisoning? Have you-”

“I don’t think,” Amanda said from behind, “that telling her about how horribly she could’ve died is going to help her,” she sounded slightly annoyed, but not nearly as angry as she had sounded… Well, every other time. Ursula finally came out of the broom too, and as soon as she jumped out of it, the entire thing shut down and went crazy, disappearing  in a flash of light. The loud noise of the alarm made Akko flinch back, as if in pain.

“You sure you are fine?”

“She’ll have a light headache for a while,” Ursula explained. “I’ll take her back to the hotel, you take Amanda on the Blue Star.”

Diana, for a second, forgot about her worry, looking at Amanda. “Maybe Amanda can be the one to do it,” she suggested. Amanda raised an eyebrow at her, but made no comment.

Ursula shook her head. “Sorry, not right now. I’ll… Let her do it, some other time,” she sounded very uncertain of what she was saying. “Still, you can use this chance to rest. Maybe this way you’ll get your inner clock synchronized with Machina’s day-night cycle.”

Diana nodded, a little disappointed, but Amanda shrugged. She had probably been expecting the answer, which actually managed to make Diana feel bad. Maybe because she was a little on edge for what had happened to Akko – which, for some reason, she felt it was her fault – she turned to Amanda and put on her best poker face.

“Thanks,” Amanda said before Diana could say anything.

Instead of what she wanted to say, Diana found herself asking something completely different. “What changed?”

Amanda understood the question. She pondered on it for a minute before shrugging again. “I guess I just realized I can have fun even with you and Hannah being a pain in the ass all the time,” she explained. Then her voice got pinch of menace to it. “But if you start badmouthing Akko I’ll deck you.”

Diana resisted the urge to clarify she had never badmouthed anyone, as it would do nothing to get rid of Amanda’s vision of things. “I think I owe you an apology,” Diana managed to say. “I didn’t understand, in that moment, how much that race would mean to you.”

At that moment, Diana felt strangely light. She hadn’t realized it, but she had been feeling guilty about that, despite what she forced herself to believe.

Amanda looked surprised. “Sorry for saying what I said back at the Dragon,” she said, if somewhat reluctantly. “This doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s true, but, well…”

“I believe it would be best if you just left it at that,” Diana interrupted. Amanda nodded, obviously uncomfortable. An awkward silence rose, only broken by the noises of the city around them. After a while, Diana cleared her throat. “Shall we get going?”

“Yeah,” Amanda nodded.

They climbed in the Blue Star and went back to the hotel.

Back in the hotel, Akko felt like dying. After getting out of the Shiny Rod, everything seemed fine. And then the nausea and headache had started. Ursula was sitting next to her in bed, looking down with worried eyes, but trying to smile reassuringly. “It’ll pass soon,” she said. “You should try to sleep.”

Akko wasn’t tired. She just wanted to die. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, at least. Unable to focus, all she could think about was how she almost hit the wall again thanks to her idiocy. She felt awful. Diana had given her a chance and she had messed it up big time. All she had to do was pilot for a little while a ship that wasn’t the Shiny Rod, but apparently, she couldn’t even do that.

She felt awful, and she could tell it was not because of the headache or the spinning world.

Ursula patted her head with some awkwardness and stood, walking. She said a few things to Diana and Lotte, who were the ones looking the more worried around. Both girls nodded. They had likely received some instructions as to how to handle Akko.

How did I get poisoned? Akko thought. Maybe it was something about that room she'd been in. Would Andrew be ok? If he had the same problem then the mystery would be solved. Then again, it came so suddenly, and so many hours after the party, it had to be there.

With a grunt, she tried to sit up. She wanted to go to the bathroom.

“You should rest, Akko,” Lotte approached.

“Gotta pee,” Akko said. Her eyelids felt like lead. Damn she felt bad. Lotte nodded, helping her up, but she wasn’t strong enough to carry Akko’s weight. Diana quickly approached to help, and together they carried Akko to the bathroom.

“Can you do it alone?” Diana asked. “We can help you if…” She trailed off as she saw Akko’s stare. Yeah, no. No one was going to help Akko go to the bathroom.

Barely managing to support herself on the sink, she managed to get rid of her uniform and underwear, sitting on the toilet. She was hot, she noticed. Of course she was, this was Machina. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that the suits and helmets regulated body temperature.

Hey, maybe that’s what she needed! Akko didn’t mind showering with cold water – most of the time at least – and the bath was big enough to remind her of Japanese public baths. It made her kind of nostalgic, actually.

After finishing with the bathroom, she turned on the water and sat inside the tub as it filled. The coldness seemed to give back some of her senses. She didn’t feel as dazed and disconnected from her surroundings as before, though her head still hurt like hell.

The water wasn’t super-cold either. It was just cold enough to be refreshing, not so much to be uncomfortable. It felt good. Good indeed.

She stayed there for a long while. It was weird, for her, to be so patient. She never took so long in a bath, and this was technically the second time she had done it in the day. But she didn’t want to move. Seemed like the only way she could be patient was through literally feeling like moving would only cause her pain. She didn’t even think, she only tried to relax.

She did her best, but it was hard. The failure from earlier seemed to eat at her, but something else was annoying her. Disappointment. Not hers. She had been given a chance by Diana and she’d thrown it away. Sure, Diana would say it wasn’t her fault, but Akko felt like it somehow was. She was certain Diana would offer to repeat the experiment, but…

Did Chariot ever face problems like this? She thought. Of course not. She won every race. Her practice sessions were a blast. She was the best.

Knocking came from the door. “Look, Akko, I get you’re feeling bad and all but I need to pee and if you don’t get out I’m going to poison the water supply of the building to get you out of there,” Sucy’s voice came from the other side. How long had it been? Akko didn’t know.

She carefully stepped out of the tub. She was going to ask for a towel – since she hadn’t planned on bathing – but the door opened slightly, handing one to her.

She took it. She could walk without much trouble now, but her limbs still felt a little weak. She dried up, and her hair had barely been in contact with water, so a minute later she was out with the towel around her body and walking to her stuff. Sucy entered the bathroom and closed the door with a bang.

Akko sat on her bed for a second as she grabbed some clean clothing. Her eyelids basically closed on their own as she tried to wait for Sucy to come out of the bathroom.

She was taking too long. With the possibility to relax gone, Akko’s impatience came back in full force as she walked behind the bar – where no one would see her – and changed quickly. Wait, her other clothes had been basically clean, why not reuse… Argh, too late now anyways.

Now that she actually felt like she could do it, she lay across the bed and closed her eyes.

Chapter Text

Akko had been… Careful, the past days. Amanda wondered – well, as much of her consciousness tied to the Shiny Rod allowed her to – if maybe she still felt sick from the Magic Poisoning. Amanda had felt awful because of it, and Akko’s level had been so much higher than hers. Luckily enough, the Shiny Rod knew how to take care of its users.

Still, Akko had actually started to listen to Ursula’s advice. After the failure of trying to get her to pilot the Shooting Star, Akko had claimed that until she beat Diana in a race she wouldn’t try to pull off her crazy shit. Amanda could feel her through the broom, her disappointment, anger and determination. She had refused all offers to pilot the Blue Star again.

And surprisingly enough, she was doing well.

The Blue Star flew in front of them, and it seemed impossible to get past it. Akko was definitely faster in straights – she didn’t know that, but Amanda could feel it – but in this track so full of sharp turns she couldn’t take advantage of it. Each time Akko got slightly close, the next turn came and she had to slow down.

She hadn’t hit a single barricade in the past three days, and with the race coming in some forty-eight hours, Amanda found she was more focused than ever. She could also feel someone in her mind. It was weird. She couldn’t read thoughts, but she could tell Akko had someone in her mind.

Knowing her, it was probably Chariot.

They were close to the finish line now. Akko started to grow desperate, and with that, Amanda felt like it was appropriate to attack. Yeah, Akko didn’t really like to attack, but this was no mere race, after all.

She aimed for the wing. She charged up some energy and fired from three different spheres at the same time.

The Blue Star answered with a single laser that interfered with one of the Shiny Rod’s while Diana managed to dodge the other two. Amanda didn’t let this discourage her – she couldn’t really feel discouragement anyways – and mentally prepared to shoot simple projectiles. One, two. One at each wing. One, two. Diana got out of the way with a turn.

Two, one. She changed the rhythm, and Diana didn’t manage to dodge it this time. The magic projectile clipped the left wing. Not a terrible damage, but it would affect her flying. Now, Amanda only had to-

The Blue Star attacked. Both weapons aimed at the Shiny Rod and Amanda had no choice but to raise the shields. Shields took all the spheres to make, so she couldn’t attack while in that mode. Hannah seemed to know this, for she made sure to keep the pressure as they turned again.

However, Diana’s ship didn’t turn exactly as she wanted it to. It was a ninety degree turn, leading her to accidentally bum one of the tall metallic barricades.

Akko saw the opening and accelerated.

That was a mistake.

She should’ve kept her speed and taken the turn from the inside. Instead, the extra speed pushed her to basically mimick what had happened to Diana.

In the final turn of the race.

Diana crossed the finish line a few seconds later, followed by Akko. The Shiny Rod turned off, and Amanda woke up. She was just slightly confused, but she had slowly been growing used to the feeling. She was sure they’d be somewhere in the long straight of the track, and she confirmed it by getting out of the broom. It was the middle of the day, and the cyan sun shone brightly overhead. “Ok, girls, time to go,” Ursula’s voice came through the communicators. “Another team’s going to come practice in ten minutes.”

“Can’t we talk to them about joined practice?” Diana asked.

“Don’t you remember what happened last time?” Hannah sounded grim. Amanda had seen the damage to the Shooting Star and she could understand why she was like that.

“Our skills are better now, I hope, and I find it highly unlikely that it’ll be the daemons again.” Diana explained.  

Amanda found that Akko was awfully quiet. Was she angry she lost yet another race, maybe? The girl in question opened the windshield of the Shiny Rod and looked down with a serious expression that quickly shifted to a more easy-going one. Her usual one. “Can we go eat now? I’m starving,” she said.

She was fine, then.

Ursula denied Diana’s suggestion, saying that most racers didn’t want to practice with others. Amanda climbed into the turret again after stretching her legs, and Akko teleported them both. This time, however, they weren’t back at the hotel. Instead, they were in a building a couple streets down from it, where there was a human restaurant. Not run by humans, but apparently it was a popular spot, for it was filled to the brim.

The front was painted in a metallic red, and curiously enough, it was the only wall nearby not outlined by neon lights. The big sign at the front read “HUMAN FOOD” in all caps and with no fancy typesetting.

“Cyborgs can eat human food?” Akko asked as she also stepped down from the Shiny Rod. She didn’t bother locking it up or anything – Amanda didn’t think that was even possible – for obvious reasons.

“Dunno,” Amanda confessed. “But I’m hungry too,” she said. They waited for Diana, Ursula and Hannah, who showed up about five minutes later. Together, they entered the building.

Inside, the place was even more crowded than Amanda expected. Not only was every table occupied, a lot of places that had been obviously corridors for cyborgs to walk trough were now filled with smaller tables also full of people. The air was cool, too, though Amanda was wearing her anti-g suit – Luna Nova’s one, since she refused to use the horrid black and green one – so she didn’t really care much for that.

Everything in the restaurant was made of a beige colored wood, save for blue cushions on the chairs and the table cloths alternating between purple and red. What did this remind her of… Oh, right. Machina’s colors. Amanda wondered if she should be offended by this, but in all honesty, she didn’t care.

A cyborg waitress approached them. She was lacking half of her hair due to a piece of her head being metal, but she was cool looking. She instantly recognized them and pointed to the back of the room.

There, their friends waited. They were sitting in a strange setup. They had left one side of the long table completely empty, for some reason. Constanze sat at the head seat, while next to her sat Sucy. Then came Lotte, Barbara and Jasminka. Why were her teammates sitting so far apart from each other? Sure, neither of them were great conversationalists, but it was still weird.

“It smells so good,” Akko said, and only then Amanda realized she still had her helmet on. She took it off, and damn she was right.

The sitting arrangement ended up bothering Amanda quite a deal. Hannah hadn’t hesitated to sit in front of Barbara, and Akko sat in front of Sucy. Meanwhile, Diana sat next to Hannah at the end of the table, which left Amanda to sit between Akko and Hannah. She didn’t feel the same despise for Hannah she had been feeling lately, but she didn’t want to sit next to her either. Plus, she was left basically isolated from both her teammates.

“So, how did practice go?” Barbara asked from the other side of the table. They had already asked for drinks, and they looked like sodas, though Amanda failed to recognize the brand. She tried some anyways. It tasted like fruity coke. What was up with cyborg drinks and fruity flavors?

“Surprisingly well,” Hannah said. “Diana keeps getting better and, surprisingly enough, Akko too. We managed to make the entire lap in under ten minutes today,” she explained as she looked at the menu.

“And Amanda?” Barbara turned to her, which caught Amanda by surprise. Why was Barbara willingly speaking to her?

“Eh, I’d say it was fine, but I literally don’t know,” Amanda shrugged. Hannah had actually stopped giving her glares whenever she spoke about this. She had either accepted that Amanda wasn’t lying or she had stopped caring. In both cases, Amanda couldn’t help but feel irritated. Hannah had either accepted it without apologizing for acting like a bitch, or she was simply thinking to herself that Amanda was a liar and Amanda would rather have it said to her face.

“Oh, right,” Barbara nodded. She had let go of her animosity towards Amanda more easily than Hannah, though both had started being way less aggressive since Amanda had her conversation with Diana.

“You’re as great as ever, if you must know,” Hannah commented. Amanda tried not to get too annoyed at the fact that she couldn’t read her. “Though you’re way more passive than you should.”

“I’ll try to keep it in mind,” she said. ‘Try’ was the key word. Since she didn’t know how things worked inside the broom, she had no idea if she would be able to.

“But if we attack more, we’ll destroy the Blue Star and you’d be out of a broom!” Akko said from next to Amanda. She had been talking about something with Sucy, but she had caught what they were saying. Almost synchronized, the blue team members rolled her eyes.

“Are you stupid?” Hannah asked. Akko frowned. Amanda did too.

“Akko, if you don’t take it seriously, you’re never going to win,” Barbara added. “Don’t you think that by not attacking you’re looking down on them?”

“Well, today we almost destroyed their wing,” Akko explained. “What would happen if…”

“If that’s the case,” Hannah interrupted. “It just means neither I nor Diana are good enough,” she finally stopped looking at the menu, passing it to Amanda. She didn’t even look at it for ten seconds before she decided she was going to have a steak and salad.

“Wait, who’s paying for this?” Amanda wondered.

“The committee,” Ursula said from the second header of the table.

Akko, who had been thinking about Hannah’s answer, raised a finger. “But still, then you wouldn’t be able to participate in the race!” she exclaimed. Hannah sighed while Barbara calmly stared at Akko like if she was a retarded kid.

Amanda felt like she knew what she was going to say. “If that happens, Akko, then it means they weren’t worthy of participating in the race in the first place. If they can’t handle a single opponent, how are they going to handle nine?” Barbara said.

Exactly what Amanda had thought. She may not like them, but she couldn’t deny when someone else had a point. A point that she could agree with at least.

Akko paused, genuinely troubled by the question. Sucy and Lotte were talking in a lower voice about something, while Diana seemed to be discussing with Ursula. Jasminka was quiet while she ate snacks – nevermind that they were going to be eating a meal in a while. Constanze, as always, was looking down at a device.

“Why is Constanze at the header, anyways?” Amanda asked, curious as to why the weird setup. No matter how many times she thought about it, it made no sense that Jasminka and Constanze would sit separately, and a fight between them was as likely as a turtle being dropped on your head by an eagle.

“I think Constanze gets better Wi-Fi there, while Jasminka wanted to be nearest the kitchens,” Barbara explained. Well, it was true that just a couple meters to their side there was a counter and beyond it the kitchens. The counter was Cyborg-sized, so it basically looked like a wall to humans.

“Wait, Wi-Fi?” Amanda gaped. “I thought we wouldn’t have internet during the trip!”

“Oh, I mean Cyborg Wi-Fi,” Barbara shrugged. “Seems like she learned to read their language and now uses their version of the internet.”

“Wait she learned what?” Akko’s thoughtful mood was broken completely as she looked at Barbara and then Constanze next to her. “Constanze, teach me!” She instantly asked.

Constanze raised her eyes towards Barbara. There was murder in them. Barbara gave her an apologetic smile, though no one could’ve foreseen Akko’s sudden outburst. On the other hand, no one could foresee any of Akko’s outbursts, unless Chariot was somehow involved.

The waitress approached once more, and everyone started placing their orders. “Wait, I didn’t get to look at the menu yet,” Akko claimed, frantically looking at the options. “Uuh… I guess a steak and some mashed potatoes,” she said. “Yeah, simple and nice.”

The waitress left with everyone’s orders. Amanda had been smelling the food in the air for a while now, and her stomach rumbled. She couldn’t help but look about and damn if the food didn’t look good. As she left, Akko continued pestering Constanze, who had started writing something on a piece of paper.

“Now, for real, you go to a fancy restaurant and ask for a steak?” Hannah asked, looking at her.

“Hey, what’s wrong with steaks?” Barbara said from the other side of the table. Why was she annoyed? She had asked for something with a fancy name that Amanda didn’t even remember.

“You asked for spaghetti. Call me crazy but I find that much more mundane,” Amanda replied, not really liking Hannah’s tone. The auburn haired girl smiled from the corner of her lips.

“Then you know nothing of fine cuisine, my fellow gunman,” Hannah exaggerated her tone to a high-pitched, French-like accent. “For you see, pasta is one of-”

“Why are you talking French? Isn’t pasta Italian?” Akko said, turning for a moment. For someone who apparently couldn’t ever pay attention to anything, she sure was quick to pick up on other’s conversations.

“I don’t know how to make Italian accents, shut up,” Hannah seemed actually kind of embarrassed.

“No, wait. Didn’t it come from China? I don’t remember,” Akko seemed to be thinking really hard about such a trivial fact that Amanda felt like slapping her. Then she dropped the thoughtful expression and turned around, looking at what Constanze had written. “Oh, I see…” she mumbled.

“So, fine cuisine, huh?” Amanda said in a low tone.

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she simply said, which managed to make Amanda laugh. Barbara chuckled too, which earned her a glare from her friend. Soon after, the waitress came with the new drinks. Lotte turned from her conversation with Sucy to say something to Barbara, though Amanda didn’t hear it over the bustle of the restaurant. Sucy was looking with some interest at what Akko was reading, which stranged Amanda, until she realized one of her arms was moving. She quickly peeked under the table and, as expected, saw the purple haired girl, with wand in hand, trying to inject Akko something. Wait, when had Akko changed out of her g-suit? She had probably just worn those shorts and t-shirt underneath. Smart bastard, Amanda hadn’t thought of doing that.

Well, she was fine in her suit anyways.

Slowly, Barbara shifted into a conversation with Lotte, and with Diana still discussing with Ursula, that too left Hannah without a conversation. She and Amanda said nothing to each other for a good number of minutes. Amanda didn’t know if she wanted to say something, but she still felt awkward about Hannah. She had apologized to Diana – well, kind of – but they had still kind of insulted each other a lot.

Amanda looked at Hannah from the corner of her eye, getting a small flashback to the dance they’d done the other day. It had been… Fun. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, not even to herself, but that’s how she felt. The feeling of being able to dance with someone else who actually followed her movements was something she wasn’t used to. Hannah was good. Better than any of Amanda’s previous partners, at least. This didn’t make her any less of a sassy bitch, but Amanda did feel like she understood the auburn haired girl a little better now.

During her lucubration some time passed, leading to her being surprised when the cyborg waitress came with their meals.

The steak she had in front of her was big, though maybe she’d preferred it a little less cooked. It still looked great, though. Hannah’s spaghetti looked good too, but not as good as her stake. Barbara’s food, on the other hand, was a small square of something that looked like lasagna but with potatoes instead of pasta to separate the layers and covered in egg.

It looked too complicated, therefore Amanda didn’t like it. She turned to her own plate. Who cared what the others had ordered? Her food looked great. The salad had, apparently, lemon, oil and salt on it. They hadn’t asked her if she wanted it like that, but she didn’t really care.

She took a bite. It was glorious. How had they gotten fresh human food was a mystery, but who cared? As long as they did something worth with it why would Amanda care? She continued eating. She hadn’t noticed, but she was ravenous. In less than five minutes she had already eaten the whole thing, including the salad.

After a long, satisfied sigh, she took a long drink of soda and burped so loudly that some conversations on nearby tables dimmed in volume. She smiled. Why were humans usually happy after a good meal? There was probably a biological explanation, but she had no idea what that would be. It didn’t really matter to someone like her.

“Could you mind your manners?” Hannah said. Ah, yes, this was more like it.

“I mean, I could, but where’s the fun in that?” Amanda asked, raising both hands and shrugging in an exaggerated manner. Hannah rolled her eyes an sighed.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Thank you.”

Everyone in the table had turned to her. Amanda waved to them, as if nothing had happened, before they went back to their conversations. Akko seemed to be making good progress on the learning a language part, which Amanda found interest-worthy. Or she was just bored. Probably that.

“I have to agree with Hannah,” Ursula said. “That was going a little overboard, Amanda,” the coach said with a serious look. The kind of look that made Amanda instinctively try to do the opposite as she had been told. But, because she knew Ursula wasn’t that kind of person, she sighed.

“Ok, fine, sorry,” she said without an ounce of seriousness.

The table returned to its normal activity – mainly, leaving Amanda alone. However, not two minutes after, a cyborg with a green mechanical eye and two metallic arms showed up at the table with a black smile. Amanda got scared for a second, until she recognized her.

“Memory, how nice to see you,” Ursula stood, shaking the female cyborg’s hands. She had to hold it up really high, and the cyborg still crouched to do it. “What brings you here?”

“Nothing of importance,” the cyborg said. “I was eating with friends and saw you here. Are you enjoying your stay?”

“Yes, of course,” Ursula said. “Do you want to go speak on a less crowded place?” She suggested. Memory agreed, and both of them exited the restaurant.

“What were you two discussing so eagerly?” Hannah turned to Diana, who had barely touched her food.

Calmly, Diana started to cut the chicken on her plate and looked at Hannah. “I was suggesting we try to contact other teams and try to get some sort of group practice thing going on. It would be very helpful to have as much practice as possible, but Ursula was explaining to me why each race would probably refuse,” Diana explained and took the fork to her mouth.

Amanda quickly lost interest and stopped listening on their conversation. She didn’t care about what other races did, she wouldn’t be the one racing against them anyways. Or, well, she would but she wouldn’t remember any of it, so who cared.

“Ouch!” Akko suddenly looked down. “Are there bugs in this planet? Something just pinched me!” She exclaimed. Sucy smirked but said nothing. Amanda waited, looking at the brunette to see what had Sucy done to her. Maybe she had injected her with another skin-altering potion.

However, after a few minutes, nothing had changed. Sucy didn’t seem bothered by this, and Akko hadn’t really complained about feeling different, so Amanda was left confused. Maybe Sucy hadn’t actually injected her something after all, but that seemed rather unlikely.

Amanda sighed. She was bored. Would she have a good excuse to go out? Maybe she could take the Shiny Rod for a ride, since she could pilot it. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but as far as caring was concerned, she didn’t do any. Why would she? Piloting the Shiny Rod was basically a dream every aspirant pilot had at some point in their lives.

The day moved on, but the place didn’t become any less crowded. In fact, Amanda could’ve sworn more people were coming in by the second. Why this place specifically? Why go to a place where you could eat the same food you’ve always known in a foreign planet? It made no sense.

When someone approached the empty head of the table, Amanda turned, expecting to see Ursula. Instead, she found herself staring at an old man of grey hair and green eyes. He was familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Hello, girls, how are you doing?” He said with a smile. He was wearing a suit. Someone else was standing behind him. Hannah gasped. It was probably the son of the old guy, for they had the same green eyes. He was also wearing a suit. They both probably wanted to look cool, but the beads of sweat on both of their heads spoke to how useful those suits were really being.

“Oh, how curious to meet each other here, mister Hanbridge,” Diana said, standing and taking the offered hand. Amanda finally recognized him. He was the important guy back at the ceremony where they had gotten those medals.

Where had Amanda left hers, again?

“Not curious at all, miss Cavendish,” the old man spoke rather neutrally, but Amanda had already decided she didn’t like his tone. Or the aspect of his son. He looked stuck-up. Wait, that was Andrew, right? She didn’t know if she had ever seen him before but he fit Hannah’s description perfectly. And, given how the auburn-haired girl was looking at him, as if he were some kind of god down on Earth – or, well, Machina –, she decided she was right. “See, I came here to speak to you specifically,” he explained. Diana nodded, and the old guy guided her through the tables and towards the exit. Ursula had been gone for a good while, but hadn’t come back yet.

Andrew sat down on the header, loosening his tie a little. “I hope it’s not a bother if I take this seat. It’s been rather tiring, walking around in this heat,” he said. Amanda instantly decided he didn’t like him either. His voice was pompous. And his hair too, damn it. He looked like he had spent an hour in the mirror trying to get it right. How had it remained like that with the sweat?

“I-it’s fine!” Hannah stuttered. Jasminka was completely unfazed by the guy, though Barbara did look at him with interest. Akko and Constanze hadn’t even noticed his arrival, and Lotte was chastising Sucy – probably for the injection thing.

Wait, Amanda loved those chips Jasminka was eating. She should ask for some…

“And you are… Hannah England, is that right?” He said to Hannah. She blushed, which Amanda found absurd. He had literally just asked if that was her name. Truly, girls with crushes were idiots. Love was an idiotic emotion, in general, in Amanda’s opinion.

“Y-yeah,” Hannah said.

“Well, miss England, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I’d kiss your hand, but in all honesty, I’m a little sweaty right now, and I would prefer not to.”

Hannah laughed exaggeratedly at the stupid comment. Amanda rolled her eyes. Barbara didn’t look nearly as impressed with the guy as Hannah, though she seemed to be enjoying the exchange.

Akko turned to look at what was going on and jumped from her seat. “You! Marcelo, was it?” Akko said, pointing. “Why are you here?”

“Hello, miss Kagari,” he said. “Why, I-“

“Akko,” Akko instantly said, grimacing. “Just call me Akko.”

“Well then, Akko, I’m here because my father came to take care of some business,” he spoke calmly and collected. It set Amanda off. Then she realized, it was because he resembled Diana in his way of acting. It made sense, then. Amanda seemed to instinctively hate rich people.

“What business would he have in a restaurant?” Akko asked, narrowing her eyes. Wait, did she know him? How?

“He came to speak with your fellow pilot.”

“Why would he have business with Diana?”

Andrew cocked his head, confused. A common reaction to Akko’s idiocy. “Because he’s the head of the race committee on Earth’s division,” he explained with the tone you’d use to describe something to a baby. Again, it pissed off Amanda. True, Akko was an idiot, but that didn’t give you the right to treat her like one. No matter how important or rich your family was.

“Oh, right,” Akko sat back down, seeming satisfied. “Guess it’s fine then,” she said and turned to Constanze again. Amanda was baffled by how quickly she could drop a subject and just do something else.

Andrew looked extremely bothered by the fact that Akko had proceeded to ignore him completely, but he quickly regained his composure and put on his poker face again. He seemed to be worse at that than Diana, at the least. Amanda could never read that girl, unless she let her guard down. Annoying, like everything she did in general.

“So…” Andrew said after some awkward silence, “are you nervous for the coming race?”

“Of course,” Hannah said. “But it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

The way she said that made it obvious that’s not how she felt at all. Amanda felt bad. In practicing with the Shiny Rod, she didn’t get many chances to shoot. Amanda wondered why there wasn’t one of those fancy simulators inside the Dragon. Wouldn’t it be useful to have the team practice while traveling, instead of just letting them goof off and spend days, sometimes even more than a week, going without practice? The closer thing to it they had were games. As one might imagine, games didn’t really make the cut as substitutes.

“Amanda, can I ask you something?” Amanda turned her attention from Hannah and Andrew and looked at Lotte, who had talked to her. She looked nervous, as if what she was about to ask wasn’t normal or proper. Amanda raised an eyebrow.

“Shoot,” Amanda said.

“Well, sorry if this isn’t a good moment, but is this you?” She handed something to Amanda. It was an aerial look of a place full of people, lit as if by fires. It took Amanda a second to realize it was the dance floor of the party the other day. Near the center of the picture, Amanda’s hair stuck out as she moved while dancing with Hannah.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Amanda said, handing the photo back and shrugging. “Why?”

Lotte perked up. “Ha, I knew it!” She nudged Barbara. “Did you hear that?”

Barbara, who had been paying attention to the newcomer, turned with some surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Told you this was Amanda. And this is Hannah, right?” Lotte pointed at the figure dancing with Amanda. Amanda nodded. What was the purpose of asking? It was obvious, anyways. There hadn’t been many humans at the party.

Barbara’s jaw dropped. “No way!” she said. “They were still fighting back then, it has…”

“Barbara, dude, I’m telling you that was me,” Amanda said with some annoyance. “Hannah kind of pushed me into doing it, though.”

“Actually, I think it was a cyborg who pushed you,” Hannah commented offhandedly and continued with her own conversation. She was still reddish on the cheeks, but beyond that, she had gotten over the initial shyness of seeing her crush in front of her.

“I don’t think that-”

“But you danced,” Barbara was in disbelief. She looked at the picture as if it wasn’t real. “Why would you dance?”

Amanda didn’t like where the conversation was going. She had the feeling she was missing something the two girls in front of her understood. “We danced for a couple minutes out of pure casualty, there’s nothing more to it,” she made sure to try to sound serious.

“But Hannah-” Barbara continued.

“Jesus just accept it,” Amanda said with annoyance. “We literally danced because we could and it was pretty fun, why are you freaking out?”

Barbara opened her mouth, but didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at Hannah, who was focused on her own conversation. She was explaining to Andrew the intricacies of being a gunman. Amanda felt like she could learn from it, but then again, she wasn’t really a gunman.

Barbara turned to whisper something to Lotte. Amanda would have said that secrets on the table were bad manners but then again she had made a ten seconds burp not long ago, so she was not the most indicated person to be saying those things.

And so, she was left alone again. Jasminka and Sucy were also alone, but they didn’t seem to mind it one bit. Amanda wondered if she should move to Diana’s seat, maybe to talk to Jasminka, but then she’d get in the middle of the conversation of Hannah and Andrew and hell, she didn’t want to be that much of an asshole. If the girl wanted to talk to the guy, let her.

Well, she was kind of annoyed about it, but that was probably because she got easily annoyed about anything related to human beings such as Andrew in general, so she didn’t think much of it.

At that moment, Ursula came back.

“Girls, do you want to make a small tour of the city? We don’t have much to do until this afternoon when the track will be open for us again,” she offered. Memory was waiting back at the door.

“We should wait for Dia-” Hannah said, but then Diana arrived accompanied by Paul. She seemed slightly upset.

“I would really like that,” Diana said.

“Me too,” Akko stood. “Maybe if I get to know more about the city I’ll be better at speaking cyborg.”

“Fairly certain that’s not how idioms work,” Amanda said, standing. “But whatever, I’m bored as hell so I want to go too,” she said. It was true. She was bored out of her mind. She still eyed Barbara from the corner of her eye, though. The black haired girl was still wearing a shocked expression. Amanda was tempted to ask what was so crazy, but she didn’t want to deal with whatever the answer might be.

After a while, they finally left the restaurant, and Amanda thanked not having taken off her suit, given how much Akko complained about the heat.

Andrew and her father didn’t join them. Diana was thankful for that, after the chat she’d had with Paul. She didn’t want to see more of them than necessary. She and Andrew didn’t exchange words, but that was for the best. Due to the close relationship the Cavendish family had with racing and magic back on Earth, she had known Andrew from a very young age. The fact that they were basically neighbors didn’t help either. Diana wouldn’t say he hated him, but she didn’t want to deal with him. Maybe it was because they were so similar. Diana wasn’t oblivious to their similarities, like many seemed to think. But as the saying went, like poles repelled each other.

Hannah seemed disappointed at this development. The girl knew nothing about him but his looks and basic personality but she seemed ready to marry him.

Outside the restaurant was a big, long airship. It kind of looked like an oversized jet without wings and way more windows. A door opened on the side and everyone climbed in. The inside of the ship was cyborg sized, but every seat had some steps obviously put there recently to allow smaller races to climb up to them. They looked comfortable, but there was one little problem.

Almost every seat was taken.

“I guess it was kind of hasty to presume we’d be alone on this tour,” Diana commented.

“Oh, yeah. But two humans can comfortably sit in a single seat, and there’s five free seats, so it’s perfect,” Memory explained. She spoke in a polite, calculated manner, almost cheerful. Diana noticed some daemons on the ship, and for a second thought one of them would be Horn, but that wasn’t the case.

She did notice that there were no Armors aboard. They were made of rocks – well, not really, but it was the fastest explanation – so they were really, really heavy. And there weren’t medusas either. Their bubbles were probably too big for the ship.

“Sit however you’d like,” Memory pointed at the five seats free near the front. One of them stood alone, while the other four were on pairs. Diana started considering what the best configuration would be to allow for minimum conflict between everyone, but Sucy walked forward and sat next to a window – the windows were long and wide, which allowed even tiny humans to look through them – throwing her ideas into the trash.

As expected, Lotte and Akko followed. The green team took the seat behind it, which only left the blue team and Ursula. One of them would have to go with Ursula, and Diana was tempted to offer herself to it when Akko perked up and called for the coach to seat in the same seats as her. Ursula obliged.

The three blue team members looked at each other.

“Sit together,” Barbara said. “I’ll go seat with the green team,” she said and turned.

Diana had also thought that the best option. Leaving Hannah and Amanda in the same row didn’t seem wise.

“Oh no you don’t,” Hannah took Barbara’s arm and pulled her back, quickly taking the seat next to Constanze and behind Ursula. Diana frowned. “You two have had barely any interactions since this whole race ordeal started. Might as well take the chance, don’t you think?” She explained. Diana raised an eyebrow, but that did sound like something Hannah would think about.

Barbara shrugged and sat next to the window. Diana followed and sat beside her. It truly was a comfortable seat. Very springy, probably because it was meant for the way heavier cyborgs. Memory moved on to the cockpit, leaving them alone. Then the ship started moving vertically.

“Wonder how they do that. I didn’t see any means of hovering below the ship,” Diana commented. “Magnetism? Maybe they have a similar technology to the Armor.”

“Nah, if so, why would they have engines? It’s probably something that somehow negates gravity,” Barbara suggested. It made more sense than Diana, but…

“No way, if they had a way to counteract gravity we’d know about it,” she said. “We’re in close contact with each other, but those are the kinds of scientific breakthroughs no race could keep a secret for long.”

“Like the Shiny Rod and the teleportation?” Barbara raised an eyebrow.

Diana pressed her lips. She had a point there. Outside, metallic buildings passed, but no one was really giving them a tour. Diana wondered where they would start. For the direction of the ship, they were probably moving towards the outer parts of the city.

A cyborg lady came out of the cockpit, but it wasn’t Memory. She had a bronze, steampunk-looking arm and leg. Gears were visible, and it moved rather inefficiently. She looked tired as she handed everyone little bags. Inside, there were colorful balls of something. Diana picked one up. They looked like glass marbles, but didn’t feel like glass.

“These,” the lady started saying, “Are candies fit for all races. Try them, we are certain you’ll find them delicious,” she sounded as someone who had said that phrase a number of times already and was starting to get sick of it.

Diana, overtaken by curiosity, put the candy into her mouth. It didn’t have much flavor, but the texture was absolutely incredible. It felt like chewing on pure water, but that somehow didn’t spread around the mouth. And what little flavor it had was fruity. Diana felt like she had tasted the same slight flavor on the sodas from earlier. She hadn’t had much of a chance to ask cyborgs about their culture yet, but she hoped she’d be able to at some point before the end of their stay in the planet in about three days.

For some reason, she had the feeling she wouldn’t be able to do it.

At one point, the landscape of the city became strange, and it was then that Diana stopped thinking and started admiring. Everyone in the ship gasped as they looked down on Machina.

And its beautiful chaos.

The world appeared to be made of metal. The grass was copper colored. The leaves on the trees appeared to be made of silver. Even rocks seemed to have metallic shine to them. The landscape was rather chaotic, as if the planet didn’t have a geographical cohesion. Around the city there was mostly a copper plain sprinkled with some silver threes here and there. However, to their right, the ground dropped suddenly to become something like a canyon, while to their left there were small hills with a lot, a lot of holes going through them.

“What you’re seeing to your right,” Memory’s voice said through the communicator as Diana popped another candy into her mouth, “is the Metal Mines of the ancients. Before-” Diana assumed what followed was the name of the city, which she had kind of forgotten, wasn’t actually Wood City, “was founded, our ancestors used this land rich in minerals to extract metals from the earth. However, when the metals ran out, this city had already established itself, and not many were willing to leave,” as Diana chewed, she wondered if this had sugar. It was just mildly sweet, but she did like to know what she was eating. “To your left are the Mine Hills, where all the dirt from the mining operations was dumped. Those holes are actually nests of-” the name she pronounced wasn’t one Diana could understand, but she did recognize that the word was the same as that of Metal Birds, “which migrate here every winter.”

Diana wished she had some kind of binoculars to see closer. The helmet she had had many functions, but a zoom was not one of them. Still, she thought she saw some figures flying over the hills. What a strange way to make nests, that one was. Would Metal Bird eggs taste good? That would certainly be interesting.

“What’s that?” Akko asked loudly enough for everyone to hear. She got no answer, but when looking out the window, Diana was sure she spotted what Akko meant. It was hard to see from this angle, but directly below them was an enormous hole in the ground without a visible bottom. Diana looked at it for a while. Whatever it was, she didn’t recognize it from any descriptions of the planet.

The ship turned, and as it did, new parts of the land came into view. In the distance a mountain range was appreciable. Where the terrain became more regular, a forest started, a forest that spread, Diana suspected, all the way to the ocean where the Dragon would be waiting.

And that was most certainly the direction where the Dragon was, as many human brooms came out of the forest in a constant flow, going to Wood City. “In the horizon you may be able to see the Spiky Mountains,” the voice said. “Cyborgs have tried to conquer them for centuries, but they’re infested with-” whatever she said was lost in translation. “You can actually see an old nest from one of them right below the ship. Those monsters are able to pierce through rock as if it was water and disappear underground faster than we could drop a few Hyper Bombs on them,” Hyper Bombs were, basically, the nuclear bombs equivalent of Machina. In fact, they were probably even more powerful than nuclear bombs, but they didn’t work on nuclear fusion like human ones.

Diana didn’t have interest in how they worked. She wasn’t a fan of weapons of mass destruction, no matter who created them.

Now, those beings… Diana had understood something like “Hungarians”, but then again, that was probably her brain trying to interpret the foreign language as something understandable. Like hearing names in the wind or in music.

“Damn, those things must be huge,” Barbara whispered. “What do they eat?”

“I’d guess they’re able to eat nutrients from the soil itself like the Metal Birds seem to be able to do,” Diana explained. “Even the plants of this planet seem to be adapted to the richness of raw mineral. I’d love to see some more flora and fauna to study it a little more,” she considered the possibilities. Did every animal in the planet have metallic taints to them? Why didn’t cyborgs have it, then? Maybe that’s what had allowed them to evolve to the point of sentience. Again, Diana found herself with so many questions but no answers. Maybe Constanze could teach her about things, if she had managed to learn Cyborg language.

As the ship kept moving, Diana couldn’t help but admire the landscape. Tree trunks seemed to have a golden taint to them. Trees of gold and silver. It reminded Diana of a fairy tale.

“Akko, you’re going to fall off the window,” Diana heard Lotte say from behind, and she could easily imagine the brunette sticking her face to the glass in an attempt to better look outside. “That forest to your left,” the voice said. The humans were on the left side of the ship, so they had the better view of the forest, “is the forest our ancestors named-” again, the translation device didn’t pick it up, “which means ‘Trees of Fruition.’ We still don’t fully understand what that means, since none of the trees in the area give any kind of fruit, but we’re still investigating.”

Diana wondered if they didn’t have written records of this all. If they had, maybe they’d see that before the forest did have fruits but something changed and it stopped producing it. Or maybe Diana was assuming everyone else wasn’t as good a researcher as she was, a mistake she seemed to make a little too often for her taste. It wasn’t as if she thought she was better than everyone, it was just…

You think you’re too good for our party or what?

Diana felt a stab of cringe as she recalled that. No, I don’t, she had to remind herself. People so often assumed she thought she was above them that sometimes it was hard to remember that was not how she felt at all. Thinking you’re good at something you have proven to be good at wasn’t egocentric or narcissistic, it was merely acknowledging your own abilities and having confidence in them.

“Are you ok?” Barbara whispered to her. “You look stressed.”

I’m not, Diana thought. Amanda had apologized after Diana’s own apology, but she still believed Diana to be like that. “It’s fine, I believe I just ate a tad too much,” she lied. No need to worry Barbara with her troubles. When Diana eyed her friend, it was obvious that she hadn’t believed her, though.

She didn’t pressure Diana, instead looking out the window again. Diana silently thanked her for that, completely failing to notice the fact that Barbara seemed to have troubles of her own. It’s ok, she told herself. It was just a moment of recalling something hurtful. Nothing that a little logic wouldn’t solve.

“To your right, you will now see a wonderful aerial view of the city,” Memory’s voice snapped Diana out of her mind, and indeed, the view of the city was glorious. Even during day, with the metallic painted buildings in the center, the city sparkled and shone. It was a sight to behold.

It helped Diana keep her mind from going down the path of self doubt. Thanks to that, she simply resolved to ask Memory about it as soon as she could. She wasn’t assuming everyone else to be stupid, she was just used to others not having the same level of investment in things as her. In fact, many of her old teachers had suggested her to pursue a scientific career, instead of piloting. They had a point, but they didn’t understand.

“Diana,” Barbara nudged her with her elbow, “look!”

Diana looked through the left window, and was surprised to see a flock of birds soaring next to the ship. Metal Birds, at least two dozen of them. They had long, beautiful and colorful feathers, alongside with their metallic beaks and claws. Blue, red and green seemed to be the most common colors, though there were a couple yellow and orange ones. All of them had a slightly different metallic color to their beaks, too. Some appeared gold, while others were more silvery. One of them, even, had a very dark beak that, if not for its reflectivity, Diana would’ve assumed it was just the natural color of it.

A red bird kind of reminded her of the Shooting Star, and in turn, that reminded her of practice today. Akko had done well, but not well enough. Or at least, probably not well enough. She still had no idea as to the capabilities of the Noir Rod, but one thing was certainly clear: The daemon gunman was good.

“Your aunt sent a message for you,” Paul’s voice echoed in her head. “But it is of a somewhat… Harsh nature. Let me read it to you: Hello, Diana. Hope you’re doing great. Saw your race against the faeries, that was rather impressive! You almost didn’t make it! I can’t help but fear you’re won’t be able to win future races, and that would be a shame, as it’d mean you’d have to leave the family heritage on my care for another ten years. But don’t worry! I’ll make sure to run everything smoothly!”

Rather than ‘harsh’, the message had been a reminder. A subtle one, of course, but a reminder nonetheless. When Diana had talked to her aunt about this race, she had been angry. Very angry. Diana would turn eighteen in about a year and a half, and when that happened she would take over the Cavendish family. However, her aunt would still be basically in charge while Diana prepared for the next IPR.

Unless, of course, she won this one.

If Diana somehow managed to fulfill her goal in this race, she would take over fully and probably leave her aunt to rot. This is why she was actually cheering for Diana to lose. In fact, Diana suspected that if she met an accident and didn’t make it back to earth, her aunt would be ecstatic. That’d mean her daughters would be the Cavendish heirs. If that ever came to pass, Diana held no doubt in her mind that it’d be the end of the Cavendish name in the Magic industry. Piloting, medicine or any of the now inactive branches of the family would be lost forever.

Of course, none of them had actually spoken about this. Diana had just mentioned the race, and then they’d had a long conversation full of dodging questions and euphemisms. Diana tried not to think about it, and she normally managed to do so, but her aunt just had to try and bring her down with her stupid messages. There weren’t many people in the world Diana would say she hated, but Daryl held the top spot of that list.

One of the birds, a blue one with a golden beak, suddenly shifted directions, approaching the ship. Diana had to think for a few moments before realizing it was the same bird they had seen back after their first encounter with the Noir Rod. It started flying next to Akko’s window, looking at it curiously, and Diana heard Akko’s exclamation of surprise as the bird pecked the window. “Hello, big guy,” Akko said from behind. The bird pecked the glass again, which made Diana kind of nervous. Was it attacking the ship? Did it want something with Akko? Or was it just a way of saying hello?

“Huh, it really likes that human,” someone said from more on the back. Given the language, it was probably a cyborg. The guard at the hotel had said something similar, hadn’t he? Diana wondered how they could tell. From her perspective, if the bird broke the glass and pecked again, it would probably kill the brunette.

Akko didn’t seem worried about this, however. “Maybe it wants to eat you,” Sucy said with a snicker.

“Nonsense, they eat rocks,” Akko explained, probably having missed that it had just been a joke. The bird didn’t peck again, but it did suddenly move to stick its three legs against the ship, somehow piercing into the hull and managing to stay in place.

“Seems like we’re taking it with us,” Amanda commented, sounding unimpressed.

Diana looked at it with curiosity. What had it seen in Akko? “Looks like one of the Metal Birds has clung onto our ship. Don’t worry, we’re ready for it. They often do this, if they find someone they like inside. It is known that-” Again, Memory pronounced the real name of the creature. It had long vowels and a couple K’s pronounced with almost no intensity. Seemed like it’d be a hard language to learn to speak fluently. “In case you’re wondering, these amiable fellows tend to take a liking to people they feel have similar personality to themselves. They have proven to be particularly good at reading emotions,” Memory explained.

The bird pecked again.

So it has a personality like Akko’s? How curious, Diana thought, nodding with interest. She wondered if there would be a bird who liked her. It would certainly be-

The bird pecked again, this time with more strength. The glass cracked.

“Wait, if this thing is supposed to be like Akko…” Barbara mumbled. Then, it dawned on Diana.

Oh no.

The next peck broke the window completely, and Akko fell off the ship.

Chapter Text

Akko was falling to her death. This fact, surprisingly, didn’t seem to bother her. Maybe she was too confused to actually process what was going on. Before she could actually think about that, however, something picked her up.

The blue Metal Bird had perfectly clasped both of her arms and was now carrying her through the air in the direction of Swiss Cheese Mountains – what she had decided to call the holed up hills. It was at this exact point that Akko started to scream. “Woah woah woah!” She cried. “Birdie, can you let me down?” She asked, but it was stupid to think it would work. She was afraid of many things at once, too. The fall, of course, but the bird clasping her arms was kind of scary too. Maybe it’d grab too strongly and cut off her arms, or maybe it wanted to eat her, like Sucy had suggested!

No, that was dumb, but in the moment her mind just seemed to go through the motions, not stopping to think rationally. Well, it normally seemed to work like that, but this was just worse.

The hills ahead came closer, and Akko couldn’t help but be amazed at the speed at which this bird flew. It wasn’t so fast that Akko couldn’t open her eyes, but it did bother her enough that she had to squint. She saw the copper fields and silver forests as she was carried through the air, and through her panic, a random thought seemed to escape the hyperactive back of her mind. Everything’s reflective. Must be annoying.

She was obviously not in the best mental state, if she could think like that despite what was going on. Her heart was pounding, and though the wind was deafening, she swear she could hear it.

Hey, at least no one will say it was my fault if I died, she tried to think positively. She had heard more than once jokes that she would one day die in an accident of her own creation, but jokes on them! If she died, it would be because a giant bird in an alien planet kidnapped her! At least that’d be an interesting story to tell her kids- Wait, how would she ever have kids if she was dead?

While thinking of stupid things, she did manage to calm down, which in turn allowed her to analyze the situation more carefully. Why had the Metal Bird kidnapped her? They were close to the hills by this point. Akko assumed it was carrying her back to its nest. Maybe it had thought her a daughter of some kind. How smart were these creatures, anyways? With how big they were, they surely had a big brain, right?

As she tried to come up with the answers, the bird approached a hilltop and carefully let her down. Akko instantly went down to her knees, as her legs were shaking. Boy, that had been scary, and Akko believed she had grown used to heights. She was impressed by how grassy the grass felt. Yeah, it was stupid, but she had actually expected it to be, well, hard and metallic to the touch, as its color suggested.

“So…” Akko turned to look at the bird. It was looking at her with interest. “What now?”

If it understood her, it didn’t show it. However, it did turn and start jumping downhill. Akko might have been a little more worried about being so far from the city, but she still had the Rod’s key-wand with her, meaning she could probably just go home whenever she wanted. It was worrisome, sure, but not as much as hanging in the air hundreds of meters above the ground had been. Akko wondered for a second if she’d hit the ground stronger or softer than on earth. Gravity was supposed to be stronger here, but there was also more air. Wait, more air meant more air resistance? Hell if she knew. Plus, the difference was probably so small that it wouldn’t affect it that much anyways.

As Akko went downhill, trying not to fall into any of the cave-holes, she saw the blue bird entering one. She was quick to follow and enter and, to her surprise, the inside was… clean. It wasn’t dirt, as she’d expected, but actually metal. The tunnel was somehow coated in a dark metallic substance, and in the center of it stood something like a metallic bowl sustaining five eggs.

How the metal had been processed or worked onto the sides of the tunnel were things she considered for a split second. Then she decided it would be far too much thinking for herself and she decided to move towards the eggs. The bird stood next to them, as if showing them to Akko.

“They’re very nice,” Akko said. They were white, she thought, but it was far too dark here in the middle of the tunnel to actually tell. She was sure, however, that they had tiny bits of metal in them, as if it was dust sprinkled over the surface, for the way they glinted as she moved around the bowl. She didn’t dare touching one. She wouldn’t risk getting her hand ripped off by a protective mother.

“So you’re a girl,” Akko continued trying to make conversation with the bird that obviously couldn’t understand her. There wasn’t much more to appreciate about this place, though she did understand how amazing it was. These metal coatings were probably the reason the hills hadn’t collapsed despite being so holed up. How many of these were there, anyways? Probably not many, though from the air she had seen at least a couple dozen.

Akko looked at the bird again, trying to piece together why it had brought her here. After some deliberation, she tested approaching her hand to the bowl. The bird didn’t react. In fact, it seemed almost… expectant. It was waiting for her to do something, but what could that be?

Akko tried placing a hand on one of the eggs, and the bird cried. It was like a mixture of an eagle’s cry and a chicken’s song, and Akko jumped back, expecting retribution for having touched the bird’s eggs. Instead, the bird stopped, kept looking at her, and slowly jumped back to the exit where they had come from.

What’s going on?

Akko followed it. She wasn’t sure what the bird was trying to do, but she also didn’t want to make it angry, just in case. As they continued going downhill, the bird suddenly stopped and looked at her.

Then, it extended its wings and flew through a tunnel.

Akko ran behind it, but the bird was way too fast for her. That was, of course, until the bird disappeared. Akko kept running, shocked. It had disappeared in an eyeblink, but these nests were made on straight lines, right? So why-

When she reached the midway point, she found herself looking at another tunnel that lead deeper into the mountain, completely lacking of light. So maybe this was more like a burrow than a nest? Akko didn’t fail to notice there were no eggs inside here. Not even a bowl.

When the bird didn’t came back, Akko got slightly nervous. She took the key-wand of the Shiny Rod and very carefully lit it. Now that she thought about it, she had never needed to recharge it, the same way the Shiny Rod didn’t need refueling. How did that go? Maybe back on Sídhe they had been able to absorb magic from the air or something, but here...

If I asked Alcor it’d probably just ask me for a password again. Dumb familiar, Akko thought as she walked down the tunnel. It wasn’t any different from the other ones, besides having no apparent end. Each of her steps echoed, which made Akko slightly uncomfortable. There were no other sounds, and she wondered if the blue bird had even come through here. A wand’s lighting wasn’t the most efficient, either. Its eerie green light worked fine, but wands didn’t have that much power.

Then, something ahead suddenly reflected her light. She panicked for a second before assuming it had to be the blue Metal Bird. “You know, I oughta give you a name, what do you think?” She asked. Her voice also had an incredible echo. “I think I’ll call you Elizabeth. You’re probably wondering why such a fancy name for a bird, and, well, that’s the point! To get people to ask why the name. Am I smart or am I smart?” Akko chuckled.

She then paused, realizing she was talking basically to herself.

Elizabeth was waiting for her at a dead end. There was nothing here. In fact the wall ended in dirt, not metal coating, like she had expected. Akko looked at the bird, wondering, yet again, what the hell did it want, until it lowered its- No, wait, Akko had named her. The bird lowered her body, inviting Akko to mount her. Or at least that’s what Akko got out of it.

She carefully mounted her, and Elizabeth instantly took off. The speed at which she was flying made Akko nervous. They were approaching the tunnel that did connect with the sides of the hill, but with this speed they would crash. Akko had a sudden flashback at her own attempts at turning with the Shiny Rod.

The bird, however, instead of slowing down, accelerated.

Oh boy, Akko thought, ready to die for the second time in less than an hour.

Diana couldn’t help but cry out in horror as the girl fell out of the ship, sound cut off by the roar of wind that came through the broken window.

Amanda was quick to try and catch her, but with the seat in between, she obviously didn’t make it in time. Suddenly, everyone rushed towards the window, trying to look down to the falling Akko. Diana felt as if time stopped for a moment, a thousand ideas crossing her mind in a split second. None of them would work to save her, however.

And then the blue bird who had broken the window caught her-mid air and carried her away.

“Holy shit, it did want to eat her,” Sucy commented. Diana frowned, who would make a joke in this situation?

“Of course Akko would be the one to be kidnapped by a giant bird,” Hannah said. “Seriously, can’t she spend five minutes without causing some trouble?”

“Don’t be unfair,” Amanda said, “It’s not her fault the bird took her. Though that seems like something very Akko to happen.”

They all sounded incredibly calm, opposite to how panicked Diana was feeling. “Uhm,” Diana said, uncharacteristically unsure of what to say, “aren’t you worried?” She asked, frown still in place.

“Eh, I was while she was in freefall, but if the giant bird took her to its nest, then Akko can probably get out of there with the Shiny Rod,” Amanda shrugged. Diana tried to see a hint of doubt, but she couldn’t find any.

“Plus, she’s too stupid to die anyways. I bet she’d find some way of surviving the fall,” Hannah explained. Diana understood why she would have such a perception of the brunette, but it didn’t mean she was ok with it. After all, Akko did have a talent for getting into strange accidents and somehow come out of them mostly unscathed.

Diana still wasn’t ok with the attitude, but seeing the others so calm helped her calm herself. Akko would be fine, she had nothing to worry about.

It didn’t stop Ursula from standing and walking into the pilot’s cabin with an angry expression.

Diana considered following, but she would feel out of place. Ursula was their guardian for the time being. Still, she felt a soft emptiness in her stomach. Nervousness. Seemed like no amount of rational thinking would stop her brain from making her worried.

But she was sure everyone else was worried too, they just trusted Akko more than her. Or, in the case of Hannah, had a perception of the brunette that just led them to believe she would be fine anyways. Diana couldn’t see Lotte from here, but she suspected the meek redhead would be as worried as her, given the fact that she hadn’t said a word this whole time.

Akko would be fine. She always got out of troubles like this one.

Akko had seen – not, had lived – what the bird had done, and suddenly everything just made sense. They were now overflying the city, sun shining brightly in the sky - though the wind helped Akko not die of a heatstroke - where the gable roofs quickly gave way to metallic tall buildings with flat tops. Some cyborgs on top of those pointed at Akko and Elizabeth with wonder. Akko had managed to get over her initial fear of the height, but she tried to not look straight down. In the distance, more clouds gathered. Rain again? What a pain in the ass.

It didn’t take long before they reached the dark metallic skyscraper of the hotel, where Elizabeth left Akko on the roof. Akko mounted down from her and looked into her black eyes dotted with color.

“Uhm, thanks,” she said, smiling. “You were really helpful.”

Elizabeth lowered her beak and poked Akko in the chest. Akko timidly patted her head, and they stood like that for a minute until Elizabeth jumped back and extended her wings, gave a little nod with her head and flew away. “Hope we’ll meet again!” Akko said. The bird squeaked something in return and, despite not knowing what it meant, Akko felt strangely warm inside.

And outside too, now that she was standing in the sun. Damn it was hot. She waved her wand, and the Shiny Rod instantly appeared on the roof. She quickly climbed into it, took her helmet and put it on. “Hello,” she said, hoping someone was hearing her.

“Akko!” Ursula’s voice came through the communicator. It had that mixture of scolding and worry Akko was – not proudly – used to. “Are you alright? Where are you? What happened?”

Akko took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m at the hotel, and the bird that kidnapped me took me to see her eggs back in her nest and then it flew me around for a while and I think I made a new friend,” she said that in as quick succession as she could without making unintelligible. She wanted to get the explanations out of the way quickly. “Also, you should come back. It looks like it’s going to rain,” Akko said, looking towards the horizon. Hopefully it wouldn’t rain for long, she wanted to practice some more.

It didn’t take long for everyone to come back, and Akko had already explained everything to Ursula through the radio and showered by then. She was rather tired, the emotions of the day being a little stronger than usual. The clouds had approached considerably, so Ursula decided they wouldn’t be going to their next time of practice. Stupid rain. Akko liked it back on earth, but if it didn’t even let you go outside…

“Akko!” Lotte almost jumped on her when the door to the massive door opened. “You had us so worried!” she hugged Akko, squeezing her, as if trying to prove she was real. Most of the other girls shrugged, though Akko did notice Diana’s look on her. Was it disapproval? No, not harsh enough. Disappointment? Maybe, but Akko hadn’t done anything to actually earn it. It was kind of soft, and the blue eyes of the blonde seemed even warm from her position in Lotte’s hug.

“I’m glad that you’re fine, Akko,” Diana simply said, walking away. Akko had half expected some kind of scolding, but she wouldn’t complain. When Lotte finally allowed her to breathe, she found Sucy staring at her with quiet intensity.

“Next time,” she commented, “take one of those eggs. Might make a good omelette,” she turned and entered the bathroom without further word. Akko hesitated for a moment, unable to tell if it was a joke or she actually meant it. One could never be sure with Sucy.

“Oh, ignore her. She was worried too,” Lotte said. “So, you said you had gotten some kind of idea?

Akko smiled at the reminder. “Oh, yes. I came up with a wonderful plan,” she explained. “All I need now is some practice…”

Chapter Text

Akko didn’t get her chance to practice. Hannah was slightly worried about this fact, because it seemed that when the idiot had finally gotten an actually good idea, the universe had conspired to make her unable to carry it out. It had rained for two days straight and now, as the sun was setting over Machina’s horizon – a beautifully blue sunset - it was too late. Hannah and Diana were right now in a small scenario created for the sole purpose of showing off the Second Category teams.

Diana seemed nervous, but not that much. She had talked a lot with different cyborgs the past two days, and that had helped her keep her mind off the race which she wasn’t getting any practice for. And, when she wasn’t talking to cyborgs, she talked with Hannah and Barbara, explaining things about their society. About how their priests wore very thick cloaks, because their sacred duty was to spread the warmth of the sun but not enjoy it themselves, or about how most of their society learned the basics of mechanics to learn to take care of their own limbs at least for basic maintenance. She had gone on and on about how they hadn’t actually developed a writing system until much later in their society, using instead their apparently incredible memories for most things. She had explained that the metal sphere back in their room was made partly of tantalum, which was a metal that was strangely compatible with them – and humans too – and that it worked by literally synchronizing its vibration to the ones in the being inside it. Hannah had only understood half of all of the things she had explained, and she hadn’t cared about the other half. For example: The forest of fruits or whatever it was had never held any kind of fruits in it, so its name was still a mystery, which was such an interesting fact that Hannah had to thank her, lest she not be able to sleep later.

Now, however, when facing reality, Diana held her arms crossed and rhythmically tapped her finger against her arm, something she didn’t do often.

Hannah wasn’t nearly as nervous as she should’ve, given the fact that she had barely gotten any kind of practice. It was futile trying to attack the Shiny Rod, and while she did attack it from time to time to make sure her aiming wasn’t bad, the waste in energy was something to really keep in mind. If she was right, then the Shooting Star used up about one fourth of its fuel while doing the lap in a normal speed and without shooting. If one added shooting it would probably go up to a half. Hannah suddenly realized why all those pilots from the past were so sparing in their attacks and bursts. When she saw an opening where a pilot might have been able to gain an advantage or a gunman a good shot, they didn’t see it that way. The shooting star was really efficient in its usage of fuel. Brooms from the past… Well, ‘might be able’ to gain an advantage or ‘good shot’ weren’t good enough. They had to be certain what they were doing would put them at an advantage. Hannah found a new sense of respect towards those pilots.

In the little scenario stood every team. They weren’t cramped but there wasn’t much room to move either. To her left, Hannah saw the white daemon, Deep Darkness, and if she had heard right when they were presented, his gunman was called Jester. To her right, two massive cyborgs, one male and one rather androgynous female, the two of them blocking the view of the rest of the pilots.

The spectators suddenly started to cheer, a massive roar of a dozen different languages, so loud that Hannah considered buying earplugs to avoid ending up deaf. The scenario wasn’t facing them, though. It was facing the other way, towards the racing track, which kind of made Hannah wonder why they needed the scenario in the first place.

Diana stopped tapping her finger. Hannah knew her enough to understand that meant she was now nervous enough to realize she was, and had consciously inhibited any show of emotion. Because this was Diana, after all.

On the air, then, appeared Croix Meridies, floating in those devices that worked on Inferno. Her lavender hair stood, as always, in an overly complicated style that seemed to want to be a cross between a pompadour and a side-cut and, in all honesty, Hannah wondered how the hell did she managed to get her hair done like that.

“Welcome to the first official Inter-Planetary Race!” She spoke to the audience behind the scenario. They cheered, again. “As always, the Second Category pilots and gunmen will have the honor of the initiation! As you know, this will be a normal race. No tricks, just a normal track – if probably a tricky one. The pointing system will be the normal one, too. First place gets ten points, last place gets one. Now, go, pilots and gunmen! Complete three laps and claim the prize!”

Hannah, who had started to move, froze. She wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the stage but the two demons turned to look at Croix, who just floated there, confident smile on her face.

“Three laps?” Someone asked. An appal, probably, by the language spoken.

“Why, yes. Never said it would be a single lap, right?”

“You said we’d have to reach the finish line and that’s it!” An armor yelled.

“Yeah, so? I’m the one who decides when the starting line becomes the finish line in circular tracks,” not that it was a true circular track, it was just the name that tracks where the start and finish line were the same received.

Hannah sighed, pinching her nose. She was fairly certain previous human racers wouldn’t be able to actually finish this race, either for lack of fuel or by not being able to defend themselves. Or, if they did finish, they’d come in last.

“We’ll have to be very sparing,” Diana mumbled as everyone continued on their way, aware of the fact that arguing would lead them nowhere. The only ones who didn’t seem surprised – or just didn’t care – were the daemons. They were already besides their ship, which they had brought into the track before the ceremony had started. And what a ship it was. Contrary to tradition, instead of being completely black, it had white lines painted on the sides. It was a long ship, around the same length as the Shooting Star, but the main body was thinner, making it look longer. It had four sets of wide, sharp-looking wings pointing backwards, though they weren’t more than two meters long each, giving the whole ship an arrowhead-like appearance - daemon ships always seemed to have that particular thing in common. Unlike the Noir Rod, however, this one lacked a visible engine.

“Diana,” Ursula’s voice came through the communicator. “You’re at a disadvantage in long races. You should focus on staying on the race, even with the reserves, going overboard will… You already figured this out didn’t you?”

“Yes, excuse me,” Diana said. She was obviously distracted. “Hannah, make sure to use nothing but the single-shot mode on the turret.”

Hannah had already figured she’d need to do that. The amount of fuel used in single shot was the most efficient. Laser mode was completely out of the question, and quick-fire was fine but it was still not optimal. She took a deep breath. Single-shot mode meant she would have to be not only precise, but also careful.

Hannah listened silently as everyone in their group wished them good luck. Including Amanda, which was strange. Hannah couldn’t help feeling a little bitter at her wishing of good luck. The Shiny Rod wouldn’t have to worry about any of the things the Blue Star would.

As always, Akko was the loudest.

The Blue Star was inside the human pits, of course. The cyborgs in the building had allowed them to use their garage as such. Hannah was sure the IPR made enough money to build actual, official places to run these races, probably multiple stadiums per planet, but they never did. Whether it was to keep true to tradition or to keep all the extra money in their pockets was unknown to her.

“Ready, Hannah?” Diana looked at her. Hannah smiled, trying to be comforting, giving Diana a thumb up.

“Are you?” She asked in return. Diana blinked at the question, obviously not having expected it, and hesitated. Diana hesitating? Damn, this was even more worrisome than Hannah believed.

“I… Don’t know. But we have to race, and we have to win,” Diana said, her blue eyes flaring with an emotion Hannah couldn’t place. Determination? Anger? Fear? Whatever it was, she didn’t have time to answer as one of the mechanics doing a last checkup on the Blue Star gave them the green light and Diana climbed into the ship’s cockpit.

Hannah climbed into the turret and stretched her muscles. She couldn’t be tense for this. Diana was an amazing Witch – well, she technically wasn’t one, since she hadn’t graduated yet, but she was in the IPR, so that had to count for something – and she was an amazing gunman. It wasn’t arrogance, it was just what the statistics said.

She wondered, subconsciously, if Amanda felt any kind of nervousness before climbing on the Shiny Rod.

Hannah closed her eyes and waited until the race started.

Diana took a deep breath. When the red Metal Bird in front of them flapped away from the middle of the road, they would start. Each race had their own rituals to start races, which was something Diana always found curious. She couldn’t focus on this now, however. She had to focus on the bird.

She couldn’t.

“Akko,” she said after a while. “Would you mind not using our frequency for your humming?”

“Oh, sorry,” Akko laughed nervously, and everything went silent. Diana took another breath. She had used an annoyed tone, but truth was, having Akko humming in her ear had been kind of relaxing.

“Can’t believe we had to make her aware of it,” Hannah commented. “It took her a full three minutes.”

Diana didn’t reply. Focusing on the bird. The spectators were also waiting impatiently. Watching from rooftops, or from many stories up in buildings, or in stands in every street behind the barricades. Diana had seen those barricades being destroyed with magic and by the Shiny Rod crashing into them, so she questioned if they were there for any reason other than marking the way.

The bird moved, Diana prepared.

It was just a jump, though. She sighed, slightly annoyed. And the neon lights didn’t help either, they were bothering to her eyes.

“Dumb bird,” Hannah said. “What if it decides to sleep there?”

The answer was obvious. Even if that was the case, they would wait in place until the race started. Though it was kind of a problem, as staying in hovering mode did waste fuel, something they shouldn’t be doing at all.

The bird moved again. Diana tensed.

It was just another jum- The flapping of wings.

Diana pressed the accelerator, and the ten ships in the double line shot forward in a roar of engines and whistling wind. Diana was in the third-left position. In front of her was the shapeshifter ship, a triangle of smoking mass not unlike the shapeshifters themselves. As far as she could tell it had barely changed over the years, sometimes being bigger or smaller, maybe longer or wider, but always basically the same.

Tricky part, this one was. If she wasn’t worrying about fuel she might have pressed for a nitro charge, but she couldn’t find it in her. Three laps, three big opportunities to take the lead. Surprisingly enough, no one attacked, though Diana felt some bumps from behind and the side. Behind they had the appali ship, which was more modern in look than the UFO-like ship they had used during their previous attempt. This one was shaped like an egg, and it had powerful engines coming from behind, big orange flames coming out of it. To her side was the armor ship, which appeared to be a big boulder surrounded by three big metallic rings in constant movement. It was strangely satisfyingto look at.

The bump to the side hadn’t come from it – luckily, since those rings probably would have made the Blue Star lose all semblance of stability. Instead, it had come from the two spheres rounding it peacefully. The Armors’ weapons.

It was strange. The start of the race, which in all other cases would have been an absolute mess, this time was rather tame. Everyone moved at an even pace, almost as if they were only testing the waters. Even the first ones in the lines – the reptilians with their ring-like ship and the plants with their actually normal looking metallic ship, lean and pointy, even generic looking. Many humans assumed they’d have wooden ships, but it was kind of like assuming humans would have flesh or bone ships. Well, shapeshifters did have ships that seemed to be made of the same stuff as them, but that was another story – weren’t taking much of an advantage, as if they understood that right now everything was in a strange balance, and the second anyone made a sudden move, it would break.

Diana was the one to break the balance.

She saw an opening, one too big to ignore, to her right. A straight path to the front. She couldn’t help but recall the race back at the simulator and how she had made everyone bite the dust. Maybe that pushed her, maybe it was the need to win, but she pressed the nitro and shot through the opening at blurring speeds.

Once she got at the front, she slowed down, waited  few seconds, and hell broke loose.

“Sphere, missiles and I think the plants are throwing fucking seeds at us!” Hannah cried. Diana heard the turret activating, and whatever Hannah had hit created a loud explosion. Diana checked her monitor showing  her the back of the ship with a single, fraction of a second glance, and calculated the trajectory of the giant sphere. She rose in the air, allowing the sphere to go past her, and then lowered the ship when the ball came back like a boomerang. At that moment another explosion was heard, and Diana felt a couple things hitting her left wing. She caught a glimpse of enormous seeds, and the wing was now slightly dented, though nothing too bad. Not good enough, Diana grit her teeth. Those seeds may not have damaged her too hard, but she had been careless.

In coming back, the giant sphere of the armor actually managed to hit the ring-like ship of the reptilians, but despite being sent into a spin, it was still flying straight, fire coming out of its back.

Diana turned the first corner to her right with slight ease, but she needed to go faster or they’d catch up to her. Right behind her were the plants. The pilot inside the cockpit was that rose-looking plant. The front of the ship had a small cannon, and Diana suspected that was where the seeds were coming from. It was wide, too.

“Hannah,” Diana turned to the left, this one more of a curve than a corner, and quickly moved to the side to avoid a heat-seeking missile shot from the appali’s ship. The missile exploded before Diana and she crossed the explosion, leaving trails of smoke and fire behind the Blue Star, “Try aiming at the cannon, I know it’s a hard hit, but,” Another turn right, this one way sharper than the last, forcing her to slow down, “I trust you-”

“Got it!” Hannah cried, and Diana stopped talking. She turned again, dodging another ball, and a laser of Inferno energy, which she hadn’t seen coming. The daemon’s ship had now joined alongside the plants, appali and armors in pursuing the Blue Star, and from the quick glance Diana gave her screen, the shapeshifter wasn’t too far off, followed closely by the medusa.

Hannah fired, and her shot barely missed the plants’ ship. They had managed to avoid it, but in their movement they left an opening to the daemons who were right behind them. The daemons moved, but one of their wings took the blast. The damage wasn’t too bad, since Inferno and Magic were similar energies and those ships had been made to withstand them. It did throw the daemons for a loop, though.

“At least it wasn’t a waste,” Hannah said, though Diana could feel the frustration in her voice.

How much time had passed now? Two minutes? This was going to be a long race. Now they were in a zone where they had to basically zigzag between a bunch of buildings, and it wasn’t easy when a giant stone sphere was constantly behind you. That was how armor always worked: They used a sphere for attack and another for defense. The rocks those things were made off were basically unbreakable, and their erratic movements ensured they wouldn’t be predictable.

Behind, Diana could hear explosions and more lasers. She could only assume other racers had engaged in a small skirmish while she had the plants and armor at her tail. Speaking of which, Hannah shot again, and her prediction of where the plants would be was right on spot. They tried to move, managing to avoid getting destroyed by a magic projectile entering through the cannon of their ship, but they still took damage on the side, getting a beautiful new hole that started smoking.

The neons on this area were all blue, so to Diana it was like moving between walls of blue light. She would have enjoyed it a little more had she not been trying to focus on dodging seeds and giant boulders.

The zigzag zone ended, and the plants started to have some sort of problem in their ship, since they were left behind. However, the shapeshifter quickly took their place, and the boulder that had been annoying Diana so greatly instead focused on the smoke-like ship.

However, the shapeshifter was aiming for first place. It shot right as Diana turned a corner, but the big, smoky projectile followed her. Diana didn’t know what those things were but she did know they could cause some serious damage upon hitting.

The racing track was now back to normal, with ninety-degree turns constantly but not as closely as in the zigzag part. The strange smoking projectile was about to reach them when a blast from Hannah made it explode mid-air. “Get the hell outta here!” Hannah exclaimed. The shapeshifters had somehow gotten ahead of the armor, who were in turn being chased by the reptilians.

Something shot out of the reptilian’s ship and caught the shapeshifters. A hook? Those weren’t prohibited, but it was stupid at the very best. Tying yourself to other ships might had seemed to a good idea to some, but it was basically a suicide tactic.

The hook did manage to drag the shapeshifter down, however, and the armor got ahead again, its sphere focusing on the Blue Star once more. Diana grunted as she dodged the thing, but all of these dodges were wasting fuel. The problem was that shooting the armor was basically impossible. They weren’t the fastest, but their absurd defense had always been their strong point. How could she deal with that?

Turn after  turn, she was avoiding the sphere, but she understood it would eventually hit her and end it all. From time to time, different racers joined in on the fun too, though the shapeshifters didn’t show up again. In the back of her mind Diana wondered if the reptilians had got them but she couldn’t focus on that right now. The armor weren’t getting any closer, but they had better control than her, so they were definitely not getting any further either. She had to think. She had studied them, she knew of their ways. How had they been stopped before? In the fourth IPR they were stopped by an avalanche. In the sixth one of their giant rocks had gotten stuck on a rock structure and that had somehow impeded them from advancing further. During the last race, Chariot had managed to stop one by actually destroying one of its balls with one of the strange transformations of the Shiny Rod. They could only be stopped by sheer force, it seemed, something the Shooting Star lacked.

They had already done three fourths of the track, but Diana didn’t fail to notice she had already used a fourth of her fuel, and she’d probably be at two fifths when she finished the lap. Not enough, she said. It wouldn’t be enough, even if she was sparing. The reserve was about one extra fourth, but with it they couldn’t access nitro.

As she dodged again, she felt the need to close her eyes. No, this was not the time to panic. But it was hard. Too hard. She… She had taken the first place, but what good would it do without being able to maintain it? She had been hasty. Now, she wouldn’t even be able to finish the race.

You better win, Diana!

The voice of the brunette echoed in her mind. Why had that moment left such an incredible impact in her? She didn’t know. But still used it to regain her composure. If she kept dodging, then she wouldn’t be able to finish the race. So what she actually needed to do was stop dodging.

She slowed down. A lot. They were right now in probably the longest segment of the track besides the starting road, and with her slowing down, the armor went past her in an eye blink. They were probably surprised, for their giant boulder had gone forward again.

“We need to add non-magic weapons to this piece of scrap!” Hannah said, probably noticing the problem with the fuel too. “Some missiles would help against those freaking rocks, I swear they’re driving me nuts!” she didn’t question Diana’s decision to slow down. Probably because she understood.

Behind her, Diana now had three very competitive racers. The daemons had appeared again, followed by a bronze-colored and rather big ship that looked like a small jet but with giant engines on the back. The cyborgs. The medusa finally caught up to them in its giant bubble of water.

One step at a time, Diana had to remind herself. The armor disappeared around the corner. Luckily for Diana, the three ships behind her seemed to be fighting among themselves. The daemons used little blasts of Inferno coming from the tips of the ship’s wings, the medusa used zaps of electricity and the cyborgs used plain old bullets. Those bounced off the surface of the daemon’s ship, barely making a scratch, and would be obviously ineffective against the water bubble.

A green shot suddenly left the Blue Star, aiming straight at the daemons. They were forced to slow down and avoid it, but the balance of power in the trio was broken and the cyborgs and medusa got ahead, blocking their path.

In the next turn, Diana started going faster. She went as fast as she could manage without risking a crash, but it was hard to catch up to the armor. Soon enough, they finished the first lap, and as predicted, she had used two fifths of her fuel.

She was tempted to accelerate and try to get ahead, but she had the feeling that if she did that, those behind her would do it too, and she didn’t know how much fuel they had. Scratch that, she was certain half of the racers didn’t have to worry about such a thing.

The armor now focused only on winning. They attacked from time to time, but those were so half-assed that they barely required Diana to do any movements. They were warnings to not get closer.

Hannah had to do her own set of warnings, shooting at whoever got close. However, they would soon realize they were trying to save fuel and make a move. Diana felt the need to stretch, but it was too risky. Had it only been ten minutes? It felt like it had been an hour. How different from the Sídhe race. In ten minutes she had been allowed to use almost all of her fuel. Now, she had to be sparing, and being on edge didn’t even begin to describe her state.

The long straight finished without anyone daring to make a move, lest they be attacked by everyone else.

And the play of turns and twists continued.

Diana made sure to never let the armors out of her sight. Sometimes it was hard, as the shorter segments between corners made two turns almost next to each other, and with the constant pursue of those behind her. Wait, when had the octopuses joined? Their ship, similar to a pillar but looking as if it was made out of scrap pieces, had a dozen little engines all around the ship to give it stability. They were rather unfair, since it was hard to hit them without hitting one of their engines. They weren’t engaging in battle, instead fully focusing on trying to get ahead. They considered themselves the smartest creatures of the alliance, but claimed they could never win due to not having access to a lot of advantages other planets had.

Diana often believed that to be an excuse, but seeing their defense mechanism right now made her question her judgment. The ship had like ten little arms coming out of it, all of them holding something akin to a shield and protecting the flimsy looking structure with absolute precision. Diana didn’t fail to notice the metal was probably something alien, but it was hard to tell what it would be, since Trashcan got its resources from many different planets. As far as Diana knew, it could even be some alloy of many different alien metals.

They were approaching quickly, too. They crossed the zigzags from before, in which the daemon caught up to the rest and now there were four ships just two seconds behind the Blue Star. The defense mechanism of the octopus ship was even more impressive than Diana had assumed as it took a fully-fledged red Inferno laser and reflected it.

Towards the Blue Star.

Diana had barely any time to react as she did a barrel roll to the side, almost crashing against the barricades on the side of the street. However, it seemed the beam wasn’t really aimed at them, for when Diana looked, it had hit the armor’s ship. Not very effective, but it had obviously thrown the boulder of a ship off-balance, one of its rings not moving in synchronization with the others.

It was not enough. Not nearly enough, but…

“Try shooting at the octopus,” Diana suggested. Hannah didn’t reply and instantly a shot was fired. As expected, it was reflected.

It hit the medusa right on the edge of its bubble, vaporizing some of the water. Hit a medusa ship enough times without breaking the rules and it will be unable to sustain flight. It was risky, though. But the octopuses were geniuses.

“Should I do it again?” Hannah asked.

“No. They’ll figure out what we’re trying to do,” Diana turned right. She was getting closer to the armor, now that their method of hovering had been disrupted. She didn’t make it obvious, though. This race, it wasn’t as much about attacking as she had assumed it’d be after what had happened in the practice ‘race’ against the Noir Rod. Everyone seemed to be afraid of going overboard. It made sense. If others saw you as too much of a threat, they would – either intentionally or not – team up against you. As things were now, everyone was holding their ground, either for good or bad. It was as if Diana had taken the only good chance at getting ahead the race had. Or, maybe, she had been stupid. The constant dodging had made her wasteful, and she still had one lap and a third to go, with only two fifths of her fuel remaining.

Turn, turn, turn. The motion got repetitive, but she didn’t lose focus. She did notice that the medusa had fallen back, while the daemons had somehow gotten ahead and were approaching.

“Hannah?” Diana asked, a little worried.

“It’s fine. I think something’s up with their weapons, they haven’t shot anyone in a while,” Hannah explained. Diana hesitated, but it was Hannah’s job to worry about those things. Diana’s job was to keep piloting and making sure to win in the long run.

When they finished the second lap, the Blue Star had a little less than a quarter left. Assuming she didn’t waste any fuel, she’d be able to finish the race with the aid of her reserves. Not wasting fuel implied, however, that Hannah didn’t shoot and that Diana didn’t go faster than she was going right now. She considered trying to use all of her remaining fuel, gamble to be able to finish first only on her reserves, but… Too risky. Then, something sounded. Like a camera’s flash, followed by a flash of red light.

“Diana,” Hannah snapped her out of her thoughts. “No one is following.”

Diana glimpsed at the back monitor. Despite being in the long straight, it was true. They had no one behind. What had just happened? That red energy had been Inferno, no doubt about it.

“You don’t think…” Hannah said, sounding nervous.

The daemons appeared. They had stopped for a second, given that they were now regaining speed, and whatever they had done had obviously impeded other racers from following them. However, they also didn’t do anything else. “Some kind of powerful blast?” Diana suggested.

“It didn’t sound like anything was destroyed,” Hannah explained. “But I have the feeling whatever it was has consumed a good deal of fuel, since they’re not shooting or, well, doing anything at all.”

The long straight finished with no one but the daemons following. Seemed like this would only be a three teams race from now on. What did they do? She’d have to check the recordings of the race later. She would have done that anyways, but now she’d do it with special interest. “Don’t shoot if you don’t have to, but keep them in check,” Diana said. Hannah didn’t answer, but Diana took that as understanding.

It was getting hard to keep focus. Sweat had long ago started the cooling system of Diana’s Witch Hat, but she had never been prepared for these levels of pressure. Now she was in the middle of two of the strongest competitors of the alliance, and one of them had somehow gotten rid of at least another three ships who had not yet caught up to them. It felt like being between the sword and another sword, in a narrow corridor, with only a butter knife as defense.

Turn after turn, the daemons got closer, but didn’t attack. A simple inferno shot wouldn’t be able to do much harm to them, but it could cause instability. If it was good enough, it might cause Diana to crash against a barricade.

Closer. Closer. Each second that passed, each turn, they got closer. But Diana wasn’t in a position to go faster. Not without risking the armor going on the defensive. She needed the fuel. She needed to finish the race. Second place was good enough. It was nine points. They could make up for the lost point if-

No.

The thought came to Diana before she even realizing it had, but she would not settle for second place. She would not settle for anything but perfection, as she had always done. Winning required one to always aim for the top. If you don’t have the resolution to be the very best, then why try at all?

Diana gambled and changed to reserve power. The Blue Star dipped a meter to the ground before regaining its altitude.

She wouldn’t have a chance to use the nitro again. Not in these short streets and sharp turns. “Hannah,” Diana said, seriousness embed into her voice now more than ever. “The turret is disabled. You’re my watchman now, warn me of danger coming from behind.”

“Diana?” Hannah asked. Usually she wouldn’t bother questioning her, but what she had done now was a little too out there for her. “Did you hit your head?”

“We need to save any fuel we don’t need. I’m going to keep it until we’re closer to the end, where making sure to have enough to defend ourselves is key. Do you understand?”

“I’m not ok with this,” Hannah said, “but whatever you say, Diana.”

Diana was thankful for having such a good gunman, but over that, she was thankful for having such a good friend. No one else would’ve agreed to her stupid plan. The risk of getting attacked and blown to smithereens was too big. But Hannah, she trusted Diana blindly. Maybe that could be a problem sometimes, but today it was a blessing. People were harsh on Hannah and Barbara, but they were truly good people at heart.

And that goodness wouldn’t go to waste. Not now.

You better win, Diana reminded herself.

The daemons caught up to her. They didn’t attack, however, but Diana started going a little faster. Maybe she couldn’t go nitro, but she still had her basic functions working. She didn’t want to get into a fight with the daemons, but she had the feeling whatever they had done back there had put them in a similar position as Diana’s. Or maybe she was underestimating them.

Hopefully not.

Corner after corner, turn after turn, neither of them managed to get ahead of the other, while they were definitely getting closer to the armor. The rocks didn’t attack. Surely the spectators were bored with their racing, which was as of right now based purely on speed and ability, rather than who could shoot better. Not that gunmen were unnecessary, but Diana had seen how people reacted to these races. They liked when the racers got into fights. It made things a little more exciting for them.

Diana, on the other hand, was finding a newfound respect both in the daemons and armor. She knew this wouldn’t last – she suspected that as soon as they got out of the zigzag segment both of them would get in no-bullshit mode and start attacking to no end. But she had to take her chances.

She was still surprised by the fact that no one seemed to be following from behind. What had the daemons done? It was really nagging at her.

Zigzags. Diana started to purposefully lag behind. Try to be unthreatening. Make them think she was having some sort of trouble. They soon got outside the area and, right as she predicted, the first giant ball came. Also as she had expected, it was aimed more towards the daemons than for the Blue Star, so it barely required any effort to dodge.

And, of course, the daemons answered. What Diana had not anticipated was how they would do so. Suddenly, their entire ship started to glow in red.

Then, it began to spin, and behind it appeared a giant fire of red Inferno. Not long after, it zoomed forward, barely perceptible to Diana’s eyes. The rock ball that was going for it exploded in a million pieces. The other one too, and two of the metal rings around the main body of the armors’ ship were pierced too. All of this was followed by an explosion in the building at the end of the street and Diana was left dumbfounded as she crossed the cloud of smoke and dust, looking at the holed metallic barricade that the daemon left behind. The armor’s ship quickly fell to the ground, rolling away as the last ring fell off. The ship was now nailed on the building which, despite being wood and not metal, somehow managed to not get completely destroyed. Diamond wood was, indeed, worthy of its name.

“What the fuck was that?” Hannah asked, worried as Diana turned again and the smoke and both ships left their view. Diana didn’t have an answer for her, but she did have one for herself: Something dangerous, and something she needed to get away from fast. She didn’t know if the daemons’ ship was still functional but she didn’t plan on finding out. Why do that suicidal move in that moment? Why throw the race away? Was it truly worthy just to take out one other racer?

They all but obliterated the armor ship, Diana realized with a chill. She had been so worried about Akko and the Noir Rod, she hadn’t stopped to think. If the daemons had found a way of building a copy of the Rod, then what would their other ships be like?

Diana continued, but she accelerated as much as the reserve fuel would allow her too, and didn’t look back. Forward, turn, forward, turn. The motion was no longer merely repetitive, it was now automatic. It was probably for the best, as Diana was no longer able to actually focus on that, the fear of the daemon ship appearing behind her too great.

At three fourths of the last lap, she almost had a heart attack when a ship appeared. It was not the daemons’, however, but the shapeshifter, who had somehow gotten ahead of everyone else.

Ok, now’s the time.

She was almost out of reserve anyways, so she switched back to normal. “Hannah?”

“Got it!” She fired a warning shot, which the shapeshifter dodged easily before letting out its own smoky missile. And another one. And another one. “Going all out, huh?” Hannah said with cockiness. She easily destroyed all three projectiles. “Too slow, too slow.”

They were close now. Turn. Turn. Come on, Diana thought, making sure to keep an eye on the fuel. They could do this. But with Hannah defending against those black missiles, they would go through the remaining fuel fast, and this wasn’t slowing down the shapeshifters in any way.

Turn. Turn. Turn. Just two more. The shapeshifters were at their tail, no longer shooting but somehow dodging every shot even at close range. Just one more. The shapeshifters got besides Diana.

No!

Turn. Nitro.

In a final burst, with barely any fuel left and with the finish line basically on their faces, Diana pressed the rightmost pedal and the Blue Star shot forth, losing power almost instantly too as it switched to Reserves, but those couldn’t handle the speed, so as the Blue Star tried to slow, it shot down. It fell to the ground, skidding a few meters.

She was disoriented, but alive. Had she hit her head? Probably.

After a few seconds, a voice came and Diana found herself smiling at it. “THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!” Akko cried through the communicator. Diana didn’t reply, too tired. She wished to just close her eyes and fall asleep right then and there. “Diana, you won!” Akko continued.

“Akko, shut up,” Hannah said. “We can hear you.”

I won, Diana thought, barely processing it. All the tension she had been building up got released at once, and she lost the strength on her limbs. “I won?” Diana asked through the communicator, sounding way more tired than she expected. She lost sense of time for a while, and her windshield wouldn’t open, since the Blue Star had been completely drained of magic. When it opened it was thanks to the mechanics of the broom, who opened it manually and helped Diana out.

She came out to the roar of the spectators. Thousands of flashes of light from everywhere, neons surrounding her. Diana wondered if she had taken some kind of drug on accident. Her breathing had calmed, at least, and despite the blurry vision, she was starting to be aware of her surroundings.

“Miss Cavendish!” A voice came from her side. Even standing atop the Shooting Star, she didn’t quite reach eye level with the cyborg who was offering her a microphone. “How do you feel about your win?”

Diana paused. She had prepared speeches, of course. She had… She had prepared speeches, right? She was certain she had. Why couldn’t she remember any of them? Aw, screw that, she thought with uncharacteristic rudeness even if it was only inside her head. “I’m rather tired, I must say,” she managed to say. “But I… The result was not out of my expectations.”

With her comment, the audience roared again, though it was only now that Diana noticed there was more booing than cheering. Of course. But she had still won. She tried to smile, only to realize she was already doing it. Soon after, her friends approached, crossing the street with no regards for safety. Well, particularly Akko. “That was so cool!” Was the first thing she said. “You were nose to nose with the shapeshifter and then WOOSH you had crossed the finish line and no one even knew what had happened! And before that, when you were dodging…” Diana didn’t interrupt as the brunette went on a detailed explanation of the race Diana had just lived. In the meantime, the others reached the ship. When had the other racers arrived at the finish line? Probably while she was still inside the cockpit.

Barbara hugged her. Suddenly, the emergency exit for the turret opened, and Hannah came out with a sigh. “Damn thing is hard to open manually,” she said with annoyance. Barbara also jumped to hug her too, almost toppling them both from the ship.

After the almost accident, they got back down, where the others were waiting. Diana noticed how Constanze ran around the Blue Star making notations on one of her devices. She was wearing those goggles she usually wore while working, but Diana was too tired to ask her what she was up to.

“Good job,” Amanda grunted to her. Diana nodded in acknowledgement. Then, the redhead turned to Hannah. “You too. How you took down all those missile thingies… It was pretty cool,” Amanda said almost begrudgingly, as if she had to force herself to say nice things. Diana appreciated the effort, but she didn’t fail to notice how Hannah smirked. If Amanda noticed the expression, however, she didn’t show it, instead turning and walking away at the same time Ursula came closer.

“I won’t praise you,” Ursula said, “because what you did was suicidal, Diana. But I will congratulate you on your win,” she patted Diana’s shoulder. Of course Diana knew her idea hadn’t been the best, but the pressure barely allowed her to think. Turn, turn, turn, she still felt the almost reflexive movement in her hands.

“…Chariot!” Akko finished her rambling, and only then Diana realized she had been talking the entire time. At some point she had just stopped listening.

“Excuse me?” Diana asked, looking at the bright-eyed Akko.

“That it was almost like seeing Chariot! The tension, the last-second win, the maneuvering, all the odds stacked against you… So cool,” she explained. Diana grew a little uncomfortable. No, she hadn’t been as reckless as Chariot would’ve been, except maybe in that last part. Akko was probably just overexcited. It was nice to feel like Akko had really liked her flying despite that.

A figure approached the small human group. A white figure with horn-like protrusions all over its body. Its green, round eyes pulsed darker and lighter each second. “Good race,” he said, extending a hand. The daemon pilot. Hannah had mentioned meeting him. Deep Darkness, was it?

“May I ask why you did that?” Diana asked as she took the hand. It was cold to the touch, but not as cold as Diana expected after reading some reports. Some described them as ‘beings as cold as ice’, but this was barely colder than what you’d get out of a normal fridge. As they shook hands, the daemon didn’t stop looking at her for a single second with its unblinking eyes.

“I failed in some of my calculations,” he explained in a perfectly calm manner. “The armor’s weapon was harder than I anticipated, broke my direction system.”

“I see,” Diana nodded. “I’m sorry you had such an accident.”

The shaking of hands stopped as Deep Darkness stepped back. His gunman was besides the ship that had pretty obviously barely made it to the finish line. “You shouldn’t be. Next time I won’t make the same mistake,” the white daemon said before turning and leaving. He was a lot less cheerful than Horn had been, though Diana still wasn’t sure of how to read them.

“Well,” Hannah approached Diana, “you did it, Diana.”

“We did it,” Diana clarified.

[To all teams, please leave the racing track as soon as possible, preparations for next race must be made] A voice sounded, probably coming out of the giant screen floating above the scenario and a hundred other speakers around the area.

“Let’s go, girls. Akko, you need to get ready,” Ursula said. Akko nodded, obviously pumped up for what was to come. However, before she ran off, Diana put a hand to her shoulder.

“Akko,” she stopped her. Akko turned with a curious – if impatient – expression. “Thank you.”

Akko paused, frowning in confusion after a while. “I didn’t do anything, though,” she said, struggling as she tried to figure out why Diana had said what she had said.

Diana smiled and shook her head, letting Akko go. “Don’t mind it. Go get ready. I’m certain that you will win too,” Diana tried to be encouraging, and maybe for the first time, it seemed to work, for Akko got out of whatever train of thought Diana’s gratitude had started and got back to the real world. She nodded with determination before taking off in the direction of the scenario, where the small ceremony for the First Category pilots would be held. Diana saw no point to such ceremonies. They just made everyone lose time and everyone already knew who they were anyways.

“Why’d you thank her?” Hannah asked as they started to move towards the human pits. Diana didn’t answer, but this time it wasn’t because Hannah didn’t expect her to, but because she would rather keep it to herself.

I’m going to win this, Akko was excited as she sat on the Shiny Rod. She had been the first one to arrive at the racing track, and had already taken her place at the front of the line right. “You ready, Amanda?” Akko asked after everyone wished her good luck.

“Whenever you are,” Amanda said. She often replied without an ounce of personality when she was inside the turret. Akko inhaled, exhaled and repeated the process a couple times as she got ready. Where was everyone else? Come on, there was a race to run!

And, as if a god had heard her, someone finally appeared beside her. And it was none other than the daemons and their black rod. The Noir Rod.

Akko couldn’t help but be impressed at how truly similar it was. Hannah had described it as being twice the size of the Shiny Rod but that was an exaggeration. Sure, it was bigger – a few meters longer and wider, probably – but it wasn’t that much bigger. Hell, it was probably barely bigger than the Shooting Star. Besides that and the inverted color scheme, it was basically the exact same. Maybe she should have been impressed, but there was one small problem with that.

She was too big of a fan.

As she looked at it, Akko didn’t fail to notice that the pilot was making gestures for her to open the windshield. Akko did, and despite having to shout, they could now hear each other. “Hey, First Category, let’s see whose version is superior!” he said. Horn, right?

“There’s nothing to see!” Akko replied. “The original always beats the bootleg!” Horn seemed confused by that last word. Maybe it hadn’t translated? “Bootleg means cheap copy!”

Horn seemed to finally get it, and his body started shaking in a strange manner. It was like a controlled seizure. Maybe that was how they laughed? “We’ll have to race and find out!” he cried, giving her something that must have been similar to thumbs up for daemons – he closed two of his three claw-like fingers and held the third one high.

Either that or he was telling Akko to go fuck herself, but she’d rather believe the best of people.

Akko couldn’t help growing impatient. Diana’s race had been so exciting. She had somehow taken a hold of the first place for a long while, even with the armors’ constant pressure, and then the daemons had done that crazy thing before the second lap ended and the absolute madness that had been that weird attack… Damn it, she wanted the race to start! Would hers be as exciting as Diana’s?

The places of the race started to get filled, and soon, Akko was already bouncing her leg, begging for it to start. They used the method of the bird again. Akko looked at the red Metal Bird with annoyance that grew every second it didn’t move.

Someone in the audience threw a rock, and instead of flying away, the bird caught it mid-air and ate it.

Then it flapped its wings.

Akko pressed the accelerator with a smile on her face. I’ve got this! She thought. Elizabeth had shown her the way to do this. She would not only make it, she would do it perfectly. She would pull it off.

Besides her, the Noir Rod wasn’t lagging behind. In fact, they had left everyone else biting the dust back there. Bigger isn’t always better, what matters is the ability! Akko thought. Wait, no, he’s definitely better than me- No! I am to be the next Chariot! I will prove it!

In practice, Akko would’ve needed to slow down to not run nose-first into the barricade. Instead, this time, she prepared.

She rotated the ship ninety degrees, and instead of using the horizontal steering to turn, she used the vertical one. The Shiny Rod had a way better control when going up and down than right and left. In fact, she was sure Chariot had often taken curves like this, she just hadn’t thought much of it until now. In fact, the Noir Rod was also using the same turning. When had the daemons figured it out?

However, she miscalculated, and instead of nailing the turn as she expected, she hit the corner of the building with the cockpit. Luckily, the glass was super-resistant and didn’t shatter into a million pieces, but the entire ship rocked as if stumbling, and she was instantly thrown against the other barricade.

Harder than expected, she thought as she grunted, seeing as three racers got ahead of her. The daemons, a medusa and the reptilians. Unlike the Second Category ship, this reptilian ship worked with two rings that spun in opposite directions to one another. Guess I could use some help from Amanda right now.

She began to form words when suddenly, a barrage of magic fired out of the Shiny Rod, aimed directly at the reptilians. They dodged the attack, but they had lost some speed. At the same time, however, someone was approaching the Shiny Rod from behind in the curve they were currently on. Akko had no time to worry about it. She turned the ship on its side, tried to calculate a little bit better and failed again. This time the engine hit, making the Rod bounce and scrape against the barricade for a while, losing speed. However, that lost of speed did help in dodging the giant boulder the armor had aimed at them. The armor got past them, quickly followed by the plants. And as Akko regained her speed – taking a couple of turns in a normal way – the shapeshifters came from behind. They tried shooting a couple times, but Amanda reacted so quickly to the missiles that it looked like they had only caused themselves trouble.

Akko had gained speed enough to start being dangerous to turn normally. So she gritted her teeth. Elizabeth had shown her, when flying out of that tunnel, that by flying vertically it gained way more control over its movements. The Shiny Rod was similar. It didn’t have a fin-like vertical stabilizer. Hell, Akko didn’t think it had any ailerons to being with. It was hard to tell how it worked, but the point was, it was definitely more responsive like this.

The problem was that Akko had gotten no practice, and thus, she would need to master this right now.

She turned the Shiny Rod on its side and, surprisingly enough, she managed to pull the turn off. Then she instantly realized she needed to turn it the other way around. She tried going down, but the problem was, she couldn’t actually see below her.

She crashed against a wall, coming to a full stop. It was as bad as previous crashes, but this was a real race. She heard as every other racer got ahead of her while trying to get the Shiny Rod back in the road. Faster, Akko thought. Being able to turn it a hundred and eighty degrees in a split second, that would be the key to mastering this way of turning. I can win, Akko thought, I will take full advantage of my ship’s capabilities.

The next three turns went normally, but right as Akko tried to get it right again, all neon lights around her turned blue. The Zigzag Zone, she had called it. This is the perfect place for practicing this, she realized.

So she tried it.

Hit after crash, zig after zag, she barely managed to make it out of there alive. Not fast enough, Akko thought with frustration. Turning around that fast was a problem. Maybe she had tried practicing something too technical too fast. At least no one was here to bother her. Why was no one bothering her? It seemed-

Oh shit.

She gained speed again, but her instincts pushed her to keep trying her turn. She was getting better. Two, three perfect turns. A scrap against the barricade here, a bump there, but nothing too serious. Before she even realized it, she had finished the first lap.

She used nitro in the long straight, of course.

As she approached the end, she slowed down, but not too much. To the surprise of everyone watching the event, she actually managed to turn without hitting anything. She also managed to get the next turn right, after slowing down.

The next one was a hit, but it didn’t stop her much. And the next one a success. It wasn’t long until she reached the Zigzag Zone again. Let’s do this, she thought with stubbornness.

This time she managed to get through it relatively incident-free. Yes! She thought right as another racer came into view. The appali. Their ship was a cone pointing forward, a massive trail of fire behind it. As soon as the Shiny Rod came into view, it tried to attack with missiles. Amanda shot those down immediately, but didn’t attack the ship directly, since from this angle they would’ve most certainly hit the engine.

Turning did become easier with time as Akko grew used to it, and she understood that not every turn was worth taking vertically. Her constant spinning around of the Shiny Rod didn’t seem to disrupt Amanda in the slightest, however, who just kept blasting away any attempts of attack the appali had.

It didn’t take long for Akko to finally catch up to them, and only then she noticed the big rip their ship had on the side. How did it even keep going?

She overtook them, quickly advancing. Turning became easier by the second, and she found her confidence growing. When she finished the second lap, she saw at the end of the long straight three ships. Plants, reptilians and cyborgs. Not unexpected. In fact, she suspected the daemons would still be first, probably followed by the shapeshifter or armors. The medusa would probably be somewhere around there too.

Akko pressed nitro, and repeated her trick from last lap.

Or, at least, she tried.

Overconfidence proving yet again to be one of Akko’s flaws, she actually bumped the downside of the Shiny Rod against the metal barricade, which sent her into an uncontrollable spin that ended up with the Shiny Rod upside down in one of those giant airbags in front of a building.

Her stomach sank as she heard the appali overtake her again.

“Noctu orfei aude freator!” Akko shouted, and the Shiny Rod instantly got back on the spot right before she hit the wall. She pressed the accelerator and got back in the race, not worrying too much about the dizziness she was feeling. You can still make it, she thought. She didn’t let go of the accelerator as she started to take turns, each one with more speed than the last. I can make it, she repeated to herself. She managed to overtake the appali before the Zigzag Zone, and while they tried to attack her, with a couple of shields and blasts she managed to get past the group of three. Thanks, Amanda.

Each turn made her grow more anxious, She was currently sixth, but as she hit the three fourths marker of the race, she wasn’t even seeing where the fifth place was. But then she caught a glimpse of the octopus. Their First Category ship was indistinguishable from the Second Category one, which Akko was actually surprised more races didn’t do.

But this was not the time to ponder over alien cultures.

She accelerated more. Each turn was now actually creating a considerable number of g's on her, a number she understood was starting to get dangerous, even with her special suit. But she was so close!

She got past the octopus ship and just a turn after that caught a glimpse of the smoky figure of the shapeshifter’s ship. This is it, I can-

The next turn was the final one, and she crossed the line in fifth place before even noticing what was going on.

She stopped the Shiny Rod, jumping out of her cockpit to look around. Wait, no! She thought. Had she… Had she failed? No no no no no!

But there was no mistaking it. The daemons had come out on top, as proven by the cyborg interviewing Horn. The daemon’s speech was not something Akko could listen to. In fact, she wasn’t listening to anything. She had lost. Maybe she hadn’t come out on last, but she… No...

She kicked down at the Shiny Rod. It didn’t do anything. It didn’t help with the frustration building up inside her either. Her breathing got heavier as tears threatened to spill down her face. After finally figuring out how to properly turn, I don’t manage to do it? Why?

She didn’t even notice when Amanda came out of the broom and climbed next to her. She looked at the rankings shown in the big screen above the scenario before giving Akko an understanding expression. “Hey, at least you didn’t come in last,” she said.

Akko wanted to answer that that wasn’t enough, but right at that moment the cyborg who had been asking Horn for his victory quote approached her. Akko barely registered her. Time was passing too fast. She felt lost, disoriented.

“Miss Kagari, what happened back when you were upside down?” The cyborg asked. Akko didn’t understand the question. She coulnd’t understand it. She kept looking around, at the leaderboard and at the loud spectators, at the pilots and their ships. Everything felt… wrong.

“Don’t answer her question, Akko,” Ursula’s voice came from the communicator, but again, Akko didn’t listen to it. The cyborg seemed to notice Akko’s distress and retreated, though she did look at Akko. It was over too quickly. I… Was that half an hour? It felt like five minutes.

She sat down, still on top of the Shiny Rod, and took off her helmet. The heat didn’t help her think, but right now, what she was aiming to do wasn’t that. She just wanted to understand what had happened. She had lost. Well, she hadn’t come in last, but Diana had come in first. And without the Shiny Rod!

What was this feeling inside her chest? Defeat? Twelve points, that’s as much as she had made. The daemons had made twenty. Soon, the leaderboard showed the general points, not the individual categories one.

The Medusas were at first, with twenty-six points, followed by the Shapeshifters at twenty-three. Humans and Daemons were tied at third place. Akko didn’t bother reading the rest of it, but she did notice the Appali at last. If I won we’d be in first, she thought. It was an obvious thought, but she didn’t realize this. She just sat there, not even finding the strength to cry. She couldn’t even think properly. ‘I’m certain that you will win too.’

Only one thought repeated over and over in her mind. I lost. I didn’t win.

I lost.

Chapter Text

Amanda patted Akko in the back as they entered the humans' pit. “Dude, relax. It was literally your first race of this style and you still managed to come up fifth. I’d say that’s pretty fucking amazing,” Amanda was explaining.  However, the brunette wasn’t responsive at all as she just looked angrily at the ground, carrying her helmet under her arm. She was actually wearing Earth’s uniform, like Hannah and Diana had. Amanda felt a little silly at being the only one still wearing the purple Luna Nova uniform, but she would have felt a lot sillier at wearing that ugly ass suit, so it evened out.

A figure stormed out of the side room that allowed pilots to rest. Amanda had expected Ursula or Lotte coming out to try and fix Akko’s mood, but she instead found a livid-looking Hannah.

Oh fuck no, Amanda thought, this is the last thing Akko needs right now.

She stepped in front of the brunette, earning a glare from the girl as the others started coming out of the room. “What?” Hannah barked.

“You look like you wanna scream at something, but Akko shouldn’t be that something,” Amanda said, crossing her arms as if she was some kind of bodyguard.

“Did you see what she did? No, you’re going to say you didn’t, whatever, you should check recordings then,” Hannah spoke fast and angrily. She leaned to the side to stare daggers at Akko, who seemed to be thinking about something. “If she had only stuck with what we knew would work then-“

“Stop it,” Amanda was the one glaring this time. “She didn’t come in last. That should be enough for someone who’s literally been in two real races in her entire life.”

Hannah shook her head, laughing sarcastically. “Yeah, sure, no, you’re totally right, let the idiot be an idiot!” She pointed at Akko, “She almost destroys the Shiny Rod on a dozen different occasions when she could’ve stuck with what worked and maybe even gotten in first! Or in second! I dunno!” Hannah stomped a foot on the ground. “Why the hell did she try that crazy ass way of taking corners? What is wrong with you?” Somewhere along her sentence she had stopped directing herself at Amanda, changing her aim towards Akko.

“Hey!” Right before Amanda could try to defend the brunette, she shoved Amanda aside to look Hannah face to face. “I did get good at it! I almost didn’t crash into anything for the third lap!”

Hannah raised her eyebrows, expression of disbelief as she started to laugh with a somber ring, “Oh, you didn’t crash into anything for your third lap, I see. So you mastered the way of steering, huh?”

“Yeah!” Akko sounded proud when she said that, and Hannah’s laugh died as she nodded and pointed a finger at Akko.

“I see. Well then, now you can use the technique you mastered to win the race… Oh, wait, YOU ALREADY FUCKED THAT UP,” Hannah snapped, placing her finger in the middle of Akko’s chest. “You had a good lap time!” She explained, tapping her finger with each word. “And with your defense system you probably would’ve been much safer than Diana and me! That bullshit turn you wasted two thirds of the race trying to master is useless now!” She pushed Akko back, and the girl actually yelped and brought a hand up to where Hannah had hurt her, probably with a nail. Akko was so taken aback that she didn’t even try a retort. She just looked down.

“Hannah, shut the fuck up,” Amanda said, stepping between the girls again. She didn’t understand what Hannah was talking about, but she did know Akko didn’t do whatever it was that had her so angry on purpose.

“Oh no, I’m not going to-” Hannah started, but paused when someone put a hand to her shoulder. Barbara. “What?”

“Yelling won’t get us anywhere,” Diana said. The group had obviously heard the discussion. Amanda suspected everyone in this pit and the next one had heard it. In fact, some of the members of the Dragon’s staff were walking around with their heads down, obviously trying not to look at the teenagers.

Akko’s clenched fist was shaking, and Amanda was sure her knuckles would’ve been white if not for the gloves of the suit. Everyone stood in silence for a while until Ursula finally stepped next to Akko and patted her back. “You were still great,” she commented reassuringly, though she did so with some awkwardness too. “You managed to best five professional racers from other planets, even with all of your mistakes. That’s something to be proud of.”

“I could’ve ended up first if I hadn’t…” Akko took a deep breath. “If I hadn’t been an idiot.”

“Agreed,” Hannah simply said.

“Another word and I’m going to deck you,” Amanda warned. Hannah stared defiantly, but she did in fact stop talking, probably noticing that Amanda was not one to mess around. She didn’t consider herself a particularly good person, but she really hated people who continuously rubbed in failures to others. Amanda might have felt strangely disconnected from the whole situation, given the fact that she couldn’t even remember what had gone down, but she could see Akko’s defeated aura, the frustration in her posture and the anger in her eyes.

Curiously enough, it was the same kind of demeanor Hannah wore right now.

Amanda stepped aside as Lotte also walked forward. “Miss Ursula is right, Akko. You’re a novice. You did great.”

It was true. Amanda didn’t often think being a novice was an excuse for fucking up, but this was more a matter of practice than carefulness, and Akko hadn’t actually gotten a chance to practice. Maybe she should have stuck with the original plan, though, she found herself thinking. Hannah seemed to have a point. The problem was in the way in which she laid it out, however. Akko was already feeling down, no need to kick the dead horse.

“But Hannah is right,” the brunette said. “I… I should’ve gone with the thing I had practiced.”

“Oh, come on,” Amanda rolled her eyes. In her roll she saw that Diana was looking kind of distressed. She obviously wanted to say something, but whatever it was, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not surprising. Amanda suspected she was torn between the best way of scolding Akko or the best way of explaining how she had done it much better. Well, not that Akko had done badly. She had come out fifth out of ten pros! “Stop moping. It couldn’t have been that bad anyways,” she said. After all, Akko wasn’t a talentless prick. She just lacked experience.

“Oh, you certain?” Hannah fetched her wand and flicked it, showing a holographic screen. After a minute of searching, she found a recording of the race that had just gone down.

A wand could only show videos on a greenscale, but connecting the thing to Amanda’s helmet would’ve been a pain in the ass. Amanda watched with interest as the race started. Had someone thrown a rock at the bird? Where had they gotten it? There were no rocks in the city, as far as Amanda had seen. Maybe it was a piece of armor.

And, at the first turn, Amanda cringed. “Oh,” she said, realizing what had happened. After the curve, Akko kept going, and bumping, and hitting, and crashing. “Oh.”

“Oh in-fucking-deed,” Hannah pulled the wand away. “You see now what I mean?”

“Yeah, kinda,” Amanda admitted. “But you don’t have to be a bitch about it,” she explained. Hannah was right, though. Akko had focused too much on a new flying style that she didn’t know, and that had probably cost her a better place in the race.

“I can be a bitch about it when-“

“No,” Diana interrupted, eyes still fixed on Akko with a troubled expression. “Hannah, do try to be more kind, if you could. Akko didn’t have ill intentions. She was just… learning, let’s say.”

Hannah grunted. Only Diana seemed to be able to keep her on check, though Amanda suspected it was only possible because Hannah was basically her fangirl.

“Whatever,” Akko said, shaking off Ursula and Lotte. “I just wanna be alone,” she said before turning to go. Hannah snorted at this. Diana took a step in the direction of the girl, but hesitated and didn’t follow. Amanda also considered following, but she would have little to say. Not even Lotte dared follow the brunette. Everyone kind of realized being alone was the best thing Akko could do right now.

Well, everyone but Sucy, who after a grunt and some mumbling about ‘of course it’s me’, followed after Akko.

This didn’t really surprise Amanda. Despite what she said, Sucy was very observant and actually cared, as proven by the scolding Amanda had been subject to earlier this week.

“Maybe we should all go to sleep. We have a few hours until the closing ceremony starts,” Ursula said. She was no longer worried about Akko wandering off on her own. “And I don’t want to be here when the reporters come to ask us about teleportation.”

Amanda nodded. She was pretty tired, though she wasn’t sure why. She was always pretty comfortable inside the Shiny Rod, but who knew, maybe once the turret activated everything turned crazy or something.

“Wait, hasn’t Akko been teleporting around town all week? Was it supposed to be a secret?” Amanda asked, not really understanding why they would suddenly grow self conscious about that. Ursula shook her head.

“It’s not the same. One thing is to do it where some people might see it, but their stories would probably be dismissed. She did it on a live broadcast for the entire alliance this time,” she explained. “Now let’s go, I think I already hear them.”

Everyone nodded, following quickly.

Sucy had a short temper. She didn’t like beating around the bush when talking, and she hated those who weren’t direct with what they wanted. Maybe more importantly, she had no patience for idiots. Ninety percent of the time, Akko fell into that category. She had grown used to her, but at least her normal idiocy came from her honesty and just doing as she pleased, which was something that, if annoying, Sucy could respect.

Hannah was right. Akko had been an idiot to not go with the thing she was prepared to do. But she had also just done what she felt was right and, while that always meant nothing good could come out of it if Akko was involved, that was not something she should be feeling bad about.

So, as Akko climbed on the Shiny Rod, Sucy made a slight effort and followed. The brunette looked up surprised as Sucy climbed behind her on the cockpit. There was enough room for one person to crouch behind the seat, and Sucy was used to that kind of posture, so she was actually pretty comfortable.

“What are you doing?” Akko turned with a frown.

“Following you, in case it wasn’t obvious enough,” Sucy replied with her usual mockery. Akko didn’t even have the will to complain. The windshield closed and she pronounced the magic words.

And then, they were inside a tunnel. Sucy raised an eyebrow, curious as to where Akko had taken them. However, the brunette didn’t leave the ship. She just sat there. The joysticks of the Shiny Rod disappeared, and Akko just dropped her head onto the space where Sucy suspected the control panel should be. This cockpit was unusually big, particularly for a ship so small, and it had so much wasted space… Truly curious, if not something Sucy was particularly interested in.

“Seriously though, why did you follow me?” Akko asked after a few silent minutes

“Because leaving you alone would be idiotic, at best,” Sucy explained. “Who knows what crazy shit you may try.”

“Yeah, of course,” Akko sighed. “I was pretty stupid, huh?”

“Yeah, you were,” Sucy said. Akko grunted. “But you also did better than anyone expected, so don’t beat yourself over it.”

Akko turned, examining Sucy with a curious expression. “Are you trying to cheer me up?” She asked with some concern in her voice. “You ok?”

“Shut up,” Sucy scoffed. “I’m trying to be nice here.”

Akko laughed. It was a short burst, and it wasn’t very energetic, but it did show that she was feeling a little bit better. Sucy couldn’t help but notice something weird: With her laughter, the light inside the cockpit seemed to grow brighter. “How am I going to make up for this?” Akko said after laughing.

“You could just try to win the next race,” Sucy suggested. “With more practice, and maybe try to follow the advice others give you.”

Akko considered this. She was so easily manipulated it didn’t matter how many times Sucy tricked her into being a subject for her experiments, the brunette always fell for the trick. This was one of the many reasons Sucy chose her as the guinea pig, but it also had to do with Akko’s natural resistance to magic. Things that seemed to affect Lotte a lot – in the few occasions she had been the test subject – didn’t affect Akko as much.

Sucy wondered if she had something to do with the strange Magic Poisoning Akko had suffered. She had never given the girl a dose she couldn’t handle, but she did tend to go a little over the safe threshold to test Akko’s limits. Maybe, over time, she had slowly accumulated the excess and then something had triggered it. She had tested this theory later in the restaurant, giving Akko a dose of pure magic, but she hadn’t even flinched.

What had gotten to her was still a mystery, but Sucy still felt a little guilty over that.

“I guess you’re right,” Akko finally said. She hesitated before continuing but she said what followed anyways. “I’m actually more bummed out about having disappointed Diana,” she commented. Sucy narrowed her eyes. Had she heard right? “She was certain I’d win and… Well, I didn’t.”

“Why do you even care about her?” Sucy couldn’t help but ask in a rather harsh tone. Akko was nice and all, but she didn’t have a particularly close relationship with the blonde. More importantly, of all the people, she focused on Diana?

“Well, she won, and she’s my rival,” Akko explained. When had Diana become her rival? Sucy was confused, but that was not uncommon when interacting with Akko. “Not that I actually expected to do better than her, but… I dunno. Did you see her face back there? She was probably debating if she should even talk to a failure like me,” Akko sighed.

Curious, Sucy thought. Diana, in her book, was nothing but an emotionless prick that enjoyed looking down on others. Maybe she had more to herself than Sucy had first assumed, though she wasn’t eager to find out. She did think Akko might have been right on her guess, however. She had noticed Diana looking at her with doubt, but she had just assumed the blonde had been trying to find the best way to explain to Akko why she had failed so miserably. ‘Learning’ she had said. Damn that had sounded condescending to Sucy’s ears.

“Listen, I’m only going to say this once so you better pay attention,” Sucy said, closing her eyes. “You’re an idiot, but the way you actually pulled off those turns by the end? That was impressive. I’m fairly certain no one else would’ve been able to get so good in such a short amount of time. You lost, but you didn’t come in last, and more importantly, you’ve grown as a pilot,” Akko’s eyes grew wider with every word. Sucy wasn’t seeing them, but she could feel them. “I’m sure not even Shiny Chariot could’ve pulled something like that off.”

When she opened her eyes, as she had predicted, Akko was staring at her with eyes the sizes of tennis balls. Red eyes, like Sucy’s own. “Thank you!” she finally said, excitement back in her voice.

“Ok, stop shining,” Sucy grimaced. “It is a little too soon for you to stop moping. Go back to being quiet,” she said, dreading having to deal with Akko all by herself.

“You don’t have to be such a tsundere. Come on,” Akko opened the windshield, “I wanna show you something.”

Sucy mumbled a complaint, but after some minimal prodding, she followed. However, despite all her complaining, she noticed she was feeling a little lighter herself. Well, Akko was like that. She could cheer up the most gloomy of persons, much to Sucy’s displeasure, since she was usually within that group.

She followed Akko out of the Rod and into a weird metallic tunnel.

Where the hell were they?

Chapter Text

Diana sat on the edge of the bed. She was still wearing her horrible g-suit, since it was a little too hot for comfort. The technology behind these suits had always impressed her. Magic reacted to certain materials in such a way that it managed to make them superconductors of temperature. Then, after some tweaking, they set the temperature to be one perfect for humans and voilá.

Akko and Sucy hadn’t come back, and it had already been an hour. Almost everyone was still awake, save for Hannah, who had complained about Akko being a whiny kid and gone to sleep. Diana understood her frustrations, but she wasn’t feeling so much angry as she was disappointed. Not in Akko directly, but in herself. She had tried to encourage Akko before the race, and Akko had obviously given her best, yet it was not enough. She had still lost, and Diana had felt her heart sink as she saw Akko’s defeated expression. She had tried so hard to find the right words to say that she had even gotten a light headache. She couldn’t find anything that didn’t sound condescending. Even what she had said to Hannah still rang wrong to her ears, as if she had been treating Akko like a child. But what could be said? ‘It’s ok, you’ll do better next time’? That would have just reinforced the girl’s feelings of failure. ‘Don’t be sad, you still did great’ like everyone else had said?

Useless, all she could think of saying seemed just… Useless. She had rarely felt as impotent as in that moment. At least Sucy had had the decency of following Akko. It would be good for her to at least have someone to talk to, though Diana didn’t believe the creepy girl would be the most responsive of persons.

Hannah’s sleeping face was calm. Diana wondered how she could remain so calm. From Amanda she would have expected it, not being able to remember what happened and all. Diana had been doubtful about her claims about the memory wiping, like she was skeptical about all unexplained things, but why keep up the charade so long? At this point, it would be far easier to just admit the lie.

However, Amanda was pacing around the giant metallic ball, looking at it with curiosity. Maybe she wanted to try it out? Diana had been meaning too. Now might be a good moment. Akko had been there for an hour and a half or so, as far as she recalled. It could be a good thing to do before going to sleep, too.

As she considered this, Diana started to walk towards the ball. Yes, maybe after she was relaxed she could find what to say to Akko. Stubborn, hyperactive Akko. Cheerful, clumsy Akko. Diana had no doubts that when the girl came back she would be as cheerful as ever. Maybe thanks to Sucy, more likely thanks to her short attention span. She wouldn’t focus on the failure for long. This did help Diana, but she still felt disappointed. She wondered if her words had affected Akko’s reaction. Probably not, the brunette didn’t seem to hold her comments in high regard.

“Diana?” Lotte startled her. She was standing next to her, looking at her with a worried expression. “You feel ok?” She asked with concern.

“Huh?” Diana took a few seconds to process the question. “Yes, yes. Why do you ask?”

“Well, you’re standing there looking like your stomach hurts, so I thought…” Lotte explained. Diana hadn’t even noticed she had stopped walking. As always, she preferred to be still when thinking. How did people pace when thinking? Moving only seemed to distract Diana.  Then again, more people seemed to think while moving than not, so the real oddity was Diana. Why did she prefer quiet and stillness when thinking? Well, that much was obvious: So that there wouldn’t be any distractions. That was probably why she had also subconsciously looked down to the floor: To not see the moving girls moving around the little apartment.

“I am fine, thank you for your concern,” Diana said a little more harshly than she intended. She was used to speaking with authority. Lotte nodded and shied away. She was reading something on her wand. Probably that series of books she so much enjoyed talking about with Barbara. Silly things, though Diana was curious. A series of books that had changed authors a dozen times and people still enjoyed? And it had been going for like, what, 100 years? Interesting. Sadly, she didn’t have the time or the energy to invest into the three hundred or more volumes the series had. It seemed to be one of those things you either got into as a kid when you had all the time in the world or you just won’t ever start.

Diana noticed she had stopped walking again, so she forced herself to move. Once she reached the ball, Amanda glared at her for a moment before remembering that they weren’t supposed to be hating each other anymore. Diana pushed down the stab of doubt she felt when looking at the redhead. She was trying to not sound as if she considered herself better than others anymore.

Maybe, one day, she would be able to call even Amanda a friend.

“Do I have something on my face?” Amanda asked with narrowed eyes.

“No,” Diana answered.

“Then why are you staring?”

That day wouldn’t be today, though. “Just wondering if you were going to enter the Muscle Sphere,” Diana said, pointing at the ball. She didn’t touch it.

“No, thank you,” Amanda said. Diana nodded in acknowledgement. Then, carefully, she touched the sphere. It felt strange, like putting her finger in a particularly dense pudding. Not unpleasant. She felt the sphere sucking her in, and she pushed her hand into it. Then a little bit of her arm and soon she couldn’t pull away. The sphere swallowed her and everything became darkness.

Still, quiet darkness. She felt herself moving as the sphere took her to its middle. And then, everything stopped. She couldn’t feel anything. Not heat, not cold. Not movement. Not a single sensation. She wasn’t even breathing, and she hadn’t even considered that. How did it work? She’d ask Memory later.

It was… hard, not to be relaxed. Even before the actual muscle loosening process started, the absolute silence and darkness made her comfortable. Good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic. This would probably be like torture to someone with that particular phobia. As she kept thinking, her mind just started recalling Akko’s race. The way her heart had been on edge by seeing Akko constantly try the same move and failing, yet getting better with each turn. Realizing that she had been right, there was a better way of taking curves. Her instincts were sharper than Diana was comfortable admitting.

And then, she had actually been excited when she saw Akko use the nitro on that third lap in the long straight, and she had cringed hard when she had failed spectacularly the turn and had to teleport to not completely throw out the race.

So reckless, but so… Akko.

In fact, that reminded her about what the daemons had done during her race. The flash of light, the way everyone had seemingly been left behind. In her worry, Diana had forgotten to check it out, and now she was kind of out of reach.

Her mind wandered through a lot of things she hadn’t expected. How satisfied she felt at her own win, even if Akko had lost. How she wished she could see her aunt and cousins’ faces when they had seen her come on first. Her own feelings of inadequacy at being surrounded by girls who didn’t really look up to her and not knowing how to interact with them. The feeling of distance she felt with Barbara, which had only been widened after the hastily ended tour. The Noir Rod and the implications of someone knowing how to build Shiny Rod-like ships and what implications that could have for the future of the IPR.

And then, the massage actually started, and her mind went completely blank at the almost painful process.

Hannah woke up to the sudden flash of light and rumbling of the engines of the Shiny Rod, which had appeared in the middle of the apartment. Tired, angry and more tired, she looked at the white broom with hate in her eyes. The fact that when the windshield opened Akko was discussing loudly with Sucy didn’t help.

“…believe you could be that stupid, but guess I was wrong!” Sucy yelled, which was really strange from her.

“I said I’m sorry! I didn’t expect Elizabeth to react so strongly!” Akko apologized.

“She almost killed me!”

“You almost kill me a hundred times and you don’t hear me complaining!”

They both stopped talking, stalemate reached in the discussion. Sucy just grunted as she walked out of the Shiny Rod, and Akko did the same. She handed the wand to Lotte for a second and the Rod activated its alarms for a few seconds before disappearing. Hannah shoved down the desire to murder everyone in the room as she tried to go back to sleep. She felt tired enough that she knew she had slept for a little while, but not nearly enough to be a complete rest.

“Akko, where the hell were you?” Amanda asked, not bothering to keep her voice low. Hannah considered the possibility of just stabbing her ears with her wand. Maybe that’d keep the noise away.

“Well, I went to Elizabeth’s nest, and tried to show Sucy the eggs, but she got defensive…”

“Wait, wait. You named the giant blue bird?” Amanda asked with amusement.

“Of course,” Akko exclaimed. “She’s really nice and intelligent, so-”

“Allow me to disagree!” Sucy shouted from the bathroom.

“Not my fault she considered you dangerous! You kind of are!” Akko shouted back. Amanda started chuckling.

“So, you’re feeling better?” she asked.

“Yeah, kind of,” Akko said. Then, there was silence for a blissful while. Hannah tried to take advantage of it, trying to fall asleep again. Until Akko decided to speak once more. “Where’s Diana?”

Hannah snapped.

“COULD YOU SHUT UP?” She shouted, startling everyone in the room, even those who weren’t doing anything. “Some of us are trying to get some fucking sleep!” She said with anger. When no one said anything for a while, she sighed in relief. Wherever Diana had gone, she was probably fine. She only wanted to rest.

As she finally started to get dragged down the dream line, however, someone climbed on the bed. Hannah could feel it sinking, and it snapped her awake. She looked forward with a promise to kill in her eyes as she searched for the perpetrator.

Barbara?

“What?” Barbara asked. Hannah gave her a flat look. Barbara smiled and shrugged. “Sorry. It doesn’t really matter if I sleep here for a while, right?”

Hannah grimaced. Barbara was doing this on purpose. She often teased her like this, though Hannah didn’t understand what she got out of it. She knew Hannah wouldn’t get mad at her, but sometimes she got really, really close to crossing the line. It was hard to explain, particularly because they had known each other for so long, but Barbara, to put it simply, knew her well.

The black haired girl didn’t say more as Hannah tried to fall asleep again, but she could feel the land of dreams flying away as her sleepiness disappeared.

When she opened her eyes again, Barbara was looking at her with a grin. “Fuck you,” Hannah simply said.

“Come on, you’re the only one who’s trying to sleep anyways. We have a ceremony in like two hours. Seriously,” Barbara sat up. “What’s really going on?”

Too well, Hannah thought. Damn Barbara, it was impossible to try to not be introspective or keep secrets around her for long. “You have your own theory, don’t you? Why even ask?”

Barbara shrugged. The knowing the other too well went both ways. “I think you’re just tired of being the only one left who still sees Akko as a troublemaker,” she started, “and that you’re thinking ‘I was right’ after Akko lost,” she raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, anyone could figure that one out,” Hannah rolled her eyes. “What’s your real theory?”

“I think,” Barbara sounded a little more serious this time, “that you’re jealous of the fact that everyone’s been warming up to Akko, particularly Diana, and therefore you’re growing more intolerant to her actions, those of which today reached peak stupidity.”

“Closer, but you can probably go deeper,” Hannah prompted. Barbara’s expression lost the smile.

“I think that you’re afraid of the fact that you’re actually not as angry at Akko as you should be, so you try to blow your anger out of proportion by exaggerating,” Barbara said. “I think you actually found what Akko did back then understandable, maybe even respectable, but you decided to act with the part of your brain that pushed you to be angry because that’s what you consider is more consistent.”

Hannah closed her eyes at that. “I’m not that wrong, though. Akko did fuck up.”

“You were going to treat her like if she had just killed a baby or something,” Barbara pointed out. Hannah abstained from commenting that maybe she had, at some point, with one of her crazy crashes, but that would probably be missing the point. “It’s ok if you don’t like her, and it’s not like she likes you, but she’s civil, isn’t she? You could be civil with Amanda at the party when you were at each other’s throats just before.”

But Amanda is cooler, was the first thing that came to Hannah’s mind. She now wished to puke to try and get out of her system whatever had brought that thought. “It’s just so annoying. How can someone be so stubborn? She saw how she was fucking up, she should’ve just stuck to what worked.”

“Like that time you kept trying to hit on a guy that everyone told you was gay?” Barbara raised an eyebrow. “And when he kindly asked you to stop you acted surprised?”

“Hey, he was responsive at…” Hannah paused, looking away. “Ok, yeah, I guess. But hitting on a guy didn’t cost us a race.”

“There are still nine more,” Barbara shrugged. “Akko will get better.”

“So, you wanted to talk to me about my anger management problems again or was there an actual reason you wanted to talk?” Hannah asked, trying to change the subject. She was too tempted to say that Akko getting better could mean actually learning how to properly steer or actually learning to pilot a real broom.

“Mostly the anger management problem, but I actually wanted to suggest a party for Diana.” Hannah raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “They did the same for Akko last week, right? It feels way longer, god. Anyways, point being, we can probably do the same for Diana, and if we’re the ones to throw it no one will get mad! It’s a perfect plan.”

“Except that Amanda would probably decline for obvious reasons and who the hell knows what Akko might do. Sometimes it looks like she hates Diana, others it looks like she loves everyone and everything, me included.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But what do you say?” Barbara raised an eyebrow.

“If I say yes you’ll let me sleep?”

“We both know that’s not happening either way.”

With a sigh, Hannah sat up. “Ok, whatever.”

Akko was walking around the sphere, since it was a place where one could walk continuously without interruptions. She wasn’t thinking or anything she was just impatient. She wanted to get the ceremony done with. Maybe she should go see Elizabeth one last time, since it was unlikely she’d ever get another chance at seeing her after tomorrow.

As she considered this, however, her field of vision got invaded by the sight of blonde hair. She got confused for a second before realizing Diana’s head was popping out of the sphere a good two heads above her, eyes closed. “What the-” while her first reaction was confused, she quickly reacted and made sure to catch Diana before she fell to the floor. She wouldn’t be able to hold her for long, however, and the sphere was pushing her out further. “A little help here!” she cried. Jasminka, who was in the nearby couch, approached, and together they carried Diana towards that same couch and left her there.

“So that’s where she was,” Akko commented. Had she ever gotten a look at a sleeping Diana? She didn’t think so. Diana was usually up before her, and she wasn’t one to look at other people sleeping anyways. It was almost funny how similar her face was to her normal one. Akko could have believed she was actually just blinking or something. Unfair, though. People often told Akko that she transformed into someone else while sleeping, yet Diana kept being perfect even when unconscious.

“She’s cute,” Jasminka commented. Akko looked at her, but she had already moved and was walking towards the giant refrigerator in the other side of the room. Akko looked back at Diana. Well, Jasminka wasn’t wrong. Diana was probably the dictionary definition of beautiful. That certainly included cute, too. But it was hard to see Diana as anything besides perfect, so Akko wasn’t amazed by the beauty. It was expected.

Something felt wrong with this reasoning, but Akko was not one to worry about such things.

“Oh, good morning. Or night, I guess,” Akko said as she noticed one of Diana’s eyes opening. Sky blue. Probably because of what Jasminka had said, Akko felt particularly curious about them right now. “Feeling weak?”

“I would rather say I feel loose,” Diana said. She spoke with an analytical voice, even if she had just woken up. “Curious, you truly feel like you can’t move after coming out of the Muscle Sphere. I can feel my limbs, I just lack the strength to put them to use.”

Akko sighed. Well, she was feeling fine, at the very least. She turned to go, ready to go back to her walking in impatience, but Diana cleared her throat, so she looked at her. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Akko made a dismissive gesture to Diana. “Don’t worry. I’ll just do better next time, I promise,” she gave the blonde a thumb up. Diana nodded, though Akko couldn’t read her expression. Was that normal stone-faced Diana or was it because she couldn’t move the muscles of her face either?

“I feel my muscles weak in places I didn’t even imagine could feel like such…” Diana commented again, and Akko found herself bored by the words. However, she did find the voice to be strangely soothing. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to hearing Diana talk with this much excitement. Whenever Diana talked to her she used a scolding or lecturing voice.

“Wait,” Akko realized something, stopping Diana from her comments. “Where’s Ursula? I just realized she’s not here.”

“I believe she had something to do before the closing ceremony. Why do you ask?” Diana had started moving her toes.

“Well, she didn’t appear when I teleported the Shiny Rod in the middle of the room.”

“You did what?” Diana suddenly asked, and Akko flinched at the tone. She had completely forgotten who she was talking with.

“Well, you see…”

Chapter Text

Ursula walked in the poorly lit passage below the dance floor of the hotel, though she was suspecting something else was going on, as this passage was too long and big to fit within the building, not to mention between just two floors. She went past the first secret wall and reached the little room with cables in it. This was where she had caught Akko back then. Another false wall was too obvious a choice, particularly for someone like Croix.

Ursula looked up and, under the light of her wand, she found what she was looking for: A small hole that would be practically impossible to notice unless you knew what you were looking for. She reached up with her wand and stuck it in, pressing a button inside the hole.

She suddenly felt as if her body disappeared, only consciousness remaining. The sensation only lasted for a split second, however, as she suddenly regained her connection to reality and realized she was in a small and completely dark room. Or, actually, it felt like a box barely big enough to let someone stand alone inside.

The sliding-door opened automatically, and Ursula didn’t hesitate to step out.

What she saw amazed but didn’t surprise her.

It was a strange mixture between a laboratory and a workshop, and it wasn’t very well lit. Metal scraps on corners or spread around the floor near work tables where unfinished projects laid, yet so clean in places where machinery stood, whether it was working or not. The only light seemed to come from some monitors in a far off wall and the different screens of the machines surrounding Ursula, but Croix had always been one to just work under wandlight.

And, speaking of her, Ursula wasn’t caught off guard when a figure moved in the far reaches of the long laboratory, backlit by the monitors. The stupid hairstyle was immediately recognizable, even if Croix wasn’t using her cape.

“Look at who we have here,” Croix commented. She was wearing a work suit that looked way too hot to be used on Machina. It was a one-piece, baggy utilitarian suit with a lot of pockets, tied with a belt around the waist. She had her goggles hanging on her neck and one of her gloves off the hand she ran through her hair, wiping away sweat. “You entered through the dance floor? How forgetful of me, didn’t think anyone else would be able to see it,” she spoke with nonchalance, as if they were still teammates.

Ursula had to squash the rising nostalgia within her. She looked harshly at her and narrowed her eyes. “How did you do it?” She asked, going straight to the point.

“What? My hair?” Croix feigned ignorance. “It’s a long process each morning, but worth the effort. It’s interesting how-”

“Stop acting innocent. How did you build the Noir Rod?” Ursula cut her off, losing patience. Croix had barely matured in the past ten years, it seemed. Yet, she still had the same beautiful teal eyes. Eyes that looked at everything analytically, that seemed to want to dismantle it to its base elements and learn to rebuild it, or enhance it.

Or destroy it.

“You haven’t even said hello, you know?” Croix turned, putting her glove back on and the goggles in her face. “It’s been like ten years since we saw each other,” she walked out of view, and Ursula quickly followed. The laboratory/workshop was separated in two rooms, and it the one Ursula entered looked like the main one. It was tidier than the previous one. The monitors were completely white, but that was no surprise either. Croix had just made them so that only her goggles could reveal what was going on in them. She was now sitting on a small desk, working on one of her strange flying… Roombas. Ursula ignored the strangeness of that; Croix was not one to follow conventions, even when no one was looking. Next to the dismantled roomba was a small box with two small tubes coming out of it. A magic engine. Or, in this case, an Inferno one.

“Just answer my question,” Ursula tried to keep the conversation on topic. Croix was skillful at diverting others from her mistakes. She never got in trouble back when they were students. In fact, Croix had been considered an exemplar student, despite always joining Ursula in her hijinks.

“You’ve gotten a lot stiffer over the years, you know, Chariot?” Croix using her old name created an automatic cringe in her. “Or I guess you go by Ursula now,” she sounded as unconcerned as she looked. She was tinkering with a piece of her roomba, though Ursula couldn’t care less about what it was. She didn’t answer, deciding not to feed into Croix’s ego. “Fiiine, how I build the Noir Rod, you ask? Well, from memory, mostly. It was pretty hard, but after getting my hands on some Daemon tech I realized just how far and beyond in the handling of Inferno they are compared to human’s and magic. And yet, they hadn’t been able to build something like the Shiny Rod. So I just made some adjustments and came up with the wonderful thing you saw today. Impressive, huh? The Second Category ship is also my creation, by the way. Not as good as the Rod, but it has some neat features, as I’m sure you saw during that race.”

“You expect me to believe you just rebuilt the most powerful ship in the universe from memory?” Ursula asked. The fact that she didn’t believe a word was perceptible from a mile away.

“I mean, you can believe me or not, it won’t change the facts,” Croix pointed backwards with the screwdriver in her hands. How could she be so calm? Ursula looked at her with a mixture of hate and longing. She wanted to punch her, to hug her, to destroy this lab, to join her in whatever crazy experiment she was working now. Croix, however, acted as if everything was still the same. Did she ever think back and wished things had gone a different way? Did she regret her actions? Had she ever gotten anxious wondering what had happened to Ursula?

Knowing her, probably not.

“You just admitted to helping a team,” Ursula said. “I could bring this to the committee and you’d be kicked out of the office.”

“Threats? Why?” Croix turned her chair. A floating chair. Strange, Ursula could swear Machina didn’t have enough of a magnetic force to make things like floating chairs work. “Plus, I’m not doing anything illegal here. I built a ship, big deal. I don’t actually make most of the choices on the committee, I’m just there to give the final word,” she shrugged.

“And you expect me to believe you rose to be the head of the IPR committee in just ten years and with less than thirty years? How did you do it?”

“Well, I am a very… Persuasive person. I don’t see how that relates to your previous argument, however,” Croix smiled. With the goggles in place, the smile looked a little crazy. Ursula held her eyes, but she couldn’t really read the other woman’s expression in the dark and behind those things.

“It relates in the simple fact that I think your standing there is flimsy,” Ursula explained. “I bet if I brought this to light you’d be kicked out.”

Croix laughed. A genuine laugh, not a fake one. She found what Ursula had said funny. “Ah, you always had a talent for being oblivious. Worry not, Chariot, I got the balls of everyone in the committee tightly grasped. They wouldn’t kick me out, believe me.”

“So you admit what you’re doing is wrong, then?” Ursula crossed her arms. Croix’s nonchalance was starting to get on her nerves. Again, Croix laughed.

“No, why would I? I just built a ship.”

“It shows favoritism.”

“So? The rules for each race are completely random. I can prove that,” Croix shrugged again. “If the daemons win it will be because of their ship and ability. They could pay for it, they got it. I’m not playing favoritisms to anyone,” Croix turned again. She started to rebuild her roomba. She wasn’t lying, or if she was, she was convincing enough to make Ursula believe she wasn’t. “Plus, the Shiny Rod is still the superior ship. I couldn’t bring the size of the Noir Rod down, and I can’t quite get right the permanent floating. Well, I can’t quite get right the infinite energy either. I don’t really know what I missed back then, but I’ll figure it out eventually. Good thing I got a new opportunity to study the Rod, eh?”

Ursula paled. “Will you ever leave aside your obsession? This… relentless search for a substitute. Didn’t you get enough, back then?”

To her surprise, Croix didn’t answer immediately. She hoped, for a moment, that maybe she had gotten to her. Maybe all Croix had needed all these years was some words from Ursula. Maybe their past friendship would be enough to make Croix see that… “Nah,” the single word was enough to make Ursula feel like her chest had just collapsed. “This is bigger than you think, Chariot. Now, I believe we’ve got a ceremony to attend, so I expect there’s no one in the bathroom of your room because if not this could get really uncomfortable.”

“What do you mean…?” Ursula frowned, stepping forward, but Croix didn’t even look at her as, for a second, she felt the same strange sensation as before and she was suddenly in the dark. She instantly took out her wand and almost fell to the floor in shock as she saw another light besides her. Her reflection, in a mirror.

In the bathroom of the hotel.

She paused, looking around. She touched the walls, to be sure they were real. They were. But, could it really be?

She stepped outside, opening the massive door… and found herself drawing the confused looks of her nine students.

“What?!” Sucy, who was closest to the door, was looking at her in horror. “How?! I was- I just- What?!” She narrowed her eyes. “Were you spying on me?”

Ursula blushed. Whatever had just happened could wait. “I wasn’t,” she made sure to dispel any perceptions of her that could be improper. Particularly with Sucy. Ursula was half certain that girl would one day kill someone because they looked at her funny, but she was too afraid of that happening to suggest to her to go to a psychiatrist. “It’s just… A long and complicated story,” if one had in mind the entire context behind it, at least.

Sucy didn’t seem convinced, but Ursula was quick to move on to the next topic. “In any case! Are you girls ready?” She checked the clock on her wand. It was adapted to show Machina time. “It’s almost time for the ceremony! I’m certain it’ll be big and important! Let’s go!” She move quickly, feeling the gaze of the creepy girl on her neck. Please don’t poison me during the night, Ursula begged.

She’d have to come up with an explanation later.

The ceremony was lame. In fact, Amanda was certain that Croix woman was just running the thing for property’s sake. The thing was quick, the speech was lacking in feeling, and overall it had finished before anyone felt it had even started. No press asking about the teleporting either: Just boredom.

As everyone walked back to the hotel, Amanda took the chance to get a good last look at the city. It was already past midnight, but day wouldn’t come for a few hours yet, so it was still lit in full. The wooden city. The metal painted city. The neon city.

Cyborgs walked about. It was an active city, even at night. Amanda was slightly disappointed that she had never gotten a chance to look at more of those mechanical limbs closely. Her time seemed to have been spent on practicing and doing a whole lot of nothing. They hadn’t really done tourism. At least, not the members of the team. She knew Jasminka and Constanze had actually gone out a few times, and that Constanze had bought a lot of parts from the cyborgs. Particularly the low class, apparently, since their arms were more mechanic than electronic.

Amanda wondered if Constanze could build one of those limbs. She should ask. One never knew what would happen on an IPR. Some pilots had lost limbs. Constanze had learnt to read their language, and even had taught Akko some of it, though Akko had insisted that after learning the basics she would practice by herself – thing she had done during the couple days of rain that had basically cost her the race.

“Incredible,” she heard Diana comment to her right. Amanda, more by nature than actual curiosity, checked out what she was talking about. She was looking at a video on her wand. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, so couldn’t connect to it to check the video in full color, but it was still understandable.

The scene was one Amanda recalled: The Blue Star behind the armors’ ship turning onto the long straight right at the end of the second lap. The daemons were right behind, other racers on their heels. The daemon ship stopped for a single second, exploded in light and suddenly a giant shield of Inferno energy popped up in the middle of the street, blocking every racer off. Then it moved on.

“Ah, that. Shouldn’t that be cheating?” Amanda commented. Diana shook her head, repeating the scene.

“No one has ever done something like this,” Diana said. “It’s not against rules to try and block opponents off. It’s just, well, no one had thought of creating these kinds of traps. It’s… fascinating.”

Amanda had been annoyed when seeing that. It looked unfair, at best. Shields to protect yourself were fine, but a shield to block everyone off? Bullshit. Yet Diana took it at face value and considered it impressive. It took at least twenty second of constant bashing of different weaponry against the shield to finally take it down, and even then, the now clustered ships were fighting for getting ahead between them, none of them being able to go particularly fast. At least until certain Shapeshifter made its ship thinner and shot forward, leaving the others behind.

“I don’t see what’s so good about it. It’s just a cheap trick,” Amanda commented. “If you won’t even race your opponents what’s the point?”

Diana looked at her with her ‘I know best’ expression. “The technology behind it could be revolutionary, Amanda. It’s a shield made of pure energy, the kinds of which we had only seen in the Shiny Rod. Just imagine its applications.”

Amanda tried to imagine it for a second. All she could think about was sci-fi fight scenes were shields protected giant ships from death lasers. “I don’t really get it, but hey, even if it’s as amazing as you say, it has no business inside a race,” she concluded.

Diana seemed to want to argue further, but she refrained. Either she decided it wasn’t worth it or she reconsidered her opinion. In both cases, Amanda let it go too. She still eyed the video as they walked. It had been an impressive race, if nothing else. Diana hummed a low note as she reached the part where the daemons went batshit crazy and almost killed the armors, almost demolishing a building.

Suddenly, someone gasped. Amanda looked up to see what was going on, and found Akko staring and pointing with excitement at something. Following the direction with her eyes, Amanda had to look for several seconds to process what she was seeing.

A giant animal.

It looked like a fox, if a little more feline than canine. It also had six legs, as opposed to four, and its tail was absurdly long. However, its most impressive feature was the pristine white fur. It sat, happily, in the front of a store, tied to a lamp post. It was breathing with its tongue out, like any other dog, and didn’t seem particularly bothered. The weird part was the silver fangs. And its eyes were completely black, save for a few colored dots moving inside, like the bird’s eyes. It was a good head or two taller than Amanda.

Akko ran towards it.

“Doggy!” She shouted as she approached. The giant fox-like creature didn’t even flinch as Akko approached it and studied it in awe. “You’re so cute!” Akko said, extending a hand. The creature looked at the noisy human with interest, and it leaned down to sniff her. It’s nose, Amanda realized, didn’t have just two nostrils, but a bunch of them. Its sniffing blew Akko’s hair backward as she laughed and finally dared touch the animal on its neck. “So fluffy!”

Amanda was curious about the dog/fox/whatever it was, but it made her a little nervous. So big, it could probably eat half of Akko in a single bite. Lotte was the next one to approach, her little camera spirit following and probably taking a bunch of photos, followed by Barbara. They both started petting the animal, who seemed to be very much enjoying the attention as it started to lick Akko’s face.

The three girls seemed to be having as much fun as the creature as it started wiggling its tail. Long as it was, it soon started bothering bystanders on the street, who looked at the humans with frowns. None of the girls seemed to care, though Ursula did throw apologetic looks at them.

Amanda shook her head, and decided that she’d rather keep watching Diana’s video. However, as she looked at the blonde, she froze. She was looking at the big dog, her wand lowered, and she was… “Holy shit,” she mumbled, looking at her.

Diana noticed she was talking about her and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’re smiling,” Amanda said stupefied. “Doesn’t your face hurt?”

Diana narrowed her eyes. Amanda had, of course, been only half-joking. She had seen Diana smile a couple times – after winning the race, for example – but it had felt natural that she’d smile at those moments. But here? In the middle of the street? For no apparent reason?

“Well, I am rather relaxed thanks to the Muscle Sphere,” Diana said, either not getting or purposefully ignoring Amanda’s witty question. “So I suppose I am feeling better than usual.”

Amanda checked the giant fox again. Yeah, it was cute, but to get a smile from Diana? “Do you really like animals or something?”

“I’m not smiling because of the animal,” Diana sighed. “I’m just relieved Akko didn’t let the loss get to her. Seeing her down feels wrong, as strange as that may sound,” she explained. She didn’t look to be lying or trying to prank Amanda, but she still found it hard to believe.

“So now you’re happy to see her fine? When you take every opportunity you get to step on her and criticize her for every mistake?” Amanda wasn’t particularly aggressive with her question. She was just stating the facts as she saw her.

Diana didn’t seem to take offense either. “I do wish you would stop saying that. I have been harsh on Akko, I will admit, but I have never criticized her for anything she didn’t deserve, and I fully think I treat her like how I would treat others,” she replied calmly.

“So you treat everyone like shit?” Amanda asked.

“If you want to see it like that, then I suppose there is nothing to discuss,” Diana raised her wand again, smile having disappeared from her face, and Amanda shrugged. She could try to come up with all the excuses in the world, Amanda wouldn’t be convinced she did it for a reason. Sure, even Amanda would probably have criticized Akko for her fuckup on the race, but all the times Diana called out Akko for making mistakes during training were there as a proof. Sure, she’d say ‘this is a really important race,’ but she’d always find something new to complain about.

The party ended for the girls enjoying the giant animal as an old cyborg man, six meters tall, came out of the shop with a big box under its two left arms while it untied the dog with its two right ones. He didn’t seem bothered by the girls playing with his dog. In fact, he gave them a black smile as he walked away.

“Why haven’t we seen more of those?” Akko asked Ursula, obviously disappointed at seeing the animal walking away happily.

“Cyborgs don’t tend to keep animals around because hair can mess up with pieces of their equipment,” Diana explained, jumping to answer the question. Akko didn’t question this – she had no reason to question it, anyways – as she turned around, looking in the direction the fox/dog thing had left.

“Well, that’s a shame. I would have liked to see more of those,” Akko pouted.

“Wonder if cyborgs also have things like werewolves,” Lotte asked, though she didn’t seem to be asking anyone in particular.

“Actually, they do,” Diana instantly said. Ursula looked at her with some resentment, as if she was taking her job. She technically was. “Though it goes a little different. For them, if it rains for more than three days, in the days between the start and finish of the storm those who aren’t faithful to Provider, the Sun, get overtaken by their mechanic parts and go on a rampage. Storms longer than two days are extremely uncommon, though. And, of course, this is nothing but an urban legend,” Diana sounded more interested in the topic than Lotte had been when asking.

“God, you’re such a nerd,” Amanda commented.

“Well, I think that’s pretty cool,” Hannah interrupted.

Amanda laughed and snorted, looking at the auburn haired girl. “You probably think Diana taking a shit is cool, so your opinion is invalid,” she said. Hannah narrowed her eyes, obviously thinking of something to retort with. Amanda was sure she was trying to think of something that wouldn’t offend Diana when saying it.

“Well, cooler than you, at least,” she decided on. Amanda pressed her lips, trying not to laugh. She knew she was going to fail miserably and soon. Hannah paused for a second. “God, that sounded awful.”

Amanda couldn’t hold it anymore. She barked a loud laugh before starting to chuckle uncontrollably. “Did you seriously just imply that you think Diana shitting is cool? Tone down the fangirl, jesus!” Amanda kept laughing while Hannah tried to hide her embarrassed face by looking away, but with the cyborgs’ obsession with putting polarized windows everywhere, it was easy to see her through a reflection.

“So, we leave the planet tomorrow,” Ursula interrupted the conversation. “Is there something you girls wanted to do but missed out on? We still have some time.”

Amanda got an idea, but didn’t share it. She’d actually thought about doing something, but she’d rather do it without the eyes of a teacher on her back. It wasn’t anything bad, presumably, but then again, a lot of things she didn’t consider particularly bad were frowned upon by adults because… Whatever, who cared? Certainly not Amanda.

Amanda felt a tug on her arm, and as she looked down, she saw Constanze pointing at something on her screen. It was a location on a map. It read… “Books?” She asked with a flat stare, but sighed. “Ursula, Constanze wants to go to a library or something like that,” she passed the message.

The coach turned to her and nodded. After Constanze pointed where the library was, everyone agreed to go.

“Well, I guess this is more of a bookstore than a library,” Hannah commented, looking at the neat rows of books lining the walls. The bookstore wasn’t big, by cyborg standards, but when even the smallest books were the size of Hannah’s torso it was hard to realize that. “Why did we come here, again? It’s not like anyone besides Constanze can read these things,” she asked Barbara.

“Well, Akko seems to be enjoying them too,” Barbara pointed out. Akko was now trying to climb a ladder that lead to the upper levels of shelves. She was quite literally climbing it, and it was taking some effort, though she didn’t seem too tired. Hannah would have asked what the hell she had seen to warrant such efforts, but she wasn’t really interested.

“Well, I guess Diana is curious too,” Hannah looked at her teammate, who was circling a tall bookshelf in the middle of the room and looking at the books with interest.

“What should we do for her party?” Barbara asked. Hannah had also considered this, but the conclusion she had reached was likely the same Barbara had reached after some more thinking.

“I was thinking that we shouldn’t throw a party,” she explained. “I mean, Diana isn’t fond of parties per se. Maybe we should just hang out together.”

“Yeah,” Barbara sighed. “I got a little overexcited with the party idea. Doesn’t really fit Diana, does it,” she hummed to herself. “I think there’s going to be some big event on the fourth deck. I heard the mechanics talking about it. Maybe we can find out what it is and go with Diana?”

The fourth deck, also known as Platinum Deck. It was an interesting deck. “What kind of event?”

“I just told you I’ve no idea,” Barbara said. “But if all else fails, maybe we can take her to that restaurant she really likes.”

Hannah snapped her fingers. “Ah, that’s right! I had forgotten about that place. We should definitely take her there again. I also wanna eat that soup thing. God it was horrifying, but so delicious,” Hannah recalled the thing. Sometimes she wondered how in hell had she ever decided to taste it, but now she wished to go there to eat exclusively that.

“But that should be saved for something really special,” Barbara clarified. “Now, if all else fails, we can probably still throw a small party. Wonder if we’ll get better rooms this time or the same ones as before.”

“Why aren’t we getting top tier rooms anyways? We’re Earth’s official team,” Hannah said with annoyance. She looked down at her uniform. It wasn’t good. Not at all. Barbara was wearing her Luna Nova g-suit, probably because of the heat. Hopefully the next planet they were going to wouldn’t be too crazy in that regard. As comfortable as they were, wearing anti-g suits all day could be a bother.

Though she’d probably wear little more, since training was a thing.

“Akko!” Lotte yelled suddenly, which made Hannah jump. She looked what had the brunette done now to cause her teammate to yell like that, and found what she expected: Akko hanging upside down by the knees from the top of the ladder.

“I’m fine!” She yelled. She had to be a good ten meters overhead. If she fell it wouldn’t be pretty. What the hell was she doing? “I just tripped!” Of course.

In a movement that took Hannah off guard, she bent and easily climbed back onto the ladder. It wasn’t that Hannah wouldn’t be able to do that if she tried, but Akko made it seem effortless, as if you could just hang upside down and then climb back up easily. She resumed her climbing of stairs afterwards. The ceiling was at fifteen meters high.

“Should we check out something?” Barbara asked. Hannah looked around, uncertain. It wasn’t as if they could read anything, but maybe there were books with pictures somewhere. Everyone else was looking around with some semblance of curiosity, ranging from very – like Akko – to not much – like Amanda.

“Don’t think there’s much point, but if you want, I don’t see why not,” Hannah said.

Barbara nodded, leading her around. She checked some books, though she never stared at them for long. Hannah wondered if she was doing the thing Hannah had thought about, but she dumped the theory after noticing that some of the books she dropped did have pictures.

And, after a while, she reached a shelf that was full of similar looking books. They had dark cover, and the typesetting looked familiar, though Hannah couldn’t quite place it. Barbara was staring at the books with curiosity, so she picked one and opened it. It was kind of fun to see, since it was as long as her arms, and wide like her shoulders, and that was when closed.

She gasped.

“What is it?” Hannah leaned in, but Barbara snapped the book closed and put it back on the shelf, laughing nervously.

“Nothing,” she said, resting her back against the book protectively. “I just mistook what it was, never mind.”

“What did you think it was?” Hannah frowned, not failing to notice the strange attitude of her best friend.

“Porn,” Barbara answered quickly, cheeks getting pink. Hannah raised an eyebrow, but didn’t see much reason not to believe her, so she shrugged. “Anyways, I’m just going to go look for… A bathroom,” he quickly walked away. Strange, but not necessarily suspicious.

She still picked up the book and, of course, opened. There were drawings sporadically, and she could swear she recognized some, but it must have been a coincidence. One thing she did recognize: It was not porn. Why had Barbara lied about it? Well, maybe it was porn, not that she could find out. But the drawings weren’t. She couldn’t figure out what the story was about, but they usually depicted a long haired girl.

Wait a second, it was a human girl! Hannah considered going to ask the employee of the bookstore, maybe she could shed some light on…

“Akko!” Lotte cried again, startling the focused Hannah.

Grunting, Hannah put the book away and rounded the bookshelf to see what the hell was Akko doing this time. As expected, again, it was something stupid. She was trying to get down from the bookshelf a book that was half as tall as she was, but with the same width and bulk. “It’s surprisingly light for how big it is!” Akko said as she tried to get down from the shelf.

“Akko, may I suggest getting a cyborg to help you?” Diana said. “If you fall from that height, you’re going to get hurt.”

Akko paused, and then nodded, as if the idea made sense. Hannah held back from face-palming. Of course Akko of all people wouldn’t even consider to get help from the race this bookstore had been built for in the first place. It didn’t take long for Diana to fetch an employee who kindly helped Akko get the book down.

“What is that, anyways?” Hannah asked. She didn’t really care, but she did want to know what made Akko make such a ruckus.

“It’s a human-cyborg dictionary!” Akko said with a grin, opening the thing. “When Constanze was teaching me I made sure to learn how Dictionary and Human were written. It paid off!” She stared at the first page. Hannah looked at the thing, and the first word was ‘Sun’, because it had to be. However, she couldn’t tell how it was pronounced since she didn’t understand the written language. It wasn’t too far off from practicality that it didn’t look like it could be a human language, but it didn’t look like any human language either. It seemed to be based on a mixture of lines, circles and dots. Sun was, apparently, written like horizontal line, circle with a line crossing it vertically, horizontal line with two points, diagonal line with a circle, and vertical line with one dot on each side.

“How the hell do you pronounce that?” Hannah asked, confused.

“Sun,” Akko said. Hannah was confused for moment, until she realized, the translator had actually converted Akko’s attempt to show Hannah how it was pronounced. “Though I’m probably completely butchering it,” she wasn’t paying attention to Hannah, obviously focused on the dictionary. Hannah didn’t care enough to ask her to try again, instead changing subjects.

“Why do you even care? We have a translator, and you will probably never need to use it again once you get out of here,” Hannah said.

Akko looked up, shaking her head. “Why wouldn’t I? I plan on becoming the most famous broom pilot on earth, and then the universe. I will certainly get invited to races in Machina in the future. Knowing the language will help me eventually,” she explained in all seriousness. Hannah frowned, but didn’t answer. She hadn’t expected Akko to make such a… rational argument. Hell, now she didn’t even want to make fun of Akko for even thinking she could reach the fame she wanted. It felt… wrong.

Diana was looking at the dictionary with curiosity too. “This is an interesting writing system,” she said. “It has, technically, just six characters. However, you can mix them in so many ways that it becomes absurdly vast.”

“Yeah,” Akko said offhandedly, “it’s probably harder than Japanese in that regard. And let me tell you, not many languages are harder to write than Japanese,” she explained. “Any character can have up to two points in the four cardinal directions, not to count the five base characters can mix with each other in any way. Overall, it’s a shitton of characters, though the connections within them make them easier to understand. And while the phonetics aren’t too difficult, they’re…” Hannah found herself, for the first time in her life, drifting away from a conversation with Akko not for her stupidity but for basically the opposite reason: She was obviously knowledgeable on a topic Hannah knew very little about.

Hannah nonchalantly walked away, trying not to appear too confused. She still failed to see the point of actually learning the language. If Akko ever grew as famous as she wanted, she would probably be given another translator anyways. It seemed like wasting effort on something you didn’t need to.

She looked around, but didn’t find Barbara. Maybe she was still in the bathroom? Well, whatever the reason…

“Constanze?” Hannah asked after tripping with something. She looked down at the girl, who was also reading a book with her goggles on. She didn’t seem to notice Hannah had basically just kicked her. What she was reading was a book almost as big as she was, with presumably detailed instructions of cyborg mechanics, due to the many schemes showing different pieces on the page. Again, Hannah couldn’t read a thing.

Constanze suddenly rose, nodding to herself, making an approving grunt as she walked to the counter. She was basically dragging the book behind her, so Hannah took pity and helped. Together they managed to get the book to an employee, and Hannah asked for the price.

The employee looked at them with some uncertainty, excused herself and disappeared before a door with a sign that Hannah could only guess would say something like ‘staff only’. Hannah and Constanze looked at each other with uncertainty before the lady cyborg came back and gave them an uncomfortable smile.

“I’m so sorry, it seems that book is not actually on sale,” she explained. Hannah raised an eyebrow, but Constanze didn’t seem to buy it, pointing at something on the counter. It was a small – well, by cyborg standards at least – metallic box. The employee cocked her head, confused. “You want to see the database?” Constanze nodded, which made the woman laugh. “You wouldn’t be able to read it little…” Constanze rolled her eyes, putting her goggles back on before moving closer to the counter. She gestured for Hannah, who guessed what she’d want. After approaching, Hannah put her hands down – she was wearing a g-suit, so they wouldn’t get dirty – and Constanze stepped on them. Hannah boosted her up, and Constanze could climb onto the counter, to the employee’s horror.

At this point, Hannah was just curious, so she waited as Constanze took a little device from her back and connected it to the machine.

A few seconds later, she jumped down from the counter and pointed at the book again, showing her device to the lady. It probably showed that it was on sale.

The cyborg woman floundered, obviously uncertain of how to react to the tiny girl’s insistence. She excused herself again, went through the same door, and came out with a cyborg man. He was taller than the girl, probably a little higher than six meters, and he was muscular, not to mention the fact that both of his legs, a hand and her jaw were all mechanic. He also wore a moustache that drooped all the way to his chest. “I’m sorry, but this book is not on sale,” he said while picking it up.

Constanze made some annoyed noises before showing the man proof of the opposite. He leaned down, trying to see the tiny device, before snorting. “It’s just a mistake on the system. Now, I will have to ask you to leave this establishment.”

Hannah felt her heart stop for a second. The cyborg looked angry, and with his size…

“Is there any problem?” Ursula came to their rescue.

“Not really, but I will have to ask you to leave,” he said. Ursula looked at Constanze and Hannah with a frown before noticing the book. Then, she nodded in understanding.

“I see. Everyone! Come on, let’s go!”

“Wait!” Akko jumped forward, carrying the book. “Can I buy this?”

The cyborg man looked at it for a moment. He seemed to be judging things before reticently agreeing. Angry or not, he probably felt that trying to argue with Akko would have been a bad idea. Hannah got the feeling Akko wouldn’t have left this planet without that dictionary.

When she came back, they were all but kicked out of the bookstore.

“What the hell happened?” Amanda asked, a little shaken about the whole thing. “Was it because Akko was being stupid again?”

“Hey, I was just reading!” Akko complained.

“It was because Constanze tried to buy a book about cyborg mechanics,” Ursula explained. “Every race takes its technology very seriously. Only authorized texts can leave this planet, so when insisting, Constanze made them think she was some kind of spy.”

“Well that’s stupid,” Hannah said. “It’s just a dumb book.”

Constanze didn’t seem all that annoyed though. She was checking her tablet-like device. When Hannah looked at it, she was surprised to find what looked like the pages of the book Constanze had just been reading and prohibited from buying.

When the short girl noticed, she smirked and pointed at her goggles, and then showed Hannah that she had actually taken photos of every page. In a good quality too. “If they find out they’re going to kill you,” Hannah said. She had never actually talked to Constanze before, as far as she knew, but she wasn’t that surprised to find out that Amanda’s teammate was as much of a troublemaker as her.

“We still have time. Is there anything else you girls want to do?” Ursula asked. Hannah didn’t really care to do tourism. Sure, there were probably some good places out there to eat, or some things that would be cool to see, but nothing sounded particularly interesting to Hannah. Maybe going shopping would help, but she highly doubted she’d get any clothes her size. Plus, all cyborgs seemed to wear were t-shirts and shorts.

No one suggested anything. An awkward silence rose in the rather noisy street as everyone had the same kind of thoughts: We should probably look for something interesting to do, but we have no idea of what. We’re on an alien planet, we’re probably never coming back. Someone else will surely come up with something.

In the end, they didn’t do anything else. Maybe they should have asked for a pamphlet or something. In a slightly weird air, they went back to the hotel. It was time to pack and sleep. The trip back to the Dragon would be a long one.

Chapter Text

Night was about to end by the time almost everyone was asleep. Now’s the chance, Amanda thought, raising from the couch where she had been watching videos of the race – Wanting to be able to recall some of what happened by seeing it, but to no avail -  and walked to the bed. She poked Akko’s cheek until the brunette woke up. She quickly put a finger to her lips to stop her from talking and waking everyone up.

After a short discussion with gestures, Akko woke up with a silent grunt and followed Amanda to the other end of the room.

“What?” Akko asked.

“Wanna repeat what we did back on Sídhe?” Amanda asked with a smile. Akko cocked her head, frowning. “I mean when we teleported to the top of the tower.”

“I don’t think the Shiny Rod would be able to teleport all the way back to Sídhe… Wait, could it? Maybe I could have gone to say hi to my family all along and-”

“I mean that we should go to the top of the tallest tower here. That black skyscraper, you know,” she explained.

Akko got the face of someone who finally understood what was being said to them. “Ah. What, do you want to make it a tradition or something?”

“Ehm… Maybe?” Amanda shrugged. “I just wanna see how the city looks from up there.”

“It’s not raining, is it?” Akko looked out.

“No. I’m not that crazy. Come on now, are you in? If not, just give me the key-wand, I can pilot the thing now too,” in fact, now that she thought about it, maybe she should’ve just taken the wand and returned it when she came back, not that Akko would have noticed. But, well, the mechanics of how the Shiny Rod worked were not clear to anyone. As far as Amanda knew, she may have only been allowed to pilot back then because Akko was basically dying. The Shiny Rod was one smart bastard. Or maybe Alcor was the smart bastard. Whichever the case, Amanda would rather not risk it.

“Fine, I’m in, just let me wake up Diana and Hannah,” Akko said with a yawn, turning. Amanda blinked, dumbfounded.

“What now?”

“Why the hell would you wake them up?” Amanda asked.

“Well, they were with us back on the central tower of the Seelie Court, right?” Akko looked up, thinking back. “Yeah, that’s where I told Diana she was my rival,” she recalled.

“I mean… They just tagged along back then. Come on, let’s just go,” why would Akko even consider doing such a stupid thing? Well, because she was Akko, what a stupid question. However, Akko hesitated. Amanda deadpanned her. “Really now?”

“It just feels wrong. We’re a team, right? We should do it together,” Akko explained. Now of all times she tried to be rational? But it wasn’t out of character for her, despite how much Amanda dreaded the idea of having to take Hannah and Diana with them. But arguing with Akko was more often than not futile.

“Fine, whatever, bring them,” Amanda said. “But if they ruin it I’m going to blame you.”

Akko shrugged, moving to do as she wanted.

Hannah had decided not to wear her g-suit for this. Screw the heat, she wanted to wear something normal. She had put on dark blue jeans, a couple of converse and a pink blouse with a little bow in the midriff. Her hair was left the same, she had been too tired to try and do anything fancy.

“Do you really need to dress like that? Nobody’s going to see you,” Amanda complained as they exited the hotel building.

“You’re seeing me,” Hannah answered. “And Akko, and Diana, and all of these bystanders,” she pointed at the few cyborgs still outside. The sky was already light, though the sun hadn’t come up yet. Amanda snorted, but didn’t reply. She and Akko were wearing g-suits – Amanda Luna Nova’s, while Akko was wearing Earth’s – and Diana had chosen to wear shorts, a t-shirt and sandals. Not the most fancy attire but it would probably help with the heat.

“So,” Akko waved her key-wand and the Shiny Rod appeared, “should we go in the same way as last time?”

“Why not, it’ll be for just a few moments,” Hannah shrugged. Diana and Amanda agreed too, so there was no discussion. However, Hannah was very careful not to get too dirty while climbing onto the turret next to Amanda.

They were face to face again, but this time there was no helmet in between them. Hannah couldn’t deny she was getting a little self-conscious about this, but she certainly wouldn’t admit it either. It was just Amanda, after all, with her stupid face and beautiful green eyes and… Stop thinking about it, she chastised herself.

“Akko,” Amanda said. She wore no helmet, how was she communicating?

“Yah?” Akko replied. Broom-racers didn’t usually include any communicating system, which was why Hannah was so weirded out by this. Radios in helmets were commonplace nowadays so why would you even want to waste space on that?

Amanda smirked, looking at Hannah. “Make sure to turn on the turret this time if only for a minute.”

Akko waited for a few seconds before replying. “Ah, I see what you mean. Will do!”

Hannah frowned. This again? How insistent. How would Amanda defend herself after…

The Shiny Rod turned on, turret included.

Everything went white.

White wasn’t really the right word. No, everything went bright. Yet, Hannah wasn’t blinded. She couldn’t close her eyes. In fact, she couldn’t move at all. She didn’t need to, anyways, since her mind was being expanded. Everything was suddenly understood. The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. For a second, she felt as if the snap of a finger could change the nature of existence.

And then it was gone. She opened her eyes only to find Amanda in front of her. Hannah was breathing shallowly, as if air refused to enter her lungs. As soon as the exit opened, she crawled out of the Shiny Rod, looking around in confusion. “What… What just happened?” She asked, looking at the smirking Amanda. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Amanda pointed backwards with her thumb. “The broom did.”

“I know something happened, but I can’t recall…” Hannah paused, realization hitting her like a truck. “Oh my god you weren’t lying.”

The smirk on Amanda’s lips turned into a full on arrogant smile as nodded with her eyes closed. “And now you can stop being a stupid ass bitch about things and start to wonder why the fuck did you not believe me for so long.”

“I’ll do that when you start to act like a respectable member of society,” Hannah replied, fixing the girl with a really angry stare, to which Amanda didn’t react.

Hannah turned in annoyance, and after the initial shock, she got a good look at the city. “Wow” was all she could say.

From this high up, looking at the city felt like a dream. The colors seemed to extend to infinity. Neon was prevalent, but the way it reflected off the metal paint of every building and the windows is what really made the entire thing such a breathtaking sight. Flying vehicles moved about, leaving trails of light behind them with their speed. It was truly magnificent.

The top of the building they were in was a garden. Hannah didn’t think much of it, but it was kind of strange. It had patches of copper colored grass, seemingly at random, while the rest was made up of… Crystal? Hannah looked down, realizing that in fact she was walking on glass. It didn’t feel like it, however, so she put one knee to the ground and touched. It was grainy, like stone. “It’s curious, isn’t it?” Diana asked, noticing what she was doing. “A lot of the roofs of these buildings are built with a really strange type of reinforced glass. It gives it that texture, which also makes it convenient for walking, since it’s not slippery,” she explained.

Hannah looked at the grass and trees, noticing the fact that they were in containers ingrained in the glass.

She stopped looking at the glass, though. The city was what she really wanted to see.

All four girls approached the east side of the building – or, well, assuming cyborgs also named the side where the sun raised ‘east’ – and rested against the railings. Probably by mere chance, Hannah ended up between Amanda to her left and Diana to her right, with Akko to Diana’s right.

“Do the cyborgs have robots?” Akko asked suddenly.

“What?” Hannah asked in an annoyed tone. “You look at this city and think of that?”

“I mean,” Akko pointed to the city, “they are more technologically advanced than humans, but we still have robots to do some of our work, while I haven’t seen any robots here.”

“Cyborgs take pride in their work. It’s a part of their beliefs, in fact,” Diana explained. “They believe the harder they work the better life they’ll live in the afterlife. That is why they don’t care to build robots: They would just take away work that they could do.”

“Wait,” Amanda said. “But some of them have extra arms. Isn’t that cheating?”

“I’m not sure,” Diana admitted. “I don’t think they see it that way.”

Amanda didn’t push the issue, since Diana obviously lacked the knowledge. That in itself was weird, but well, she had only had a couple days to actually ask about Cyborg society, and all in all she was already far more knowledgeable than any of them.

“But I mean,” Akko said after a while. “They have all the technology to do so, don’t they? And I think octopuses have like super-advanced AIs. Couldn’t they work together and create actual sentient robots? Just imagine it!”

“They take pride in their work,” Diana repeated, “and therefore they think everyone else should too. What happened earlier in the library was but an example of this. The reason they don’t like sharing information, particularly about mechanics, is because they believe everything should be achieved by oneself.”

“Wait, so they don’t even teach each other about these things?” Akko asked, obviously bothered by it.

“They do.”

“Well that’s contradictory,” Hannah commented.

“Societies often are, I think,” Diana agreed. “That’s what makes them interesting.”

“Don’t get all philosophical and shit,” Amanda said. “I’m too tired for that.”

“We wouldn’t be so tired if you had just let us sleep,” Hannah complained.

“If we slept,” Amanda pointed, “We wouldn’t be seeing that.”

The sky looked like liquid gold. And, from beyond the line of buildings, the sun started to peek. A beautifully green sun, slightly darker than the color of magic, blazing as a mere speck that slowly – very slowly – grew on the horizon. As it rose, some buildings started turning off their own lights. As sunlight reached the landscape, it reflected off the metallic plants and different flying animals. It was like looking at a world made of metal. In a way, maybe, it was.

Hannah was not without some experience in travelling. Her family had been lucky to hit a very lucrative contract when she was still a child, and what had once been a normal life had become one of luxury. They weren’t renowned and powerful, but Hannah couldn’t complain. She had seen a lot of different places on earth. Mountains, plains, the ocean, even deserts and jungles – though she dreaded the thought of ever going back to those – and even Australia!

Yet, none of those could beat this. A completely alien sight. A world of foreign colors, of gigantic proportions. A world not many humans got to experience.

Hannah eyed Amanda, still thinking about the Shiny Rod. She wasn’t lying, she thought. Her anger before had been mostly at herself. She had actually accepted that Amanda wasn’t lying long ago. She had just kept going out of stubbornness. And now that she was proven wrong, her actions seemed just childish.

A breeze suddenly started, making Hannah’s hair shift slightly. It was cool up here, and the breeze helped. It wouldn’t be long before sunlight started heating up everything again. And they weren’t even in summer? How did cyborgs deal with the heat?

Well, they were probably adapted to it, duh.

“I’m… Sorry,” Hannah mustered the determination to say it in a single second. She knew she wouldn’t say it if she took any longer.

“Huh?” Diana asked, frowning.

“Not to you,” Hannah said, remembering she wasn’t alone with Amanda.

“I forgive you,” Amanda simply said. Somehow, the answer got on Hannah’s nerves.

“That’s all you have to say?” She asked, annoyance obvious in her voice.

Amanda shrugged. “Maybe we can stop fighting every two words now that you’re not annoyed at my ‘lies.’ We will probably fight every four words now. Isn’t that nice?”

How was she being so casual? Hannah thought she’d actually make some more fun of her, but in true Amanda fashion, she was just really talented at messing with her. Hannah thought of a thousand different replies before she realized that, again, she was just being childish.

“Thank you,” Hannah basically forced out of her lungs. Saying thank you to Amanda felt wrong. Well, it would be accurate to describe that every interaction with Amanda felt wrong, if always for a different reason.

“Akko, what are you doing?” Diana suddenly asked, noticing Akko had left the railing and was trying to climb a golden and silver tree. Hannah decided to keep looking at the sunrise. Akko was just being Akko, Amanda was being Amanda and Diana was being Diana. Even after realizing her stupidity, things were the same.

“Thre’s still two months of this, huh?” Amanda said. “What a pain.”

“Two months and a week or so, I think,” Hannah tried to recall the time they’d spent on this trip. About two days on the Dragon, two and a half days on Sídhe… or had it been three? Maybe three were planned, but they had left a lot earlier than expected. Then about two weeks with the next world-hop and the time spent on Machina. It was really hard to keep track of time when you weren’t really bothered by it. And she couldn’t even check her wand, because it automatically synchronized to local timezones, even if on foreign planets. Magic was truly a wonderful curse.

“Will it really last just that long? With all the time it took us to get through just two races…”

“Most world-hoppings aren’t that long,” Hannah explained. “And Machina was kind of an exception in terms of stay, for being the first planet.  Stays often last only two to three days. They don’t want racers to get too comfortable with the terrain, to make things interesting.”

“I see,” Amanda sighed. She looked a little downcast, which was definitely strange for her. Hannah considered asking if she was feeling well, but she didn’t want to intrude. Amanda and her weren’t friends. They just put up with each other – and not even that, more often than not.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” Hannah said.

“In other news, water is wet,” Amanda replied.

“In other news, take this seriously or I’m going to punch you,” Hannah threatened. Amanda snorted, but said no more.

“I mean, with the whole not-believing you thing. I think I was just jealous of… Well, how good you were, and refused to admit it wasn’t your doing.”

Amanda cocked her head. “Wouldn’t it be easier to admit it wasn’t actually my doing if you were jealous?”

“Maybe, but I was just… angry. You just hopped into a broom and were amazing, while I’ve been working my ass off. It’s unfair.”

“It is,” Amanda admitted. Then, she hopped over the railing, putting her feet on the ledge and holding on to the railing behind her while looking down. At that moment, the breeze turned into a weak wind, making her hair whip behind her. With the light of the alien sun, her hair had taken on a darker tone. Ironically enough, it reminded Hannah of Earth’s sunsets.

“Are you going to do that every time we climb a tower?” Hannah asked, slight nervousness to her voice as she instinctively reached and grabbed Amanda’s arm, just to be sure. “If you’re suicidal you should just talk to a therapist.”

“I’m not suicidal, jeez,” she didn’t attempt to shake the hand off, however. “I just like the thrill. This is the closest I can come to actual flying.”

“I think you should want to be an airplane pilot, not a broom pilot,” Hannah said, making sure to keep a tight grab on the redhead, who was just looking at the horizon, light reflecting off her eyes, making them look ablaze. Hannah would admit that Amanda was beautiful in her own right, but she didn’t often let others enjoy it with her boyish attitude. It wouldn’t be long before the sun became too bright to look at directly.

“Many suggest that. But… Well, I also like the speed. I’ll probably become a pilot for both, one day.” Amanda sighed, jumping over the railing again, which let Hannah relax. “We should probably go check what those two are doing,” Amanda pointed. Hannah turned to see… Akko hanging from a tree branch, held only by one of her g-suit straps.

Akko had noticed something move on top of the tree, and had decided it was as good a time as any to check out what it was. Maybe it was Elizabeth, wanting to give Akko a last goodbye! So she went and climbed, only to find nothing.

“Akko, did you not hear me? Why are you climbing that tree?” Diana asked from below.

Akko started her descent as she answered. “I thought I saw something, but it was nothing,” she explained. Diana closed her eyes and sighed. She didn’t seem angry, but she had obviously expected a more nuanced motive.

“Is it that hard for you to just hold back from doing something rash?” Diana asked, obviously annoyed. Akko stopped climbing down, instead deciding to sit on a branch. The sight from here was still impressive.

“I know I’m too rash,” Akko admitted. “I know it’s why I lost the race.”

Diana’s eyes widened. She stepped forward, crossing her arms and looking up with some measure of worry. “That’s not what I meant, I just-”

“It’s ok,” Akko admitted. “I messed up. I… I’ll do better next time, and I’ll make up for this. We’re in third place, if you keep winning and I win everything we can still come out on top,” she may not be great at math, but one did not need to be a genius to figure that out.

Wait, they really could still win, right? Let’s see, the Medusas were four points beyond them, and in one race, assuming they did almost as perfect, they would…

“While I am glad you think like that,” Diana interrupted her thoughts, “I need to repeat, that’s not what I meant. I just meant ‘maybe when you see something you don’t recognize on a tree you should think better than to just climb it,’ particularly when we’re on an alien planet where the thing in question may be a dangerous animal.”

Akko didn’t reply, instead thinking back to the race. She could now understand what she had done wrong, and she was trying not to feel too bad about it. Sucy had opened her eyes, but thinking about it still made her feel like if someone was trying to squeeze her heart. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Diana instantly replied. “It was just an honest-”

“Not about the race,” Akko interrupted. “About taking your place. You would’ve probably won that race if you were First Category,” it had always been a touchy subject, but Akko was a little tired of feeling like crap every time she recalled it. “That’s another reason I was so torn up about losing. After all, I made us lose eight points that you would have won without the hint of a doubt.”

“You’re overestimating me,” Diana said, now uncomfortable. “I saw that race from the stands. The fight for first was a fierce one,” She took out her wand, raising it so that Akko could see. “The daemons are a force to be aware of, but the Medusa has some powerful attacks too,” she explained as the video showed the medusa being way faster than she should in dodging a laser from the Noir Rod and counterattacking with a blast of electricity that, despite the lack of sound Akko was surprised she hadn’t heard. It looked like it should have produced a roar like that of thunder.

“What I mean to say,” Diana said. “Is that I don’t think I would have performed much better than you, Akko.”

Akko leaned even further to try and see exactly how the Noir Rod worked. Then she slipped from the branch. She was ready to fall and catch herself – the branch wasn’t that high – but after a second, she found herself suspended in the air by one of her g-suit straps.

Diana looked at her for a few seconds and chuckled. “Maybe you’ll start to reconsider climbing into any trees you see from now on,” she said. Akko grunted as she fumbled about, trying to grasp the branch behind her, but she couldn’t quite get it.

“I think I’m going to need a little help,” she said, voice strangled with effort. Diana stepped forward, rounding Akko, looking at her with a pensive expression. “…are you trying to figure out how to help?”

“In all honesty,” Diana paused, looking at Akko from behind. Akko started to get a little self conscious about the position. The g-suit didn’t leave much to the imagination, “I’m admiring the resistance of the strap. It’s holding your full weight without much strain. Isn’t it impressive?”

“Could you stop being smart for two seconds and just help me?” Akko whined, trying in vain to get a hold of the branch above her. It was just outside her grasp. Damn smart people and their… smartness.

“What’s going on?” Amanda asked, approaching.

“I’m stuck,” Akko said. “A little help?”

Amanda looked at her for a few seconds. “If you call the Shiny Rod I can probably step on it and lift you so that you can grab the branch,” Amanda suggested. Akko smiled, that was a good idea! She took her key wand, being held in one of the other straps, and flicked it. The Shiny Rod moved towards them, not making much noise. Amanda climbed on it and did quick work of helping out. Not a minute later, Akko was safely back on the ground, the mocking face of Amanda, the amused face of Diana and the unsurprised face of Hannah all on her. Huh, Akko thought, Diana is strangely lively today.

“Should we head back?” Diana asked after Akko relaxed.

“I want to look some more at the city,” Akko admitted, moving to the side of the building opposite to the sunrise. The greenish light of the star tinted everything in a more subtle way than earth’s orange morning light did, or maybe Akko just wasn’t used to it.

She didn’t wait for the other’s answers, but apparently they had agreed, for they joined her. They set themselves in the same positions as before, probably for the sake of consistency.

“What do you think it is?” Akko asked after a while. She had been wondering this for a long time, but it seemed useless to discuss it too seriously.

“What is what?” Hannah asked with annoyance at the vague question.

“The grand prize. No cyborgs tried to cheat, I think, so maybe it was just something the Faeries really really needed?” Akko tried to explain her rationale. It wasn’t simple, mostly because she could never keep an idea too long in her head before it morphed into something completely new.

“I think the cyborgs didn’t try to cheat because it would have been very hard. Not many people pay attention to the preliminaries, but the entire universe checks out the first race of the IPR,” Diana explained. “Then each subsequent race gets less ratings until the seventh or eighth. Well, last time was an exception,” Diana paused, thinking. “Chariot did a number by winning the preliminary tournament and the first three races, which created a historical rise in ratings for every separate race.”

“Why do you know all of this stuff?” Amanda asked. Akko nodded, why in hell would anyone ever want to learn all of that? It seemed impractical.

“It’s… A long story,” Diana simply said. “But in short, I’ve studied all I can about the race. And I say this because, while no one cheated in this instance – as far as we know, at least – it will get progressively more likely as the races move forward, unless there’s some kind of big drama that somehow brings attention to the event and hampers attempts at doing so. But if the faeries, a race known for their peacefulness, is willing to cheat, we shouldn’t discard the possibility of others doing it too.”

“So why are we discarding that the cyborgs cheated?” Hannah asked. “You don’t sound like you think they did.”

“I don’t,” Diana confessed. “It’s just my belief, of course, but Cyborg ideology goes so against cheating that they have laws with death penalty in place for certain instances of it. That may be why no one cheated during this race, too, due to the Inter-Planetary Law Agreement.”

“Oh, that thing where you must abide by the planet’s laws, right?” Akko was a little surprised at recalling that. Chariot had probably mentioned it at some point and that would be why.

“Correct,” Diana had the face of someone who was seriously considering things. “So whatever the prize is, it’s not big enough to warrant death, so either the faeries exaggerate…”

“Or maybe they just decided that they could afford to lose a race, if everything went wrong,” Hannah finished the line of reasoning.

“Or maybe they’re not all cheaters?” Akko suggested, which earned her flat looks. She knew she was being a little naive but come on, not everyone would have bad intentions always, right?

“In any case,” Diana didn’t seem to take her comment into account, “whatever it is, we should try to win it.”

“No ‘try’, Diana. We’ll do it,” Akko said. “You’re going to win every race, I can feel it,” her race had been very exciting to watch. “And I promise I won’t let the team down.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t- Ouch!” Hannah complained as Amanda pinched her in the nape.

“Ouch! Bitch, you don’t get to do it back when you were the one in the wrong!”

“Yes I do, don’t touch- HEY!”

Diana sighed, looking at Akko as Amanda and Hannah started a discussion. “I also promise not to let the team down,” she said to Akko. “When we win that prize…” Diana closed her eyes. Akko waited, but Diana didn’t finish her sentence. Whatever she was thinking about was obviously serious, so Akko didn’t prompt her to continue.

She gave one last look down at the city of wood, neons and metals, all of it bathed in the green light of sunrise under the golden sky.

It was hard to believe their adventure had basically just started.

Chapter Text

The doors of the room closed, and Diana let out the air she had been holding in her lungs. She felt lighter than usual, due to the differences in gravity between Machina’s and magic-simulated Earth’s.

She looked at their new room. It was slightly bigger than before, adding a new closet. “If they’re going to upgrade our room every new trip,” Hannah commented, “We’re going to end up in the presidential suites by the time this whole thing ends.”

Barbara chuckled, but Hannah had a point. Why were they upgrading their rooms every time? It was a mystery that right now Diana didn’t really have the energy to solve. The trip back to the Dragon had been long and annoying, and it didn’t help that Akko had been complaining all the way about not being allowed to just teleport back with the Shiny Rod, as Ursula hadn’t wanted to draw even more attention to that particular feature of the ship.

It was weird how no one had actually intercepted the humans to ask for such a controversial thing. Diana wondered what could have kept the press away, particularly when in her experience all delicate matters were the favorite food of journalists all across the universe.

“Well, Diana, we’re off to do some stuff,” Barbara interrupted her thoughts, “you should stay here and rest, you look tired. See you later!” She all but kicked Hannah out of the room with her, and before Diana had even time to fully understand what she had said, they were gone.

This trip was going to take another four days. That meant there was only one planet they could be going to, since it was the only one in such a short world-hopping distance – unless they were going back to Sídhe, which wasn’t a possibility.

Diana set up her bed before putting it back against the wall. She wasn’t as tired as Barbara had implied, and the dopamine she was releasing thanks to the new environment was keeping her awake and would probably do so for another couple of hours. There were a hundred things she could do, and she wished the Dragon had a simulator to practice some more, since she was certain about where they would go next and that meant she could prepare for it.

But standing still and wishing for things that weren’t there was not a very productive thing to do, so instead she set off to at least take a little walk. Maybe she’d hit a gym on the fourth deck, to make sure she was still in good condition.

She exited her room after quickly washing her face on the bathroom – despite the bigger room, bathrooms remained the same horribly small size – and set out to do something productive. She looked around the metallic bowels of the Dragon and found herself slightly disoriented, since all hallways tended to look the same.

Her first sight upon exiting was that of a couple of persons. They both froze at seeing her, and Diana also stood still. She recognized them, and more importantly, they weren’t human. A couple of appali. More precisely, the two pilots. One of them had grey hair – not because of age, though – and bright yellow eyes. His shoulders were a little too wide for his proportions, making his head look smaller than it should, and his overall body like a long triangle. His chin was also a little too pointy. He was slightly taller than Diana. The First Category pilot. His companion was two heads shorter, his whole body somewhat rounder than one would expect from the fact that he wasn’t fat at all. He had a dark pink hair that from a distance could probably be mistaken as brunette, and he had in fact heterochromia, with his left eye being a dark grey and the other one being a bright brown. The Second Category pilot. Diana wondered where were their gunmen, but she supposed it would be best to first ask the important question.

“Hello,” Diana said politely.

“Hey,” the First Category pilot say, looking down. He seemed… nervous about something. Diana noticed movement down, and noticed he had moved his hand somehow. Some kind of nervous habit? “Y-you’re Earth’s second pilot, right?” Appali language didn’t sound too far from human ones, like that of cyborg’s. In her estimation, it didn’t sound that different from Russian, if maybe it added a good measure of nasal sounds into the mix. Diana wondered if Akko would be interested in learning it. She seemed to be good at it, for some reason.

“Yes. Diana Cavendish. A pleasure to meet you…” she extended a hand.

“I-I’m H-H-Hadroin,” the pronunciation was a little weird, but Diana didn’t think it was too complicated. Hee-droo-yn. She’d probably annihilate it if she tried pronouncing it, “though I’m usually called Hud.” He took Diana’s hand and gave it the slightest of shakes, as if he was afraid she’d hurt him. He instantly stepped back after taking it, pointing at his companion, who wasn’t as nervous. Diana extended the hand to the shorter appal, trying to keep up her polite smile.

“Call me Shill,” he said, shaking Diana’s hand properly. His voice was deep, and Diana was surprised to find that his name was actually just Shill and the translation device hadn’t just translated some other appal word. Curious, how two different but similar races could have words that sounded similarly but have them mean completely different things.

“What are you doing on board of the Dragon?” Diana asked.

“Well, we needed a lift,” Shill said, “since our interstellar ship kind of broke and it’ll take some time to fix,” he explained without much trouble.

“Oh, I did hear you had developed a world-hopper,” Diana recalled, “what happened, exactly?”

“Actually, it’s not just a world-hopper, as you humans call it,” Shill smirked. “It’s a full blown interstellar ship. It could go to Andromeda and back in just a hundred years. Cool, huh?” Diana paused, thinking of the implications. Had appali really developed an interstellar ship? No other race had managed to do that, “But it’s not perfect yet, which is why we’re using the race as a means to test it. We’re having energy problems,” he explained.

“Ah, I see,” it made sense. Such a long trip would require insane amounts of energy. “So your ship ran out of fuel?”

“Basically,” he said. He turned to Hadroin. “He could explain it much better, but he’s too shy for his own good. He’s a great pilot, though.”

Diana nodded. He had made it to the IPR, after all, despite not performing very well on the first race. “He was attacked by the daemons, wasn’t he?” Diana recalled the moment. A daemon laser had almost hit them upfront, but the ship had moved out of the way to avoid the bulk of the damage. Sadly, it had been enough to make the ship basically useless.

“Yeah, and their knockoff of your white ship,” he sighed. “Though, no offense, your First Category pilot doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on how to handle it.”

Diana dropped her smile. They weren’t wrong, but this spoke to a higher truth. If they thought Akko was having troubles with the Rod, then most racers would think so too. Diana had hoped it wasn’t too obvious. If others started thinking of Akko as an easy target…

“I-in fact,” Hadroin interrupted, “I’d say she does have a good grasp, s-she just lacks practice,” he explained. Diana kept her neutral face, but it intrigued her. He wasn’t wrong, actually. Akko seemed to have an instinctual understanding of how to pilot the Shiny Rod, she just couldn’t quite act on those instincts without knowing some basic concepts of flying first. A door opened at the end of the hallway, and a girl came out of it.

“Well, whatever. Excuse us, miss Diana, we had plans to go and make sure our ships had arrived safely,” Shill moved to grab Hadroin’s hand, but he quickly changed trajectories and instead took his arm and dragged him behind him. Had she imagined it? Probably not. Diana didn’t pay it much mind, anyways.

“Goodbye,” Diana waved weakly, but the pair had already turned a corner. Diana looked back at who had come out of the room. It was an appal girl of about the same height as Diana. She had really dark long hair and brown skin. Her eyes were of a deep blue, and if not by the girly demeanor, Diana might have assumed her a boy, because she was as plain as a cutting board.

“Were those two Hud and Shill?” The girl asked. She had a really high pitched voice. Annoyingly so. “They’re always running off on their own, damn it,” she talked with a relatively sweet tone, but she was clearly unhappy. “Did they tell you where they were going?”

Diana was about to reply, but she hesitated. Something about this girl wasn’t right, and she was not referring to the abnormally long arms of the girl. “I don’t think so,” Diana lied, “They just mentioned they had plans.”

“Argh,” the girl complained, “why can’t they just do as told?” The girl moved past Diana, leaving her slightly confused. Was that their coach, maybe? She looked young, but appali had longer lifespans than humans. In fact, it seemed that most races of the universe lived longer than humans, though most weren’t as numerous.

Diana saw her go and turned, thinking how rude she had been. Appali had fame of being aggressive, due to their fondness of war, but Shill and Hadroin had seemed fine. Then that girl had kind of fit the stereotype though. Well, stereotypes existed for a reason, whether they were fair or not.

About ten minutes later, Diana was slowly walking through the wooden streets of Shopping Town, in Gold Deck. She had considered asking some of the other two teams to hang out, but she was fairly certain Amanda had gone to sleep and Akko had ran off to do something as soon as they arrived to the ship. Maybe she’d find Hannah and Barbara while walking through the deck, since this was the best place to shop in the entire ship.

Today, Gold Deck wasn’t particularly crowded. It was crowded, yes, but not as much as one would expect from the more famous deck. Diana stopped in front of a clothes shop. It had kind of a punk aesthetic, and in the window there was a jacket with spikes on the shoulders hanging with a big tag showing the incredible offer. It wasn’t that Diana particularly wanted it, but she had often wondered how she would look in clothes such as these. They probably wouldn’t fit her. She was a person of dresses and bright colors, not of harsh and dark jackets and trousers. This didn’t bother her much, she liked dresses and bright colors, but everyone wanted to break away from routine once in a while.

With a sigh, she continued walking. She wouldn’t waste money on that. Clothing and unnecessary things were free, but up to a limit, and there was no need to expend it now. Each store was different, yet to Diana, they all looked the same. People constantly came in and out of them, some with bags, some without. The colorful stream of people that normally would be a nuisance to her was now something she had grown used to. Looking around and finding so many different cultures in plain sight was interesting. Few events managed to draw in peoples from all parts of the world – no, universe – like the IPR. No, not few. No other events.

Two kids came out of a small toys shop, in their hands cheap plastic brooms. No real designs, just science-fiction brooms taken out of movies, far too thin and with too many engines to be able to fly or hover. A couple walked out behind them, telling them not to run off on their own. Diana wasn’t good with kids, but she liked them. Maybe one day she’d have her own, but that was probably more than ten years in the future.

She kept wandering around, aimless, waiting for tiredness to sink in and finally go back to her room and sleep for a while. Hannah and Barbara didn’t appear anywhere, but that wasn’t enough evidence against them being here. This was, after all, the biggest deck on the ship.

Not long passed before she reached the main street. She was still feeling good, and the smell of food made her stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten anything but a few snacks – offered by Jasminka – in the past eight hours. She looked towards the fast food chains in the wide street, but none of them called to her. Instead, her eyes inevitably fell on a relatively average door with an unreadable sign on top.

The Goodwill. Before even pausing to consider it she already found herself opening the door, the long hallway lit by Light Flames and their spectral light-blue illumination. She walked inside, and was surprised to find that there were some people inside. She was used to it being… Well, empty. Diana understood that she couldn’t be the only client, but it was still shocking. A couple and a group of friends, all talking quietly.

She sat down on one of the tables near the bar. It was for four people, but she wanted to be as far away as the other diners as possible. Diana would rather enjoy her time alone.

The Shapeshifter waiter approached. Diana was sure he was also the cook, though she had never asked. He leaned to give her the menu, but Diana raised her hand and asked for what she was going to eat right away. She didn’t know if the waiter recognized her, but he probably did. Not many people had the hair that had become a presentation card for a Cavendish.

He came back soon after with a bottle and a glass in one hand, and a small basket of bread with sauce. As he served her a bubbling dark blue liquid – a really weird blueberry soda, unlike anything Diana had ever tasted elsewhere. It was like drinking blueberries straight up. She still wasn’t sure if it was artificial or not – Diana looked at his head. He had no face, just the hint of it, and his dark grey smoke danced above it as if simulating hair. “What is your name?”

“I am Last Shadow of the Sky,” he bowed his head respectfully when saying this. Diana nodded. Most shapeshifters had long, poetic names. Though some would consider them pretentious rather than poetic. Diana didn’t agree with that assertion, that way of naming wasn’t that different from human one, particularly in Asian cultures.

“Thank you,” Diana said as he retreated. She drank a little of her soda. It was wonderful. This place, in general, was wonderful. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the murmurs of the conversations, and felt herself relaxing with surprising ease. Maybe she still carried some effects from the Muscle Sphere. What a shame cyborgs would probably not allow it to get out of their planet in a long time. Such a thing would be revolutionary back on earth. Those candies they had been offered back in the tour too.

‘Do you like it, sweetie?’ Diana heard an echo of her mother’s voice at the same time she ate a breadstick with the mildly spiced sauce. She had hated it on her first try, but she had always been rather stubborn about trying to appear mature, so she had lied. Eventually, that lie became a truth, and now she really enjoyed the sauce. She didn’t eat much of it, though, to save space for the main course.

She waited, comfortable in the silence of the place. As she waited, the group of friends left, which only helped her feel more at peace. Coming here with Hannah and Barbara had been fun, but this was the experience she had really wanted. And, well, she had won her first real race, wasn’t that a good reason to celebrate?

Diana could finally start to feel tiredness. The food wouldn’t take much to get here, so she could probably eat and go straight to her room to get a good night’s sleep. By the time she woke up the Dragon would already be in the middle of its hopping and…

Suddenly, the door at the front opened, and the voices coming from the hallway made Diana freeze.

“Wow!” Akko cried. “Look at those fires! They’re white! And what’s with the gloom lighting?” She sounded curious.

“I believe those are Light Flames,” Lotte mentioned. “Akko, don’t put your finger on them!”

“They don’t burn!” Akko exclaimed with surprise. “It just tickles!”

“Akko, shut the fuck up,” Sucy’s annoyed voice said. “You’ll scare other clients.”

“What are you talking about? No one would…” The trio turned the corner, and despite Diana’s best efforts, Akko instantly saw her. “Diana!” Akko shouted, waving energetically. “What are you doing here?” She said approaching. She sat down without even asking, looking around. “Nice fancy place, huh? Must be right up your alley,” she commented. Then she eyed her drink and bread basket. “You been here for long?”

“It’s been a while,” Diana tried to keep calm. She wasn’t sure of why, but Akko’s sudden intrusion into what just thirty seconds ago had been almost a sanctuary had suddenly put her on edge. Instinctively, she put on her stone face, not letting even the slightest hint of emotion show.

“So, what are you- ouch!” Akko complained as Sucy hit the back of her head.

“Don’t you have common sense? She’s probably about to eat, leave her alone, she obviously doesn’t want you here,” Sucy started to drag Akko out of the chair she had picked, and in being pulled off it, she looked at Diana.

She had big, beautiful red eyes. Probably related to Magic. Something within Diana shifted. Akko wasn’t pleading for help, she didn’t look annoyed or angry. She was making a question. A very simple one. One that, despite her hesitance, Diana knew the answer to.

“It’s fine,” she finally said, which made Sucy stop and look her with surprise. “We’re… friends, right?” She looked at Akko, who nodded energetically. “I don’t mind if you choose to join me.”

Even Lotte seemed surprised, but after a minute, the entirety of the red team had chosen to sit down besides Diana. Akko sat directly in front of her with a thankful look. Despite what she had thought previously, Diana realized she wasn’t particularly angry that her silent paradise had been annihilated by the arrival of the brunette. Last Shadow of the Sky approached the table, handing out menus. “Welcome to Goodwill,” he said, this time the name of the bar being translated, “Do you wish to wait for your friends, miss?” He asked towards Diana as the three newcomers looked through the menu.

“Don’t wait for us,” Lotte said. “We don’t want to be a bother.”

Somehow, seeing the ever-kind Lotte worry about her comfort made Diana even more determined to not let this hinder her experience. “I’ll wait, thank you,” she said politely to the shapeshifter, who nodded and went back into the kitchen.

Akko was looking at the menu with a mixture of emotions. “Wow, so many weird things. Can I eat this? It sounds fun,” she pointed at something called ‘Hourglass Potato Fries.’

Diana had to hold back from smiling. She had asked the exact same thing the first time she looked at the menu. “It’s a highly toxic Appal fruit,” Diana explained. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Fruit? But it says potato, potatoes aren’t fruits,” Akko frowned. “They aren’t, right?”

“No, they aren’t,” Sucy said. “Now go to the section of human foods and stop being an idiot.”

Akko pouted, but did as asked. The next time the waiter came he carried three more cups. The girls asked what they wanted and tasted what Diana was drinking. Akko and Lotte liked it, but Sucy claimed it was too sweet for her and asked for plain water.

They sat in silence for a while, the others obviously uncomfortable with Diana present. It didn’t last long, though, since Akko seemed to have too many inquiries. “So, you seem to know the menu, you’ve been here before?” She asked.

Diana nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “A couple of times:”

“Do you like this place?”

Diana took a second to answer, thinking carefully about how she wanted the others to perceive her. “Yes, it has a very… homely feel to it. I like the peace within it,” she explained. Of course, there was also the extra reason of nostalgia and the emotional value the place had to her, but they didn’t need to know that. Even then, Diana was half tempted to explain this to Akko. Somehow, the brunette looked like someone who could understand her.

“What are you eating?” She asked.

Diana looked at Akko for a while. She started looking at her teammates after the first minute, probably wondering if she had said something wrong. “A stew.”

Akko relaxed visibly. “Wew, you took a while to answer there. Though I had offended you.”

Diana’s lip twitched as she tried to hold back a smile. She wondered what reaction these three would have to her food. Hannah and Barbara had reacted just like Diana had expected, but by this point Diana had learned to never expect anything from Akko. She did imagine Sucy being curious about it and Lotte being weirded out.

They spent a few more minutes in silence. Diana didn’t really know what to make of them. Even the usually talkative Akko was now just looking around awkwardly. Maybe she had gotten drawn into the atmosphere of the Goodwill, but Diana didn’t believe that. Diana was just that disrupting for normal conversations.

“Told you we should have left her alone,” Sucy mumbled. She had probably reached the same conclusion as Diana. This wasn’t something she liked, but she would not deny the facts. People around her usually took more care of what they said, and Akko seemed to be no exception to the ru-

“Forty two,” the brunette suddenly said. “Why does this place need so many torches?”

Diana closed her eyes, and her head cocked on its own. “Why are you…”

“I just counted them. They look like too many, don’t you think?” she extended her hand, which just barely reached the light flame nearest to them. “You could probably have half of them and save a lot of energy, right?”

Diana started feeling like a self-centered idiot. So Akko hadn’t been silent because of her, she had just been focusing on a silly thing. That was very Akko-like indeed. “It’s not that simple. Light Flame isn’t very luminescent, so to reach a level of brightness comfortable enough to eat probably needed that amount,” Diana explained with amusement. She felt like laughing.

“Could you try to stay focused for like five minutes?” Sucy asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I can stay focused if I want to!” Akko asserted, drinking some more from her cup. “This thing reminds me of Elizabeth,” she suddenly said.

“The… giant bird?” Lotte asked carefully, obviously unsure of how the drink had reminded Akko of the Metal Bird.

“Yeah. It’s blue and sweet,” she explained. Diana couldn’t help thinking that was cheesy as hell. It seemed to her something you’d say to a lover, not to a random bird you met on an alien planet.

“Allow me to disagree,” Sucy said with disgust. “It may be blue but it has nothing of sweet.”

“Hey, it’s not her fault her instincts kicked in with you near. You do have a tendency to take eggs from weird creatures,” Akko defended her feathered friend. “I wonder if I’ll ever get to see her again,” she said with a distant expression.

“Isn’t the Shiny Rod able to teleport you?” Diana asked with some interest.

“I don’t really know if it’s able to go between planets,” Akko explained. “I haven’t used it for teleporting more than, like, a few kilometers.”

“I don’t see why that would make a difference,” Diana looked up, thinking. “Teleporting automatically implies that distance is irrelevant. You can travel between two points in space without having to worry about obstacles or time. Be it a meter or a light year, you should be able to do it.”

“Wouldn’t it take a lot of energy?” Lotte asked.

“I’m not sure,” Diana admitted. “I do think the Shiny Rod has a limit to its output of energy, even if it appears to have an endless source of it,” she didn’t really think it had an endless source of energy, since that went completely against the first law of thermodynamics, but that was something she would likely have to figure out if Akko ever decided to allow scientists to study the broom, “Maybe we should try to test the distance it can travel next time?”

“We?” Sucy raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you’re going to be riding it.”

Diana paused. “It was a mere expression,” she said, coldly, “sorry.”

“Sucy, there’s no need to be rude,” Lotte gave her a harsh look. “And you don’t have to apologize, Diana, Akko has already let you in the Shiny Rod once, right?”

Diana frowned, looking at Akko. “Yeah, when we went to the top of the Seelie Court and such…” She laughed nervously. Diana wasn’t aware of the fact that Lotte and Sucy knew about that. Though, apparently, Akko hadn’t told them about their most recent nightly escapade.

“Yes, she has,” Diana said. Why did it bother her that Akko had told her teammates about the experience? It hadn’t been a big secret. Barbara knew about it, too, since Hannah had told her.

“Oh, right, forgot about that,” Sucy sighed. “What got into you that time, anyways?”

“I was just curious about the sights from the highest place on Sídhe,” Diana said. “Is it that weird?”

“Coming from you? I’d say so,” Sucy said. Diana found herself growing frustrated. What was she trying to imply? Sucy obviously disliked Diana. She probably disliked her as much as Amanda, she just wasn’t as direct with it.

“Well, that’s all there is to it,” Diana insisted. There really was nothing more, after all. She was just sleep deprived and was thankful for the offered diversion. She was also quite fond of the memories of that tower, even if the ending had been a little soured by her attitude.

Sucy snorted, but Diana didn’t pay it any mind. Akko seemed uncomfortable with the exchange, and Lotte was on the verge of chastising her teammate again, but then Last Shadow of the Sky appeared with their food.

As he set it down on the table, Diana looked at her Meatflower stew. Her mother had once criticized her for never asking for anything else, but why would she? This was the only place she knew where she could eat it. Not doing so seemed like a waste.

And then, it came. “What the hell is that?” Sucy asked, and Diana allowed herself to smile.

“Ok, so it’s a play,” Barbara nodded as they walked. “Think a play is good enough for a celebration?”

Hannah shook her head. “I’m not sure. Diana likes to read, and she seems to enjoy Shakespeare. She probably knows Romeo and Juliet from top to bottom,” she explained, to which Barbara sighed and nodded.

“Then we should take her to the Goodwill?” Barbara seemed determined to carry this plan out. Hannah hesitated. Sure, Diana enjoyed the place, but it seemed… Special, to her. She had the feeling that if Diana wanted to go, she would probably go alone. It obviously brought back memories, and even the only time they had been there Diana had been a little distant. Or maybe, the opposite. It was hard to describe how Diana normally acted, which only made it harder when she did so erratically.

“I’m not sure,” Hannah looked straight ahead. They were in the fourth deck, also known as Platinum Deck. It was of around the same size as Bronze Deck, and it kind of mimicked it in a way, with a big stage in the center and the row of tiny buildings surrounding the entire place. Big difference was, however, the nature of these. While the first deck had mostly little shops, Platinum Deck had mostly recreational places. Seemed like an odd choice to Hannah, but what did she know about marketing and stuff.

“We should check out if we can make a reservation or something,” Barbara said. “Maybe by tomorrow we can have something ready,” she continued. Hannah was only lending her half an ear as she looked around. There were gyms and even a small amusement park in this place, though that ‘amusement’ part was mostly bumper cars, a carousel and one of those things that spun really fast. Wasn’t that dangerous to have so close to the windows? What if it, like, snapped and flew out? Everyone in the deck would die.

With such happy thoughts, Hannah felt Barbara poking her arm. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah. What did you say, again?”

Barbara gave her a flat look.

“Sorry,” Hannah smiled, “I’m just wondering, isn’t this place kinda empty?” She pointed around. For being the second most premium deck, nobody seemed to want to hang out in it. Sure, there were a fair amount of people, but in comparison with the previous three decks this was kind of… well, not very active.

“It is,” Barbara agreed. “Maybe they’re sleeping? We’re preparing for takeoff.”

“Maybe, but I dunno. This place just isn’t the kind of place I’d go to. I can get behind the amusement park, but a gym? A yoga place?” Hannah pointed at the respective buildings, which looked the same save for the signs of different colors. “Well, that thing there looks like brothel,” she pointed at a building slightly larger than the average. It had no windows and the door was made of thick wood, and it had a guard on the front, next to a sign depicting nothing but the silhouette of a woman, “so maybe there should be more men, but who knows if all the ladies in there are ugly or something,” she crossed her arms. “It’s just bugging me.”

“You get bugged at the stupidest things sometimes. We’ll see how full it is on the day of the play, I’m always up for some Romeo and Juliet. Now, how do we proceed?” Barbara poked her again. Hannah sighed, slapping her hand off.

“Ok, let’s see. How about we find some other nice little place to eat between the streets of Shopping Town?” Hannah suggested, “Or maybe we could make a picnic…”

“Ah, that’s a great idea, Diana loves picnics!” Barbara nodded energetically.

“Oh, I do love me some picnics from time to time, too,” Hannah and Barbara paused at the third voice coming from behind them. Turning, Hannah completely went over the old guy who had spoken and focused all of her attention on the brown-haired, green-eyed young man behind him. Sweet lord he was handsome, with that lean body and perfect face, with that perfectly tailored suit and- “Miss England, you did amazingly out there,” Paul interrupted her admiring of the perfect example of a young male by patting her shoulder. “First place! That was certainly something!” the grey haired man smiled at her.

Despite her best attempts, Hannah couldn’t help but look towards Andrew, who was smiling ever so slightly towards her. “And your companion is miss Parker, I believe,” Paul tended a hand to her, which she accepted. “You’re a system engineer, are you not? I’m sure this experience will give you some ideas for future projects,” he also patted her shoulder as he shook her hand.

“Thank you, sir,” Barbara said, somewhat awkwardly. Hannah was surprised that she wasn’t gawking at Andrew. She was probably too focused on Diana’s celebration, poor girl.

“Were you here to get info on the play?” Andrew asked after his father was done. Hannah could barely form a word, fearful that he would find what she said stupid, but Barbara covered for her.

“Yeah, We were thinking it might be a good way of celebrating Diana’s win, but we don’t really think she’d enjoy it much, since she probably already knows the story” she explained.

“Oh, why, I think I agree. I was extremely disappointed to find out it was Romeo and Juliet. Why that one, when Shakespeare has so many other great works. And why does it have to be Shakespeare, even? It’s been over half a millenia since he died. We all need to move on sometime…” Paul seemed to be talking mostly to himself, so Hannah didn’t feel too bad about not really paying attention to him.

“Why, that’s a shame. I am rather interested in seeing it. I find the periods within the Dragon to be painfully boring,” Andrew said.

“Well, we didn’t say we didn’t want to see it,” Hannah instantly stated. She hadn’t even processed her words before saying them. Barbara gave her a look with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Well, I don’t have a particular interest in it either,” she said, “but maybe you could go together! I doubt anyone else in our group is going to want to see it anyways.”

Hannah gave her a panicked look. Paul was still looking at the infinite, seemingly thinking of something important. Andrew, meanwhile, nodded. “That sounds like a great idea. I am in a horrid lack of friendly faces in this ship, it would certainly do me some good to spend time with someone my age,” he smiled, looking at Hannah. “If she wants to, of course.”

Hannah was almost blinded by the perfectness of the smile. She blushed slightly while trying to smile back, “I- I would love to!” Hannah’s voice came a pitch higher than she wanted, but she didn’t even care.

“Well, that was enough mingling for today. Come on Andrew, you can discuss the details of your date over the phone later,” Paul said, snapping out of his dreaming. Andrew bowed his head to the pair of girls and followed his father.

Hannah exchanged looks with Barbara. They stayed like that until the pair of men disappeared, at which point Hannah just let out an excited scream. “He said date, didn’t he? He said date!”

“His father did,” Barbara said, excitement in her face too, “but he didn’t try to deny it,” she was smiling mischievously. “Hannah, you owe me for this.”

“I’ll give you my life!” Hannah exclaimed. “When did you get so smooth? Where did you learn to be such a good wingman?”

Barbara’s smile widened. “Those are secrets I am not allowed to reveal,” she said.

“Oh my god,” Hannah suddenly had a revelation. “What am I going to wear? I didn’t bring anything worthy of a date with the hottest guy on the ship!” She had a good number of dresses prepared for the couple of parties that would be thrown at different points of the race – except for the first one – but none of them were good enough.

“We can go shopping,” Barbara said. “I’m sure somewhere in the third deck there’s gotta be a good dress or something.”

“No!” Hannah instantly replied. “A dress would make it look like I’m trying too hard,” she put a hand on her chin, thinking. “I have no idea…”

Barbara stopped her on her tracks, putting a hand in her shoulder, she stared at Hannah with determination. “Don’t panic. Let’s go back to our room, Diana will probably be sleeping. We still have like twenty four hours, we can think of something, maybe she’ll help.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Hannah nodded. Barbara was to her eyes a being of pure light, having come down from the heavens to grant her happiness. She couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t believe you got me a date with Andrew Hanbridge!”

With excitement, they both went, half running, to their room.

Chapter Text

Akko stared directly at the Shiny Rod. Well, as directly as she could, considering it was under a giant blanket.

After the chat she’d had with Diana on the top of that building, she had decided she needed to take things a little more seriously. This meant that, for starters, she needed to better understand the Shiny Rod as a ship. Without waiting, she climbed under the blanket and slipped inside the cockpit. It was dark for a few seconds, but it automatically turned on some green lights.

“Alcor?” Akko asked to the air.

Hello, Not-Chariot. What should I do? The crow with the cross on its chest suddenly appeared in front of her, which almost made Akko jump backwards. It never appeared so close. Maybe it did it this time because Akko hadn’t even turned on the broom?

“Ehm, Alcor, can you call me Akko?” It had been bothering her, but for some reason she had never bothered to actually address the issue. The crow took a few seconds to process the order.

Akko confirmed. Hello, Akko. What should I do?

Akko nodded. How did the Familiar work, exactly? Akko didn’t know exactly how they worked – Lotte would probably know, but she hadn’t thought of bringing her – but it wasn’t normal for them to react so well to her words, right? Usually you had a certain number of commands that produced different results. There were some AIs that learned on their own, some had even been learning for like a hundred years at this point, and they could even pass Turing tests. Sadly, they weren’t sentient yet, but from what Akko had heard, sentient AIs shouldn’t be more than one or two decades away. On the other hand, supposedly no one had been able to figure out how to teleport, but the Shiny Rod was able to do it, so…

“Alcor, how can I get the password?” Akko asked, recalling the time she had actually tried to ask questions.

The password is on the mouth of the pilot, Alcor replied quickly. Akko stared at it for a while, expecting the AI to say something else. Nothing came.

“What the hell does that mean? It’s in my mouth?” Akko was extremely confused. “Can you make a mirror?”

One of the sides of the cockpit suddenly opened, and a mirror the size of Akko’s head suddenly floated until it was in front of her. Akko opened her mouth, trying to look into it. Inside there were teeth, a tongue, and that little punching-bag thingy she could never remember the name of. She studied her mouth, wondering if maybe she would have the password written under her tongue or something.

She found nothing.

“This isn’t helping,” Akko sighed. “Well, whatever, if I can’t know how you work I’ll just learn to handle it. Ok, let’s see. Uhm… Alcor, do you have a panel with like a thousand buttons like normal brooms?”

Standard controls activated, the bird replied.

Suddenly, the entire front of the cockpit, which before had looked kind of like an empty counter, turned and shifted, becoming a control panel akin to the ones used in normal brooms. Akko instantly felt sick. But no. No, she needed to learn to use this. She may only have experience with videogames, but she did know that leaving things in automatic usually was a hindrance at high levels. You needed to learn exactly when to do things in a way automatic couldn’t. Maybe, if she had paid more attention, she may have realized about the optimal way of turning before. She may have been able to win the race.

She would learn exactly how the Shiny Rod worked in the next few days, even if it killed her.

“Alcor, can you give me a tutorial?”

Simulation activated.

Suddenly, the cockpit windshield went from the dark brown it had been due to the cloth covering it to a beautiful green, that slowly but surely became an infinite plain. Akko instantly got flashbacks to the first simulation she had been in, getting nervous.

The nervousness was blown away by a thought a few seconds later. The Shiny Rod has a simulator? Does this mean…?

No. The past was in the past. She couldn’t have used it to practice for the race if she didn’t even know it existed. Wondering about what might have happened wouldn’t help. “Let’s do this.”

A button started to glow. It was on her right, and it was relatively large in comparison to the others. Akko looked at it, wondering if she should press it, but a mini Alcor popped up in above it. This is the engine start button, it said. Akko nodded. She had guessed it. Press it. In simulation mode, actions will not affect the real ship.

Akko did as asked, and she was surprised when she actually felt the engine turning on. This was more like a simulation than she had assumed. Alcor moved on to another button. This one formed part of a small rectangle made up of six buttons in two rows. It had chosen the upper left one, to the right of the start button. These buttons control the stabilizers of the Shiny Rod. If one of them ever gets damaged, you will be able to turn their power up or down according to needs.

Akko nodded, though she didn’t quite get what that meant, but surely she’d be able to learn about it as the tutorial continued. Alcor moved on to the next button… And repeated the exact same thing.

Maybe he wasn’t as sentient as Akko had guessed it to be.

A couple of hours and a lot of little exercises later, Akko was tired. She had gotten a thorough tour of what every button, lever and knob did. She had only retained a fraction of it all, but she had gotten a much better idea of how the Shiny Rod worked. However, one particular thing she had wanted to learn wasn’t mentioned. “Alcor, how do I activate the Rod’s transformations?”

Unknown command, the familiar answered. Akko crossed her arms.

“Shiny Arc. How do I do the Shiny Arc?”

Unknown command.

This was obviously getting her nowhere. Maybe all of those things were behind the password or something. “Alcor, how far can we teleport?” Akko asked, recalling her conversation with Diana the day prior. This also borught back memories of what she had been eating. Akko almost puked at the memory. Damn that thing had looked gross. Diana had offered her to taste it but Akko had vehemently refused. Sucy had tasted it and said it wasn’t bad, and Lotte had refused at first before eventually trying it out. She had liked it too.

Akko didn’t dare put that thing into her mouth. Her teammates and Diana were just crazy.

The teleportation limit is unknown, Alcor said. The last word had sounded a little different than normal, as if it had been forced there.

That answer didn’t help. Well, she guessed she could go with the original plan of trying it out on the next planet.

However, it gave her an idea. The next planet, as fara s she knew, they wouldn’t be spending much time in there, and that meant she wouldn’t be able to get much practice. Could she maybe…?

“Alcor,” Akko hesitated. If this worked, would that be cheating? It couldn’t be that much of a secret, astronomers could probably tell where they were going by trajectories and stuff, right? “Can you tell me where we’re headed?”

Alcor didn’t reply, but he disappeared from sight, probably calculating. Akko wondered if he would be able to tell, since they weren’t moving themselves. Would it maybe think that they weren’t moving because of being in the hangar?

Her question was answered when a sphere of light appeared in front of her. The sphere rapidly turned into a ship. A tridimensional blueprint of the Dragon, which every second grew smaller and smaller. Akko cocked her head, was that some kind of mistake? But no. Soon enough, something else appeared on the sphere of light, far from the dot that represented the world-hopper. An asteroid? And many more. And then a planet, or was that a moon? Or how were the planets like Pluto called, that weren’t really planets but whatever?

All things soon started moving at great speeds, save for the ship, that by now was but a dot of light in the middle of a massive blur of different things. It was a map, a real-time map that showed Akko the space they were traversing.

After a while, the dot in the center that represented the Dragon disappeared to the side, and the things that before were a blur now became lines, zipping from one side of the tridimensional map to the other. And not long after, the entire thing stopped. The center of the map now had another point, though at this scale it was impossible to know what it was. As it closed in, Akko quickly realized it was a planet. Whatever their next destination was, probably.

It closed in even further, until the planet was plenty visible. Akko was surprised to find that she actually recognized it, once the perspective was close enough. “Hey, that’s Pan, isn’t it?” she asked to the AI.

Our destination is: Pan, the wild planet, Alcor confirmed her suspicion. Pan was a planet two and half times as big as earth, and it was, essentially, one giant jungle. Sure, it was different types of jungle, but Akko recognized the fact that there were no oceans in the planet, or at least not obvious ones. All the water was separated in smaller bodies of water spread relatively evenly across the entire surface. All the land was connected, there were no continents, like on earth. She wished it had color. She had read that plant life in Pan wasn’t that different from earth’s, but that it was just darker, since their sun was further away and they needed that color to absorb more of the light.

Akko had been interested in the Plants for a while because of a friendly race Chariot had run during the middle of the IPR. The plants hadn’t been a part of it, but one of their pilots from the time had decided to watch it, and when they met, they had agreed to see who was better. Chariot won by a mile, but Akko had grown interested. However, that was as far as her knowledge of Pan went. She didn’t know why it had sentient plants or even if they had houses or if they lived in trees or what. Though living in trees might be a little creepy for them. It would be like if humans slept on houses made of flesh.

Akko paused. She had a déjà vu. Something about what she had just thought felt horribly familiar, but she couldn’t recall why. Whatever.

“So we’re going to Pan, huh…” Akko closed her eyes. “Alcor, can you create a simulation on Pan?”

Simulation starting.

Akko saw the endless grass field change and blur as it reformed. The green darkened, the horizon got cut off by trees, and all of a sudden Akko was in a world of shadows. She looked up, and saw the canopy of leaves above her, the massive trees and other wild life of Pan surrounding her. No plant was brighter than forest green, despite this being quite obviously a jungle. Akko wouldn’t have been able to name any of the plants here, because she just didn’t know any. Some were similar to Earth’s, like a plant that seemed to be made of lilypads interconnected with each other that grew on the side of a massive tree. The trunks on the trees were a normal brown, which Akko found surprisingly disappointing, after coming from planets like Sídhe and Machina where plant life was so different.

I could do this, she realized. Alcor probably knows the normal routes or areas for race tracks on the planet. I could get four days of practice extra than everyone else.

She gulped. The Shiny Rod was even more impressive than she had anticipated.  

She took the Key-wand out of the small hole next to the seat and shut the entire ship off. She was somewhat agitated, and it wasn’t because of the training. She started bouncing her leg as she allowed her fist to support her face, with her elbow on the armrest of the seat.

Akko decided she needed to discuss this with someone.

Ursula was tired. She had spent all day previously giving a report to the higher ups on Earth and she had slept horribly. She didn’t even know why she had, she just had. It was right as she had finally managed to get some restful sleep that someone banged at her door, and not for the first time, she cursed being the responsible adult of a group of nine teenagers.

With a grunt, she opened the door, look of hate in her eyes directed towards she who had dared interrupt her sleep. Akko looked at her, shuffling in place nervously. Ursula instantly got rid of her angry look, noticing that Akko was troubled.

“Akko?” She said, voice sloppy. “Come on in. Give me a couple minutes to…”

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry, you can just continue sleeping,” she said, turning.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t actually sleeping,” she lied. “Come on.”

Akko accepted the offer, walking inside as Ursula entered the bathroom and washed her face. She could barely think straight, but Akko was her student and arguably the most important passenger of this ship. And, well, Ursula liked her. Not because she was still fond of Chariot or anything.

“Ok,” she said when she came out of the bathroom, still on her pajamas. “What happened?” Her voice was still tired, but at least she didn’t sound like a zombie anymore.

Akko took a deep breath and, in a quick short story, explained how she came to find out that the Shiny Rod had a simulator she could use for what she called ‘maybe cheating’. Ursula listened patiently on the outside, but she was half jumping in excitement on the inside. Akko finding the simulator meant she would have way more practice. Assuming she was able to convince her it wasn’t cheating. So…

“Tell me,” Ursula said after a moment thinking, “would you say the daemons are cheating for having copied the Shiny Rod?”

Akko didn’t seem to understand the purpose of the question. “I guess not,” she answered anyways, “they’re just trying to copy the best ship on the universe, it’s natural,” the proud voice with which she said that made Ursula falter a little. It was always hard to deal with someone who still held her past self in such high regard.

“And would you say it’s cheating that they got to practice a lot more with the ship than you? Because it’s obvious the Noir Rod has been active for some time now, and that Horn is experienced piloting it.”

“Well, no, that’s stupid.”

“Would you say that the other pilots are cheaters for getting many years of practice, probably in simulations of all the potential planets for this Inter-Planetary Race?”

Akko’s face changed. Ursula smiled on the inside. “Of course not,” Akko said, voice a little distant. She had probably already figured out where this conversation was going.

“Then tell me, what’s wrong with getting a few days of extra practice on a terrain you’re completely unfamiliar with?”

Akko suddenly stood, having made a decision. “Thank you, miss Ursula. I’m going to go fetch Amanda so that we can practice together,” Akko said, striding towards the door. She paused as it opened and looked back. “I’ll invite you to dinner later!” she said before closing the door.

Ursula chuckled. “But meals are free here,” she said to herself. Well, it didn’t matter. It was time to sleep.

Chapter Text

Amanda’s first surprise was that there were announcements for a play all over the ship. Like, when she had gone to sleep the day prior she was certain the walls of Gold Deck were not plastered with so many posters. She knew low ranked passengers could pay a fee to stay on the upper tiers some time, but this seemed like a cheap way to make money. Plus, wasn’t there a cinema on Platinum Deck? She was sure of it. Why the hell were people paying attention to a play?

Amanda’s second surprise was that the poster for the play had, in fact, two lead actresses. It wasn’t an all female cast, like she had assumed at a first look. Some of the secondary characters in the poster were male. Well, not some, everyone, from the cool cousin guy to the asshole cousin guy. Yet, the two main roles, Romeo and Juliet were women. And, even more surprising was that the one playing as Romeo was not a tomboy. She had long dark hair, big boobs and was, overall, very feminine.

This caught her interest. Constanze pulled on her shirt to get her moving as she stopped to stare at another poster, this one different from the others and with a better angle of the main actresses. The thing was still called Romeo and Juliet, but Amanda was sure they’d change the name of Romeo. Romea? Nah, that was stupid.

Constanze pulled again, and Amanda sighed. Homosexual recreations of love stories weren’t unheard of, and in all honesty, they were usually bad, because writers, directors or whatever only cared about changing the characters and not taking the time to ponder over what kind of impact that could have on the story. Particularly in those set on the far past, where being a man or a woman definitely had an effect on how those around you perceived you.

Yet, she had never seen a Romeo and Juliet on this particular style. It was strange, in truth. Sure, it was arguably the most famous written work on existence, save for religious texts, so reworking it would place a lot of expectations on you, but one would think someone would have dared to do it before… Well, maybe they had, who would know.

According to the posters, the play would start in little more than an hour.

Constanze kept tugging on her shirt, and Amanda looked at her in annoyance. “Chill the fuck out, Cons, I’m a little busy,” she said, trying to shift the position of her hands so that the heavy bags she was carrying wouldn’t completely cut off the circulation on her fingers.

The short girl grunted. She had been building something, though Amanda wasn’t sure what, and she’d almost panicked when she had run out of pieces, so Amanda and Jasminka had gone with her to buy some. Who puts a scrap shop in the middle of a space-cruiser anyways?

She saw yet another different poster for the play, this one showing the two main girls about to kiss. The girl playing Juliette was a brunette of dark eyes that looked like someone who had been born to play the part. Amanda knew that from that point onwards, whenever she thought about Juliette she’d think about that particular actress. Unless her acting was shit, which may have been possible.

Another tug on her shirt.

“Constanze if you pull on my shirt again I’m going to take it off and walk around with only my top on. I’m serious,” Amanda threatened. Constanze shrugged. Yeah, of course such a thing wouldn’t bother her. “Jasminka, wouldn’t you be embarrassed by it?”

Jasminka shrugged too. She was carrying bags too, so she also wanted to go fast and drop them on the room so that she could go eat. Amanda sighed, deciding that it was futile to argue with her teammates. It took them about fifteen minutes to go back to the room, five or more of those spent on waiting for the elevator. Amanda would have liked to take the stairs, but this time their room was a few levels upwards, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to carry such heavy bags while climbing them. She was athletic, but she didn’t consider herself particularly strong. Jasminka was strong, despite her chubbiness, so she carried the bags without much effort, which made Amanda wonder where she had gotten that strength.

When they finally dropped the bags in their room, Amanda made the decision that she was going to watch the play. At least for a while, she was not fond of theater. But, well, she had never actually been to a play, school plays not counting.

She exited the room. She knew the story of Romeo and Juliet, but she had never actually read it completely. She had only copied essays from the internet and had a basic understanding of the characters and plot points, and in her opinion, the story was rather silly. Particularly the end. Who kills themselves after spending like less than a week in love?

Well, she wasn’t a teacher or an avid reader or anything. Surely there was some hidden meaning to the story she just didn’t give a flying fuck about. Or maybe that’s what everyone thought and Shakespeare was actually just a guy who had tried to warn everyone about the dangers of infatuation.

Why was she thinking about a guy who had died so long ago? Spending time with Hannah and Diana was affecting her. She needed to…

The door to the Blue Team’s room opened, and someone was pushed out of it. ‘Someone,’ because Amanda couldn’t recognize the girl she was looking at.

The girl had to be Hannah, the color of the hair was unmistakable, but… Wow, was all she could think while looking at her.

Hannah’s attire was, in truth, not very complicated. But it just suited her. She wore a skirt that went just under her knees and a halter-neck shirt that hung a little loose on the downside. Both things were of the same light yellow, and blended almost perfectly, making it look like a one-piece dress from far away. She had let her hair down, but she pinned her bangs to the side with an amethyst barrette. She wore white sandals with platforms, which made her slightly taller, and she wore slight but noticeable makeup. Amanda didn’t know exactly what she had done to her face, but it just looked… cleaner. Whatever was going on, Hannah was nervous, for she struggled and whispered to Barbara to let her in the room again.

She’s pretty, Amanda noticed. She had long ago realized she liked girls, and she’d had her flings here and there, but she’d never had something serious. Yet she had never seen Hannah like she was seeing her now. She was attractive. There was no other way to put it. She also wore perfume, which she could smell even from this distance. It smelled nice.

Had her heart just skipped a beat?

Amanda walked closer to the pair, and Hannah finally noticed, standing upright and looking at her with a slightly suspicious expression. “Hey,” Amanda raised a hand, “what’re you fighting for?” she asked.

“Hannah has a date, but if she spends more time in front of the mirror she’s never going to get there in time.”

“I still have like half an hour!” Hannah complained, throwing looks of ‘seriously?’ at Barbara. She was obviously not happy that Barbara had confessed the nature of her attire to Amanda.

“Arriving early is key!” Barbara was blocking the door, not giving in to her friend’s demands.

“A date? What?” Amanda frowned. “Who the hell would you find to date in the middle of space?” she hadn’t really thought of why Hannah would be dressing as she was, but it made sense, in hindsight. She hadn’t dressed so well before, even for the party. Sure, she had dressed elegantly, but this was obviously on a whole new level.

“Well, we happen to have the most handsome man on earth on the Dragon,” Hannah said with a smirk, and Amanda instantly understood who she was referring to. “Andrew Hanbridge,” she claimed with satisfaction.

“Holy fuck, male Diana actually accepted a date with you? He must be desperate,” Amanda replied. Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Ok, ok, I’m just joking,” Amanda chuckled. “Still, how the hell did you manage it? You were barely able to look at him on the restaurant the other day.”

“Well, when I want I can-”

“I got it for her, all she had to do was smile and nod,” Barbara cut her off, making Hannah to choke mid-sentence and cough.

“Hey!” Hannah shoved her, annoyed. Barbara shrugged. Seeing Hannah so on edge made Amanda smile. “What’s with the smile?”

“Nothing,” Amanda shrugged. “Welp, luck with your date and all,” she said, waving and walking away. For a second, she imagined what would it be like to date Hannah. It was a pleasant fantasy for about two seconds, before she started imagining infinite shopping trips, lots of dinners in expensive restaurants and parties for boring old people.

As she walked down the metallic corridor she heard steps behind her. She turned and found Hannah following her. She raised an eyebrow.

“What? That’s the direction of the elevators, don’t give me that look,” Hannah said with a flat look. Amanda shrugged, slowing down so that the girl could catch up to her.

“You’re pretty nervous, huh?” Amanda asked, failing to contain the urge to look at her. She was just so perfectly dressed. It may not be true love, but if she had seen this Hannah without knowing her she would have definitely tried to get into her pants. Or panties, since she wasn’t wearing pants. But actually knowing the girl made it a little harder to get into that mindset.

“Well, of course,” Hannah explained. “Haven’t you ever been on dates?”

Amanda hummed to herself. “I guess a couple times,” she confessed. “Though they were only excuses.”

“Excuses for what?” Hannah asked. Amanda didn’t reply, waiting for her to realize it on her own. “Wait, you mean you only went on dates to-”

“Yeah,” Amanda shrugged. “I don’t really get the whole nervousness for dates thing. I mean, if you want this guy to bed you just take him to your room,” she said. The idea of Hannah doing this bothered her though.

“That’s not what I want!” Hannah punched her. It actually hurt, but Amanda didn’t flinch. “Jeez, this is why you’ll never actually get a partner,” she scoffed. Amanda didn’t think she was wrong, but on the other hand, she had never wanted a partner in the first place.

“Then what’s the purpose of the date?”

“Well, to get to know him better, and to maybe develop things further, and-”

“And end up in bed?”

“Not everything is about sex!” Hannah cried, instantly covering her mouth with her hand and looking around, embarrassed. “Seriously, you can like someone without wanting to fuck them,” Hannah explained. Amanda failed to understand the concept, but she shrugged. It wasn’t that important, she was just mesing with the auburn haired girl.

“Still, why so nervous? It’s a date, no big deal.”

Hannah sighed. “Because, what if I say or do something stupid? What if he dislikes me because of that?” She explained. Amanda was about to make fun of her for even having such simple insecurities, but she reconsidered. It didn’t seem like the kind of taunt that would be ok to do, not with the girl looking on the verge of collapsing.

“Well, if he dislikes you because of something like that, then maybe he’s an asshole. Just saying,” Amanda shrugged. “Don’t think so hard about it.”

“Oh, great, I never thought about that. What a great idea, I’ll just turn my brain off,” Hannah said sarcastically.

“I’m just saying, if you worry so much about that, you’ll end up perceiving any stupidity as a fuckup,” Amanda replied with some annoyance. “Though if you want to measure your every word then be my guest, who am I to tell you not to.”

They reached the elevator, and while waiting, Hannah didn’t say anything. Once they were inside, however, Hannah stopped her finger in front of the button panels. “That was actually some sensible advice. I can’t believe it,” she said, “Where are you going?”

“Fourth deck,” Amanda replied. In the enclosed, small space of the elevator, the perfume the girl was wearing was a little overpowering.

“Wait, you’re going to Platinum Deck? Why?” Hannah turned with a suspicious look.

“Because there’s a play and I want to check it out,” Amanda replied. Hannah didn’t press the button, instead looking at her with even more mistrust. “Wait, that’s where you’re having your date, aren’t you. Are you seriously going to watch Romeo and Juliet on your first date?” She chuckled. “Talk about cheesy!”

“Oh shut up,” Hannah pressed the button. “The play was the only reason I had the chance at a date anyways…” Thinking about the date in question made her all giddy again. “Oh, I wonder what’s he going to wear.”

“Probably a suit. Looks like the kind of guy who wears them.”

“I know! He’s so handsome…”

Amanda rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help looking at Hannah from time to time. She really was dressed beautifully. Amanda would never wear something so stylish, but she knew the basics of fashion. The rest of the trip up was made in silence.

Once they arrived at Platinum Deck, they were met with a crowd. “God,” Hannah said, “this is nuts.”

“Yeah. Didn’t think so many people would want to watch such an old play,” Amanda agreed.

“Why do you want to see it, anyways?” Hannah asked as they exited the elevator and slowly made their way around the deck. It was packed, to the point where Amanda had to wonder if anyone had anticipated such attendance for the play.

“The lead actress is hot,” Amanda admitted. Hannah raised an eyebrow. “What? She is.”

“Well, I don’t swing that way, but if you say so,” Hannah shrugged. “Still, watching a play just because someone is hot?”

“Yeah,” Amanda nodded, “it’s not that different from crushing on someone just because they’re hot, like you with Andrew,” she explained. Hannah snorted with a laugh, shaking her head.

“Please, I like Andrew for more reasons than being hot. He’s also polite, stylish, rich and a gentleman,” Hannah replied with annoyance.

“Fairly certain that being polite and a gentleman are technically the same thing, but anyways, my point is that there’s nothing wrong with my reasons. At least I’m watching the play for something that is relatively relevant to it, unlike you and your date,” Amanda waited for Hannah’s retort, but none came. She turned, noticing that Hannah had stopped by a small set of bushes in the middle of the crowds. The plants were in front of what looked like a small internet café. Those things only existed for nostalgia purposes, not unlike arcades.

 “You arranged to meet here?” Amanda asked. Hannah jumped, exalted, as if Amanda had come out of nowhere. “Relax, girl.”

“Sorry, It’s just… Yeah, we arranged to meet here, but it’s still early.” She was fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, obviously nervous. Amanda didn’t get why she would be so damn nervous, it was just a date. But, well, everyone had their own motives to be anxious, she supposed.

“Want me to wait with you? Lots of people here,” Amanda offered.

“Would you do that?” Hannah’s voice and look showed nothing but disbelief. What Amanda had offered was pretty outrageous. Offering to spend time willingly with Hannah? Yeah, now that she thought about it, she could probably have made a better choice. But, well, the offer had been made and she had no real excuse to back down.

“I mean, if it’s just a couple minutes, I guess we are still on the same team and all,” Amanda sat next to Hannah on the small fence surrounding the bush. “I mean, Earth’s team, not, you know, Luna Nova teams and-”

“Yeah, I get it,” Hannah sighed. They remained in silence for a while. A long while. They didn’t have many conversation topics, but all in all, it was probably the nicest while they had spent together since knowing each other.

People passed in front of them, all in the direction of the central stage. Amanda was surprised by the fact that chairs had been set all around the circular stage, not only on one side. Wouldn’t the props of the show annoy some of the spectators? Not to mention that one of the rules of theater was to never fully face away for the audience – unless it’s required –, which would be impossible this way.

Amanda was surprised to even see kids. Did kids enjoy theater? She sure wouldn’t have, probably. And, given their faces, these kids didn’t seem fond of what was to come either. It was still surprising that so many people had come to see Romeo and Juliet gay edition, though.

“Has anyone before done this thing about turning Romeo and Juliet into an homo couple?” Amanda asked to Hannah.

“Dunno,” Hannah said, “probably.”

Well, not the answer she expected, but Hannah was obviously focused on her own thing and wasn’t paying attention. Amanda looked behind them. The internet café was full of people, though they probably didn’t have real internet. They would probably be playing retro VR games or something.

“You can go get a seat before they’re all taken,” Hannah said. “Andrew’s probably about to appear.”

Amanda swept the zone between the elevator and them with a look, but she caught no sight of the dude with the perfect hair anywhere. Wait, that young dude… Nah, his hair was actually cool looking, couldn’t be Andrew.

“Eh, it’s fine. I could probably get close and sit in the floor anyways, I don’t mind,” Amanda said. Hannah didn’t reply, though she was starting to look around, growing impatient.

“I should’ve picked another getup,” Hannah said in a panicked voice all of a sudden, looking down. “This is why I wanted to look at myself in the mirror some more, the skirt is too long, it should be above the knees for-”

“You look great,” Amanda replied. Hannah paused, narrowing her eyes. “I’m being serious. It suits you. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of people have been looking at you as they pass,” Amanda pointed at one particular guy who had been looking at her for a while now. He blushed at being noticed and disappeared into the crowd. There had been some people who had stopped for a second after catching a whiff of the perfume, judging by the fact that they had been sniffing around, but Amanda preferred not to mention that.

“Well, I guess you’re not the best person to ask to anyways,” Hannah sighed, looking away, apparently convinced Amanda was joking.

“Fine, if you don’t believe me when I tell you that you look gorgeous I sure hope you at least believe it when that guy tells you,” Amanda pointed forward, and Hannah followed the finger. She sat upright instantly, smiling nervously. The tips of her hair curled ever so slightly, Amanda noticed. Was that natural? It didn’t look like it. “Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to find a seat.”

Hannah wasn’t paying attention to her anymore, which she found surprisingly annoying, but she didn’t care that much. With a sigh, Amanda looked at the stage, trying to determine which would be the best angle to get an upskirt of the lead actress – wait, she was wearing pants, what a shame.

As she walked away, she looked back one last time, and was surprised to see Hannah looking at her. She said something she couldn’t hear, but Amanda could have sworn it was a ‘thank you’.

“Thank you,” Hannah said softly at the retreating Amanda. She had been… nice. Hannah was so surprised by this that for a second she forgot she was about to meet up with the Andrew Hanbridge.

Andrew was coming close, and he waved at her with a perfect smile. He was wearing a suit, as always, but he looked particularly sharp today. His suits always fit him, but this one – matte black - accentuated his from to an absurd degree. He looked taller and stronger than normal. It had also long coat-tails that reached down to his knees, with throusers of the same color and jet-black shoes. All of the buttons on his coat were silver. He even wore cufflinks for his white shirt, a couple of golden circles with something written on them that she couldn’t quite make out.

When he got close enough, Hannah panicked. She had died, went to heaven and met an angel. This was not, this could not be reality. “H-hello!” she stuttered while extending a hand.

Andrew took the hand, but instead of shaking it, he bowed and kissed its back. “Good evening, Miss England,” he said in his smooth voice. His green eyes focused on hers, and his confident smile made Hannah want to cry. “Should we get going?”

“Y-yes,” Hannah said, fairly certain she was blushing. They moved on, side by side. Hannah wondered if it would be ok to grab his hand or his arm. Would that be going too fast? They didn’t know much about each other. Oh, she was so excited she could barely think.

“Do you normally enjoy theater, Miss England?” Andrew asked as they walked through the crowd. He seemed to know where they were going, so Hannah just followed.

“Please, just call me Hannah,” Hannah said softly. “I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been to some plays but it’s not something I normally do,” she confessed.

“Honestly, I’m the same,” Andrew said. “Theater can be fine, but at this point it’s just an outdated form of watching movies. And movies are just an outdated form of VR movies,” he explained. “But, I suppose adding a new spin to a story can make a play worth it.”

Hannah nodded, though she wasn’t sure she agreed. Sure, she wasn’t a fan of theater, but just because newer forms of media existed it didn’t have to mean older ones were outdated. Paintings didn’t disappear once digital drawing appeared, Imagination Drawing didn’t make classical drawing outdated, and so on. But it was a silly discussion, so she didn’t bring it up.

The crowd grew thicker as they approached the ring of chairs, and there was a small fence – actual fence, tall and metallic, almost like a barricade in fact – around the stage. Most seats had been taken.

All segments of the fence had a small door, though most remained closed and read ‘staff only.’ This didn’t stop Andrew from walking to one of them. The guard on the other side of it looked at him, then at Hannah, and didn’t even question them as he opened the door. “Enjoy the play,” he said as he let them pass, and Hannah puffed out her chest in satisfaction as she realized they had been let in because they were recognized.

There were some complains from the normal passengers, but Hannah didn’t pay them mind as she walked down the rows of seats. Again, Andrew seemed to know where he was taking them, and only then did Hannah notice a line of unoccupied seats right besides the stage. It soon became obvious those were seats reserved for some of the most important people on the ship, including the racing team and – obviously – the head of Earth’s race committee and his son.

It was only after they sat down in the relatively comfortable chairs – all the chairs around the stage were the same, no distinction made for those considered important besides the reserved places - that Hannah noticed Amanda was just a couple seats away. She had been a little too focused on looking at Andrew. Amanda noticed Hannah and winked at her with a smile. This was kind of uncomfortable, but the wink seemed to say ‘don’t mind me.’

“Lots of people, I must say I’m impressed,” Andrew commented, looking around.

“Yeah,” Hannah replied, not sure of what else to say. She started to get a little anxious trying to come up with some topic of conversation. “Uhm… And how’s your studies?”

Andrew let out a light sigh. “I haven’t been making much progress. A few of my teachers have accompanied us on this trip, but my father is insistent on that I should accompany him to most of his meetings, so I can only get a few hours of tutoring at best each day,” he explained. “Honestly, talking to clouds of smoke and giant jellyfishes can get old real fast.”

Hannah chuckled a little nervously, not sure if what he had said was a joke or not. “Sounds tough,” she commented.

“It’s not as hard as everyone assumes, but you do need to pay close attention. You would not want to be the one responsible of your planet ending up in the bottom of the scale for the next ten years,” he explained. Hannah cocked her head, what was he talking about? Sure, the IPR Committee had political power, but what did it mean to be in the ‘bottom of the scale’?

That seemed a little too personal to ask, at least right now. Maybe in the future Hannah would be close enough to him to ask about that. I’m already thinking about future dates, she realized with a blush.

They remained in a silence that Hannah considered awkward. What should she do to break the silence? Keep asking him about stuff? Oh, the play, of course! “Are you a fan of Romeo and Juliet?” she asked.

Andrew shrugged. “It’s fine. Not my favorite work, even among Shakespeare’s, but I understand why it’s such a classic,” he explained, making Hannah feel a little better. He was obviously well read, which only made him more desirable in Hannah’s mind. He was smart, rich, hot, a gentleman… Sweet lord, Andrew was maybe quite literally an angel.

Suddenly, the lights of the entire deck dimmed. “Ah, this means the play is about to start, right?” Hannah asked.

“I believe that’s the case,” Andrew confirmed. “It should be no more than five minutes now.”

Silence reigned again as Hannah patiently waited for the play to start. The two main roles were going to be played by women and, apparently, it would have an effect on the plot, or so the ‘new interpretation of the timeless classic’ slogan in the poster said. Hannah was curious. Even if nowadays homosexuality and LGBT related topics were relatively normalized in most of the world, a lot of people seemed to forget the past was not like that. How would they explain a lesbian romance on a past where such a thing would be frowned upon? Of course, it wasn’t anything new, but Hannah was not particularly knowledgeable in the field of novels or stories in general.

Then, the lights dimmed even further, save for the ones pointing at the stage. The prologue of the play started, and the stage suddenly changed, holographic props appearing out of nowhere. Plays that used holographic props weren’t new, but Hannah instantly noticed something curious: She could see through them, and not because they didn’t get enough light. If she focused her eyes too long on something on the stage, it changed and shifted, appearing and disappearing along with the focus of her eyes.

“My, this is remarkable,” Andrew whispered, and Hannah had to agree.

Then, the first actors appeared on the stage, lifted by a mechanism from underneath, and the play in proper began.

“Well, that was an enjoyable experience,” Andrew commented as the crowd made a round of applause for the actors as they bowed. The actress for Juliet still had the red stain of fake blood on her dress from the stabbing scene, and as the crowd’s noise died down, those bowing slowly disappeared from view, being lowered into the stage. At no point had anyone decided to sit between Hannah and Amanda, and Hannah was kind of surprised to see Amanda had remained for the entirety of the play, opposite to what one might expect from her.

In truth, not much had happened during the play, besides Hannah getting constantly distracted while looking at Andrew.

“Yeah,” Hannah nodded, “I particularly liked-”

Suddenly, Andrew raised a hand in front of her, basically telling her to stop talking, and then brought the other one to his ear, where he was wearing a small ear-phone. “Yes. Yes, just now. It was fine, I guess. What? Now? No, I’m not complaining, it’s just… Ok, I’ll be there, father.”

Andrew sighed, bringing a finger up to his temple and applying pressure to it. “Is everything alright?” Hannah asked, stealthily placing a hand on his arm. He didn’t react to this.

“Yes. Remember what I told you earlier? My father has a meeting in fifteen minutes and he wants me there,” he said with cold acceptance. Hannah could understand that tone. Diana had used it often, particularly during busy months of the school year.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Hannah said with disappointment.

Andrew turned to smile at her. “Still, it was a nice time. Thank you for accompanying me, Miss England,” he rose, taking Hannah’s hand again and kissing its back. Hannah thanked being on a chair, because she was fairly certain she had lost the strength of her legs.

“Oh, no, thank you!” Hannah said, feeling the blush climb up her cheeks. “Hope we can do this again!”

She instantly slapped herself, at least mentally, for saying such a stupid thing. She had sounded desperate. However, Andrew didn’t seem to take it that way. “Yes, that would be lovely. Until next time,” he bowed respectfully and turned, not looking back as he disappeared.

Hannah let out a dreamy sigh. How could one man be so-

“Man, what an ass,” Amanda suddenly dropped in the chair next to Hannah, making her jump. The lights had already turned on. Hannah turned to the redhead with inquiring eyes.

“If by ‘ass’ you mean perfect man, then I may just agree,” she simply said. Amanda just shook her head, shrugging, which bothered Hannah way more than it should. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Amanda stood. “Damn it, I knew I should’ve gone as soon as they started bowing. Now getting outta here will be hell,” she grimaced while looking towards the elevators. There were a bunch of them, but all of them were near the same area. There were some emergency ones, but those were close to infirmaries and if they detected someone on the inside would instantly go to them, which didn’t really help most people, and if you tried to abuse it because you were near one of them you could get a severe fine.

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, now you say it,” Hannah insisted, rising. Amanda was right, almost everyone was going for the elevators. They would probably spend another hour waiting in line. Hannah was sure Andrew would have access to some staff elevators that she didn’t. Wait, didn’t the members of the team technically count as staff? Well, whatever.

Amanda eyed her. Was she uncomfortable? That was new. “I dunno, arguing with a fangirl isn’t really worth it, I’ve learned,” she explained.

“So you’re just hating on him for hate’s sake?” Hannah asked.

“Maybe I’m ‘hating’ on him because he’s obviously an ass,” Amanda said. Hannah simply stared at her until she grunted and dropped down on the chair next to her. “Ok, you’re going to get mad, but whatever.” Hannah smirked. There was nothing this girl could say that could possibly shift her perception of how perfect Andrew was. “For starters, when you were chatting, it was a completely one sided conversation. Back at the restaurant at least he asked if you were nervous, but this time he just answered and then shut up,” Amanda pointed. Hannah opened her mouth to reply, but Amanda continued. “Shut it, let me finish. Fine, he may have been a little distracted, we all are from time to time, but how many times did he look at you?” Amanda asked.

“Why does it matter?” Hannah frowned.

“Because you’re rocking it, girl!” Amanda pointed at her. “I told you look great for a reason! You were constantly looking at him, but how many times did he look at you?”

Hannah paused, thinking. It was true, she had never even once met his eyes after he had greeted her. Not even as he said goodbye. “How do you even know that?” Hannah got on the defensive.

Amanda started. “Because I was constantly looking at you,” she admitted. Hannah slid slightly away from her, giving her a suspicious look. “What did I tell you?”

“That I look great?”

“Yeah. The lead actress ended up being not as hot in person, but, well, you’re quite pretty…” Amanda seemed to be struggling to say that. “Don’t take it the wrong way,” she quickly added. Hannah quickly lost the feeling that Amanda was just trying to mess with her and grew a little self-conscious about the fact that she was being called pretty face to face. “Anyways, did he make any comment on how good you looked?”

“I didn’t make one either,” Hannah said softly.

“Yeah but he wasn’t the one obviously putting way more effort than normal into looking nice. I mean, who goes on a date and doesn’t comment on how your partner looks?” Amanda gestured broadly with her hands.

Hannah paused. The word ‘date’ suddenly sounded wrong. She had used it so much, but… “Maybe it wasn’t a date,” she said in a low voice.

Amanda instantly nailed her eyes on Hannah, look of disbelief apparent. “You can’t be serious.”

“He never actually used the word date,” she confessed. What Amanda had said was kind of right, even if she didn’t like it. Andrew had obviously not seen this as a date, but as simply getting someone to accompany him to watch a stupid play.

“My god,” Amanda laughed, “then maybe he’s not an ass and you’re just an idiot.”

Hannah looked down. She tried really hard to recall a moment where Andrew had looked at her for more than just some direct talk, but even then, she noticed he hadn’t really been looking at her. Well, it made sense. He was the kind of guy who probably had his entire life figured out. Hell, he would probably go and marry Diana eventually. Everyone thought so. Even if Diana kind of hated him, they would make such a powerful pair, it just made sense.

On comparison, Hannah was just a meaner, angrier and uglier version of Diana. Her grades weren’t nearly as good, her family wasn’t nearly as famous, her speech wasn’t as eloquent. She didn’t have a characteristic hair style or color. Andrew must have seen her as quite literally just that: A girl to spend some dead time with.

The more she thought about the last couple of hours, the more she realized just how… Useless they had been. He hadn’t even called her Hannah, in the end. Just Miss England.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Wait, what?” Amanda seemed surprised by her answer. Hannah just rose, not looking at the redhead. “Hey, wait, where are you…?”

Hannah didn’t wait, instead just walking away. What had at first seemed like a good time was now soured. She had never actually imagined she had any chance with Andrew until the previous day, but any glimmers of hope she had possessed were now crushed.

She was so submerged into her own mind that she barely even noticed bumping against the crowd of people in front of the elevator. The amount of people was great, and a lot of them were dressed nicely. Hannah didn’t care. She just walked, slowly making her way forward.

She didn’t even notice when she finally managed to get in the elevator, going up and down a couple times before finally managing to press a button. She felt her mind shrouded in fog. It had been such a crushing realization she could barely process it.

By the time Hannah got to her room an entire hour had passed. Yet, to her, it had seemed like barely an instant.

Barbara said something to her, but Hannah didn’t listen to it. She felt like a child who hadn’t gotten any presents on Christmas. The sheer amount of disappointment she felt was one only a teenage girl with a really strong crush could feel. She wanted to shred her dress to pieces and wear black and maybe even cut her hair.

Instead of any of those stupid things, she settled from removing her makeup in a quick face wash and just going to sleep without changing, even though she wasn’t tired.

Chapter Text

Diana looked at her surroundings, certain she was lost.

She usually didn’t get lost, so this was definitely a weird occurrence. Not that one could ever truly be lost in the Dragon, with all the signs pointing to the elevators and different stairs. She had probably mistaken her stop, but this did bring her to an interesting question: What made her distracted enough to cause the mistake?

Diana didn’t consider herself infallible, but she always analyzed why she failed, whenever she did, and tried to correct it. Most people would technically do the same, in theory, but the practice was much different. Humans are the only animals who trip twice over the same stone, someone had said a long time ago. The fact that she couldn’t remember the name was another proof of her distraction, but the point stood. Of course this wasn’t exactly true, but the message stood clear: Humans usually didn’t learn from their mistakes as well as animals did, because logic and reason were capable of overpowering instincts. And sometimes human logic and reason was flawed and stupid.

The point was, Diana was lost and she was trying to figure out how she had messed up and how she had taken so long to realize it. She had been ever so slightly like this since dinner the previous day. It had been an interesting experience. More enjoyable than she could have imagined, even if it had been slightly brought down by Sucy. But over the years Diana had learnt not to take those kinds of attitudes too seriously. Sucy was the kind of person who would likely never change her mind about Diana, but at least she didn’t look for a fight, like Amanda.

It took a while until she realized what had happened. But when she did, she chuckled. She had just ended up in the floor they had been during the previous trip. In fact, she had subconsciously walked until she was just around the corner from where their rooms were.

She turned the corner, just to confirm. Yes, she was right. However, she also found something interesting: Croix Meridies herself, wearing her overly complicated attire and hairstyle, standing patiently in front of the door that used to be the red team’s room.

Curious, Diana got closer to her. “Miss Meridies,” she extended a hand towards the tall woman, who jumped slightly at being called.

“Ah, if it isn’t Diana Cavendish,” Croix took the hand, bowing slightly instead of shaking it. “What brings you here?”

“I just happened to make a mistake out of reflex,” Diana explained, “no different than stumbling over this set of rooms, one could say.”

Croix nodded. “I see. This whole race thing, it’s stressful, isn’t it?” She asked, putting her back against the door fo the room. Diana nodded weakly, not really sure if she should show weakness in front of arguably the most important person in the alliance right now. For the duration of the race, Croix would have an amount of power over the masses most could only dream of. Croix seemed to notice her hesitance. She patted Diana’s shoulder and gave her a comforting smile. “Now, don’t be so tense, I was a pilot just like you, once.”

“I’ve read of your prowess,” Diana admitted. “You had quite the achievements. But then you kind of… disappeared,” she recalled how the records on this promising prodigy had suddenly stopped not long after she left Luna Nova.

“Yes,” Croix nodded, sounding solemn. “Had a little problem with my psyche. Too much stress due to family pressure. Completely collapsed. I managed to cover it from the media, luckily. Pesky little runts, all they look for is for some way or another of ruining your life.”

Diana nodded. She had felt that kind of pressure more than once, though she didn’t think it was bad enough to make her collapse. Croix probably had thought the same, though. “And you didn’t ever go back to piloting?” Diana asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I still pilot from time to time,” Croix admitted, “but I prefer creating brooms rather than piloting them,” she winked an eye, though Diana seemed to be missing the joke.

“Impressive,” Diana said. “I myself have thought of building ships, but I suppose it’s not something I’ve spent much time studying,” she had read a few books on broom engineering, but it had been many years ago. At the time, she was really into it. Then she realized it was just sidetracking her from her real goal.

“A shame,” Croix shook her head. “If your grades are anything to go by, you would probably be the next Einstein.”

Diana gave Croix a flat look. “I think many people during the past century have gotten that title. And I’m not certain building brooms can be compared to basically creating the entire basis for modern physics on your own, if you may excuse my rudeness.”

Croix chuckled, smiling. “My, you’re really a smart one. Well, let’s say you’d be the next… What, Elon Musk?”

Diana rolled her eyes. Instead of continuing with this topic, she opted for tackling something a little more close to the present. “Why are you here, miss Meridies?” Diana asked, noticing Croix had not moved from the front of the door.

“You could say I’m waiting for a friend,” Croix explained. There was a subtlety to her tone Diana didn’t quite get, but she was in no position to pressure this woman for any information. “Speaking of which, what about your friends? Aren’t they waiting for you or something?”

“I happened to go to the Magic Deck when two of my friends were preparing for a date. A date, I must add, I did not approve of, but I did not make my opinion vocal, instead choosing to leave,” she was still slightly offended by the fact that Barbara had actively helped Hannah get a date with Andrew, despite the fact that they both knew just how much she disliked him, “and well, maybe because of the relaxation effect of the spa I ended up way more distracted than usual,” that wasn’t exactly right. The spa had had little to no effect on her. She could still feel the effects of the muscle sphere on her, but explaining that would have taken a little extra effort Diana didn’t really want to spend.

“Your teammates, right? How about Atsuko Kagari?” Croix asked. Diana thought for a second. It wasn’t weird she was asking about arguably the most important passenger on the ship, after all.

“She… I’m not sure,” Diana confessed. “I’m not particularly good at reading Akko.”

Croix closed her eyes, considering something. “Well, if you see her, tell her that she did a great job out there during the race on Machina.”

Diana was a little dumbstruck by this. “Do you really think that?”

“Of course. I know of her background, despite what I said on her presentation. She did far better than I expected,” Croix explained. Diana slapped herself mentally. Of course she knows. She probably knows of my story as well. Diana felt stupid.

But it was probably time to go back to her room. “Well, I will make sure she gets the compliment. Thanks for entertaining me, miss Meridies,” Diana extended her hand again.

Croix took it with a smile. “Thanks to you for making this wait a little shorter for me. I’ll be seeing you,” she shook the hand properly this time.

Amanda hesitated before knocking on the door. She had taken quite a while to get out of the fourth deck, which was a rather annoying thing considering she wanted to apologize.

No, wait, she didn’t want to apologize, she just wanted to know what had gotten Hannah so… gloomy. Had she really taken her joke that seriously? It was hard to believe. Why would Hannah even pay attention to what she had to say? And why did Amanda care? It’s not like she was friends with her.

But, well, she did feel a little bad. She had destroyed Hannah’s illusion of a date. It hadn’t been her intention. She just wanted to make her see that Andrew was kind of an ass. Apparently, he wasn’t as much an ass as he was just clueless. That kind of made him an ass but not the same kind of ass.

What did ass mean, again?

Oh fuck it, she thought, knocking twice. A few seconds later, the door slid open, and Barbara looked at her with curiosity. “Hello,” she greeted, “what can I help you with?”

Amanda pressed her lips. She had hoped she could talk to Hannah directly. She did not want to deal with trying to explain to anyone else why she was there. “I… Uhm… Is Hannah here?” she said, trying to peek into the room. It was dark.

“She’s sleeping,” Barbara frowned. “And she didn’t really seem to be in the mood to deal with you right now.”

Amanda took a step back, looking at the black haired girl, noticing the strong protective aura she had. Amanda couldn’t blame her for being like that. She would never expect herself to be looking out for Hannah for any reason other than trying to start a fight. And yet here she was, worried about her.

Worried. The word had come without any warning, and she doubted if that was what she was really feeling. Why would she be worried about Hannah? It wasn’t like what had happened to her was actually serious. She’d forget about it by the time she woke up.

“Oh, well, I’ll talk to her tomorrow, I guess,” Amanda shrugged, turning around. She paused, turning to say something, but reconsidered and walked to her own room. “See you later.”

Barbara gave her a slightly confused look, but waved her hand as Amanda entered her room. As usual, Constanze was taking up the entirety of the desk. Not having a secret workshop was driving her kind of mad. Jasminka, for a change, wasn’t eating. She was drinking. “Where did you get that?” Amanda instantly asked upon seeing the massive, bucket-sized… smoothie?

Jasminka shrugged. She often did that, and Amanda had a hard time figuring out if she didn’t want to tell or she didn’t know herself. Probably the latter, as Jasminka was not one that would keep that kind of information for herself.

The bucket was already halfway empty.

“Want some?” Jasminka raised the thing to her. Amanda shrugged and took a sip. It was banana. Rather good, if she was honest. She hadn’t expected much from a giant smoothie.

Amanda threw away most of her clothes, deciding that she was in the mood to be in underwear. After that, she climbed onto the bunk bed, staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t tired. She had been barely… what, seven to eight hours awake? Not much. But for some reason she didn’t feel up for much else. And, well, with Jasminka and Constanze in the room she couldn’t exactly do what she’d normally do in these situations. That being, of course, masturbating like crazy.

She sighed. A long, heartfelt sigh. It was such a sigh that it caught the attention of her teammates. Constanze stopped working, looking up, and Jasminka stopped slurping on her giant smoothie to stand and look at the redhead.

“Are you ok?” She asked in her soft voice, and Constanze grunted, seconding the question. Amanda turned to her.

“I think so,” she admitted. “I’m just… confused.”

She stopped talking. Jasminka drank some more, not pressuring her. Amanda hadn’t known either her or Constanze for longer than a year and a half, but in that time she had come to learn a lot about them, and vice-versa. Jasminka knew she would talk, if she wanted to.

“It’s complicated,” she continued, trying to search for an explanation that wouldn’t be too embarrassing. “What do you do when you accidentally ruin someone’s day?”

“Have you tried apologizing?” Jasminka said. She didn’t even wait to give the answer. It was a natural conclusion. One Amanda had reached, but was maybe a little too proud to admit. Well, it was not like Hannah would apologize if she did something similar, so it was not that big a dea…

I’m… Sorry.

Amanda had a small flashback to the scene of the skyscraper, cringing hard at her previous set of thoughts. Damn memory, making her remember things in the least fortunate of times. “She’s sleeping, so I can’t,” she said reluctantly. She had a sour expression. She now had her conscience weighing on her with full force. What a horrible moment Hannah had chosen to apologize.

“Well, if you feel bad about it, you should do it,” and with that, Jasminka sat back on her bed and continued happily enjoying her extra jumbo sized drink. Where had she gotten it? Seriously, that thing hadn’t been here before Amanda had left for the play.

The play. It had been fun. The explanation for girl Romeo keeping the name Romeo hadn’t been too crazy – her parents had needed her to act as a man, so she had – but what had completely broken Amanda’s suspension of disbelief was that this Romeo was supposed to be a tomboy, yet the actress had a pair of bongers one could probably bounce off of and a silky, long hair that could never pass as that of a boy.

Plus, as she had said, from up close she wasn’t nearly as hot as the poster had made her look to be. Hannah had really been a more enjoyable treat for the eyes.

Amanda grunted. Great, this was going to be bothering her until Hannah woke up, wouldn’t it. Eventually, since no one moved much, the lights turned off. Constanze had her own night-vision goggles, so she didn’t care about the dark.

Amanda had resolved to try to sleep. At least that way the wait would be shorter. She closed her eyes, knowing this would take a long time and work, but-

The door suddenly opened, and someone strode into the room, reactivating the light. “Amanda!”

Amanda looked down with an uninterested expression. Akko was in the middle of the room. She didn’t seem to care much about Amanda being on her underwear. “What?”

“Get dressed, we’ve got practice to do.”

Great, she’s finally lost it, Amanda thought. “Akko, I’m not going to practice with that VR game that’s on the-”

“I’ve got a real simulator! Now come on, get dressed, we can practice right now! We can win the next race!” Akko exclaimed imperatively and with excitement. Amanda looked into her eyes, big red irises showing in full since Akko was partially looking at the light, and saw nothing if not truth in them.

Curious, she decided this would be a welcomed distraction to Hannah’s ordeal anyways, so she accepted the offer, dropping from bed and putting on her clothes.

“Do I really need to help?” Amanda asked as Akko crawled her way through the cloth into the cockpit. “I mean, I won’t learn anything. Maybe I can be with you on the cockpit and remember things.”

“No way,” Akko said, “I need to learn about everything the ship can do, and I can’t do that with the turret deactivated. Climb in there and stop complaining,” she grunted as she finally managed to open the windshield and drop into the seat inside. She waited until Amanda got into the turret and, without more delay, put the key-wand into its hole and turned the Shiny Rod on. She pressed the button to activate the turret – she had made sure to memorize where that one was – and waited a few seconds.

Then, as Alcor had indicated was important, she checked the Output Meter. It was a black long battery-looking thing in front of the controls. Alcor had explained to her that the Shiny Rod had an output limit. It wouldn’t run out of fuel, but it couldn’t use all that energy at once. So far, since Amanda had been rather peaceful, not much energy had been spent, apparently, but with a single simulation of about ten minutes of flying Akko had gotten the output to about one fourth of what was accepted, going at high speeds and making daring movements that she would never actually do outside of simulations.

“Alcor, activate the simulator. Set the terrain to a common racing area on Pan.”

Alcor answered, quickly transporting Akko to the simulated planet. The tall trees, humid dirt and lack of sunlight soon let her know the simulation had started. She looked around, waiting for Amanda’s reaction, but then she realized Amanda wasn’t going to react.

The sky was slightly visible through the leaves above, being of a blue basically impossible to tell apart from earth’s, but this planet had the interesting thing of having a really tiny moon. It was just big enough to be considered as such, but even then, it was orbiting even further away than Earth’s moon. It basically had little to no effect on the planet itself.

Akko would have loved to pretend she knew all that because of studying, but she had actually just read it in a small guide about the planet that had appeared in front of her.

 “Amanda, first we’re going to try flying and cutting all the trees in front of us with a laser, ok?”

Amanda didn’t reply, but Akko assumed she had been heard. She tapped her foot. “Start the race,” Akko said, and a big three appeared on the air in front of her. Two. One.

A loud bell sounded, and the race started without fanfare. In the map, a red dot pointed to where the ending would be. It was closer than Akko expected. As she flew ahead, straight into a tree, a laser shot out of the rod, taking it out. Magic was energy, but it didn’t react like it when weaponized. It was more like a liquid, or maybe plasma. As it crashed into the wood, it cut it fairly easily, but it lost power, so the next tree on the line managed to stand it.

The tree in front of Akko, however, was way bigger than the ones Hannah had cut off with her lasers back on Sídhe. Even with the laser shot, it took too long to fall, making it so that Akko actually had a harder time dodging it than normal.

“This isn’t going to cut it,” she said, pun completely unintended. As she flew, she manually checked the status of the ship, only to get used to it. Dodging trees wasn’t as hard as Akko had assumed it would be, since the big ones had actually quite the amount of space between them, and the smaller ones she could fly over, since they were small due to the little amount of sunlight they received.

Amanda kept shooting trees left and right, but Akko was beginning to understand that was not a strategy she could use. And, as she checked the meter, she noticed the absurdly high output the Rod was using – the usage of so many lasers had brought it to more than a half. “Ok, Amanda, stop,” Akko said. She paused the simulation.

Ok, she couldn’t cut through trees, so she’d just have Amanda defend the ship. It was kind of hard to figure out exactly how the output of energy worked. It always started at about a fifth, which was the simple usage the engine had. If she forced it would go up to a fourth. The amount of output for lasers seemed to go higher than that. And Akko knew the shield probably used a ton of energy too, since she clearly recalled seeing it being broken through at least four times in Chariot’s career.

Maybe she should test the limits while she came up with another strategy. She was bad at strategies.

“Alcor, create a simple field,” Akko commanded. The jungle disappeared, turning into an endless grassy field. Akko pressed a button on the Shiny Rod that would force it to stay in place, not allowing it to be pushed or pulled. It, of course, stopped it from racing. Like a hand brake. “Create… The Noir Rod,” Akko tested. She doubted the Shiny Rod would be able to do such a thing, but…

In front of the Shiny Rod, the bigger, red and black rip-off appeared.  “Make him attack us when I say go. Amanda! Make sure to get our shields ready!

No response, as usual. Akko stared at the black ship. She had seen a recording of how it had won. It had not been a breeze, as Akko had assumed, but it had won nonetheless. Well, not anymore. Akko would have the upper hand this time. “Ok, Amanda, you ready?”

“Yes,” Amanda answered. Whenever she spoke from inside the Shiny Rod she spoke monotonously.

“Perfect. Alcor, Go!”

The attack started, and Akko paid close attention to the Output Meter. With the engines off, it quickly rose to a fourth as soon as the shield appeared. Each attack from the daemons seemed to make it go slightly up, but not by a lot. “Alcor, spawn… The appal ship. They have a lot of armament,” she ordered. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for the new ship to spawn and also start attacking. The barrage of missiles and bullets brought the shield up to a little more than a third, maybe three sevenths.

Wait, when had Akko gotten good at fractions?

“Hmm…” Akko thought she was starting to figure it out. The output of energy was the amount of energy the Shiny Rod could use at once, and it didn’t seem to have a time limit but it did increase ever so slightly with time, as if efficiency slowly went down. Or maybe there was another factor in the ship which forced it to make it spend more and more energy the longer it ran without a proper rest. “Alcor, make them attack with all they have.”

The appal conical ship suddenly split, the front opening into a six pointed star that started spinning at an incredible speed. It was creating electricity. That wasn’t what caught Akko’s attention, though. It was the Noir rod. It was… glitching. It started to glow, like when the Shiny Rod transformed for different reasons, but before it could do so it just started blinking with that light, and then popping in and out of the simulation. The Appal attacked, a sudden and powerful blast of pure electricity. It managed to force a third of the output in a single go. Powerful indeed.

The Noir Rod finally stopped glitching, and it shot a powerful a laser with all seven of its spheres. The angle of the shot made all of them fuse at a point. When all the different streams of Inferno fused, a single, really powerful thing was created. Could the Shiny Rod do that?

It hit, and the shield was instantly destroyed.

The simulation shut off, and Akko felt her heart stop for a second. “Alcor?” She asked with slight panic on her voice, wondering if maybe the simulation had broken something. She relaxed when the bird appeared in front of her. “Can the Shiny Rod perform a laser like that one?” It had to be the same that had cut off the Shooting Star’s wing. Such a powerful thing.

Unknown Command, the crow said.

Yeah, it’s always unknown when it best suits you.

“Uhm… What’s the most powerful laser the Shiny Rod can shoot?”

Unknown command.

Oh come on it’s not even that complicated! I’ve asked you harder questions! Akko complained internally. She had to think of a better way of finding out. Then, a light bulb sparked to life inside her head. She waved Alcor away, asking him to make another simulation. “Amanda, make the most powerful attack you can.”

Amanda, as usual, didn’t say anything. Akko waited somewhat patiently as the Shiny Rod slowly charged up. The opponent had been chosen as the armor since they had amazing defenses.

The Shiny Rod shot. Akko checked the seven lights to her left that showed the status of the seven spheres around the body of the broom. The lights were put roughly in the shape of the Ursa Minor, which Akko found curious. Chariot had mentioned that she liked astronomy, but had she built this? Not likely. The seven lights blinked to show they were activated.

When the beam hit, one of the spheres the Armor used as defense blew up completely. It pierced through them and hit the main ship, not destroying it, but causing considerable damage. She was amazed by this, a thousand ideas instantly spreading through her mind. Ideas that died when she noticed the output meter was red. She looked closer and saw that it had a paper thin space of free space.

Meaning, she couldn’t shoot this during a race. Bummer. But… Well, the Noir Rod had attacked Diana almost instantly, hadn’t it? That probably meant they couldn’t do this either. They gambled, attacking at the start of the practice race to take Diana out.

She was humming to herself, deeply in thought, when suddenly the simulation shut off. Akko wondered what had happened, until she realized the laser had probably made it past the output limit.

Akko turned off the turret. She needed an actual person to talk to.

“I think we can do this,” she said after a while. Amanda hadn’t said anything, but at this point she should have been awake. Or maybe she had fallen asleep? She had been trying to sleep when Akko barged into her room.

“Great!” Amanda said with fake enthusiasm. “I’m not sure what the hell you’re talking about but I’m glad for us!”

Akko growled. “This is serious, Amanda. Whit this simulator I can finally start to understand how everything in the Shiny Rod works.”

“Akko,” Amanda changed to a serious tone. “I am seriously glad you have found this tool, and that you can make use of it,” she made a pause, probably for dramatic effect, “but I couldn’t give less of a fuck. I seriously can’t stress this enough: I forget everything. What happens in there? Yeah, nothing, not a thing, nope, zero, null, nada. I can’t give you feedback on this. You could tell me I just blew up a ship ten seconds ago and I’d have to believe you.”

“You kind of did.”

“See?” Amanda grunted. “This is what I’m talking about. Just turn the damn thing on and keep practicing. If nothing else I can tell you to never give up and shit.”

Akko sighed. “If I let you test it you’ll hear me out?”

“Will you let me do it now?”

“Well, right now I’m practicing but-”

“Talk to me when you can show me the product. Until then, let’s just get on with this,” Amanda said. Akko puffed her cheeks, annoyed. Amanda was being kind of an ass. She had looked kind of irritated before. What had happened? Maybe she was tired and that made her grumpy. It would make sense. What had she done during the day? Akko wasn’t sure. She had woken up late and then had gone to the Shiny Rod where she had made the tutorial and bla bla bla.

She turned on the turret anyways. It would proably help. Amanda had mentioned before that being in there wasn’t all that different from sleeping.

Now, all she needed to do was to figure out a plan of action. Maybe she should do the tutorial once more, just in case.

Hannah woke up just a few hours after going to sleep. She stayed in her bed, looking at the upper bunk bed and blinking slowly. She was uncomfortable thanks to not having changed her attire for a pajama, and she felt even more tired than when she had first laid down.

“What happened?” Barbara suddenly asked. She had an uncanny ability to notice when she woke up. Probably due to so many years sleeping in the same room.

“Not-”

“If you say nothing I’m going to throw this bucket of cold water on you,” Barbara moved some more, and the lights on the room suddenly turned on. Hannah blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted, and she noticed Diana was also in the room, looking at her with a controlled yet obviously worried expression. Barbara was indeed holding a bucket.

“Did Andrew do anything?” Diana asked. “If he did, I will find him and give him a piece of my-”

“No,” Hannah sighed, apathy on her voice. “No, he didn’t do anything. That’s the problem,” she said, getting up to start undressing. “I was just too… eager.”

Barbara raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” she said, annoyed. Hannah looked at her without energy. She felt… nothing. She was numb. She wasn’t sad or angry. She wasn’t even disappointed. Emptiness. Just that. “I thought my date with Andrew had gone well until I realized he didn’t even consider it a date,” she explained in a monotonous voice. “I raised my expectations too high and crashed down to earth. No big deal.”

Diana placed a hand on Hannah’s arm. “I have to say, you shouldn’t feel bad about it,” she tried to console her. “I can tell you from experience, for people like him and me, we don’t often think of romance. That doesn’t mean he can’t come to like you.”

Hannah smiled a little, to show to Diana she thanked her attempt at cheering her up. With how much she disliked Andrew, what she had just said was probably not easy. “I kind of had figured that out, but it didn’t stop me from getting excited,” Hannah said. “I just… Feel like an idiot.”

“I’m sorry your date ended like that,” Barbara said. “But why do you think that? Maybe Andrew is just a little cold, like Diana. Maybe he does-”

“No,” Hannah quickly answered. Barbara was too good at saying the stuff Hannah wanted to hear. “He… Basically paid me no mind. He expected our ‘date’ to be no more than a simple way to pass some time and make some comments during the play. I didn’t notice, but in retrospect it just how it is,” she finally finished dressing up. She chose to wear a summer dress and jeans underneath. It was stupid and it looked weird, but not bad, it wouldn’t make others think she was clueless as to fashion or something. Hannah just felt like dressing weird.

Barbara had obviously noticed this, but didn’t comment on it. “You say you didn’t notice, but when you came back you were already down. So how does that go?” She asked. Hannah waited to answer. She didn’t really feel like mentioning that Amanda had been there the entire time. It would be weird to talk about how nice she had been. It was hard to believe Amanda had actually helped Hannah relax, if just for a short while.

Hannah entered the bathroom. She didn’t hold it against Amanda. Her feelings were her own. Amanda had made an argument – maybe a little harshly – and she had been right. This didn’t bother Hannah half as much as she felt like it should.

“I just realized after the fact,” she lied, exiting the small room and sitting on her bed. “It’s not a big deal, really. I’m just bummed,” she shrugged.

Barbara put on her I-don’t-buy-it face. “I don’t buy it,” she said.

“There’s nothing more to it. I just went on a not-date, had a good time, and then realized maybe it was not such a great time after all. I mean…”

“Wait,” Barbara interrupted. “Amanda has something to do with it, doesn’t she?”

Hannah froze. How did Barbara know? Sure, the girl could read Hannah like a book, and Hannah could – maybe –do the same. But this went beyond that. It was straight up divination. “How…?”

“I knew it was weird for her to show up wanting to talk to you of all people,” Barbara mumbled to herself, making Hannah frown.

“Amanda was here?” Diana asked, shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think much of it,” Barbara confessed. Her hair flung around the room wildly as she started to pace rapidly. “But, if I didn’t know her better, I’d say she looked worried,” she paused to look at Hannah. “What did she do?” Her voice quickly rang with menace.

Hannah, on the other hand, was trying to piece together what she had said. Amanda came looking for me? Because she was worried? I can’t believe it, she thought. It was outrageous. Barbara must have read the redhead wrong. It made absolutely no sense for her to actually be worried about Hannah. Sure, she had been kind of nice, but from that to actually go out of her way because she might or might not have been worried…

Diana was looking funny at Hannah. Hannah cocked her head. Diana never had funny looks for anyone.

“What’s so funny?” Barbara asked, voice still in I-will-murder-whoever-did-this mode. For a second, Hannah thought she was also referring to Diana, but she realized her best friend was looking at her.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the smile for?”

Hannah realized she was smiling. “Oh,” she said. She thought for a second. Why was she smiling? “I guess it’s ‘cause it makes me happy that you’re so worried,” she explained. It made sense. And it was a little funny.

Barbara snorted, but looked away in embarrassment. “That was cringy as hell,” she said, her voice losing its edge. Hannah chuckled.

“About Amanda… She may have gone to the play to ogle the lead actress, and she may have been the one to point all of this out to me,” she finally confessed. Barbara snapped back to attention, but Hannah was quick to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. “But! She just mentioned it without malice. Well, without malice towards me. She was just trying to make Andrew look bad, and things kind of went downward spiral from there.”

Barbara didn’t look convinced, but she closed her eyes. “So you wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out?”

“Probably not.”

“And you’re certain she wasn’t making shit up?”

“If I may intrude, Andrew is certainly clueless enough for this to be believable,” Diana said. She looked extremely uncomfortable to be saying that. She was obviously saying it to make Hannah feel better, not make Andrew look good in anyone’s eyes.

“I don’t think she was just shitting on Andrew the same way she’d shit on Diana,” Hannah said. She had only felt the redhead’s inherent disgust for Diana and all things related, including her male version. “She wasn’t looking to make me feel bad. We’re past that.”

Barbara cocked her head. “When did that happen?”

Oh, right. She hadn’t told Barbara about their escapade to the top of the skyscraper yet. Hannah just felt like she shouldn’t do it in general. The first time it had been a casual, even opportunistic little adventure. This time it had been different.

“It just… did,” Hannah chuckled nervously. She looked at Diana for some backup. Did she consider their little adventure special?

Did Hannah?

“Whatever the reason,” Diana said, “it would be surprising if Amanda was truly worried about Hannah. And, on the topic, are you sure you are alright?”

Hannah thanked her silently for the save while nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she… kind of was, actually. The chat had really managed to cheer her up. “And it’s not like I have no opportunity. Next time I’ll make sure he knows it’s a date. A romantic one.”

Barbara looked at Hannah through narrowed eyes, still smelling something was off, but she sighed and dropped next to Hannah in the bed. “Fine. Maybe we should go find Amanda. She was probably going to apologize or something.”

“Highly doubt it,” Hannah said, “and we’ll see her eventually. Right now I’m just hungry.”

“Let’s go grab something to eat, then,” Barbara stood, helping Hannah up. Both of them looked at Diana, who shook her head.

“I’m fine, and I need to check something out. I’ll probably stay in here, so don’t worry.”

Neither of the girls was happy about this, but Diana was more often than not staying behind to study, so they were sort of used to it. Hannah, however, found that this didn’t sit well with her more and more. One of these days she’d drag Diana out with them whether she wanted it or not and nothing was going to stop her. Well, except maybe a kick to the face.

After quickly discussing what they wanted to eat in a vain attempt to create an appetite on Diana, they left the room. Hannah was feeling surprisingly warm, considering the numbness she had felt just earlier.

The simulation ended, and Akko had barely made it through the forest. What at first had seemed complicated soon proved to be next to impossible as she added simulations of other racers to practice. When others were constantly trying to push you into one three or another, piloting and keeping focus suddenly became extremely difficult. Particularly when Akko was still trying to get the hang of what all the buttons, levers and other things did. She was certain one of them controlled the average height of hovering, but when she had tried to turn the knob, all it did was darken the brightness of her windshield, polarizing it. That might be useful on sunny planets, but not in here where the trees fought for sunlight, creating a ceiling of leaves.

Akko changed the simulation to the field, and started to fly around lazily. 

She was tempted to wake Amanda up again, but she didn’t really want to bother her when she was being grumpy. So she flew, thinking. Like pacing, but cooler. Well, she wasn’t technically flying, since it was all a simulation, but she still found the distraction and sensation of movement appeasing. I have an advantage. I need to make use of it to its fullest.

Diana believed in her. Akko kept going back to the little scene they’d had at the restaurant, in the moment where Sucy had been trying to pull her away from the table, where Diana had stood up – metaphorically – for her. In that moment, Akko had finally gotten proof of the fact that Diana didn’t dislike her. Even when the fear had been mostly gone, it still lingered. Maybe Diana was angry with her, maybe she was jealous of her place. Fears that, like it or not, had been revived by the loss of the first race.

Her worries had been blown away with a single set of words. We’re friends, right?

After what had happened in the pools, where Diana had kind of thrown away the idea without thinking too much about it, hearing her say that felt… warm and fuzzy. The stuck up, ever perfect Diana Cavendish had called simple plebeians such as the red team her friends.

Akko doubted Sucy and Diana were actually friends, but she would take what she could.

Wait a second, Diana!

“Alcor!” Akko instantly said, “Can you make a simulation of the Shooting Star?” In the simulation, next to the Shiny Rod, a Shooting Star appeared. Longer than the shiny rod, two sets of wings, a small one near the front and big one at the back. Slim and fast looking. Not what Akko wanted to see, though. “I mean, can you simulate me flying the Shooting Star?”

This seemed to take some more time. Akko waited patiently. Alcor didn’t appear saying ‘unknown command’ or claiming some sort of error, something that in Akko’s mind was a good thing. And, soon enough, something changed. The front of the Shiny Rod morphed, going from white to red. Extending. Developing a couple of small wings near the front. Akko smiled.

Even the inside of the cockpit changed. Akko was surprised as her control panel turned around, going empty again, but came back about thirty seconds later completely remade. The cockpit shrank a little, somehow, and in no time, Akko was riding and piloting a completely different broom.

“Akko?” Amanda suddenly asked. “What is going on? What’s with all of this bullshit?” she asked.

Akko supposed the turret had also changed. Her smile deepened.

“It’s something that will make sure humans win this race this time.”

Chapter Text

Diana was checking recordings of old races, making notations on a small notebook – physical, since she wanted to keep it away from potential hackers – and overall enjoying her time. It was hard for others to understand when she said that the process of research was one enjoyable to her, but that was not important to her. Not everyone was cut for research. Everyone had their way of learning. Diana just seemed to be particularly in tune with standard methods. They were easy for her.

At least, when a loud brunette wasn’t banging loudly on her door.

She took off the helmet, sighing. Did Akko need to be so loud? Sound always so… excited? Well, it felt wrong when she didn’t, so that probably answered the question.

The door opened, and Akko instantly jumped at her. “Diana, you need to come see this,” Akko said, taking Diana’s arms. Diana took a moment to process what was going on.

“I am in the middle of something, can’t it…” As she started speaking, she noticed Akko’s expression, and stopped. “It’s important, is it not?” Akko nodded energetically. Diana looked back at where her helmet and notebook laid. Well, the good thing about research was that you could always do it later. Unless you were in some sort of deadline. “Ok, guide me.”

Akko instantly took off down the corridor, and Diana found that she was actually happy to see Akko as excitable as ever. She really was recovered from her loss, or if she wasn’t, she was doing one heck of a job to hide it. It was hard to pinpoint why it was, but seeing Akko being happy just made her happier. She could forget about her troubles, if only for a little while.

She was led to the hangar of the Dragon. She was surprised to find Amanda there, waiting for them. “Was about time,” she said.

“Hannah is already awake,” Diana informed. “In case you still wish to talk to her.”

Akko turned to look at Diana with weird eyes, which wasn’t strange given the fact that she completely lacked the context as to why Diana had said what she said. Diana found silent amusement in seeing Amanda’s face go from surprise, to confusion, to annoyance as she was probably looking for something to say.

She settled on a mildly angered look as she stared Diana on the eyes. “Where is she?” She asked, some strain on her voice.

Diana hadn’t expected her to actually care, of if she did care, to actually admit it. “She went to a barbeque place in Shopping Town with Barbara. Though, at this point, they’re probably walking around looking at clothes, maybe shopping.”

Amanda looked down for a second, crossing her arms. Then, with a growl, she looked towards the exit of the hangars – Well, the common one. “God damn it,” she mumbled. “Akko, imma go. Not that you actually need me anyways. I’ll come back later. Maybe,” she said, and without even waiting to hear Akko’s opinion took off at a stride.

Akko was looking at Diana with confusion, but her excitement soon came back as she took Diana’s hand and dragged her the last few meters to the Shiny Rod. Diana was a little uncomfortable with the contact – she wasn’t used to such things – but when Akko let go she thought she wouldn’t have minded a little more time.

“Ok, follow me,” Akko said, slipping under the cloth of the Rod and starting to crawl her way to the cockpit as a moving bulge. Diana looked around, embarrassed about the idea of doing… that, but no one was around to see her. She wasn’t wearing her g-suit, but she supposed it didn’t really matter, since Akko wasn’t wearing hers.

Diana followed, face red as she imagined someone looking at them. She soon heard Akko opening the windshield, and she was quick to reach the cockpit. Her surprise came when she saw Akko was standing behind the pilot seat, instead of sitting on it. She had a confident smile. She was tapping the seat with her hand. “Come on, sit down,” she said. Her voice was very, very excited, which made Diana wonder just what could have Akko in such a state.

Well, many things, probably, but this excitement seemed too much even for her. Diana dropped onto the cockpit and she first noticed that it had changed. It now had a bunch of control mechanisms it lacked before. Something was off, though. The cockpit… had it shrunk? And these controls looked familiar…

“Come on, sit down!” Akko grabbed her shoulders, pushing her down onto the seat. Then she closed the windshield and turned on the broom.

“Akko, why am I…”

“Shut it, you’re gonna love this,” Akko asserted. “Ok, get ready. Alcor, resume the simulation from before,” she ordered.

Simulation starting, the familiar said.

Simulation? Was all Diana could think before she realized what was going on. The windshield changed, and Diana saw how it slowly became a jungle. The amount of plant life was astounding, though it was unusually dark, and more impressive were the giant trees everywhere. She looked around with amazement. “This is Pan, isn’t it?” She asked. “How did you know this is our next destination?”

“Wait, you knew?” Akko asked as an answer, surprised. “Well, of course you knew,” she said with a lot less of enthusiasm. Diana was slightly bothered by that. Why did everyone assumed she knew everything? “Anyways, I found out thanks to the Shiny Rod. But that’s not the impressive thing! Look at the ship!”

Diana was about to say that she had looked at the Shiny Rod a good number of times in the past, but only then she noticed the red nose sticking from the windshield. Slowly, different instincts kicked in as she started to feel uncannily comfortable in the seat. The controls, the size of the cockpit, it was almost as if… “The Shooting Star? You’re simulating the shooting star.”

“… Shooting Star!” Akko shouted alongside her, excitement back. She propped herself against the seat, her head above Diana’s, “this way you can practice too!”

Diana was left speechless, which was strange enough. She always found something to say, but at this moment, all she could do was imagine all the advantages this would give them. Way more hours of practice, the ability to familiarize themselves with the terrain of the jungles much further, a chance to study crazy strategies without a fear of damaging their ships.

“Akko,” she said after what felt like too long. “This is amazing!”

“I know!” Akko said. “Too bad I gotta be inside the cockpit or it doesn’t work, though. Alcor doesn’t answer to anyone else, for some reason,” she paused for a second, looking to the control panel as if it was Alcor itself, “aaaanyways, wanna give it a shot?”

Diana didn’t hesitate, nodding energetically. “Of course!” she exclaimed, eager. Then, she thought again. “Wait, Akko, aren’t you sure you don’t need it more than me?” She asked, turning around to look at Akko’s face. She hadn’t expected Akko to have her face quite literally next to hers, so when she turned her nose brushed Akko’s cheek. She jump back with a squeal of surprise.

Akko turned her face to her, completely uncaring of being so close. “What?” she asked. From this close, Diana could see just how beautiful she really was. Her skin was pale and her hair looked silky and it reflected the green light of the cockpit. Her big red eyes seemed to sparkle. Now that Diana thought about it, Akko didn’t look stereotypically Asian at all. If you didn’t know her name, you’d be hard pressed to tell she was Japanese. Well, when she squinted it was a little more obvious, but her neutral face didn’t tell you much about her, save from the fact that her parents had probably been in contact with magic at some point. Red eyes were a surprisingly common side effect of magic on descendants.

“Diana?” Akko asked again, and Diana finally snapped out of admiring her. She was blushing, and her heartbeat was accelerated.

“Excuse me, you just… startled me. Let us continue,” she said, taking a deep breath. Being in this small space next to Akko now felt like it was going to be much troublesome than she expected. “Can I just… do it?”

“Of course,” Akko extended her arm towards the windshield. “Give it a test, I’ll simulate a race for you later.”

Diana relaxed her shoulders, trying – and failing – to get the red eyes of her companion out of her head. She put her hands on the joysticks to control the ship, her feet on the pedals – they felt the same as the Shooting Star’s too – and slowly started her practice by the most basic of things: starting to hover and pulling away the wheels.

It felt exactly like flying the Shooting Star.

Why am I even bothering? I’m going to see her eventually. She’s probably back in the rooms even, and if she’s not, waiting for her there would be a much more efficient way of waiting.

Amanda walked around Shopping Town looking for Hannah and Barbara. It was a futile effort, she knew this. The place was too big for a search to be effective. Still, she kept walking around, half wishing she didn’t actually manage to find her. Why was afraid of it, anyways? It was just an apology. Nothing big. Hannah had apologized, she could do it too. It was a simple ‘sorry I ruined the mood yesterday, didn’t want to make you feel bad about being an idiot, I was just trying to make you feel bad about having a crush on an idiot.’

Yeah, that didn’t sound very good. She wasn’t good with apologies, since she hadn’t really done a lot of them in her life.

She could still smell the perfume Hannah had used the previous day. It hadn’t been like the best thing ever, but for some reason it had stuck with her. Probably because of how strong it had been. Hadn’t Andrew mentioned that? Well, Amanda hadn’t either. She kicked softly at the ground. Had Hannah believed her, in the end? She had said thank you, but she could have been saying that because of Amanda staying with her for a while, not for the compliment.

Amanda didn’t always give serious compliments to others. Sure, she often praised Constanze’s creations, or Jasminka’s incredible skills to sneak into any kind of kitchen and steal food, but appearance-based compliments weren’t her favorite thing. She preferred to save those for pretty girls in clubs she wanted to take to bed.

But her compliment to Hannah had been real. Hannah had looked great. Amanda felt very conflicted about it. If it had been literally anyone else she wouldn’t have hesitated at a chance to flirt. But just thinking of the fact that it was Hannah made her stomach revolt.

She stopped walking, stopping in front of a shop for fancy clothing. The windows had a couple of mannequins showing a really nice suit and a long dress with a petticoat and a bunch of frills everywhere. Both of those looked old fashioned. Like really freaking old fashioned. Three hundred years old fashioned. Well, the dress. Suits hadn’t changed that much.

In fact, that suit looked real nice. It had low tails and a really nice looking vest underneath. Maybe… Nah, it’s not like I’ve got a party to go to anyways.

She was about to move on when, out of pure chance, she noticed movement inside the store. No way, she thought as she looked at the yellow bow tying up auburn hair. She froze.

It was Hannah. And Barbara. They were talking to one of the employees, who was showing them a dress. They were with their backs to the window, which was why they hadn’t seen Amanda yet. Amanda slowly passed her tongue through her lips, being very conscious of her every movement.

For some reason, she wanted to hide.

What am I, a five year old? She thought to herself. So, to prove she was no child, she barged into the store, almost kicking the door open.

The employee looked at Amanda with shock, and Hannah and Barbara jumped with cries of surprise. Amanda stood in the door, staring through squinting eyes at Hannah. She was angry. Angry at herself. Why was it so hard to do such a simple thing.

“Hey,” she said in a strained voice. “Hannah, how’s it going?”

“Fine…” Hannah said, obviously doubtful about showing she knew the girl who had just almost broken the door upon entering the establishment in front of the employee. “What…”

“Can we talk?” Amanda asked, feeling like she wanted to scream. Hannah looked fine, at least. Hannah exchanged looks with Barbara, who gave her an encouraging nod. Then, with hesitance, she approached Amanda. Amanda turned, exiting the place. She didn’t want to talk in the crowded wooden street, so she just guided Hannah to a small alley that worked as back entrances for a couple of shops. It was empty, save for a cat. Amanda was sure animals weren’t allowed to run free on the Dragon, but she didn’t really care.

“What the fuck was that?” Hannah asked as soon as they stopped.

“Sorry,” Amanda said, feeling her cheeks slowly warm up. “Not for the entrance. For what happened yesterday.”

Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Huh, so you really wanted to do that,” she said nodding slowly. She put her hands on her hips, and only then Amanda noticed her attire. A white, sleeveless summer dress that came down to a little above the knees. Underneath that, jeans. And sandals.

Amanda wondered if it was some kind of new trend. It didn’t look wrong, just… uncommon. “Yeah,” she said, distracted. “I didn’t really think it through and I ruined what had been an otherwise enjoyable… evening? For you,” she finally managed to pull her eyes upwards again, meeting with Hannah’s light brown eyes.

“Thank you,” Hannah said. Amanda could see a hint of amusement in her expression, which annoyed her. “I forgive you.”

She said nothing more, which bothered Amanda. “That’s all you gotta say?”

Hannah raised an eyebrow, and Amanda got a flashback to the skyscraper. She puckered her lips, narrowing her eyes. “What? Don’t like the ironic echo?” She said with a chuckle, “Maybe now we can really stop fighting after every two words.”

Amanda couldn’t help but let go of her half-angry expression to chuckle. “Ok, you got me,” she admitted. “You sure you’re fine?”

“Yeah. Diana and Barbara cheered me up,” Hannah explained. Amanda felt a weight lifted from her chest. “Were you actually worried?” She asked with mockery.

Amanda snorted, looking away. “I just felt kind of shitty,” she lied. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she warned, noticing the smirk on the shorter girl’s lips.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Hannah said, turning around. “Are done here?”

Amanda paused. She felt like the moment had passed a little too quickly. She had imagined something a little more… dramatic. But well, this wasn’t a movie. “Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Next time you go on a date make sure to not have me nearby, though.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hannah said, walking away. Amanda stared at her as she went and turned the corner. She remained in the small alleyway for a good five minutes afterwards, feeling like she should probably get moving, lest Hannah come out of the shop and see her still standing there being all awkward.

So, she moved, opting for going back to the Shiny Rod. For some reason, it didn’t feel like such a chore anymore.

Akko watched as Diana reached the finish line, marked b a giant red sign floating in the air, and let out the air she didn’t know she was holding. “My god Diana that was amazing!” Akko said, shaking the pilot seat with excitement. Despite all the crazy movements, she hadn’t  felt much of the g-forces Diana probably had. She wasn’t sure how the simulator distinguished between them but she didn’t care.

“Thank you,” Diana said, smiling. A genuine smile. “I can’t believe this. With a simulator of this nature I can be a lot more daring without a fearing for the wellbeing of my broom. I can determine which strategies work and which don’t far more easily,” she moved her fingers, relaxing them. Akko was going over the small race in her head. It had been a race against time, not against racers, since without a gunman they couldn’t defend themselves. But Diana had been so… Cool. The way she almost brushed against trees to save time, the way she could turn around big rocks or particularly wide trees without hesitating, her incredible ability to squeeze through groups of trees that were too close to each other. Akko had counted the number of times Diana had done something she definitely wouldn’t have been able to do, and had come up with fifteen instances of it. Fifteen instances of things she would definitely learn to do in the future. “And it also simulates the amount of fuel,” Diana noticed, “It’s… truly amazing.”

“I know! Diana, we’re going to win this race. With this, the IPR is in the human bag!” Akko said with excitement. All she wanted was for Diana to understand this, and she actually looked like she understood it better than Akko. Noone could stop them now. “We’re going to raze this race!” She said.

Diana stopped smiling, looking at her with a flat look. “Was that necessary?”

“Diana,” Akko said in full seriousness. “Puns are always necessary.”

Diana rolled her eyes, looking forward again. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Akko asked. She hadn’t done anything. Unless she had just opened Diana’s mind about how great puns were.

“For showing me this. You didn’t have to, but you did.”

Akko tried to process what she was saying. “What? Why wouldn’t I show it to you?” It made no sense. Was Diana implying she would’ve forgotten to show her? Well, it wasn’t impossible, but it didn’t feel like that would be a very good reason to thank anyone.

Diana paused. “Nevermind me, I’m just being silly,” she shook her head.

Akko frowned, poking her shoulder. “No, now you tell me.”

“I repeat, it’s not something you should worry yourself about,” Diana insisted. Akko poked her again, with more strength this time. “You can keep prodding me, I will not…” Akko did it again, though this time she started poking the whole length of the arm, to make a point. Diana’s skin was smooth and soft. It was nice to the touch, and Akko felt strangely compelled to caress it. “Ok, ok, please stop, it’s really distracting.”

Akko stopped. “So, what was it?”

“I’m… surprised that you didn’t keep this to yourself because you could have gotten a lot of advantage over me, since I’m not getting as much practice as I should. I mean, did you not say we’re rivals? Giving your rival the means to get better doesn’t look like the best option,” Diana explained. She sighed. “But, on the other hand, you’re a kind person, so I’m ashamed I thought that way. Sorry.”

Akko looked at her for a second. She really looked to be regretting it. “It’s ok, what you thought is natural,” Akko put a hand on her shoulder. “But for me, being rivals isn’t just about being better than you. It’s about being better than the best Diana. The one that has gotten as much training as possible, the one that has all the information she needs to work out a strategy and act on it,” she was actually kind of afraid of that. If Diana was this good with the little practice she got, what wouldn’t she be able to do with this simulator? “If I can’t beat you at your best, what’s the point?”

Diana nodded weakly. What Akko said made sense. It was pure logic, the kind one wouldn’t expect from her. Yet, something was… different. She felt her chest warm up. Stupid, it was stupid. She had just stated that she wanted to beat Diana at her best. There was nothing else to it. But, when thinking about it for a second, would she have done the same? In Akko’s place, would she give up such a great advantage over her?

She didn’t know. Maybe she would have, but she was afraid to admit it would have probably been only because that way they would have a better chance of winning the race. If the rivalry had been only between her and Akko, no aliens involved…

Was she a bad person? Or was Akko just that much of a good one?

Diana nodded weakly. Then she proceeded to stay perfectly still for what felt like an eternity, until she turned to look at Akko, moving her blonde and tea-green hair out of the way. “You can be so smart when you want, you know that?” She said. Akko felt like something had just changed. Something in the ambient. In the mood.

What was this pressure?

“I mean, it’s normal,” Akko laughed nervously, not sure of why Diana’s shift of tone made her so uncomfortable.

Diana shook her head. “It’s not,” she said. She had a really intense look. It was kind of creeping Akko out, in all honesty. What had she done? Was Diana angry? She didn’t look angry. Maybe she was tired? Amanda had been tired, probably. Wait, Amanda had nothing to do with this. And why did Akko relate anger with tiredness? Sure, she got grumpy if she was tired, but- “You are just a great person, Akko. I really am glad to be able to call you my friend,” Diana finished, derailing Akko’s thoughts.

She’s so close. She’s so pretty, was all she could thought in relation to what Diana had said. Akko, unexpectedly, blushed.

“Akko!” Amanda’s voice suddenly came from the outside, and both girls in the cockpit jumped. Akko’s heart started to pound her chest. Why had that moment felt so weird? So intimate? Why did she feel like something important had just been interrupted by the redhead?

“Alcor, open the windshield,” Akko said. The windshield opened instantly, pulling the cloth behind it. “Amanda, did you need to shout? You startled me!” Akko complained.

She couldn’t see Amanda’s face, but she suspected she’d be smiling. “What were you two doing in there, huh?” She asked with a suggestive tone.

Akko completely missed the implication. “We’re simulating a race, duh,” she replied, clueless. Amanda sighed, and moved to climb onto the turret. Akko dropped back into the cockpit, closing the windshield, and waited for her to be done with it. “Great, now we can practice with a gunman. What do you say?” She asked to Diana.

Diana slowly stood, rounding the seat from the side opposite to Akko – bending her body to a point that obviously made her uncomfortable – and stepped behind the seat. Akko had kind of been pushed against the seat, since the space behind it wasn’t precisely… spacious. Diana’s body was pressed against Akko’s, and it kind of restricted the brunette’s movements. “I believe,” Diana said, somehow keeping a serious face, “that you should be the one piloting next.”

Akko decided not to question it, if only to move out of the awkward position they were in, and sat on the pilot seat after some crazy maneuvering. The cockpit was smaller than usual because it was in Shooting Star mode. “Amanda, you there?”

“Yah. Though I won’t be much longer,” she said with unusual cheerfulness. Had her meeting with Hannah gone well? Sounded like it.

“Alcor, change back to the simulation with the Shiny Rod,” Akko said. A minute later, the simulation and cockpit had already shifted. Diana watched with immense interest as the cockpit transformed, studying the movements. She crouched at one point, looking as the walls slid back to make it a little more spacious. She even leaned over Akko to look at the windshield.

“It’s incredible,” she mentioned, “even the crystal changes. Akko, this isn’t just futuristic technology, this is straight up Science Fiction,” she sounded excited.

“Well, I dunno much about it, but the ship’s ten years old, so it can’t be that impressive, right?” Akko said, feeling a little self conscious about having such a good ship.

“Fucking hell,” Amanda said in the background, “this whole shift thing happens too fast, I hit my head,” she said.

“Nonsense,” Diana stood back again, hand on her chin as she thought, ignoring completely Amanda’s comment. “Just think about it: Crystal that can expand and compress without breaking? This could change the entire way we see building. Are we sure this was made by humans? I mean, it may run on magic, but I highly…”

“Diana,” Akko stopped her, “All I understand is that the Shiny Rod is the best, but I would really appreciate it if you helped me with the simulation.”

Diana started. “Help you?”

“Yeah, you’re great, I’m not.”

“I think you should ask Ursula about it,” Diana grimaced, obviously not happy about the idea. “I’m… not a great teacher, Akko.”

“I don’t agree. You help Hannah and Barbara study, right? They do great in exams,” Akko countered. She had seen them studying together a couple times. Given, her time at school hadn’t been much, but it had been enough.

“It’s not the same as teaching someone to fly, Akko. I’m not qualified,” Diana explained. “Ursula would really be able to tell the failings in your technique…” She seemed doubtful about that last part. Truth was, Ursula had been a decent teacher, but she usually stayed in her room, not meddling much with the kids. Akko was a little unhappy with that, since it meant she didn’t get to ask as many Chariot questions as she wanted.

“Well then, just stay there and watch,” Akko accepted. “Alcor, start a race. Add another four ships from the first category,” she said. The Shiny Rod suddenly teleported to other race grounds in Pan. The other four teams the Shiny Rod had simulated were the Appali, the Armors, the Medusas and the Shapeshifter. Akko was kind of surprised it could even simulate the organic beings inside the ships, like the clearly visible medusa.

This new area of the planet was kind of a swamp. The wild life was a lot less saturated in color, and the ground was more water and mud that it was actual dirt. “Hmm,” Diana mumbled, “this terrain would be a huge disadvantage for the Shooting Star. Too many ponds of water where it would lose speed… Good thing the Shiny Rod doesn’t have such problems,” she nodded.

Akko wasn’t sure why the Shiny Rod could run on water – the same way she hadn’t even been aware that normal brooms couldn’t until not long ago. She cocked her head. “Alcor, why can the Shiny Rod move on water, unlike most brooms?”

Surprisingly enough, the bird appeared to answer. The Shiny Rod’s Hovering works by repelling any kind of surface with pure magic, Unlike normal human hovering ships, it doesn’t require of a solid surface to stay above it. Any surface would do, as long as it’s not gas, the bird explained. Akko nodded, since to her it made as much sense as anything else.

Diana, though, she was awed. She leaned forward, checking the familiar. “That’s impossible. It’s like… Like if you were using magnetism, but instead of that you’re just using Magic Energy to pull away from things. That’s not hovering, that’s straight up levitation!”

Alcor didn’t answer to her complain. Diana grunted, frustrated. Akko didn’t make an effort to question further, she was certain Alcor wouldn’t understand something that complex. “Can we start?”

“Yes please, I’m getting bored out of my mind,” Amanda commented. For the first time, Diana realized she was actually hearing Amanda, and looked around to see where the sound was coming from. Akko didn’t know either, it hadn’t been a part of the tutorial.

“Go ahead,” Diana said, arms crossed, obviously unhappy with the result.

“Start!” Akko cried, and a big three appeared in front of them. She turned on the turret. Two. She looked back at Diana. One.

The race started. Akko planned to push the limits of the Shiny Rod for this simulation. “Amanda! Be aggressive!” she ordered.

Instantly, the guns started firing at their nearest rival – the shapeshifter.

Maybe doing things a little differently would help her come up with better ideas on how to run the race.

Amanda wasn’t focused. She was focus. Nothing but the deepest of layers of her brain conserved autonomy, and when Akko had ordered to be aggressive, she had become the most aggressive being on the universe.

She was currently shooting furiously at the shapeshifter on rapid-fire. The being kept maneuvering around the stream of bullets, using the occasional tree to gain some advantage. But Amanda didn’t stop there. She couldn’t stop there.

From the other side, the armor ship approached, its three rings and two giant boulders surrounding it. The design was the same as for the Second Category, save for a big line of red painted in the front of the main boulder of a ship. Amanda couldn’t defend and attack at the same time – though she wasn’t sure why. It was as if something blocked her. She could feel it, she could tell she should be able, but… She just couldn’t. As if she didn’t have enough arms, despite being able to see at seven different points of space without trouble.

Well, as the saying went, a great offense is the best defense. As a giant stone ball approached, attacking, Akko dipped. Amanda wasn’t hindered by the sudden movement at all. It was strange, but she could tell what Akko was going to do before she did it, being able to instantly adjust her aiming. She aimed at the main body. The remaining stone stood in the middle of her shots, but she kept putting pressure on them. From the other side the shapeshifter tried to counterattack with some of those smoky bombs, but Amanda shot them and easily brought them down – except, the small bombs somehow dodged her shots and approached at high speed.

Amanda didn’t panic – she couldn’t panic – and turned on the Laser. In a swift motion the two projectiles were out of the air, leaving behind nothing but that black smoke so iconic of their race. She then switched again to rapid fire, as she felt Akko’s desire to not go overboard with energy, lest they met with the Output Limit.

As Akko dodged foliage, Amanda finally got to hit the shapeshifter. The entire ship fell backwards. Hitting shapeshifters was hard, but manage it, and they would suffer great damage. Of course, most beings didn’t understand that the shapeshifter ship was organic. It was, in a way, another shapeshifter, just way bigger. It wasn’t sentient, but it wasn’t that different from a domesticated animal. If it got hurt, it would panic for a while.

Amanda didn’t care about that. She had an order, so if the shapeshifter came into view again, she would shoot it. Now, as she focused all of her attention on the armors, she started shooting rapid fire with two of the spheres on that side of the ship, while using single-shot with another couple of them.

The constant barrage of fire, plus the different angles, eventually made it so that the giant stone ball finally left an opening as it tried to cover every shot. Amanda’s enhanced mind easily picked it up and pointed.

And her aim was thrown off by a sudden rock of the ship. They hadn’t been hit by an attack, they had just bumped against a tree. She could feel what Akko planned to do: That didn’t mean Akko would always be able to pull it off. She also felt Diana giving Akko instructions, though she couldn’t exactly make out the words. She could only hear Akko’s voice clearly, the other girl’s was but a whispered mumble of nonsense.

The mistake hadn’t been too disrupting, but Amanda had lost her opening. She didn’t feel frustrated or angry, since she couldn’t, so she went back to relentlessly harassing the armor ship through the trees and foliage.

However, someone else approached. The medusa.

Amanda was aware of race rules. Shooting at the medusa was incredibly inefficient. She could have used the laser, but the output that would generate would be too close to the limit for Akko to like it. Amanda had her hands – metaphorical hands, since she didn’t really have control of her body right now – tied as she saw the medusa approach. A few sparks of electricity crossed in between the medusa’s tentacles, and not long after, a jolt left the bubble of water to instantly impact against the Shiny Rod.

It wasn’t real electricity. It was an imitation, a fake medusas could create. Real electricity was deadly to them, due to the conductivity of their water. Unlike Earth’s water, Poseidon’s was as efficient in conductivity as a copper wire. So, if they created real electricity, they would basically zap themselves, and real electric attacks were really effective against them. Normal voltages wouldn’t kill them, but Amanda was aware of exactly the amount needed to do so. She also knew no other ship on the race had enough power to kill them off in a single shot. After a certain incident on a previous race, a limit had been put on the amount of electricity allowed for weapons.

The Shiny Rod took on the zap of electricity, rocking a little, but few attacks were able to truly harm the broom. What it did, however, was disrupt with the actual electricity running through the ship. Real or not, it had a lot of the same properties, and it wasn’t particularly friendly when interacting with other types of energy.

Amanda woke up, noticing the turret had been turned off. A sudden turn of the ship threw her against one of the sides, and she grunted. Wasn’t this supposed to be just a simulation? Why was she getting hurt? “Akko!” she cried, “Turret’s off, you idiot, turn it on again!”

“Sorry, having a little trouble!” Akko shouted.

“Akko, stabilizers,” Diana said. Right, she was here too, “the Rod is leaning leftwards.”

“Right, thanks…” Amanda lost track of what she was saying as the turret was turned on again. A flash of knowledge filled her brain for a split second before she quickly readapted and took in her surroundings. The tall trees and dark plant life of Pan coming into view.

Aggressiveness, she recalled. That had been her order.

The medusa was about to release another jolt of electricity, but this time Akko dodged. Amanda looked at the armor, who had fallen back as the conical appal ship had approached and threw their own barrage of attacks at them. They were busy defending with the two giant stone balls.

They kept moving through the jungle. Akko managed to squeeze between two really close together trees by making the Shiny Rod go vertical, but that gave Amanda a disadvantage since she had decided to put the downside of the broom towards the armors, who even if they were fighting against the appali kept getting closer and closer.

Akko didn’t return to horizontal flying. The Shiny Rod had a better pull upwards than downwards, by nature, so Akko took what she had learned on the previous race and applied it to better maneuver through this area of the jungle, area which kept getting more and more thick with trees and foliage as the water disappeared and gave way to a humid but drier section of land.

Akko’s constant shift in movements didn’t disrupt Amanda for their suddenness, but for the simple fact that they forced Amanda to keep changing which weapon-spheres she had to focus on to be able to attack. She attacked as she could, focusing on the closest enemy, the medusa. She aimed at the outer zone of her bubble, knowing that the magic energy would help to eventually stop it from moving, but there was always a point where the amount of water left was just enough to keep the medusa from moving but also just thin enough to basically turn any possible attacks into suicide moves. The armor technically had the strongest defense, but Amanda knew they didn’t have the best defense. The medusas definitely had a better one, and the octopus arguably too, assuming they had mastered their own reflective shields as well as it seemed.

The medusa prepared another bolt. Amanda didn’t risk it. She had been ordered to be aggressive, but she had her own priorities, ones which couldn’t be overruled even by direct orders from the pilot. Keep the pilot alive. Keep the pilot on the race, and more importantly: Help them win.

Amanda rose a shield just as electricity left the bubble, and good thing she did, since Akko wouldn’t have been able to dodge that, as she was too focused trying to not crash the Shiny Rod into anything. It would be hard, if only because somehow the shapeshifter had gotten ahead and had begun to cut down trees with their passing. The half-living ship had some incredible resistance, being able to sharpen itself and attack. Not enough to cut through metal or stone, but wood… Yeah, wood was another story.

Diana said something. Amanda could feel she was being skeptic about the simulation, but not about what exactly. It didn’t bother her.

Another attack from the medusa was caught by the shield. Amanda instantly took it off, deciding she had no more patience. She turned on laser mode, ready to get rid of  it before it became more of a problem.

She shot. She had nearly perfect aim. Anyone inside the turret would instantly become an amazing gunman. Of course, the more training the better. Amanda already had a relatively good kinetic vision, which was enhanced thanks to the Shiny Rod, but her aiming was average. She understood that if she trained more her normal ability it would be greatly enhanced, going to near perfect to absolutely flawless. Sadly, she wouldn’t remember that upon coming out of the turret.

Akko finally returned to a horizontal flying position as the jungle opened up a little, allowing her to fly more comfortably. She was doing a great job of dodging the trees coming from up front, but Amanda still kept an eye out in case she miscalculated. She doubted that’d be the case, though, with Diana near her in the cockpit giving her instructions.

And, all of a sudden, the race ended. That was one of the things Amanda never had access to. She was to always follow her orders, no matter the stage of the race. Then, the turret turned off.

Amanda shook her head noticing that the Shiny Rod had stopped moving. “Akko?”

“We came in second,” Akko informed, sounding frustrated. “The shapeshifters won.”

“Their mobility gives them a great advantage normally, but in places like Pan…” Diana mentioned. “Don’t get discouraged though. We still have days to figure this out.”

“Let’s go again. I didn’t take the optimal path this time. Maybe if I go a little faster in more empty places…” Akko sounded like she was thinking hard. Weird, for her.

“Can’t I just shoot off every tree in the way?” Amanda suggested.

“Already tried that, didn’t work,” Akko mentioned.

“Oh did you really? It had also occurred to me, but I suppose these trees are too tall and thick for it to be a feasible strategy,” Diana said. She sounded so… stuck-up. Even when saying stuff like this. Did she have to ask ‘did you really’? Why did she sound surprised? Akko was smarter than she gave her credit for being.

“Yeah,” Akko said, explaining what the results had been. Amanda didn’t really get much of it, since she didn’t even know how Pan looked yet. “Anyways, wanna go again, or should I…?”

“You need it more than me, I believe,” Diana said. “You can do it, Akko.”

Wait, the way Diana had just sounded… “Ok, let’s go!”

The turret turned on again. Amanda didn’t focus. She became focus.

Hannah dropped her bags on top of her bed, sitting down on the desk’s chair and looking at Barbara as she left hers on the floor. “Where’s Diana?” Hannah asked, noticing the blonde was indeed not in the room like she had said she would.

“Well, I guess she’s… I dunno. The fact that Amanda found us was probably related to her, though,” Barbara said while taking out a shirt from a bag. She hurriedly placed it on the small backpack she had bought to carry all of her new stuff, not letting Hannah see it. It was a black shirt, kind of normal looking. Did it have some kind of drawing on it? No way of knowing, now.

Amanda. Hannah smiled when she recalled the scene at the small alleyway. She had been flustered, hadn’t she? What a strange expression for her to have. “Well, who cares,” she yawned. Now she really was tired, but not enough to want to sleep. Barbara looked at Hannah’s bags and at Hannah’s own new backpack.

“Aren’t you going to pack?”

“We still have like two days,” Hannah shrugged. She just wanted to sit down. They had walked a lot.

Barbara rolled her eyes. “You know, leaving things in bags is still messy. I don’t get how you can be so ordered with other things but not this.”

Hannah shrugged again. They had this conversation basically every week. Hannah stood, ready to comply and pack some of her things, but the door suddenly opened. Diana stood on the threshold, and despite wearing her usual face, when she moved into the room she looked hurried. “Hannah, wonderful,” she said. “Follow me.”

Hannah cocked her head, looking at Barbara, who shook her head slightly to show that she obviously had no idea what was with that neither. “Uhm, why?”

“I have something to show you,” Diana paused, looking at Barbara. “I’d invite you too, but it’s flying related, so…”

“It’s fine, go,” Barbara waved smiling, “I’ll just hang out with Lotte for a while.”

Hannah hesitated. Barbara wasn’t really happy with it. “Wanna come anyways?” Diana looked at Hannah with interest. She didn’t object, however. “It may be boring though.”

Barbara dropped her fake smile, replacing it with a curious expression. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, worst case scenario you can probably just come back and hang out with Lotte anyways,” Hannah said. Barbara took a few seconds, but with an energetic nod she agreed. Diana watched the exchange as peaceful as ever, so Hannah assumed she wasn’t particularly annoyed at the results.

“Ok, let’s go,” Diana turned and walked away. Hannah and Barbara followed.

Barbara stood, watching as Hannah disappeared under the ship covered by a cloth. Not long after, Amanda came out the same way, standing and dusting off her clothes before looking up. She examined Barbara with some surprise before shrugging and walking to stand beside her.

Barbara’s opinion of Amanda was not the most favorable one. While she certainly didn’t have as much problems with her as Hannah, it was hard to ignore how aggressively assertive and loud she was, never really caring much for what others said and always off to cause some mischief. Or, at least, that’s how it had been back at Luna Nova.

Amanda was still rather confrontational and she was prone to giving angered looks to the members of the blue team, but she had chilled out. And, more important, she seemed to no longer have beef with Diana and Hannah, which had always been a source of dislike for Barbara. In fact, how Amanda had apologized earlier had worked wonders to make her more of a person in her eyes.

“So,” Amanda said, “why are you here?”

Barbara looked at her. She didn’t look that interested, so it was probably just to make some conversation. “Hannah invited me. Though I kind of expected this outcome,” Barbara replied. She looked at the redhead, who looked like she hadn’t even heard the answer.

“I get how you must feel,” Amanda said, not looking at Barbara. “Being constantly left aside, even if not on purpose,” she spoke casually, but Barbara’s interest rose. Was Amanda being sensitive?

“It’s not a big deal,” Barbara shrugged. “Things will get back to normal in a couple months. I’ve been friends with them for a long time, particularly Hannah,” she explained. She deviated her look, instinctively looking at the Shiny Rod, where her friends were right now. “How good is that simulation, really?” She asked.

Amanda shrugged. “Don’t know, haven’t experienced it,” she explained.

Barbara felt a little foolish for her question. “Oh, right. Sorry,” she desperately thought of something else to say. “So… Can you tell me exactly what happened at the play?”

This caught Amanda’s attention, who snapped her head around to stare at Barbara with intensity. “Why do you ask?” She asked carefully. Barbara smirked on the inside.

“Well, you even apologized to Hannah. She told me some things, but I would like to know the details,” she said, trying not to look too amused by Amanda’s reaction. She knew she was most likely failing.

Amanda  sighed, looking away. “I…” Was she blushing? “Ah, whatever, just don’t tell anyone else, ok?” She asked. Barbara nodded, she wanted to hear it. “Well, I went to the play because the actress looked hot on the posters,” she explained. Barbara already knew that, from what Hannah had told her. “But she ended up not being as hot in person, so… I just kind of stared at Hannah instead,” her voice struggled to say that. “I mean, she looked really good, you know?”

“Of course I know, I helped her pick it,” Barbara couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice or face any longer. Amanda was admitting she found Hannah attractive. That was the very definition of something amusing.

“Anyways, while looking at her, I noticed Andrew was like, not paying attention to her at all. I still wonder if he’s gay. Wouldn’t be surprised, no straight guy could have ignored such a beauty,” Amanda continued. Barbara was smiling at this point, though Amanda hadn’t noticed, since she was looking away in a mixture of embarrassment and reluctance that made Barbara want to laugh. “So then I pointed it out to Hannah, who explained it hadn’t actually been a date and… Well, she got kinda depressed, I guess,” she finished. “At least this drama got solved quickly.”

“So you like Hannah now?” Barbara teased.

Amanda looked at her, still kind of blushed, but not really flustered. “I just think she’s pretty. Guess I wouldn’t mind spending a night with her, but like is a strong word,” Amanda looked up, as if thinking. “Yeah, I don’t think Hannah’s really my type. Too… sassy,” she shivered as she imagined something that made her uncomfortable.

“Too sassy? Really?” Barbara raised an eyebrow.

“Eh, to each their own,” Amanda shrugged.

Barbara shook her head, though she could kind of understand what Amanda meant. This, however, brought another thing to mind. “So… did you dance with her because you liked her?” Barbara asked.

Amanda looked at her with a dumbfounded expression. “No!” she exclaimed. “We literally just danced because… Ehm… Hannah was being a bitch or something, I don’t quite remember. Why are you so hung up on that?!” She sounded exasperated.

Barbara found it hard to explain, but she tried anyways. “It’s just… I don’t know. You were like hating each other back then,” she thought back to when Lotte had first shown her the photo. She had recognized them, but she hadn’t want to believe Amanda and Hannah were actually dancing, so she had kind of blocked the idea from her thoughts.

“Yes, I know. But it was just a dance,” Amanda insisted.

“No, it was not,” Barbara put emphasis on the last word, making Amanda pause. “Hannah is not someone… easy to handle,” she sighed. “When she really hates someone, she will be repulsed by their mere presence. And, most of all, I think you mentioned she invited you?”

“Yeah. I was breakdancing for an audience – I tend to have that effect on people – and then we talked about something I don’t remember. I was kinda annoyed, though. Then she invited me to dance and I ended up accepting. There’s really nothing more to it.”

Barbara didn’t buy it, but she didn’t push the issue. Amanda obviously didn’t know her best friend half as much as she did, so she didn’t see the inconsistency. What had pushed Hannah to suggest them dancing? Had she been watching Amanda dance? She had liked seeing guys doing sports back in middle school. But that was it, and she certainly never invited one to dance out of nowhere. Maybe she saw it differently because Amanda was a girl.

Barbara eyed the redhead. Amanda was hot, there was no denying that. Even Hannah would be able to see it. Barbara had seen Hannah fall head over heels for any guy that looked hot, and when she’d met Andrew, he took the first place and no one had been able to dethrone her. To be fair, Barbara had also been kind of in love with him until not so long ago.

“Would you consider yourself as being a hot guy?” Barbara asked Amanda.

Amanda deadpanned her. “What?”

“Would you consi-”

“I heard the question. I mean, why would you ask that?” She asked.

Barbara was sure she was over-thinking. Reading nightfall had kind of created a bad habit on her in which she just tried to piece together every single interaction everyone had and work out why they’d had it and what hidden meaning those could have. But, of course, reality was not a written story. Not every interaction had to have a deeper, secret meaning.

But where was the fun in that? “Assume you were a boy. Just, don’t change anything else about you. Would you say you’re hot?”

“Of course,” Amanda didn’t hesitate. “That doesn’t answer my question, though.”

Barbara ignored her. Yeah, of course she would be hot. Being hot meant different things for everyone, but there were some commont traits most everyone found attractive. An athletic body, which Amanda definitely had. A peculiar hair color, which Amanda’s flaming orange hair was. Beautiful eyes, and those emeralds were the textbook definition of them. Hell, Barbara could feel herself falling in love with Amanda just by thinking about this.

Andrew also held two of these perks and he substituted the hair with money, which whether people liked to admit it or not, was always an attractive feature.

“I’m asking because maybe Hannah thinks you’re hot,” Barbara explained. It made sense. She had never shown interest in girls, but to be fair, she and Barbara had never been to schools that particularly encouraged girls like Amanda to show up. Wait, maybe that explained the obsession Hannah had with that weather reporter when they were little…

“Excuse you?” Amanda asked, disbelief obvious in both her face and voice.

“I mean, it’s just a hunch, but I am really good with hunches. Particularly if they relate to Hannah. Plus, you just admitted you found her pretty,” Barbara spoke rather quickly, as she often did whenever she had too much on her mind. Could Hannah like Amanda? Nah, like Amanda had said, maybe like was too strong a word.

For now.

“Don’t be silly,” Amanda snorted. “Bitch’s as straight as they come,” she said. Barbara couldn’t really refute the point, Hannah was straight. But, then again, how many times had Barbara heard stories about ‘straight’ girls who just had fallen for a single girl for reasons outside their sex? Plus, gender meant next to nothing in this day and age. There was even a push to just create a gender neutral pronoun and be on with it. A lot of languages had them, so why not English? Most people just used ‘he’ and ‘she’ as convenience anyways.

“You like girls, right?” Barbara asked, trying to work through her mind. She was starting to get overwhelmed all on her own.

“I like women,” Amanda corrected. “Big boobs, long hair, pretty face. Don’t really like’em smartasses, but I suppose I don’t mind a relatively intellectual girl, as long as she doesn’t try to start a religious debate with me or something.”

Yes, she was definitely attracted to women. Barbara had never actually asked Hannah about these things. She was usually so vocal about who she liked that there was no need. So…

“Hey, you’re not thinking anything weird, are you?” Amanda narrowed her eyes while looking at Barbara.

Barbara was caught off guard by the question, and her train of thought was derailed. “W-what? No! Of course not…” Was she? “It’s one of the first rules of shipping: Don’t ship real life persons,” Barbara quoted. Then, she face-palmed. “Oh my god I said that out loud.”

“Are you serious?”

“Shut up,” Barbara crossed her arms, petulant. “I’m just thinking that Hannah might think you’re hot, there’s nothing weird about that. Even if someone is straight, they can find someone of the same sex attractive on an aesthetic level,” of course, that was an excuse. The more she thought about it, the more she came to the realization Amanda wasn’t exactly a bad fit for Hannah. Sure, they bashed heads all day, but that was kind of the point. Few people were able to keep Hannah – the real Hannah, not the bashful version of herself she presented to hot guys – in check. If they managed to work past their issues…

“Did you tell your best friend any of this?” Amanda asked.

Barbara gave her a harsh look. “If you dare tell her I will say that you confessed to me that you like her,” she threatened.

Amanda stared, unimpressed. “I mean, I wasn’t going to tell her, but if you put it like that I might just do it,” she threatened in return.

Barbara let out an indignant ‘hmph’ as she looked at Amanda. “Fine, whatever,” as far as Hannah didn’t find out about this she supposed it was fine. It wasn’t that bad anyways, but Hannah was the kind to never forget these kinds of things.

They stayed in silence for a while, Barbara slowly falling back into her lucubration. Then, she recalled something interesting. She and Lotte had been pretty excited about a certain event. They hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about it because, well, they would find out eventually and you had to be a Nightfall fan to care anyways.

But maybe…

She eyed Amanda stealthily. Yeah, this could work, she thought with a smile.

Diana broom-jumped over a small line of trees that was about seven meters tall. Jumping two meters with a broom wasn’t that hard, but it required some practice. Practice Diana didn’t have. The Shooting Star’s belly crashed into the tops of the trees, but luckily it didn’t cause too much damage. To her right, she could see the daemon second-category ship. Akko had suggested she practice with first category simulations, because then she’d be practicing with the best pilots, but that wasn’t exactly how things worked. Sure, First Categories were arguably better than seconds, but races were also about matchups. Different pilots flew differently, no matter if they were of the same race. Save maybe for shapeshifters.

Therefore, it would be useless for Diana to practice against First Categories. If the Shiny Rod really was creating perfect simulations of how these aliens would pilot, then all that would do was fill Diana with instincts and reflexes prepared to counteract pilots she was not against.

So, as she watched the daemon ship approaching, she prepared. She still recalled what had happened back in the last lap of the race, obviously. That attack, the shield it had released to keep everyone trapped… The shield wouldn’t be very useful in an open track like the jungle was, but the attack would also be way more effective. Like Diana’s nitro, but way more dangerous.

Diana did a few quick movements, flipping a small number of switches. The Shooting Star slowed down, but in turn, the magic not used for movement was redirected to the pilots. Their perception of time warped, making them feel like the world outside was slowing down. Right on cue, a barrage of attacks came, shot directly from the tip of the four sets of wings on the daemon’s ship. Red bolts of raw inferno – like electric shocks – appeared between them. Diana was ready to dodge by the time the barrage of shots left the black ship with the white stripe.

She was able to maneuver between the inferno projectiles, receiving minimum damage. Upon seeing it wasn’t making much of a difference, the attack stopped.

“How?!” Akko suddenly exclaimed. Diana was taken by surprise. She had kind of forgotten Akko was right behind her, and the sudden movement of one of the joysticks made the Shooting Star lean about thirty degrees to the left. “Oh, sorry,” Akko whispered as Diana made sure the sudden movement hadn’t taken her off path or left her open for attacks. “That was so… Amazing,” Akko said. “Do you always do that?”

Diana tried very hard not to glare backwards. She did not like being bothered while flying. No one did, but Diana found herself wanting to throw Akko out of the cockpit right there and then. Akko was kind and all, but Diana had a harsh reminder of the fact that she was also loud and slightly annoying.

“Diana?” Akko insisted.

“Akko, please,” Diana said, voice coming angrier than she wanted. “Trying to focus.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

The finish line was close. Diana could see the red stripe on the distance, but there were too many trees on the way for Nitro to be a viable option. Even with if her reaction time had been enhanced, breaking the sound barrier was not something worth the risk.

Or was it?

I’m in a simulation, Diana thought. Now’s the time to tell if It’s actually worth it or not. Now’s the moment to take risks.

So she did. She looked at the finish line, at all the trees and foliage in the middle, and pressed the rightmost pedal of the broom.

Nitro, with the current state of the Shooting Star, was not as dangerous as the normal one. However, this meant that she was still going slower than she should have. Trees started to become a blur as she barely dodged them, and Hannah occasionally shot at whoever came too close.

The finish line kept getting closer and closer. Diana wasn’t sure if she was first, but she had the feeling she was. Just a little bit more…

Red. She hadn’t noticed that the daemons had fallen back, but as she saw the trail of red light pass right besides her, piercing through trees like if they were paper, she cursed internally.

The race ended, the simulation paused, and Diana sighed. A small leaderboard appeared in front of her.

Wait, third? When had the shapeshifter gotten ahead of her?

“So, now you gonna tell me?” Akko asked. Diana sighed.

“I wish this seat could just turn around. It’d be so much easier to talk that way,” Diana commented, annoyed by not being able to look Akko in the face. Akko let out a thoughtful hum before snapping her fingers.

“Ah, wait. Alcor, can you make the pilot seat turn around?” She said. Diana frowned. That seemed like a silly thing to say. Why would a broom-racer have such a feature?

She didn’t have her answer, but the seat turned around anyways. She yelped with surprise as the seat moved, and in a second she was staring at Akko, who was standing, head crouched, with a smile. Diana instantly started questioning what were the limits of the Shiny Rod. She was aware of the fact that it could change forms and transform, but she had always thought those were things built into it. Could it take any form? It had seemingly infinite energy, so why not infinite matter? Could it manipulate it at will? Could it…

“Diana, you fine?” Akko asked. They were really close together now. If not for the Shiny Rod somehow keeping the temperature in the cockpit stable, Diana would’ve sworn she was getting hot.

“I’m just impressed by the capabilities of this broom,” she stated. Akko nodded, understanding. Then, she stared at Diana expectantly. Oh, right. “To answer your question, no. What I just did is… an experimental feature. I’ve never used before because I haven’t really needed to,” she said. Speaking with Akko so close to her face made her regret what she had said earlier. She’d rather speak while facing the windshield. “It has been proven that great concentrations of magic can shift our perception of time. So, by taking a certain amount out of our broom’s engines and applying it to the cockpit and turret, the pilot and gunman can perceive time slower outside. It strengthens the normal reaction-enhancing properties broom-racers have, but it takes away power. In a race, becoming slower isn’t precisely good, but in places like Pan where there’s so many obstacles, it might just be worth it…” Diana trailed off. Akko was giving her a weird look.

“Sorry, I kind of lost track of what you were saying halfway through,” Akko chuckled, fidgeting with her fingers.

Diana sighed again. “It just makes me go slower but I can see things outside the ship better, so it’s a good fit for Pan but it’s not for most places.”

“Ooooh,” Akko understood. “Can the Shiny Rod do that?” Akko frowned. Diana shrugged. “It’s your turn, so you might as well test it.”

She and Akko shifted places – with the new position of the seat it was far easier – And Akko got ready to start.

“Hey,” Hannah suddenly said. “I’m still here, gimmie a second to change places with Amanda.”

“Actually,” Diana also said, “I would like to stretch my legs a little. Would you mind if I step out?”

Akko nodded, opening the windshield for her. Diana crawled outside of the ship and stood, watching as Barbara and Amanda approached. Hannah also came out of the ship.

“So, how’d it go?” Barbara asked.

Diana noticed she and Amanda were pointedly not looking at each other. It was not like they were the best of friends, but Diana didn’t think Barbara had much of a problem with Amanda, besides the basic dislike all three members of the blue team shared for the redhead.

“Badly,” Diana said. “I lost both simulated races.”

“It’s my fault,” Hannah instantly said, “I wasn’t good enough with my shots.”

Amanda suddenly perked up, staring dumbfounded at Hannah. “Wait a second, you remember?” She stepped forward, looking at Hannah as if she was a ghost.

“Yeah,” Hannah said, voice shifting as she realized the strangeness of it. “Yeah, that’s weird. Why did that happen?”

“Maybe because it was a simulation of the Shooting Star?” Barbara suggested.

Diana nodded in agreement. It made sense. Still, it just opened up more questions. If the wiping of memory was optional, what was the reason Amanda’s had to be wiped? Was it something about how the Shiny Rod’s weapons worked?

“Fucking stupid broom,” Amanda grunted, walking towards the thing. “What’s your damn problem,” she punched it as she bended to crawl under it. Diana expected the alarm to go off, but it didn’t. “This is bullshit, I swear…” Amanda’s voice disappeared as she crawled into the turret.

“Sorry it took so long,” Hannah said to Barbara. They had been in there for about half an hour. Diana was already pretty tired, but she still planned to do at least two more attempts. She wondered if this is how people felt about playing videogames. She had never really dedicated much time to them.

“It’s fine,” Barbara shrugged. “I got to chat with Amanda, at least.”

Hannah raised an eyebrow. Diana was also interested, but Barbara didn’t give any more details. Instead, she smiled knowingly, hiding some kind of information. By the look she gave Hannah, she suspected it had something to do with her.

“Well, whatever. I’m tired now. Those simulations can be stressful, huh? They feel so real,” Hannah said. Diana agreed. A couple of times she had forgotten she was not in a real race.

“Do you wish to finish for today, then?” Diana asked. Hannah nodded, to Diana’s disappointment. “I see. Well then, I’ll wait for Akko to come out and tell her. Go on ahead.”

Hannah frowned. “No,” she grabbed Diana’s arm. “You also need some sleep, and Akko can figure out why you disappeared on her own, or even call you if she so wishes,” she started dragging her.

“W-wait,” Diana was surprised, “are you angry with me?” she asked with concern. Hannah kept pulling on her, Barbara following.

“No. Yes. Maybe,” she did not let go. “I’m just tired of ditching you.”

Ditching? Diana didn’t understand. “But I said that you-”

“Fuck what you said. You’re tired too, I can tell. Let’s just all go to sleep.”

Diana was still taken aback by the sudden attitude. She looked back at the Shiny Rod. She still wished to stay, tell Akko what she had done. She didn’t like leaving things unfinished. But Hannah’s grab on her wrist, her expression and the way her foot tapped the ground told her that she was not going to change her mind.

“I think she has a point,” Barbara added. “Come on, let’s go to sleep. You can keep practicing tomorrow.”

Diana looked down. “Fine,” she gave in. “Let us sleep for now. I’ll inform Akko through Amanda’s wand,” not the perfect choice, but… Well, something within her just didn’t want Akko to think she’d just up and ditched her. Probably because if she did, she feared Akko would get mad and not let her use the simulator anymore. That didn’t sound like Akko at all, but it was a nice rationalization for her reluctance to go.

Hannah’s expression softened, and she let go of Diana. “Wait, Diana, did you eat anything?”

“Yes, I have,” Diana had eaten on Magic Deck.

“Ah, perfect. Let’s just sleep, then, I’m beat.”

“You took like a two hours nap not that long ago,” Barbara teased. Hannah snorted, and they started discussing.

Diana looked at the cloth-covered Shiny Rod one last time before following her friends towards the elevators. The Shiny Rod was more than a box of mysteries. Every new thing they learned about it just created a hundred more questions for everyone involved. Well, except Akko. She seemed fine with asking the simple ones, but she didn’t wonder about the more complicated stuff.

That was fine, too. Not everyone was a scholar. Akko was Akko, after all.

Chapter Text

Akko lost. Again and again. She had been practicing with the rules of a normal race, meaning ten opponents, and she just kept losing. She never managed to come in first. In fact, she had only managed to get in third at best. She kept trying new things: Being purely defensive, being purely aggressive, middle grounds, going fast, going slower, trying to use that special mode the Shooting Star had – the Shiny Rod could actually emulate it – but none of it worked. The shapeshifter kept getting ahead no matter what. The daemons used the Noir Rod way more effectively than she used the Shiny Rod. The plants knew the terrain better.

The simulation ended.

“You’re too afraid of going faster,” Ursula said. Akko had brought her into the cockpit the previous day after getting frustrated. She seemed very uncomfortable, and not because of the weird position she was in.

“I know, I know, ‘you fly like if you were still on Machina’ and all that. I’ve been trying to go faster, but…”

“It’s scary,” Ursula shook her head, “but you need to get over it now that you’re in a simulator, Akko. You won’t be able to once you’re in the real deal.”

Akko nodded. She understood what Ursula was saying, but it was hard to get rid of the instincts she had developed in Machina, of the careful manipulation of speed she had been forced to learn to do in that race. And she was certain the gravity on Pan was different, too. Maybe not noticeably enough, but there had to be a reason she couldn’t get the hang of flying through the trees. Every race she hit one at least once. Diana had hit just a couple times. Akko had even asked Ursula to try it, but she had refused profusely, stating that her role was to teach, not to pilot.

“Let me give you a suggestion,” Ursula said. “Have you tried thinking about what you’re going to do before you do it?”

Akko looked up with a confused expression. “Ehm… Isn’t that everything I do?”

Ursula shook her head. “No. The Shiny Rod has a map feature doesn’t it? Try to use it. Plan an optimal path to the finish line, stick to it as close as possible, and then flow.”

Akko paused. “Flow?”

Ursula looked down. “It’s… Hard to explain. Akko, you have amazing instincts, but you lack the technical knowledge, so you can’t put them to use. So, instead of doing exactly what you think you should do, which often leads to you crashing into trees, getting shot or makes you lose speed. Or all three of them at the same time,” Akko cringed a little recalling the simulation where that had happened. Wrong turn on her part. “You could try to fly with some more forethought. Instead of thinking ‘oh, there’s a tree, let’s dodge it’, try to think ‘I can see five trees, let’s think of the optimal way to dodge them all’, you get me?”

Akko nodded. She understood, but there was one problem. She didn’t even think about that first tree, usually. Like Ursula had said, she usually just followed her instincts. But she found that her instincts didn’t seem to be enough when she was trying to focus also on keeping tabs on the Rod’s systems. She had been tempted to go back to the automatic mode, but… No. Then she would never learn exactly how things worked.

“Ok, let’s do this. Alcor, start simulation,” Akko said, ready to keep going.

“It’s not working,” Akko said after the third simulation in a row where she had absolutely failed to do what she had been instructed.

Ursula put a hand on her shoulder, patience showing in her face. “It’s ok. You’ll get used to it. Don’t let it bring you down.”

Akko shook her head. “I don’t have time for this,” she frowned, “What if I don’t get it right by the time the race starts?” She had tried to do that, but in trying it she had been too distracted. Multitasking wasn’t particularly compatible with her, but the worst part of it all was the fact that it seemed that by trying this she had just gotten worse. Ursula insisted she just needed practice, but she didn’t have time to practice, she needed to get used to her usual way of flying and making it work.

“Akko…” Ursula gave her a worried look, but Akko had already made up her mind, so she kept stubbornly looking forward. “Ok, if you’re so adamant about this, I suppose it can’t be helped,” she sighed. Then, she removed her glasses. Akko looked at her, and thought she recognized her. Well, of course she did, she knew her. But it was kind of different… Ah, whatever, she’d worry about that later. “First things first: Change to automatic mode.”

“What?!” Akko exclaimed.

“You can keep practicing with the manual settings later. For now, you’re not used to it. They’re distracting you,” Ursula explained. “Let the Shiny Rod handle itself, focus on piloting.”

“But…”

“Akko,” Ursula gave her a harsh look. “You want to win or not? Listen to me: If you can’t handle just trying to think a little bit ahead, you’re not going to be able to keep track of everything you need inside this cockpit. If you’re going to be stubborn about this, then I might as well just go to my room and sleep.”

Akko hesitated, then looked down. “Alcor, change to automatic mode…” She said without much energy.

The cockpit shifted, hiding all the controls, going back to the way it was before. It looked empty, now. “Don’t feel bad, Akko,” Ursula said. “Everyone has their strengths. Let the Shiny Rod handle the technical stuff for now. Your strength is in the fact that you have a good sense of how to fly, ok?”

Akko nodded. “Start,” she said.

“Remember, just pilot. Don’t think about anything else,” Ursula repeated. Akko nodded.

The race started.

“I think I need a break,” Akko stated once her test run ended. Ursula looked like she wanted to object, but she didn’t, instead nodding.

“You may be right. You’re fed up, we’ve been here for a couple hours now. Go relax with your friends,” Ursula said kindly. Akko opened the windshield and allowed Ursula to go out first. Once they were outside the Shiny Rod, Akko looked at her teacher.

“Uhm… Coach?” Akko asked.

“Yes?” Ursula said as she put her glasses back on. Akko hesitated for a second.

“Do you think Chariot had these kinds of problems?” She asked. They were walking back to the elevators, and Akko distracted herself looking at the many different rooms in the hangar. Big ones, small ones, long ones, wide ones. Some colorful, some a simple black or white. Akko was aware that many humans used them to drive around on alien planets, but she never got a chance to actually see that in action, since she was too focused on her own problems. She recalled the time she had managed to see Chariot’s race. Such a unique opportunity…

“What kind of problems do you mean?” Ursula asked, sounding a little nervous.

“Well, from the time she appeared to the time she disappeared, she never lost a race,” Akko said. “I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

Ursula hummed to herself. “Well, maybe she actually lost sometimes, but in the simulations.”

Akko’s eyes widened. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense,” she said. Yeah, Chariot certainly knew about the simulations. She just practiced a lot, didn’t she? She had been able to practice before the IPR started, but maybe Akko could still catch up to her. Maybe not to her perfect record, but if she managed to finish what she never did… “Think that if I manage to win the race Chariot will come out and praise me for it?”

Ursula chuckled, though there was something hidden behind it that Akko couldn’t quite catch. “Who knows…” she said.

Akko looked at her. She felt kind of bad: They always did their thing, and only really interacted with her with race-related stuff. Akko had been with her sometimes, but she probably felt lonely anyways. And, since they were going to take a break now, it would be a good chance to do spend some time together.

Akko suddenly had an idea. “Oh, can you contact Lotte and Sucy?”

“Ah, sure. The wand network is working, so… What do you want me to say to them?”

Akko thought for a while. Then, she came up with a great idea.

“No,” Sucy said while looking at the activity Akko had planned out.

“But-”

“No,” Sucy’s tone took on a menacing tone, which made Akko take a step back, just in case. She looked at Lotte and Ursula for backup. Ursula gave her an apologetic smile, but Lotte sighed and stepped forward, putting a hand on Sucy’s shoulder.

“Come on, Sucy. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m not five years old,” Sucy grunted.

Akko pouted. She didn’t like it when people called bumping cars a kid’s thing. They were fun! You got to ram your small car against people without a fear of really hurting them! There were no winner or losers either, just the pure joy of making small electric cars hit each other.

Plus, the people in this place were definitely enjoying themselves. Adults or children. It was natural, who didn’t enjoy things like these? “Come on, it’ll be fun!” Akko took the risk to step forward and push Sucy. The purple haired girl whipped her hand to her waist, but her wand wasn’t there. She was wearing a black dress under a black cloak. “Ha ha!” Akko laughed, triumphant, “You don’t have your wand! You can’t threaten me!” Sucy turned her head a little. The single red eye looking at Akko was enough to make Akko waver. “Please don’t murder me,” she said, but kept pushing the girl.

The line wasn’t too bad. A lot of people probably thought like Sucy; a lot of people were idiots.

The current round of people finally stopped. They got off their cars and allowed the ones in line to ride. Akko’s group was barely able to get one car each. The circuit they had built was big enough to allow twenty persons at once, more if you were in pairs. Akko didn’t need no pairs, she was going to turn everyone else into metaphorical mashed potatoes. These bumper cars ran on magic batteries. These generated electricity and made the car work and hover. In fact, now that Akko thought about it, these should probably be called bumper brooms. But they had the steering wheels of cars…

A loud horn sounded, and Akko stopped thinking. It was time for bumping. Akko accelerated her small, red

She had barely moved when someone rammed into her from the side. Sucy, with as stoic a face as always, made Akko spin a little. Akko. Looked at her through narrowed eyes. This meant war.

“This is so stupid,” Sucy mumbled.

“Well, let’s see if this is stupid!” Akko spun her steering wheel to Sucy’s direction, and her bumper car got released from Sucy’s grip. She spun, watching Sucy go, and started a persuit.

Someone tried to ram into her again, from the side. Not someone she knew. She slowed down a little, letting them pass by, and then went full on against Sucy again. Soon, Sucy reached the end of the circuit, and Akko smirked as she had no other choice but turn around.

She tried to dodge Akko, but Akko saw it coming, and took the chance. Sucy probably didn’t even realized what had hit her as Akko’s car took on hers in full force from the side. Akko could see her head bounce around while the seatbelt kept her in place. Ah, this was true jo-

Akko got hit from behind. It sent her in a spin that she took advantage of for a quick turnaround. Lotte had hit her. She was giggling. Akko accelerated, bumping into her, but she hadn’t accumulated enough momentum for it to be satisfying, so she turned the steering wheel as far as she could and started going in reverse.

She accidentally crashed into someone else. A couple of kids in a pairings car. If Akko recalled correctly, in those one had the control of the steering wheel while the other controlled the speed. They laughed as Akko hit them.

Akko had been smiling since the second the activity had started, and she was not about to stop.

Then, to Akko’s surprise, someone else rammed into her. This time it was Ursula, who had a strangely determined look on her face. She looked as determined as Akko felt.

The bumps and laughs continued. Akko saw that at one point Sucy was definitely enjoying herself, for she was smiling.

And, too soon, it was over. As Akko stepped out of her car, she considered asking everyone to get back in line again. She doubted she’d be able to get Sucy into it again, though. Platinum Deck wasn’t particularly crowded today. Then again, Platinum Deck was a deck not a high percentage of the ship’s passengers was able to afford.

“That was fun,” Lotte said as she checked the photos her little spirit had taken.

“I disagree,” Sucy retorted, to which Akko answered with a smirk. In fact, Lotte also smiled at her. She had probably seen Sucy enjoying herself too. She was just unwilling to admit it. Akko didn’t need such admission, anyways. She would always live knowing the truth, and that’s all that mattered.

“You were pretty intense back there, Coach,” Akko said. Ursula eyed her, shrugging and blushing ever so slightly.

“It’s been ages since I last rode one of those,” she explained. “I got excited.”

Akko nodded. She fully understood. Being in those, it just brought out the most competitive side of you. Hitting, bumping, crashing, ramming. Nothing like it, indeed.

“Ok. Can I go now?” Sucy asked.

“Sucy, come on,” Lotte said. “It’s been a while since we’ve hung out together.”

Sucy rolled her eyes. “I’d rather be on the room. Can we hang out there?”

Akko was about to refuse when, suddenly, Lotte received a message on her wand. She read it for a while, then she cocked her head. “I think you may just get your wish, Sucy,” she commented, and Akko got closer to her to see what she meant.

Lotte showed her the text. It was from Barbara.

Akko liked the idea.

Chapter Text

“Did you really need to spend all that time in the bathroom?” Diana asked. “You could just have used the one in our room.”

Hannah shrugged. “I really needed to go, sorry,” she excused. Diana couldn’t help but wonder if she was actually fine. They had gotten out to get something to eat for Barbara, who apparently felt sick, but Hannah had really insisted on just using the place’s bathroom and had stayed there for an entire hour. Maybe she was also sick but didn’t want to admit it. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“And you’re certain this is what she wanted to eat?” Diana asked. There was a giant cake in the bag Hannah was carrying. Diana wasn’t sure how it looked like, but the box was pretty telling. Why would Barbara, who was feeling sick, want to eat cake? Maybe she wanted to eat cake because she was sick. In such case, was it really wise to give the cake to her? Maybe she wasn’t thinking properly.

And why cake? Barbara was someone who really cared about her image. The calorie count on this would be through the roof, certainly…

“Ok, here we are!” Hannah exclaimed in an overly dramatic way. Diana decided not to comment on the strange behavior. She opened the door to their room and Diana was surprised by the light not turning on. Had it broken? It was supposed to be automatic.

Hannah waved for her to get in. Diana didn’t understand the need of courtesy here, but she took the offer nonetheless.

As soon as she stepped into the room, she realized something was off. Movement within it. In the blink of an eye she took her wand, flicking it, activating her lantern. She squinted her eyes, trying to tell what was going on.

“Man, what a way to ruin the surprise,” a voice came from within. Amanda?

“Shh, let’s do it anyways,” Akko’s voice also came. “Come on, three, two, one…”

Diana lowered her wand, guessing what was going on. The light suddenly turned on, and a group of seven girls and one woman stood within the small room, cramped. “Congratulations!” They shouted in unison. Diana gave them all a flat look, including Barbara, who was in the center of the room.

“I have the feeling this is not a mistaken birthday party,” Diana said. Barbara smiled meekly, stepping closer.

“We thought you deserved a small celebration for your win,” she explained. The other persons in the room looked kind of uncomfortable. If not for the ventilation system this place would probably be hot as hell. The green team in general didn’t look particularly excited. Lotte looked supportive, but not particularly into it. Akko was staring at Diana intensely, probably waiting for some kind of reaction, while Sucy had her usual I-don’t-care-I-wanna-leave expression. Ursula had a smile on her face.

Diana didn’t exactly know how to feel. She was flattered, but awkwardness started to take her over. Hannah put the big cake on the desk, and Diana noticed it was a four-level-high strawberry cake. Jasminka instantly lost interest in everything but that.

She wanted to say thank you, but on the other hand, she didn’t feel like she deserved such a thing. A nice dinner had felt like more than enough. She was not a fan of parties, especially those dedicated to her. “I… appreciate it,” she managed to say. “But I don’t think you should have bothered,” she said, keeping the awkwardness at bay.

Akko snorted. “Oh please. You ended up first! If that doesn’t deserve a celebration, what does?” She asked, eyeing the cake in the table as she spoke.

“Winning the entire race, maybe,” Diana said. She was also looking at the strawberry cake. It looked amazing.

Akko gave her a perplexed look, as if she didn’t believe what she was hearing. Before she was able to give her counterpoint, however, Hannah suddenly spoke up. “The hell are you doing?!”

“Just tasting,” Amanda said. The tip of her finger was white with the whipped cream that was decorating the cake. She licked her finger, to which Hannah answered with a really hostile expression. Amanda didn’t seem to care. “Holy shit this tastes like nothing, what the fuck?”

“It has little sugar. Diana isn’t a fan of sweet things,” Hannah simply said as she took out a knife from the desk’s drawer. When had they bought that? Carrying things like that around was strictly forbidden… Wait a second, that didn’t look like a knife. It was just a piece of metal with a slightly sharpened side. Diana wondered where that had come from. “Here,” Hannah offered a piece of the cake to her. The cake had come with some plastic plates.

“I… Thank you,” she said, taking the plate. She also took the small plastic fork, and looked around. To let some space open, the green and red teams had sat on the beds. Ursula and Barbara stood, and as Hannah handed pieces of cake around, silence was made.

Barbara then brought out a couple of big cartons of juice. Amanda looked at the things and the plastic cups and rolled her eyes. She was probably used to drinking stuff with alcohol, if Diana wasn’t too wrong. It seemed like the kind of thing Amanda would drink. Diana often drank alcohol in high class parties, but she was not a fan of it, and her experience with it was limited to wine and champagne.

Once everyone had a piece of cake – save for Jasminka, who had eaten it almost in a single bite – and a cup of juice, Barbara stood in the middle of the room. Diana took a step back, knowing what was coming, not wanting to take part in it.

“Let’s toast in the name of our best pilot,” Barbara said. Amanda opened her mouth to complain, “and we all know it’s true, don’t even try to pretend it’s not, come on,” Barbara continued in a sententious manner while looking the redhead.

Amanda sighed, slowly rising her cup, and everyone toasted.

Then, conversations started again. Ursula approached Diana, still wearing her smile, her cup empty. “Uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” Diana admitted. It wasn’t like she would be able to hide it in the long run anyways.

Ursula chuckled. “I understand how you feel,” she said. Diana doubted she did, but she nodded. “Everyone seeing the work you’ve done, that you don’t think is particularly good, and praising it as the best… it’s pretty surreal, isn’t it?”

Diana found herself impressed by the accuracy of how she had described it. “Yes,” she agreed, speaking on a soft voice. The room was small, and despite the conversations, speaking loudly would let everyone hear what she was saying. “It’s just… There are still nine races to go. This feels like selling the bear’s fur before you’ve hunt it.”

Ursula looked at her with understanding. “You should probably just enjoy it,” she said. “Don’t think why they threw this small party, just enjoy it. I’d say you should sit down, but I have the feeling that won’t be possible,” as she chuckled, Akko stretched from the bed she was sitting in and tugged on her arm. As usual, Ursula was wearing her Luna Nova anti-g uniform, so there wasn’t much loose cloth to grab her from.

“Coach, when is your birthday?” Akko asked.

Ursula hesitated. Diana looked with interest as she ate some cake. It was tasty. “February twentieth,” she said. Akko stopped eating her cake. Diana understood why, even if she wouldn’t admit it out loud. The date Ursula had just given…

“It’s the same birthday as Chariot!” Akko exclaimed. She was so loud that every other conversation in the room stopped for a second. Ursula laughed nervously, putting a piece of cake in her mouth. She nodded. “Oh my god… Did you ever have a joint birthday party?”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Ursula waved her hand, dismissive. “We had our own circle of friends.”

Akko seemed disappointed about this, but she accepted it. “So… Wait, when are all of your birthdays?” Akko asked out loud. Everyone stopped their own conversations to quickly give theirs. Akko was surprised to find that a couple of them had gone by since the start of the school year. Actually, Constanze’s and Jasminka’s had passed during the trip, Jasminka’s just a couple days ago. Amanda was also surprised by this, apologizing for absolutely forgetting, but they obviously didn’t care.

Sucy refused to give hers, but Akko shrugged. She probably already knew, somehow. She then started speaking about how, then, they would totally throw a party on Christmas. At this point the holiday had little to no religious meaning left, but people still celebrated it. Diana didn’t mention that the race committee would be taking care of making a mega party for everyone, since she didn’t want to ruin Akko’s fantasy.

“This will be the first Christmas I spend away from my family, now that I think about it,” Akko mentioned, looking a little down. “Wonder how that feels.”

“It’s better than you seem to expect, no small cousins being a pain in the ass, no uncles claiming how your other cousins are better than you, no grumpy old farts complaining. It’s actually pretty neat!” Amanda commented. Diana directed to her a raised eyebrows look. Was it necessary for her to be so curt?

She didn’t seem to notice, sadly. Akko, on the other hand, sighed. “Well, it’ll be interesting, at least,” she said in a more cheerful tone. Diana smiled slightly. It was kind of impressive how Akko was able to just ignore troublesome thoughts and focus on the good part, most of the time.

“Speaking of parties,” Barbara said, “this is supposed to be one! Come on, who wants to play something?”

Everyone looked at her. She was now sitting on the bed next to Constanze, since Jasminka had stood and was now eating cake unapologetically. She had, however, separated at least one more piece for everyone. Diana had already finished hers, but she didn’t want more.

“Barbara,” Amanda said with a serious tone. “You do understand what the nature of party games usually is, right?” She spoke as if Barbara was a child who didn’t understand what she was doing. To be fair, Diana was indeed kind of lost. She hadn’t attended many parties like these.

“Amanda, please, Ursula’s here, what could we do?” Barbara pointed at the blue-haired teacher. Was it a magic mutation or did she dye it? Diana wouldn’t have been able to tell.

Nowadays, so much of society was imbued in magic that seeing people affected by it in one way or another wasn’t strange. In fact, she suspected at least six people on this room had some kind of magic mutation, not counting herself. Constanze and her navy blue hair, Akko and her strangely red eyes, Sucy’s mauve – at least, Diana thought that shade of purple was called that – hair and red eyes, Jasminka’s pink hair and strange ability to eat constantly without getting fat, Ursula’s blue hair and red eyes – while red eyes were a common magic mutation, this seemed like a bit of an exaggeration – and Amanda’s strange hair pattern, in which the lower part of it seemed to be darker than the top – she could probably comb it back to make it look completely different. Maybe the incredible eyes she had were related to that, but that seemed like a stretch.

Counting herself and her Cavendish Hair™, that made seven out of ten people in this room that magic had affected somehow. It was impressive.

“Ok then, what do you want to play? I left my deck of UNO at home, sadly,” Amanda said. The mockery wasn’t acknowledged by Barbara, who just kept thinking.

“I mean, we could go for a simple truth or dare,” Hannah suggested. Diana said nothing, but in fact, she had never partaken in one of those games. The kinds of parties she attended to didn’t tend to have such childish diversions. The parties she had attended where those diversions might be more acceptable had, sadly, lacked it.

“Wouldn’t that take too long?” Akko asked. “We still need to practice,” she looked at Diana with hesitance, obviously leaving the decision up to her.

Diana found herself in a troublesome spot. Of course, she knew she needed to practice some more. She had left Akko to practice alone for a few hours, but she had been making some real progress. She now understood better how flying between trees worked. She could make a breakthrough in the safety of the simulator before starting with the real deal. She knew it.

But she really wanted to try out this truth or dare thing.

“There is no need to rush it,” Diana said with faked calm. “We can probably do this for a while.”

Akko didn’t seem convinced. Was she really that eager to go back or had she learnt to read Diana? No, when Diana focused on hiding her emotions, no one could read them. She had developed her stone face to deal with politicians. Akko was too pure for her own good.

“Let’s just do it,” Amanda said. “I suppose dares can’t be anything sexual, though,” she looked Ursula from the corner of her eye.

Ursula shifted uncomfortably. “I’d prefer it like that, I believe,” she said, getting slightly red.

Diana had also blushed ever so slightly, but she quickly got it back under control. Yeah, of course this game would be used with such intentions.

“Ok, Diana, you start,” Hannah pointed at Diana. Diana was taken aback, not expecting to be thrown right into the beast’s maw. She… She didn’t exactly know how to play. But, well, she kind of knew what it was about…

“Uhm…” She hesitated. No, just knowing the concept didn’t help, but she didn’t want to admit she knew nothing about it.

“Just pick somebody, jeez,” Amanda complained. Hannah and Barbara threw her murderous looks, but Diana was actually thankful. So I need to pick someone, she thought. Ok, that made sense. As she looked at every member of the room, she ended up thinking Ursula was probably a good person to experiment on.

“Uhm, miss Ursula,” Diana said. Ursula looked a little dismayed, obviously feeling out of place. She seemed to be waiting for something, but after a few seconds of silence, she sighed.

“Truth,” she reluctantly said.

Diana held back a smile. It hadn’t been so hard, after all. Now, if she recalled, she could ask basically anything and Ursula would answer truthfully. Diana didn’t want to take too long, so she decided to ask a silly thing. Something she had been curious about.

“Is your hair dyed or natural?” Diana asked.

Ursula’s eyes widened. For a second, she looked panicked, out of sorts. Diana frowned, stranged. However, after the first few seconds, she relaxed. Whatever had set her off apparently had gone away, and she was open for answering. “It’s… dyed,” she admitted. Diana was a little disappointed, though she wasn’t sure why.

“What’s its natural color, then?” Diana asked.

“Just one question per turn!” Ursula exclaimed, panicking again. Again, Diana was a little taken aback, but she didn’t know about that rule. “Amanda!” she cried, almost as if she was asking for help. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Amanda said without hesitation. She smirked. Oh, so that’s how turns went. The target of the previous person became the next in line. Made sense. Diana also suspected you couldn’t target the person who had targeted you, to avoid people firing at each other constantly.

Ursula hesitated for a while, probably thinking of a proper dare. Amanda had an expression that said she would handle anything thrown at her without problem. “Sit like a proper until your next turn,” Ursula said. Amanda’s expression slowly fell into a hateful frown. However, and to everyone’s surprise, she suddenly rose and gestured with her head for Hannah to get off the chair, since she couldn’t do it on the bed. Then, she sat with her back straight, legs crossed, head high and hands carefully placed on her lap.

“I hate you,” she said to Ursula. Ursula chuckled. “Akko, truth or dare!” She didn’t voice that as a question, but as an inevitability.

“Uhm… Truth,” Akko said carefully. Amanda smiled mischievously.

“Who is the person you dislike the most inside this room?” Amanda asked.

Diana suddenly didn’t like this game so much anymore. Of course, she realized, if people are bound by honor to answer honestly, you can also get this kind of information out of them. Was this the ‘nature’ Amanda had been speaking about? Or was the nature of these the sexual implications she’d spoken about? In any case, Diana was now uncomfortable as she watched Akko cringe a lot.

“Come on, don’t be an asshole,” Barbara said.

“Shut it, I warned you,” Amanda said, unfazed. Akko sat, uncomfortable, looking around the room. When she looked at Diana for a few instants more than expected Diana felt her heart sink a little, but Akko’s eyes quickly moved on.

“I…” Akko put a piece of cake in her mouth – when had she gotten another piece? – and followed it with downing what she had on her cup. “I guess Hannah. Sorry,” Akko admitted. Diana felt an unusual relief, even though she didn’t really expect Akko to pick her. But, well, she couldn’t be one hundred percent certain. Akko didn’t look Hannah in the eyes, but the auburn-haired girl rolled her eyes.

“It’s ok,” she said, “I’d say the sentiment goes both ways, but Amanda’s in this room too,” she gave the primly-sat Amanda an angry look. Amanda had a satisfied smile on her face, though she had otherwise not moved an inch.

“Ok, my turn!” Akko exclaimed, awkwardness gone. “Jasminka, truth or dare?”

Jasminka turned from her place next to the cake. She had already managed to eat half of it basically alone. “Dare,” Jasminka said, slightly surprised by having been picked.

“Aw darn it, I wanted you to say truth,” Akko pouted. “Well, uhm… Eat the rest of the cake in less than two minutes!”

Jasminka’s eyes widened with excitement as she turned around and started eating. Ursula measured the time with the chronometer of her wand. Jasminka somehow took inhumanly large bites of the cake and managed to swallow them with barely any chewing. In the end, she finished with ten seconds to spare. The more impressive part was that she didn’t seem full or even satisfied by the crazy amount of cake she had just eaten.

She then proceeded to examine the room. “Lotte, truth or dare?” She said in her soft voice.

“T-truth,” Lotte said. Diana, meanwhile, thought of what she should pick when she got picked again. Truth or dare? She would probably choose dare. She’d rather deal with some embarrassment than risk having to give a lot of details about her life.

“Do you like someone?” Jasminka asked.

Lotte blushed, to which Amanda laughed. “Ah, now shit’s getting serious!” she exclaimed joyously. Lotte looked down, but Jasminka stood there, watching with her kind smile, expectant.

“Y-yes,” Lotte admitted. Akko, besides her, jumped and hit her head on the bunk bed. Sucy chuckled at this, but even Diana was surprised. Lotte didn’t really look like the kind of girl to have someone she liked. Though, that was probably unfair of Diana. Falling for someone wasn’t limited to a stereotype.

“Really?! Who is it?!” Akko exclaimed. Lotte shook her head. That was not a question she was forced to answer. Maybe Jasminka should have phrased hers a little better.

“Uhm… Barbara,” Lotte picked, “truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Barbara said. Diana paid close attention. What kind of question would Lotte have for her?

“Uhm…” Lotte hesitated. “Who is the person you like the most in this room?” She asked.

Hannah perked up. Diana too. The answer, to both of them, would be obvious. It would be Hannah, of course. Amanda chuckled. “Man, that question is worse than mine,” she said.

“Shut up,” Hannah barked in the low. Amanda just kept smiling. She was getting a kick out of this, despite how uncomfortable she was in that position.

Barbara’s eyes bounced off Hannah and Lotte a couple times. She bit her lip, looking down. “I… Can’t really pick one…” She said in the low. Hannah frowned, brow furrowing and eyes narrowing. Diana found herself astonished too. Barbara was blushing.

“Between who?” Hannah asked. If Constanze wasn’t sitting between them, she would certainly attempted to go closer to Barbara.

“You gotta answer,” Amanda said. Everyone in the room looked at the dark haired girl with interest. Even Ursula seemed to get some amusement out of this.

“Argh, whatever. Hannah and Lotte, jeez,” Barbara answered quickly in an offended tone. Lotte blushed some more, but Hannah’s expression darkened. She glared at Lotte from across the room. “Now’s your turn, Hannah. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” she instantly replied. She was angry. Barbara paused to think.

“I’ll save your dare for later,” Barbara said. “So move on.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Akko said. Diana agreed. What if people decided to stop playing? You couldn’t dare them afterwards, could you?

Amanda shook her head. “Let her, though if she misses her chance it’s her fault. Come on, Hannah,” Amanda prompted. Hannah doubted, but after a while sighed.

“Ok, let’s see… Diana,” she pointed at Diana again, and she froze. Why her again? Constanze and Sucy hadn’t had a turn yet. “Truth or dare?”

Diana considered for a second, but she had already made her decision. “Dare,” she said. Hannah raised an eyebrow. She had probably not expected Diana to be so daring.

Akko is a bad influence in me, she cringed at her own thoughts.

“Sing,” Hannah said with a smile. Diana went pale.

“W-what?”

“Sing something. For a minute at least,” Hannah insisted.

“Please, you wouldn’t…” Hannah raised an eyebrow. Right. Diana regretted accepting to play this game in full now. “What do I sing?”

“Have you heard All Star?” Hannah asked. Diana cocked her head. “Guess not. Then whatever you want, just make it a minute long.”

“Were you seriously just going to ask her to sing fucking All Star?” Amanda asked with disbelief. Hannah nodded. “That’s like a hundred years old meme, move on dude.”

“All Star never gets old,” Hannah quickly defended, though she didn’t sound particularly annoyed. What were they talking about?

“Let me guess. You also like Russians Drink Fake Vodka memes, don’t you?” Amanda’s voice was mocking, but she didn’t seem to be malicious.

“That’s right unfair, those are just twenty years old,” Hannah said.

“Still older than you.”

“Could you stop discussing about this and let Diana sing?” Sucy said. She was looking at Diana with expectation. Cold expectation. Bad expectation. Diana felt a shiver. She was not going to record it, right? Why did Diana get the feeling she would?

Those two finally stopped arguing, and everyone stared at Diana. She hesitated. “Does it need to have lyrics?”

“I said, ‘sing’, not ‘hum’, of course it has to,” Hannah clarified, much to Diana’s disappointment and growing panic over the fact that she really didn’t want to do it. But, she was taking part on this game and so she would play by its rules.

She closed her eyes. She didn’t know many songs. Wait a second… “I don’t know any songs,” she realized. Hannah raised an eyebrow. Amanda looked at her with skepticism. Even Akko didn’t look like she believed her. “What? I’m sorry, I just… Haven’t dedicated much time to entertainment outside reading,” she looked down. It had been a while since the last time, but she wasn’t foreign to the feelings of inadequacy among peers.

“It’s ok,” Hannah quickly said, noticing Diana’s distress. “Then just hum something.”

Diana did. She hummed a piece she knew quite well, though she couldn’t quite recall its name. Her focus in life had always been piloting and some side reading, so despite what everyone seemed to think, she wasn’t actually well versed in art forms besides writing.

“Well that was boring,” Amanda said. Diana couldn’t really disagree. She had hummed a slow song that was often used for waltz on parties. While she liked it, it was certainly not exciting by any means.

“Then it is my turn again. Sucy,” she pointed at the creepy girl. “Truth or dare?” she had noticed everyone asking the question, so she assumed it was normal to do so. Sucy didn’t look pleased by Diana’s choice. In fact, she seemed offended by it, as if Diana had done something wrong. Maybe she didn’t want to participate? Diana was just trying to make sure everyone got a turn.

“… Dare,” she said. Seemed like she also wasn’t eager to make her secrets vulnerable.

Diana thought for a while. Then, she came up with something simple, but that she thought would be fun to see. “Smile,” she demanded. “Until your next turn.”

Sucy complied without saying anything, but her eyes communicated how she really felt about it. Diana almost decided she had had enough, for Sucy’s smile was only creeping her out more than her normal expression. It wasn’t a natural smile. It was an evil one, like she was plotting to conquer the world.

“Ursula,” Sucy called. “Truth or dare?” She spoke in an increasingly – and fake – kind voice, like she was trying to play the part with her smile.

“Dare,” Ursula instantly said. Lots of dares in a row. The teacher looked like a fish out of water. Diana found comfort on not being the only one.

“Let’s see… Oh, I know: Make an imitation of Akko.”

Ursula looked at Sucy confused. Diana was also confused. “Imitation how?” Ursula asked, unsure.

“Just pretend you’re Akko until you manage to make me laugh,” Sucy expanded. The teacher laughed nervously as she came up with an idea. Was truth or dare supposed to be about people doing embarrassing things? Maybe that was the nature of these games. Seriously though, what had Amanda meant by that?

“Uhm, I’m going to be like Chariot!” Ursula cried. “I’ll be better than everyone else!” she was trying to make her voice like Akko’s but she just managed to sound way too high pitch, “Oh, look, a food stand, let’s eat something!”

“Hey, I’m nothing like that!” Akko complained, face red.

Sucy chuckled, so she raised her hand to make Ursula stop. “Lotte, do you have that?” She asked. Diana felt a second of panic, remembering Lotte’s spirit. Had it…?

“No!” Lotte instantly said. “I’m not that ill mannered!”

Sucy scoffed at that, but she somehow managed to keep her smile up. Hopefully her next turn would come up soon. “Well,” Ursula said, looking around. “Uhm...” she looked at Amanda, who was looking at her with resentment. Then, she ignored her. “Constanze,” Ursula said. Diana felt a little rush of satisfaction. Constanze had been the only one without a turn yet, right? “Truth or dare?” Constanze raised one finger, signaling that she probably chose truth. “Oh, ok. Then… Tell me, did you illegally break into the Dragon’s systems and tried to take control of them yesterday?”

Constanze’s eyes widened, and she paled. She wavered a little, but then, barely noticeably, she nodded. Ursula crossed her arms. “You do understand that could get you in a lot of trouble, right?” Again, Constanze nodded, but she had a pleading look. She wasn’t a child, but she sure had the charm of one, and Diana wouldn’t have been able to say no to that face. Apparently, Ursula had a similar weakness. “I’m not going to tell anyone, but don’t do it again, ok?”

Constanze nodded for a third time. Diana didn’t think she actually regretted her actions, but maybe this at least would stop her from leaving them stranded in the middle of space. Constanze proceeded to point at Barbara.

“Uhm… Dare,” Barbara said. Constanze rose a hand to her chin, deep in thought. It took her a long while to decide what she would do, but by the time she picked, she was smiling and had already started moving. She left the room in a rush, coming back two minutes later with something in her hands. It was a small, black device. Diana took a while to recognize it was some kind of visor.

“You want me to wear this?” Barbara asked as Constanze extended it to her. Barbara looked around awkwardly. Diana had to admit, that little thing looked like it had been made out of scraps of metal. Not very trust inspiring. Constanze nodded energetically. Barabra hesitated, but she put it on anyways.

The tiny girl took out her wand and flicked it.

Barbara suddenly sat upright. “Oh god,” she said, “what is this?” Why did she look scared? “it’s like… The world is black, only outlined with green lines,” she turned around, and suddenly cringed, raising her hands to cover her eyes. “Is that… magic? The dragon’s fuel?” She then looked down, “And what the hell is that?” she said turning around, “it was like looking at the sun!”

Constanze was writing everything Barbara said on her tablet. After a minute of this, she turned the device off again and tugged Barbara. She took it off, handing it over. She looked disturbed. “What did you see?” Hannah asked.

“It’s… Hard to describe,” she said. “It was as if the world was… made of magic, or something. Imagine infrared vision, just… well, with magic. You get it?”

Hannah nodded. Diana also thought she could imagine it. Maybe Constanze would let her test it later.

“Your turn,” Amanda said, looking at Barbara. She was giving her a really intense look.

“Want me to pick you?” Barbara asked with a really, really mean look. Ignoring the smirk and raised eyebrows, her eyes just said ‘you have no idea of what lies ahead’. “Ok then. Truth or dare?”

Amanda hesitated. However, she instantly broke her pose. “Dare,” she said, looking relieved to be able to sit in a completely improper manner again.

Barbara chuckled. A kind of chuckle Diana had heard very few times. The one she did when she and Hannah had been having an argument for a long time and she ended up being proven right. It wasn’t evil, or ill intentioned. It was just a chuckle of pure victory.

“So, let me show you the true nature of these games,” Barbara said as she sat back down. “You see, these are more than for just laughs or finding spicy info on someone,” She’s gloating? Why does she seem so triumphant? “These are games of war, Amanda. War against common sense, prejudices, and biases.”

“Can you get on with it?” Amanda said, obviously unaffected by Barbara’s little speech.

“Pick someone in this room and kiss them. On the lips,” Barbara said.

Amanda felt her eye twitch. “Oh you piece of shit,” she said with narrowed eyes. Ursula gave her a disapproving look but she couldn’t care any less. Right now all of her grudge for the being forced to sit primly thing vanished, being replaced by a feeling of pure impotence. She had expected something like this to happen eventually, just not so soon and not to her.

“W-wait,” Lotte intervened, “We banned sexual things, remember?”

Barbara looked at her kindly, but then snorted. “Please, a peck on the lips doesn’t qualify as such,” she said.

“She’s right,” as much as it hurt her, Amanda had to say it. A peck on the lips was barely something important. In fact, she should probably just pick Barbara for the sake of it, but that would be too easy. Maybe Constanze or Jasminka, too. They surely wouldn’t care, but that was no fun. Maybe she should pick Sucy, just to see her reaction… Nah, she was too afraid of the girl injecting some kind of poison in her in her sleep.

Akko? When Amanda made eye contact with her, the girl acted as if Amanda was a serial murder, suddenly jumping back. Ok, maybe not her. She was too innocent. Diana? She almost burst out laughing by the mere thought. Not her. Ursula? No way. She was hot, sure, but she was also a teacher. Lotte? Well, she had just admitted to liking someone. Picking her would be too asshole-ish.

Hannah? It would certainly be fun to see how she reacted to it, if nothing else. Plus, she had nothing to lose. Even if Hannah didn’t hate her anymore, she certainly didn’t enjoy Amanda’s company beyond a surface level. This wouldn’t make things particularly awkward between them. And maybe, just maybe, Amanda was kind of curious about how it would feel.

She had been staring at Hannah for a little longer than needed. The girl’s eyes widened and she instantly looked at Amanda with disgust. “Oh no you don’t,” she said.

That was enough for Amanda to decide. “Oh yes I do,” she smirked, standing. Hannah pushed herself back, until she hit the wall.

“I think this is a little too much,” Ursula said.

“Y-yeah!” Hannah said, “plus, you can’t dare someone to do something that affects someone else!”

Barbara smiled. Amanda paused. Wait, had she… “You’re right, now that I think about it. How lucky that I can dare you to accept the kiss,” Barbara replied.

She planned this? Amanda wondered. Still, she was not a pussy, so she would go on with her dare. Hannah was now less disgusted and more like scared. She was pressing herself against the wall, hands on her side, as if trying to phase through it. “Hey, you picked this game, remember?” Amanda said.

“I didn’t expect this! Why me, anyways?” Hannah asked in a panicked voice, “You could’ve picked anyone else.”

Amanda put a hand on the mattress next to Hannah’s legs, head already in under the top bunk bed. Then, with her other hand, she pushed up, closing it to have more space.

“Because,” Amanda smiled, “no one else would be so against it,” she explained.

“You’re an ass!” Hannah cried through trembling lips.

“Well then, get ready to kiss ass,” Amanda kept getting closer. She could imagine the looks everyone else in the room would have. Akko, Diana and Lotte wondering if they should intervene, Ursula’s hesitance. Hannah cycled through a myriad of emotions. Anger, fear, acceptance, back to anger, more anger, rage, pleading… It was fun, though something did feel kind of wrong.

Hannah had turned her face so that Amanda couldn’t reach her lips easily, of course. But Amanda kept getting closer anyways. And once her face was close enough…

Amanda paused. I’m taking it too far, she thought. It was a strange sensation. Kisses were a stupid thing, but Hannah obviously cared a lot about it. She pulled back, leaving the closed-eyed Hannah against the wall and sitting back on the desk’s chair.

Hannah opened one eye, peeking around, and relaxed visibly. Then she instantly tensed again with anger. “That was not funny!”

Amanda chuckled, though it was faked. She hadn’t been aiming for funny, but… “I disagree,” she lied. She had never seen anyone reject a stupid kiss so badly. Then, she realized something. “Wait a second, you really haven’t kissed anyone?”

Hannah lips retracted in an almost animal rage, eyes so intense that if she had laser vision Amanda would surely be dead. “No! I haven’t ever kissed anyone!” she sounded beyond angry as she turned to Barbara, “and you know that too! The fuck was that?”

Barbara seemed a little taken aback by the outburst. “It was just a little prank, what’s so wrong about a kiss?”

“It’s my first kiss!” Hannah claimed, standing up. Everyone else in the room was really uncomfortable with the situation, save for Sucy, who seemed to be very entertained. “I don’t want to give it to this… egocentric, low-life bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone else!”

“Hey!” Amanda jumped up, offended, “What did you say?” she loomed over the auburn haired girl.

She wasn’t intimidated. She placed a finger on Amanda’s chest, pushing her back, puffing her chest and speaking through her teeth. “I say that you’re an egocentric bitch. Admit it. You think you’re hot shit because you’re a good pilot and because you’re a ‘rebel’ or some shit. Let me tell you something: Breaking rules doesn’t make you special. Every teenager does it. Grow up.”

Amanda slapped the hand on her chest away. Hannah’s long nail dug into her skin, actually hurting. “I think I’m better? Have you ever looked yourself in a freaking mirror?” This girl was telling her that? Of all the people on this ship, Hannah was trying to accuse her of such bullshit?

“Yes! At least I can admit when I’m wrong!”

“I do too! I’ve apologized, didn’t I?!”

“And yet you make fun of people for not being damn sluts who sleep with whoever happens to catch their eyes!”

Amanda didn’t punch Hannah right there and then because she still had some semblance of self control. “Well at least I am who I am and don’t have to pretend to be anyone else in front of whoever I happen to like!”

“ENOUGH!” Suddenly, Ursula stepped between the two of them. “I should have stopped this sooner,” she mumbled.  “That’s enough. Stop screaming, everyone in the Dragon is going to hear you. Hannah, it was just a small prank. You don’t need to act so offended,” she threw a harsh look at Hannah. “Amanda, you could just have apologized. No need to make fun of her,” she then directed that same look at Amanda.

Amanda found herself intimidated. She was confident in her abilities, but in that moment, Ursula looked like a concrete wall. She had placed a hand on each girl’s shoulders, separating them by force, and while she wasn’t hurting them, Amanda could feel the rock hard grip she had on her.

She still had a very intense staring contest with Hannah. Ursula could probably feel the sparks between them, because she didn’t let go. And, after what was probably a whole minute of just staring, Amanda started feeling her anger leave. Hannah had just said that because she was freaking out, and… well, maybe she wasn’t wrong. Out of stubbornness she tried to keep her eyes on Hannah, but lacking the determination of the anger, she suddenly noticed how funny Hannah’s face looked. Her brow furrowed, her eyes narrowed, lips revealing teeth.

Amanda chuckled, essentially losing the inexistent contest.

“What’s so funny?!” Hannah barked.

“Your face,” Amanda said, trying to hold back, but her chuckle increased into a full blown laugh when Hannah’s frown pronounced further.

“Ok, that’s it, I’m leaving,” Hannah shook herself out of Ursula’s grip. Amanda realized her heart had started to beat like crazy during the discussion. The realization that both her and Hannah had gotten so heated over such a stupid game only increased the humor in the situation. Was she having a mental breakdown or what? She didn’t know, but as Hannah left the room, she wasn’t even able to try and stop her.

“Are you ok?” Akko asked, patting her back. Amanda tried to answer, but when she looked at the worried faces of everyone else in the room, she started wheezing from the laughter. “I think she’s dying,” Akko said.

“I’m… going to go after Hannah,” Barbara announced, leaving the room in a rush.

“Ok, ok”, Amanda managed to get herself under control again, though she still chuckled between words. “Ok, sorry. God, so much for not fighting every couple words.”

“I think you went a little too far,” Diana said, in her usual I’m-better-than-you voice.

“Hey, blame your friend, not me,” Amanda replied, too focused on holding back another burst of laughter to be annoyed at Diana. “She’s the one who dared me.”

Diana pressed her lips, obviously unsure of how to answer. Amanda had thought the same, of course, but she wouldn’t admit it do Diana in a million years.

“I’m surprised you two haven’t gotten in an actual fight yet,” Ursula said with a defeated voice, dropping onto the bed. “You really scared me right now.”

“Sorry,” Amanda said, “I got a little riled up.”

“A little?” Sucy asked from behind.

Amanda sighed. “Ok, maybe a lot. I mean, she didn’t need to insult me that much.”

“Are you going to apologize?” Akko asked.

Amanda looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Me? I just did as Barbara told me. If anything, she should apologize to Hannah. And then Hannah to me, because she’s the one who threw the first punch.” Akko didn’t seem convinced, but Amanda didn’t care. She looked at Diana. “Sorry for kind of ruining your party, though.”

Diana shook her head. “It’s quite alright. It was time to get back to practice anyways,” she looked at Akko and Ursula. “Should we?”

Amanda grimaced. She didn’t really want to go back to the Shiny Rod, but whatever.

“What about Hannah?” Akko asked.

“I’ll send her a message with my wand,” Diana said, “once Barbara manages to calm her down she will join us, probably.”

“Let’s go, then,” Ursula said. “Not that I didn’t enjoy this little thing, but…”

“We get it,” Amanda interrupted. “Let’s just go,” she was the first one to start walking. She waved Jasminka and Constanze goodbye, and so did Akko, adding Sucy and Lotte into the goodbyes as well.

She considered going to look for Hannah too. Maybe Barbara would appreciate the help, in such a big ship, but… Yeah, better wait for the fuming girl to calm down.

She tried to get the event out of her head as she walked. It had been a silly discussion, like the many others they’d had. But, besides the fact that she had been willing to kiss Hannah, one more thing stuck out from her memory.

Flustered Hannah was really cute.

Chapter Text

Hannah didn’t get far from the room before she stopped to try and get a hold of herself. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Amanda looking at her like that… She had almost cowered under a bed. She didn’t really think Amanda would hit her, but that glower had been something new.

Not that it was the thing she had been actually scared of. Amanda’s face leaning closer and closer to hers, threatening to steal a kiss from her… Her heart beat faster just with the memory of that, her chest tightened as if someone was trying to squeeze it. She had been terrified. Amanda and Barbara didn’t get how important it was for her. Hannah wasn’t sure what she would have done if Amanda had actually kissed her.

She suddenly felt her wand vibrating, but as she was about to check what it was, she heard steps from behind her. When she turned, she wasn’t surprised to see Barbara. She had only taken a couple of turns, it wouldn’t have been too hard to find her. “I’m sorry,” was the first thing her friend said.

Hannah crossed her arms. “You better be,” she said in a chastising tone. Barbara looked down, and Hannah instantly felt bad for saying it like that. “Why did you do it, anyways?”

“I just wanted to test something,” Barbara explained. “I… Didn’t expect you to flip out like that,”

Hannah sighed. She suddenly felt very tired. She didn’t stop looking angrily at Barbara, though. “Really? You try to force me into kissing a girl and you don’t expect me to get mad?”

“I… Well, I dunno,” she made a strange gesture with her hands, as if she was trying to explain something, but Hannah totally didn’t get it. “Anyways, I’m sorry. You should probably apologize to Amanda, though.”

“I should apologize to her?” Hannah asked in disbelief.

Barbara gave her a flat look. “You’re the one who insulted her despite the fact that she didn’t end up doing anything. She didn’t even touch you.”

Hannah thought back to the moment. It was true, Amanda hadn’t touched her. But, the way she had slowly gotten closer, the intense look in her eyes… “No way. She was trying to mess with me.”

“Yeah, of course she was,” Barbara rolled her eyes. “But she didn’t deserve what you said, and we both know I’m not her best friend.”

The comment brought back another thing that was bothering Hannah. “Yeah, maybe not her, but you sure seem to hold Lotte in high regard.”

Barbara paused, pressing her lips. She looked down, uncomfortable. “Well, I mean, uhm…” She looked up, “It’s not so simple,” she said. Hannah honestly didn’t understand, and the comment just made her think Barbara was avoiding the question.

“Seriously?” Hannah asked, “I’ve known you for most of our lives, yet you spend a few weeks hanging out with her because Diana and I are busy and suddenly she’s also your best frend?” Hannah’s voice cracked a little. “Hell, we spend most of our time together here on the ship…” Maybe Hannah was still emotionally unstable after what had just happened, but she felt like crying.

Barbara noticed this, looking up. She instantly stepped closer, grabbing Hannah’s hands. “Let me say this right now: You are still my best friend, all right?” she hugged her. “Nothing’s ever going to change that.”

Hannah returned the hug. It felt good, comforting. “Then why?”

Barbara pulled back, though she still had her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. “Well…” she hesitated, but then her expression relaxed. “I guess I can tell you. Why don’t we sit?”

“Here?” Hannah asked, looking at the metallic corridor.

Barbara shrugged, sitting down. Hannah looked around. Was she crazy? What if people saw them? Sure, it was around the time where most western people had gone to sleep, but… Barbara looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Whatever, Hannah thought as she sat down. The wall and floor were cold.

“So, you gonna answer me?” Hannah asked.

“I… like Lotte,” Barbara explained.

Hannah nodded. “Yeah, you made that clear. Doesn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t like her like I like you, you idiot,” Barbara said softly. “I… like her.”

Hannah paused. “Oh,” was all she could muster. “I… thought you were straight,” she continued. She started to recall all the times Barbara had gushed over a guy with her. Was she faking, back there?

“I’m bi,” Barbara said. Well, that made more sense. “Though I did tend to lean more towards guys, most of the time.”

“Since… when have you known?” Hannah asked, carefully. She was having some trouble believing she would miss such an important detail of her best friend.

“Remember that Alex guy in fourth grade?”

“The one who had a perfect tan?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Yes. So?”

“Remember he had a girlfriend?”

“I mean, ‘girlfriend’ might be an overstatement, he was like nine years old,” Hannah recalled the guy. He had been one of her many silly childhood crushes.

“Well,” Barbara laughed nervously, “I actually liked his girlfriend more than him. We called her Tifa, short for Tiffany I guess.”

Hannah started. It had been a long time since then. Had she really never noticed? “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Barbara didn’t reply immediately. When she did, she sounded sorry. “I… Well, I didn’t think you’d really care. It’s not important, you know?”

Hannah turned, irritated. “Not important? Are you stupid?”

“Sorry…” Barbara smiled weakly. Hannah sighed, hugging her knees.

Then, a silly question popped into her head. She wondered how improper it would be to ask it. She figured everyone would ask it in a situation like this one, though that didn’t necessarily make it ok.

“This may be stupid to ask but… Have you ever, like… liked me?” She asked, blushing slightly.

Barbara blushed too. “I guess I did, a few years ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hannah asked.

Barbara shrugged. “You’re straight. I knew that. I didn’t want to bother you, or make our relationship awkward, so I just moved on,” she explained. She looked and sounded extremely embarrassed. Hannah felt the same way. This was definitely awkward.

“Does Lotte know? Are you dating?”

Barbara chuckled. “Gods no. I… Don’t know if she likes me back.”

Hannah gave her a flat stare. “I’m no expert but with this new context I can assure you she does.”

“How are you so sure?”

Hannah raised an eyebrow. “‘Who is the person you like the most in this room?’” she imitated Lotte’s voice. She thought she did a good job, but Barbara chuckled. “And she asked that right after admitting she liked someone.”

Barbara smiled. “She did, didn’t she? But that could have just been a coincidence…”

“My god, why is it so hard to think properly when you’re the one involved? Just go and confess.” Barbara nodded absently. “How did you come to like her?”

Barbara perked up. “Well, she’s kind,” she replied instantly. “She’s also really cute and, well, we have more in common than one would think. She has a beautiful voice and she’s smart too,” Barbara’s eyes lit up as she spoke, and Hannah realized she really liked Lotte. It was a strange moment for her. “And when she talks about the things she likes she’s super intense, it’s kind of surprising, and…” Barbara realized what she was doing, “And I think you get the point.”

Hannah chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like that over a guy,” she commented.

“Yeah,” Barbara said. “I guess I didn’t really know what a crush was until now.”

Hannah recalled that she had received a message on her wand. As she took it out and flicked it so that a small holographic screen showed her what was up, Barbara looked at it too. It was Diana, saying they were going for practice.

“Amanda’s going to be there,” Hannah said with a hostile voice.

“Go and apologize.”

“She laughed to my face! About my face!”

“And you do look kinda funny when you’re angry. Come on, you don’t want to leave Diana without a gunman, right?”

Hannah hated when Barbara gave her good arguments about why she shouldn’t be stubborn. “I won’t apologize, though.”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Just go.”

Hannah stood. Before leaving, she looked down. “Tell me how things went with Lotte later.”

Before Barbara had a chance to answer, Hannah left the corridor, directing herself towards the elevators. Hopefully they wouldn’t be in too much use right now.

Akko’s head dropped as she let out a big, drawn out and loud sigh-grunt that only made her throat hurt. They were going to land in barely two hours and Akko… Hadn’t really made much progress. She hit less trees, her time had gotten way better, but in every simulation someone beat her, and often by more than three seconds, which was a lot. She was starting to fall into despair. Ursula had tried her best, but she was now in a small briefing with some of the ship’s officers so she couldn’t exactly provide assistance right now.

“Maybe if you try to go faster on…” Diana started, trying to suggest something.

“I KNOW!” Akko instantly barked back. Diana cringed a little at the outburst, and Akko instantly regretted it. “Sorry, sorry, it’s not your fault,” Akko sat straight again, placing couple fingers on her right temple. “I’m just frustrated.”

“I know,” Diana spoke kindly, but Akko was barely listening. Why was it so hard? She no longer lost a lot of time, and she was going as fast as she knew she could before she started hitting way too many trees. She had no way of improving right now besides trying to go back to learning to do things manually, but Ursula had been right, she wasn’t good enough to try and keep up with them. “Come, your turn,” Akko moved to let Diana in the seat.

“I believe you need it more than me,” Diana said. Akko paused. Yeah, she really needed it. She dropped back into the seat again. Maybe if she tried to look for paths with less trees with the map… Stop thinking about that, she chastised herself, it’s like the fifth time you’ve come up with this idea! It doesn’t help!

She grunted and sighed again. “Whatever, let’s begin,” Akko said. Upon command, the race started again. Ten racers, Akko included, all of them first categories. This time the place was a more desertic-like forest. Trees were more of a brownish green than the dark green they had been before. There wasn’t much more in the way of vegetation besides these trees except some really sickly looking plants on the sand. Akko suspected the big ones managed to stay hydrated by having roots so deep that they could still drink even in the harsh environment.

Whatever the reason, that was not Akko’s problem.

The trees here weren’t a lot, so this time she at least felt at ease. She didn’t have trouble dodging them as she flew, but she did find herself growing confused as some trees seemed to shift in the distance. “Wow, this place is really hot,” Diana commented in a low voice from behind. “The temperature is creating mirages in the distance.”

Akko didn’t care about that. Like Ursula had said, she found it really hard to focus on anything that wasn’t directly in front of her. Amanda started shooting. Akko no longer had the output meter to measure how much energy she was wasting, which should have helped, but she still worried. She had Amanda on a neutral state, where she said to her to stop them from being hut but to attack as much as possible. Why couldn’t they keep up shields and attack at the same time? Dumb Shiny Rod.

Still, she didn’t focus on other racers unless they were trying to attack her directly. The finish line, that was her only goal. I’m not going to disappoint everyone again, Akko thought as she flew. Trees passed in a blur.

And then, the shapeshifter appeared. No matter how fast or well Akko flew, he would always just show up and mess everything. What was it? Why were shapeshifters so darn good? Akko ahdn’t really felt them to be dangerous in the previous race, but she understood now how that mobility would be a problem in the open spaces of Pan. They terrified her. No matter how much Amanda attacked they would dodge, no matter how fast Akko went they had such a superior mobility. Diana had also found them really troublesome. They were the ones that had won most of her simulations, even Diana’s. But Diana had actually managed to beat them a couple times. Was Diana that much better than Akko, or maybe the Shooting Star was better than the Shiny Rod?

No, the Shiny Rod was the best ship in the universe. And, speaking of Rods, the Noir Rod approached from behind. Despite being bigger, it moved so much more smoothly than the Shiny Rod. It avoided trees by mere millimeters. Sometimes Akko was sure the simulation had to be cheating, as she was sure the black ship should have hit something. However, slowly, she was beginning to understand that flying the Shiny Rod had a lot more nuances than she had once assumed. The way the Noir Rod moved… Was it because of something unique in it or could the Shiny Rod move in the same way if Akko trained enough?

It didn’t matter. Akko would win this simulation! She had to win one before they got off the Dragon in the actual planet! Akko just needed to work harder and determination!

She would win!

She lost.

She came in third place, behind the shapeshifter and daemons. She started slowly banging her head against the now empty control panel. As it was now, it was just a really fancy counter. “I give up,” she said, feeling as her last ounce of optimism left her body. “Let’s just throw the race. We can’t win as long as I’m here,” Akko said, the defeat as obvious in her voice as it was in her posture.

“I… Think you can still do better,” Diana said.

“Yeah, it’s easy for you to say,” Akko grunted, face still planted on the not-control panel. “You’re so good…”

“Well, I wasn’t always good,” Diana explained. “I’ve also felt like you do now… Well, maybe without all the ‘inter-planetary race’ part,” Akko wasn’t sure if that had been a joke or a serious comment. This was Diana, so it could be either.

“I highly doubt you really understand,” Akko said. “You’re so talented, I’m jealous.”

Diana paused. “Akko, I assure you, every pilot goes through the same struggle at some point. You may have added pressure, but…”

Why was Diana insisting? She couldn’t understand. Was she trying to compare not being able to fly your mom’s broom to this? “Nevermind,” Akko said, “let’s just continue.” She made the seat turn around. Diana was looking at her with an unhappy expression, but Akko barely noticed.

“Change to Shooting Star mode,” she said as Diana sat down.

After everything changed, Amanda woke up. “You motherfucker, could you stop doing that?” She cursed from the turret, “I’m always left in weird positions, for fuck’s sake, just wake me up.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Akko said, “I forgot.”

Amanda grunted as she exited the turret. Akko was curious to see how it changed, since the cockpit didn’t have that many differences. A while later, Hannah entered the ship. “She’s so annoying,” was the first thing she said.

“What did she do now?” Akko asked. Hannah was obviously referring to Amanda.

“She kicked me while we were crawling!”

Akko saw Diana raise an eyebrow as her seat turned. “I’m sure it was merely an accident,” she said, “I doubt she would actually kick you out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, sure,” Hannah was in a grumpy mood. She hadn’t quite gotten over what had happened the previous day. Akko kind of understood her, too. She wouldn’t want her first kiss to be stolen in a stupid game. She would only give her first kiss to the one person she fell in love with, and she would stay with that sole person forever. She would find a perfect partner or none, and that’s the decision she had made when she’d been a kid.

Akko started the simulation for Diana. When she flew, Akko made her best to learn. It was obvious by merely watching her that something was different. Where Akko might have chosen to go right she went left, where Akko might have lowered her altitude she went high. True, her ship was different, so that may be a reason, but Akko wasn’t naïve enough to think that was it.

Diana didn’t fly wildly, like Akko did. She had obviously foresight and, maybe even if she didn’t think about it, her every movement seemed to tie into the next one seamlessly.

She also had better reflexes. Like it or not, half the itme Diana dodged things from angles Akko would have thought impossible, or she just straight up seemed to phase through things. Maybe she had used some kind of cheat code while Akko wasn’t paying attention. Would the Shiny Rod have cheat codes? Did teleporting count as a cheat?

Akko watched intently until the end of the race. When it had seemed like the shapeshifter was going to win, Hannah had shot a perfect laser. It had been just surprising enough to catch the dark flier off guard.

Diana didn’t miss the chance, shooting forward with a final burst of speed. She won. Not that Akko had doubted much.

“Do you want to try again?” Akko asked, not sure if she wanted to keep failing.

“I think my next step is to try the real thing,” Diana explained as she made the seat turn around. “Come, sit down.”

Akko let herself drop on the pilot’s seat, but she didn’t turn it around, instead looking at Diana’s slender figure. As every broom-racer aspirant – whether pilot or gunman – she had been forced to go through some training. Akko hadn’t trained a lot since the race started. In fact, she hadn’t trained at all. None of them had done. It was hard to focus on such things when you had so much to do. She made a silent vow to start training again as soon as they left this planet. Maybe she was doing so badly because of that.

Diana was so slim, Akko wondered if she was eating properly.

“I wish I was rich,” Akko commented as she turned around the seat. “Then maybe I could be as good as you…”

Akko felt Diana take a deep breath. “How so?” She asked. There was… an edge, to her voice. Something Akko couldn’t quite recognize.

“I mean, you had access to simulators and stuff since you were a kid, right? And your parents had brooms and stuff, I assume. I just wish I had those things too, you know? Since now I’m not even supposed to be here, I could probably use that kind of…”

“Akko,” Diana interrupted her. Her voice was… even. Too even. Not normal-Diana levels of even. This was robot levels of even. Akko turned around to find Diana’s usual stone face. No, not her usual stone face. Her eyes were a little more closed, her lips a little too thin, “would you be so kind as to open the windshield? I think I need to use a bathroom.”

Akko cocked her head. Why… Why did she suddenly feel strange? Like if she had done something wrong? Well, when in presence of Diana it was hard not to feel like you were doing something wrong. And, well, she was doing something wrong: Flying. But this was a little different.

“Uhm… Sure,” Akko said. “Alcor, open the windshield.”

As soon as the windshield opened, Diana left. She didn’t say goodbye, or mention how much time she would take. That was kind of strange.

“You’re an asshole,” Hannah said. By the distance of her voice, she was probably leaving the turret. Akko was about to wonder what did she mean when she heard the turret closing. Amanda hadn’t climbed in, though now that she thought about it, Akko wasn’t sure how she knew that. It took her another full minute to appear – minute which Akko used to change the simulation back to normal – but she didn’t say anything.

In the end, Akko was left wondering what exactly had just happened, but she decided not to think too hard about it as she kept practicing.

Akko stood, next to the door, waiting to see where they would land. At this point she was pretty familiar with the landscapes of Pan, but it was still exciting. Pan didn’t have breathable air, sadly. Too much oxygen. The plants could handle it, but humans… Yeah, unless you wanted to die from hyperoxia, you better wore a mask. That was right: A mask, not a helmet. Akko wasn’t sure if direct contact with excess in oxygen was dangerous – didn’t things, well, oxide because of it? – but they had been informed they would only be in this planet for about forty hours, so no need to worry. Though, some of the others had decided to use helmets anyways – mainly Sucy and Constanze, for some reason.

The only thing that was kind of ruining her mood was the unusual silence. Hannah and Amanda were kind of not talking to each other, despite Amanda seeming to be pretty chill about the situation, Hannah refused to acknowledge her existence. For some reason, Barbara seemed to be very careful not to be seen by Lotte, even if they were in a narrow corridor. Akko didn’t have anything much to say, but she had noticed that when she’d asked a few things to Diana, her answers had been terse and almost practiced. She often did lengthy explanations of things, but when Akko had asked about this planet’s atmosphere, she had just said ‘It has high concentrations of oxygen.’ Or, when she’d asked about the planet’s gravity, she had only said ‘It’s about half of that on Earth.’

Maybe she was tired. Why did Akko always assume people who seemed to be on a bad mood were tired?

Before the door opened – it had to be any second now – a group of people approached through the corridor. At first, Akko assumed they were just persons who had gotten mixed up with their exits – this was a special exit for the team and their friends – but as they approached, Akko noticed something that wasn’t quite right. They looked a little cartoonish. They were appali.

All of them were wearing anti-g suits. They weren’t as advanced as Earth’s – they looked like winter attires, a little too bulky for comfort – but they probably worked just as well. It was three men and two women. Diana nodded to them, as if she knew them.

“Hud, Shill, pleasure to see you again,” Diana said, her mask distorting her voice. None of the appali used masks or helmets. Did they have better resistance to things like these?

“You know them?” Akko asked, feeling lost.

“Yes,” Diana replied, not looking at her. Akko expected her to elaborate, but Diana didn’t.

“Hello,” the shortest of them all said. It was a too-round man with dark pink hair.

He was hit on the top of the head by a girl behind him. Her arms were long, too long, and her hair was dark and straight. She said something in her language… But it didn’t get translated.

“I’m no fraternizing, I’m just being polite,” she small guy said. He wasn’t as short as Constanze, but he was close. Akko realized they weren’t actually speaking the same language. The way the girl pronounced her words was a lot more nasal and her words flowed into each other in a way the guy’s didn’t. Akko had never thought about it, but it made sense. Translators only worked with the standard languages of every planet. If she spoke Japanese aliens wouldn’t be able to tell what she was saying. Her allies neither, but that was besides the point.

Then, the door started to open, and Akko jumped out of the ship, covering her eyes from the light. The sky was blue, as it had been on the simulations. As usual, they had landed in water. However, Akko could see shores on all directions. They had landed in a rather small ‘pond’, or however you called these mini oceans. They weren’t lakes, were they? Maybe they were.

“Ok, girls,” as everyone went down to the dock of the ship, Ursula called to them. “We’re going to be here for about forty two hours from now. The races will start in thirty six hours, and the rules for the races are still unknown, so train for standard rules. In the time we’re going to spend here it won’t become night, Pan has incredibly long night-day cycles. All not-racer girls, stick together, and that’s an order. Pan is not a touristic spot, got it?”

Everyone nodded. Akko noticed that the sun was just two palms above the horizon. She hadn’t known it had such long day-night cycles. How much did they last, exactly? Well, she supposed it didn’t matter.

“I’m going to practice right now,” Akko said, determined. She had been training until just half an hour ago. She hadn’t done much progress, but with a day and a half to go, she could still get way better. She walked further down the dock, to where she noticed the light getting slightly distorted. The magical field of the ship.

She stepped outside, and she instantly felt like she could fly. “This is really cool!” Akko shouted. She jumped, and she got plenty higher than she normally would. She laughed, but she decided not to lose much more time in that. The air seemed to tingle on the exposed skin of her face, but she didn’t pay it much mind as she summoned the Shiny Rod. “Come on, Amanda, let’s get going.”

Amanda rolled her eyes, but it was not like she had anything better to do.

Chapter Text

Hannah waited patiently for Diana to start. It had taken half an hour to get the Shooting Star up to the shore – The fact that the Shiny Rod could just fly above water was so unfair – and now they’d been sitting still for about ten minutes while Diana looked at the trees ahead.

Diana was angry, Hannah knew it. Angry enough to not even want to fly. When Diana didn’t do anything, that meant she was thinking. Akko said one of the few things in this world Diana hated to hear: That she was good because of her money.

Hannah was sure that Akko hadn’t meant it that way, but it just spoke to a deeper problem. In the end, Akko still saw Diana as a rich girl. And, she knew far less than she presumed, though it wasn’t Hannah’s place to clarify that. Akko’s words had been unmeasured and hurtful. It was her job to realize it.

So, Hannah waited. Diana would sort out her feelings in time. Meanwhile, Hannah could focus on her own anger. Like, for example, the funny way Amanda had looked at her before the door opened. She had been mocking her, she knew. Sure, her face had been casual, and she would probably try to downplay it as just a mere casualty if Hannah called her out on it, but Hannah wouldn’t fall for such a stupid trick.

Argh, she was so frustrating. So childish.

“Hannah, keep an eye out for other ships. We know for a fact most other races have already arrived in Pan, so there’s a good chance someone besides us is practicing in the jungle.” Diana finally spoke.

“Got it,” Hannah replied, doing as asked.

And the broom started moving.

Hannah had expected Diana to take it easy, but she didn’t. She was used to flying on this planet thanks to the simulations, so she instantly started at full speed. Hannah quickly readjusted her expectations, and her thought process with it.

Diana flew perfectly, despite the fact that they lacked a clear goal. She sometimes made sharp turns as she saw parts of the deep jungle where a broom would certainly not be able to pass, but this particular biome of the planet was obviously more relaxed in terms of tree density. A good place for racing.

And, speaking of racing, Hannah noticed something. Fire? Yes, the fire of an engine, in the distance. It was just a glimpse, but she suspected it would be the appali, since they had been riding in the ship with them. Diana seemed to know two of them, somehow. She had been a little too angry to explain the situation, sadly. Maybe she’d explain later.

They kept flying, and besides sighting the Shiny Rod a couple times, they didn’t meet with any more ships. Maybe not everyone was practicing like them, maybe they were just practicing somewhere else. It was impossible to know. Hannah did know, however, that Diana was really focused on her piloting. She usually was, but with each turn, each twist, each dodged tree or speed burst, Hannah kept noticing a smoothness she had never felt before. Diana hadn’t said anything, either. It was almost scary. Her movements not only flowed into each other, Hannah felt as if they were going on rails. There could be no other way for such seamless change of directions. The broom leaned to one side or another constantly, but it always felt natural.

And then, the broom started to slow down. More and more. Until it hit the ground and came to a halt.

At first Hannah thought Diana might have wanted to take a break. That was until she realized they were out of fuel.

“I… miscalculated,” Diana said. Hannah was astonished. They had been flying for at least twenty minutes straight, and Diana had barely slowed down from a thousand kilometers per hour. She stopped hearing even Diana’s breathing as she probably changed frequencies to call for help. Hannah took the time to be amazed at just how well Diana had piloted. She still could feel some of the g force applied to her. Coming and going, particularly in sudden bursts of speed or tight turns.

Then she grew bored, so her mind wandered. Barbara had been pretty annoying to deal with since the party, mostly because she was still too self conscious. Hannah had threatened to tell Lotte herself, but of course, the threat went nowhere when Barbara counter-threatened by saying she’d tell Andrew how she felt about him.

She could really use some Andrew right now. Would he even get down to the planet? Didn’t look like the kind of place a fine dressed young man like him would particularly enjoy, but everyone had their adventurous side. She tried to imagine Andrew wearing some kind of explorer gear, but she couldn’t picture him with anything but a suit of some kind.

What she could picture was herself slapping Barbara to make her just go and confess. It couldn’t be that hard, and it was so obvious Lotte also liked her. There was literally no good reason for Barbara to hold back. She was getting really annoying real fast, but Hannah suspected that trying to push her to confess when she wasn’t ready would just make things more difficult.

What Hannah did want to push was Amanda. Why did her mind keep going back to that stupid party? In the end nothing had happened, but she was certain Amanda still mocked her for how scared she had been. Well, it wasn’t her fault that she valued her physical contact and first kiss.

She had always pictured her first kiss like something out of a romantic novel. She and her boyfriend looking at the horizon, an orange sunset slowly turning into twilight, a cold breeze blowing softly against them. Hannah would turn, her boyfriend would turn, and it would come naturally to them both. A perfect first kiss. Hannah understood her expectations were a tad too high, but she didn’t care.

When would she get a guy who she could see as her partner in that scene? As much as she liked Andrew, he still was so far and above her station that she couldn’t really see herself with him, at least for now.

She sighed. Maybe she’d get a chance at getting a boyfriend after graduating from Luna Nova or something. Or maybe she’d get lucky during this trip and actually manage to go out with Andrew, who she hadn’t seen since the play. Well, if humans won, she was surely going to become famous, so that was an extra motivator to do this.

Maybe that fame would be enough to make her be on the same status as Andrew…

Diana switched frequency, contacting Ursula. After a short talk, they decided Diana should contact Akko and ask her for help. Diana agreed.

But now, she found herself hesitating. She said nothing new, Diana thought, taking a deep breath. She didn’t even realize what she was implying. Don’t be angry at her.

Yet, emotions didn’t answer to logic. Akko’s view of her wasn’t that different from everyone’s views of her. She didn’t know why this bothered her so much, but it just did. She had taken Akko as someone who had admired her for her skill and not her money or status. That had crashed down with just two sentences that Akko had said while frustrated.

Still, I don’t want to get stranded here. She changed frequencies again. “Akko,” she said in a monotone voice.

“Diana?!” Akko cried, and Diana heard a crash. “Ow…”

“Sorry. Did I startle you?” She asked, unable to hold some of the worry from slipping into her voice.

“Yes, but I’m fine. I was probably going to crash against that tree anyways. Do you need something?”

“I ran out of fuel”, Diana explained, cutting to the chase. “Would you be so kind to come and pick us up?”

“You ran out? How?” Akko asked.

Diana was not in the mood to answer or just continue speaking to her. “The Shiny Rod probably has some kind of tool that would be able to find us. We’ll wait for you here,” she said, changing frequencies again. Would Akko realize she was angry? Probably not. It didn’t matter, anyways. Diana didn’t have time to worry over such things. She was going to practice until she couldn’t stand, and then she would sleep, only to wake up and continue practicing.

The bad thing about races being on an open jungle was that you had no idea how the race track would look like. Would they make it circular or a straight line? A circuit would be nice, but after the last race, Diana really hoped she would just get a straightforward short race.

Well, whatever the reason, she just needed to wait. She thought about communicating with Hannah, but she was just not in the mood for any kind of chatting, so she remained on her unused frequency while she waited for Akko to arrive.

She wasn’t supposed to be here, was a thought that crossed her mind. In other instances, she might have shoved it away, she had gotten past that issue. But she was in a thoughtful state right now. Me neither, but I got here in a  somewhat legal way.

It was a little unfair. If she lost, no one would bat an eye. It was expected of her, despite what Akko felt. Not understanding her pressure? Diana was certain that she not only understood but felt it with more force. She was a Cavendish, and she had somehow won her first race. She understood that now everyone expected of her to keep winning. She had been called a prodigy since she was ten years old. Now was her chance to prove it.

If she won, people would cheer, but they wouldn’t praise her more than they already did.

If she lost, she would get a lot of criticism.

What did Akko knew of pressure? She thought she had it bad, but the fact was, if Earth lost yet again, her image to the public wouldn’t change much. Diana’s, however, would. She would forever be referred as ‘the prodigy who went to the IPR at sixteen years old and failed’.  And what frustrated Diana more than anything was that she could do nothing about it. Even if she won every single race, even if she got a hundred points in the course of the ten races, it wouldn’t matter in the face of the First Category. Second Category was just a tie breaker, something to maybe even the odds a little. First Category was the important one. There was no way of changing that.

But, for the first time in the month since this whole ordeal had started, Diana felt like she should have been the First Category pilot and not Akko. If she was going to disappoint everyone, she might as well have done it while at least having the power over whether or not that happened.

Maybe, if Akko wasn’t here, they would have a higher chance of- No. That hadn’t been a thought, but a memory.

Prove it.

Diana hesitated, her mind having gone silent. Akko had been the only one who hadn’t been intimidated by the Aos Sí. Akko had been the only one who had the determination to stood up to them even after the promise of infinite wealth. If it wasn’t for her, maybe they would have taken the offer. Maybe…

Diana started feeling guilty about the way she had thought just moments before. That way of thinking would lead her nowhere.

Then, she felt something. Something small had hit the Blue Star from behind. “Hannah?” Diana changed frequencies.

“Uh?” Hannah spoke. Had she been asleep? “What is it?”

“What was that?”

Hannah didn’t answer. She was probably trying to figure out what Diana meant. Then it happened again. A slight vibration. “Oh, that’s probably it,” Hannah said. “There’s a… tree throwing rocks at us.”

“A tree?” Diana asked.

“A small one. Must be a plant kid.”

Diana nodded. Kids will be kids. A couple rocks wasn’t real damage, but Diana still opened her windshield and looked outside. The plant was indeed small. It was different from the normal trees of the jungle. It had a very thin trunk but a whole lot of branches. Diana didn’t see any eyes, though she knew the kid must have some sort of perception, because as soon as she looked in its direction, the kid ran away. It moved its branches in a weird manner, so Diana suspected it must have been some kind of insult.

“Dumb kid,” Hannah commented. “Did he damage the ship?”

Diana did a quick checkup, but she didn’t really feel like it was necessary. “It’s just a couple rocks. At worse they may have scratched the paint,” Diana said as all the status report said everything was fine, save for the lack of fuel.

Suddenly, a bright flash of green light surprised Diana, making her jump. It didn’t take long until she recognized what it was, but it had still been kind of scary. Diana switched frequencies and cringed as she heard Akko’s loud voice.

“DIANA DO YOU HEAR ME?”

“Akko, you weren’t…” Diana sighed. Despite her thoughts earlier, she didn’t want to deal with Akko. “Yes, I hear you.”

“Ok, how do we do this?” Akko asked, “Do I take you back to the Dragon or what?” She sounded impatient.

Diana shook her head, though it wasn’t as if Akko would see it. Did she need to speak so loudly? “Yes, take us back. We’ll use the Shiny Rod’s map to see the coordinates and send the crew to rescue the Blue Star,” Diana gave her simple instructions. Then, she stepped out of the broom. She had even gone and used up the emergency fuel without even noticing. Flying in a bad mood was not a great idea, in any circumstance. She had been careless.

They exited the ship. Diana wasn’t fearful anyone would try to steal it or do anything to it, but just in case, she put the whole thing in lockdown – the basic systems of the ship were electric and, when it ran out of fuel, could keep going on batteries for a while.

Akko opened her windshield and allowed Diana to climb into the broom, though Hannah hesitated.

“Do we really need to fly with them?” Hannah asked. Diana could kind of understand her hang-ups. After all, she wasn’t precisely stoked about having to ask Akko for a ride.

“You can stay if you want,” Amanda commented, her voice a little weak through the communicator.

Hannah snorted, instantly moving under the Shiny Rod. Diana shook her head. The anger she held towards Amanda was understandable, but Amanda had just been following the directions of Barbara, and she had been bound to follow them by honor.

When she finally reached the cockpit, she said nothing as she stood behind the pilot’s seat.

“Hey,” Akko said. She sounded annoyed.

“Hey,” Diana said, voice even.

“I’m having trouble flying,” Akko admitted. “It’s the same as in the simulations, but I think the knowledge of this being real is stressing me out,” she explained.

Diana felt a sudden need to give some advice, but in the end, wouldn’t her advice be taken as good because she was rich? Aware as she was that her bitterness was misdirected, she couldn’t help it. “You just need to get used to it,” she said instead. A rather generic comment, but it was true. Probably.

Akko didn’t seem so sure, but she still turned the Shiny Rod on. “Don’t turn on the turret, please. Don’t want my brain to get messed up like Amanda’s,” Hannah said.

“I’m right here, you know,” Amanda said. “Ouch! Hey, what was that for?”

Diana turned off the communicator. She didn’t want to deal with Hannah’s volatile personality either.

The Shiny Rod started flying slowly. “Aren’t you going to teleport?” Diana asked. The less time she spent in there, the better.

“Uhm…” Akko hesitated. “Since your broom is out of business right now, don’t you want to practice a little with the simulator? It could help me…”

“No, thanks for the offer,” Diana instantly said. She… didn’t feel good, replying to Akko like this. But she was trying very hard not to take her frustrations out on her either. She didn’t know how to fake familiarity or friendship. All she knew how to do was hide her emotions. She didn’t need herself or Akko out of sorts because of a fight. She would get over this, with time. All she needed to do now was focus on the race ahead.

Akko sighed. “Noctu Orfei Aude Freator,” she mumbled, and suddenly the Shiny Rod was back on the Dragon’s hangar. Diana wondered how long it would take for someone to try and question Akko about it, particularly after the incident during the race in Machina. Well, probably not soon. Pan wasn’t a reporter friendly planet.

“You sure you don’t want to try…?” Akko asked. She sounded hopeful, and Diana was sure that if she looked into the girl’s eyes she would give in. So, she just didn’t look at her as she tapped the windshield.

“Please open,” she just said. “Thank you,” she finished once it had been opened, and she climbed outside of the ship.

Hannah came out from under it and she was rubbing some places in her body. Diana raised an eyebrow at her as she removed her helmet. “We… Kind of got into a pinching contest. She’s good,” Hannah said with a grimace while touching her side.

Diana turned, not really interested. Well, first things first, find Ursula and go get the Blue Star back. Until then, she would have to wait. She could have taken Akko’s offer to practice, but right as she actually stopped to consider it for a second, the Shiny Rod disappeared.

In a way, Diana was relieved to no longer have to make a choice.

Amanda woke up with a sudden rock of the ship and groaned. “Akko, maybe you should take a break,” she suggested. Akko had been flying way worse than in the simulations.

Through the communicator she heard Akko hitting something in frustration. “Dumb ship!” She shouted. “Why won’t you do what I want! I saw that tree, I know I dodged it!”

She’s not listening to me, Amanda thought with annoyance. She decided to just turn the volume down and wait until Akko stopped throwing a tantrum. Amanda felt strangely not angry, lately. After the whole debacle with Hannah, things had been actually fun. Hannah reacted to the most stupid of things, and in all honesty, Amanda enjoyed it. Like before leaving the ship, where she had casually stared at her for just one second and Hannah had suddenly put a face as if she had just discovered someone had stolen all of her money. Or when she had ‘accidentally’ touched her with her feet earlier under the Shiny Rod. Of course, they were casual things that anyone not on edge would take as coincidences, but the fact that Hannah reacted to everything made it fun to tease her.

In a way, Amanda was just giving her a taste of her own medicine, except for the fact that she wasn’t actively mean. Well, kinda mean, but not mean-mean. She wouldn’t apologize for playing a game Hannah had suggested, and she was only following Barbara’s dare, so it wasn’t her fault. Sure, she had chosen Hannah over everyone else, but Hannah was acting like a child. She often did. She was spoiled and had a short temper. Amanda had apologized for what she believed had been an actually bad thing to do, but this? Yeah, no, Hannah was the one who overreacted and insulted her. Amanda wasn’t mad about it, she could understand that Hannah probably didn’t actually mean what she had said… Or not fully, at least.

And, while Amanda pondered over if she should leave the Shiny Rod or not, she felt the ship start moving. If the turret wasn’t on, then Akko must have been taking a break. Maybe she had relaxed a little. “Akko?” She asked after turning her volume up.

“What?” Akko asked in a defeated tone.

“What are we doing now?”

“I don’t know, I don’t care,” Akko said. “Wanna go back to the dragon?”

Amanda was kind of shocked to hear Akko in such a bad mood. It wasn’t the same as when she had ended up in fifth place the previous race. This was the voice of someone who was just really, really angry.

“No,” Amanda said. “You really wanna give up?” She asked.

Akko paused. The Shiny Rod stopped moving. “Maybe,” Akko said after some time. Amanda could tell she didn’t really mean it, like a kid unwilling to admit he was in the wrong.

“Akko,” Amanda said, “it’s ok to be frustrated. Nobody’s perfect. Just keep working on it and you’ll figure it out.”

“But I’ve TRIED!” Akko snapped. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for days already! I know I’m not a professional, I know I’m new but I’m sick of this! I feel like I’m not making any kind of progress at all!” Amanda heard Akko punching something again.

“But you’ve made progress,” Amanda asserted.

“What do you know? You don’t even remember what it’s like when we’re flying!” Akko said. Amanda had to smile awkwardly, since Akko was right. She had just said that to try and cheer her up. “It’s… A pain in the ass! I wish this thing had a stupid auto-pilot and leave me alone,” she mumbled. It was obvious she wasn’t serious. She was just venting her frustrations. Amanda wanted to turn the volume down again, but she felt like she should listen to this. “If it could fly itself like if it was Chariot then we’d win this race without breaking a sweat!” Akko screamed.

Auto-pilot activated, Alcor’s voice suddenly reverberated all over the ship.

Amanda lost consciousness.

The Shiny Rod sprung forward as if someone had jerked on it.

Chariot mode, Alcor said after the ship moved, and Akko felt a sudden stab of panic. What was happening?

The mini-map appeared, showing Akko where the finish line was. It wasn’t far away. Wait, when had the other pilots appeared? Akko saw as Amanda shot towards the Noir rod. Was this a simulation? But Akko hadn’t seen the change, those ships hadn’t spawned like before.

The Shiny Rod flew perfectly.

Akko was astonished. Astounded. Flabbergasted. Wait, who actually used the word flabbergasted? Pretentious writers who wanted to pretend like they knew what they were doing, that’s who. In short, Akko could barely believe what she was seeing, what she was living.

Akko could feel the difference in movements. Even beyond that which she had felt with Diana. This was not a better pilot on a different broom. This was a better pilot on the Shiny Rod. This was… Chariot. Chariot, or a simulation of her, or something like that. When the Noir Rod answered with its own attacks, Chariot made a sudden move and approached it. Despite this, the simple movement made the rival ship miss all of its shots, and in an eyeblink the Shiny Rod was answering in full strength. Since the Shiny Rod was also slightly higher than the Noir Rod, this one was pushed down by the barrage of fire, and Akko’s jaw dropped as the Noir Rod was forced under its lower hovering limit. This, like Akko knew happened to normal brooms, caused the Noir Rod to shut off in an emergency landing. Akko was able to turn and see it hit the ground as the Shiny Rod flew itself.

It had never occurred to her to do something like that.

The ship suddenly shifted speeds, going a little slower and allowing something to pass in front of it. A missile. Appali. The missile turned around having locked onto the Shiny Rod, but the ship handled itself expertly, and as the missile finished its U-turn and tried to follow it just hit a tree and exploded. The tree fell, and it also did so in such a position that it forced a couple of racers to slow down.

It quickly returned to a high speed – higher than Akko could’ve managed – as the shapeshifter suddenly made a motion and crossed paths with the Shiny Rod. As it did, an entire tree fell off, as if it had been cut. Stupid shapeshifters, that trick had ruined many a race for her.

But Chariot didn’t slow down. In fact, it sped up, making sure to always be ahead of the falling trees. With that strategy, the shapeshifter realized that stupid trick was only slowing them down, so it stopped doing it. At that moment, Amanda started attacking, her aim as good as always, but the shapeshifters kept dodging everything.

Until Chariot suddenly started moving too. With the sudden movements, which weren’t as graceful as the shapeshifter’s but did manage to somehow mimic them, Amanda actually got a hit in. With one came another, and another. Soon Akko saw as the black, smoky ship tried to counterattack with small bombs, but all of those got blown away by separate weapons of the Shiny rod while the attack kept going on full force.

It didn’t take long until the shapeshifter was forced to fly away and stop pestering them. Chariot had not slowed down a single bit during the entire time, and now she went so fast that Akko didn’t even have time to react to what was going on.

The race ended. Results popped up.

The humans had won. By a ten second advantage. Suddenly, the simulation – it had been one, after all – shut down. Akko was back where she had first started, and she was breathless.

What had just happened? Auto-pilot? It had been amazing!

Then, the Shiny Rod moved again. Another race started without Akko needing to ask Alcor. This time the Shiny rod moved on a different direction. But the results were the same. No matter who came to attack, who tried to overcome them, nothing could stop the human broom. It really was just like if Chariot was back. Maybe…

I could win with this! She thought. I can… I… Her excitement died with a sudden realization. I’m not doing anything.

What do I do?

Akko shut down the Shiny Rod before it had a chance to continue. “Akko what the fuck was that?”

“What do you mean?” Akko asked.

“I dunno, I can’t remember, I just feel like shit,” Amanda said. “Like… Super tired,” she explained.

Akko hesitated. Should she answer? It… It felt like she shouldn’t. “I… don’t know,” she lied. “That’s why I shut off the ship. I think it was a mistake or something,” it was a good thing they weren’t speaking face to face. Akko wasn’t a good liar.

Amanda seemed to accept the explanation. “Maybe we should take a real break,” Amanda said.

“Yeah,” Akko agreed. She turned on the Shiny Rod again, and to her relief, the auto-pilot was deactivated. She teleported back to the Dragon.

She… She needed to think. She needed to talk to someone about this.

Well, there was one person she could tell, probably.

All the greatest scientists have to make sacrifices for their research. That’s just how it is. We need to do this, Chariot…

The voice trailed off in Ursula’s mind as she heard banging in her door. Confused and disoriented, she spent a couple seconds trying to figure out what was going on. She had just won a race and… No, the race was coming. She hadn’t piloted in ten years.

The banging at the door was most certainly Akko.

She stood and opened the door. Indeed, the brunette was waiting for her on the other side. Ursula had thought that now that the girl had gone to practice, and that Diana’s problem was being solved, she would be able to get some much needed sleep. She had thought wrong.

However, as irritated as she was, she couldn’t stay angry while looking at Akko. Not truly.

“Can we talk?” The girl asked. She looked troubled.

“Always,” Ursula said, suppressing a yawn. Akko entered the room distractedly. Taking a few seconds, Ursula washed her face and put on her glasses. Akko sat on the desk’s chair, and she was making a number of faces that ranged from ‘why would anyone make that face’ to ‘definitely troubled’. As Ursula finally sat on her bed, Akko looked up.

“You… You weren’t close to Chariot, were you?” Akko asked. Her earnestness were like a hammer striking Ursula’s guilt-filled egg.

“Not really,” Ursula said, trying to keep nervousness out of her voice.

“Did you… Speak to her, ever, after leaving Luna Nova?” Akko asked.

Ursula hesitated. The sensible thing to do would be to deny it. But she really looked like she could use some kind of help. Whatever had happened, Akko needed advice, and Ursula suspected the girl was looking up for the only real source she trusted in the piloting world: Chariot.

“Sometimes,” Ursula said. “At, like, meetings and stuff. We talked at those, sometimes…” That was believable enough, wasn’t it? Ursula sure hoped it.

“Did she… Did she ever mention that the Shiny Rod had an auto-pilot feature?”

Ursula raised an eyebrow. Oh, so that’s what’s going on, she thought. She stopped herself from smiling. She could barely believe what Akko was telling her. She had only had the Shiny Rod for a month and she had already discovered that? It had taken Chariot a lot of time to discover that one. “She didn’t,” Ursula said. As much as she wanted to help, that would be too much of a stretch. Akko looked down, disappointed. “But one time… I think we discussed something like that.”

Akko’s head sprang back up, eyes attentive. “We…” Great, now what? “We were discussing what it would be like for AI’s to take part of the race. You know, spirits and stuff.”

“And what did she say?” Akko instantly replied. Ursula thought for a while. She couldn’t tell Akko the answer.

“Why do you need to know?” She asked, to stall for time.

“Well…” Akko looked down. Was she ashamed? “I discovered that the Shiny Rod has an auto pilot. The problem is, it flies so much better than me. It’s… Fast and aggressive but knows how to dodge and…” She sighed. “Maybe I should just let it run my races for me,” she sounded like she was hurting, somewhere.

“It’s certainly a though call,” Ursula said. “If you still want to know, Chariot believed – still believes, probably, wherever she is – that when spirits became advanced enough to be equal to humans, then they would be allowed to fly alongside us, or even represent us.”

“That… Doesn’t really help me,” Akko said. Ursula smiled kindly.

“Probably not,” she admitted. “But this must be your call, Akko,” Ursula put a hand on her arm, trying to comfort her. “Do what you feel is right, and you can’t go wrong.”

Akko paused. “Wait a second,” she looked up. “Didn’t Chariot say that?”

Ursula froze. “Sh-she did?” She asked, feeling her face tense up as she screamed internally. Had she really said that? It was the kind of corny stuff she used to- No, she still liked to say. However, Akko seemed to completely ignore her question. Instead, she rose from the chair.

“You’re right!” Akko cried.

Ursula was now confused. “I am?”

“A believing heart is my magic!” Akko yelled from the top of her lungs.

“It is?”

“Thanks a lot, coach!” Akko waved goodbye, sprinting out of the room.

Ursula was left in the bed, hand still up where Akko’s arm had been, confused. Had she done something to help? It didn’t feel like it.

Great, now she was too worried to sleep. Maybe she should get some work done…

“Uhm, Diana?” Barbara asked. They were sitting in their room, waiting for the Blue Star to be refueled. It wouldn’t be long, now. “Diana,” Barbara insisted. Diana looked up. She wished she could be completely alone. She had thought about going to Magic Deck, but for some reason a lot of people went there when the Dragon landed. The hallways would be pretty empty, as a bunch of people had already left the ship to go and camp near the race site, but pacing wasn’t her style.

“What is it?” Diana looked away from her wand, which she had been using to watch a video.

“Did you hear that?” Barbara looked confused. “Sounded like Akko.”

Diana had. Akko running and yelling something. “I don’t really care,” Diana admitted. Akko didn’t sound hurt. She just sounded… Well, Akko. There was no reason to worry

“I don’t either,” Hannah said. “She’s probably just realized she can dodge trees instead of ramming into them, huh?” She giggled at her own joke, and Barbara chuckled. Diana found herself surprisingly annoyed at it, but she lacked the motivation to do anything.

She kept watching the video.

It was one of a practice race between a Shapeshifter and Daemons. It was thirty years old at this point, but it was still an interesting piece of history. Any race between any of the four regulars was interesting on its own right. It was a straightforward one. The racing track was a sinuous path between mountains. It was on Sídhe, though Diana couldn’t tell thanks to the greenscale.

The shapeshifter ship was, as always, a triangle of smoking blackness. Meanwhile, the Daemon ship was shorter, wider and bulkier than their usual ships. This was not one they had used on an IPR, probably an experimental design. Back in the day it must have been quite interesting, but compared to the Noir Rod or their Second Category ship actually, it was slow and hard to handle. It still fared remarkably well against the shapeshifter.

Diana had always found it strange how, despite the similarities between all Shapeshifter ships, they always were relatively on pair with everyone else. No outer changes, but apparently a lot of inner ones.

As always, the daemons focused heavily on attack. They weren’t as aggressive as, say, appali, but they took every chance they got to try to hold back the shapeshifter. Diana found it interesting. This was a short race, so they didn’t need to take much care of their fuel, but it did remind her of her own struggle during the Machina race. It was interesting to see.

When the race ended, the daemon had won. A good hit on the shapeshifter’s ship on the last minute gave it the advantage it needed. Diana watched as a couple of daemons, with their red-pointed protuberances and black bodies exited the black ship and slowly walked towards the shapeshifter ship. The shapeshifter also exited its ship – it opened a hole on the top, making the ship look almost alive – and they met face to face. The daemons extended a hand and the shapeshifter took them both. The video lacked noise, but Diana was certain there would be a lot of noise and cheering going on.

She turned her wand off. Right now she wasn’t doing research; she just wanted to watch videos of old races. Was it that hard for her to believe it? It was unusual that she did something without a clear purpose, but everyone needed some procrastination once in a while. She also felt like reading a book, but those were in her bag, and she couldn’t gather the will to get down from her bed and fetch one of them.

Why did she feel so down? Because of Akko? Because of her mistake? Some other mix of things? She knew it wasn’t because of her ‘ruined’ party. She hadn’t really cared about it in the first place. Maybe it was pure unaltered tiredness. The dopamine she had generated while landing would be worn out by now, so she started feeling the full strength of her irregular sleeping schedule and her bad humor. Being angry really did take a lot of energy, for some reason. She had the feeling she should have known why that was – she had certainly studied it. Maybe it was a temporary forgotten thing.

She moved on to another video. She had basically all races from the last hundred years stored in her wand. Sure, the video quality wasn’t the best, but that wasn’t really important for what she wanted to do. This new video was an IPR race. She instantly recognized it as a fourth iteration, thanks to the human broom. It kind of looked like a pear, with a bulky back, a less bulky front and rounded features. In fact, this was the very race where…

Diana fast-forwarded the video until the five minutes mark. There, she let it run again. There were just three racers in camera: The Humans, the Armors and the Medusa. It was amazing, how many times humans had starred iconic moments of the Inter-Planetary Race, yet had won not a single one.

And, right as Diana thought about that, it started. During the race the humans had been persistently harassed by the other two, and they had gotten tired. So, in a moment that experts still debated on if it was a stroke of luck or pure genius, the ship started spinning. Like a damn beyblade. It was lucky to be running on the barren wastelands of Set. Something curious about that ship is that it had very weak long range weapons, exchanging them for something that was akin to a simple stream of pure magic that could cut through anything. It hadn’t been used again because the amount of magic it wasted was absurd and not worthy, but looking at what was happening on the holographic screen, one had to wonder if maybe they hadn’t been wrong.

For the ship spun, and with absurdly precise movements, it actually hit the other two racers, who hadn’t been expecting it. It had been strong enough and lucky enough to break through the armor’s defenses and ruin their ship, and to be able to hit the medusa in just the right way to stop the hit from being illegal. In about thirty seconds, and exactly sixty spins, the human broom had gotten rid of its two most annoying competitors during that race. Of course, it won.

Another video finished. Diana was amazed by the sheer stupidity that move was. It had depended on luck, she was certain. So many people still defended it, though. Were they bland? Did they seriously believe something like that would be useful in normal circumstances? It had been a gamble with the odds absurdly against the humans. It had paid off, but so many things could have gone wrong… It was kind of like how Chariot was. Nowadays she wasn’t respected, but that was because she was seen as a traitor, as the one pilot who could have brought glory to Earth but in the last second had given her back to them.

Now, everyone’s hopes laid on a couple of teenagers, one of which was there only on accident, the other one not even trusting herself.

Looking at past races got Diana in a weird mood. She had to live up to expectations, but… Were those previous pilots subject to similar expectations? Julius Burton, for example. He was considered one of the best human pilots to have graced the IPR. The father of the Dragon’s captain. He had been a normal teenager until he started training to become a pilot. Not poor, not rich, not ugly, not handsome, not stern, not funny. He was one of the most average man you could ever known. Yet, he had been an amazing pilot. What did he have to deal with?

What about Chariot? She had appeared out of nowhere. She had blown away everyone’s expectations about her. The Black Sheep of the Eleventh Iteration of the Inter-Planetary Race. During the latter half of the race, many races had allied to try and take her down, and yet they could do nothing against her. She had been an unstoppable force, and impossibly good pilot who had, along with her mysterious anonymous gunman, been the vessel of all of humanity’s hopes of victory. What if the pressure had gotten to her? No, impossible. With her nine straight wins, she had a good advantage. Even if she had ended up in fifth place she would have still won the overall IPR. Her disappearance had been so sudden… People who didn’t hate her still theorized she had been kidnapped or even killed. It was highly unlikely, pilots had little chips installed in their arms constantly checking their vitals. If someone hurt one of them badly, it would alert it. Yet, her chip had remained perfectly fine, according to reports. Not killed, and she hadn’t been under deep emotional stress either, so no kidnapping either. She had been nervous, but, well, who wouldn’t be after bailing on the most important sports event in the universe?

Diana had her videos saved, of course. She didn’t watch them.

Instead, she finally mustered the strength to stand. The Shooting Star shouldn’t take much longer to get ready.

“Hey, Diana?” Hannah asked. Diana looked at her with her ‘normal’ expression. “Maybe you should talk to Akko,” Hannah said.

“Like you talk to Amanda?” Diana raised an eyebrow.

Hannah gave her flat look, shaking her head. “Amanda did what she did on purpose. And, well, we kind of got over our differences before that,” she shrugged. “I just mean, you look kind of… intense.”

Diana considered this. Hannah was right, she was aware of that. She should talk to Akko, explain to her why what she had said had been hurtful and ask her to understand her. On the other hand, she… didn’t want to. She wasn’t sure why. Akko was such a kind, if stubborn, person. She would understand where Diana was coming from, probably. There was no reason not to do it, and yet…

“Maybe I’ll do it after the race,” Diana said. “Come on, let’s go see if the Blue Star is ready.”

Barbara and Hannah exchanged a look, but Diana ignored it, exiting the room. All she neded now was focus. Nothing else.

Nothing else.

Akko sat in the Shiny Rod. Amanda wasn’t onboard. She needed to do this alone.

She turned on the broom, waiting impatiently as everything turned on. “Alcor, simulation,” she said as soon as everything was ready. Akko was ready. She would do what she thought was right. No, what she knew was right.

Auto-pilot: Chariot mode, Alcor announced. It had activated automatically. Akko had suspected it would.

“No!” Akko cried. “Turn it off!” The simulation turned off on command. Akko sighed. “Not the simulation you dumb bird, the auto-pilot. Turn that off.”

Impossible, the green crow appeared in front of her.

The single word made Akko’s eyes widen. “What?!”

Auto-pilot cannot be turned off without complete removal.

Akko paused. That meant that if she accepted, she would never be able to activate it again? That would mean one less choice to win the race. She would never experience Chariot’s flying again. She would have to be enough. But, that was what she was anyways, wasn’t it? Enough. If she wasn’t enough, then they didn’t deserve to win this. If she was, then she didn’t need this dumb thing. If she wanted to win…

It wasn’t a hard choice. A tough one, maybe. But not a hard one.

“Do it,” she said.

…she would do it with her own flying.

Auto-pilot removed. You’re back in control, Akko, Alcor said. Akko could swear he looked… proud.

And, to Akko’s surprise, the bird started to become fuzzy. Its light rearranged itself into Comic Sans letters.

“Phaidoari Afairynghor,” Akko said the command. Maybe she was butchering the pronunciation, but… No. The Shiny Rod started to glow. Not the normal glow. No, lines of green magic started spreading from the weapon balls, connecting. And, in a quick change, suddenly the ship was wider. Its front had somehow extended, now being rounded. It had an edge. A sharp edge.

Akko suddenly felt more confident about her flying.

Chapter Text

There was no ceremony for the rules of the race this time. Every coach simply received the instructions of the race on a little envelope. I am surprised, though. Didn’t expect someone as apparently in touch with technology to use something so… outdated, Diana thought as she prepared for the race. The area of the race had been marked, and it was a big expanse of forest.

She was tapping her finger.

“Seriously, what the fuck is up with those rules?” Hannah complained. “I’m basically useless during this race. I can’t risk shooting!”

Diana didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her cool if she did. She shared Hannah’s frustration. The race had rules that nobody had expected. They had no precedent.

It would be a series races. A series of short races, where each time, the last racer would get kicked out. The other most important rule was the prohibition on touching or harming trees in any way. Any touch would get you instantly disqualified and earn you zero points, no matter your relative position. That meant no shooting, of course. The chances of hitting a tree were too high.

And the First Category race was even more nerve-wrecking.

Tap, tap, tap.

The Blue Star stood at the start line of the first race. Each race would only be ten seconds long. No finish line. The one who had traversed the least amount of distance in the short period of time would be the loser that round, until only one of them was left.

The race would start in exactly five minutes, according to the plant in front of them. It had a lot of flowers, each one of them with ten petals. Each second, a petal retracted, and right now thirty flowers remained with petals on them. “I should get off,” Hannah continued. “Maybe without my weight you’ll gain a little bit of speed or something,” she said. Diana understood how she felt. The fact that she wouldn’t be able to do anything at all during the race was like saying to her face that gunmen weren’t important. The sole focus on this race would be on flying ability.

“Stay,” Diana said. “You can run checkups on the ship, maybe shoot if things get too dangerous and you’re sure you will hit.” And I feel more comfortable knowing I have a friend on board.

Tap, tap, tap.

Hannah didn’t answer, but since there was no advice on the turret opening, Diana assumed she would stay. She tried to think of nothing as the minutes passed. About two minutes before the race started, everyone started wishing her good luck. She couldn’t help but notice Akko hadn’t done it. She had discovered something new, and was now training, so she wouldn’t be watching this race.

Diana wasn’t sure if that hurt or relieved her.

One minute left.

In this race, ships with the lowest acceleration were at a big disadvantage. Armors, Appali and Octopus for sure. Diana wasn’t sure if cyborg acceleration was good or not. In the races she’d seen it wasn’t obvious, sadly. That didn’t mean she’d had it easy. The shapeshifter, medusa and daemons were way better than the Shooting Star in that regard. Each race would only last ten seconds and she needed to make it as far as possible without touching a single tree.

Thirty seconds.

She made a path in her head, looking at what was in front of her. Maybe the Cyborgs to her right would try to get in her way, or the shapeshifter on the left, but she was fairly certain no one would actually risk confrontation. Still, just in case, she also prepared alternate routes. If she got attacked, she wouldn’t try to counter it, she would focus on getting ahead and nothing else.

Fifteen seconds.

Diana was going to win this. Deserving or not, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If she managed to do this maybe she could fix every problem she’d had.

Ten seconds.

Problems she’d had because of a rich and respected family.

Five seconds.

She was proud of her name. Why did people have to be so judgmental of it?

One second.

Not now. She stopped tapping her finger.

Diana accelerated. The Blue Star shot through the trees. No one tried to stop her. One second. As expected, the shapeshifter managed to get further than her, but it didn’t seem to be bothering with annoyance. Two seconds. The cyborgs were quickly left behind, and as she flew, a sonorous whistle was heard in the distance. Someone had hit a tree. Five seconds. She saw the daemons and their edgy ship in the distance. It was hard to tell, but they were probably also ahead of her. Seven seconds. Diana saw a slightly diagonal path with very few trees. Yes, she could use it. Eight seconds. She pressed the rightmost pedal, and in a burst of speed, she went as far as she could. Nine seconds. She stopped the speed right on time to not hit a tree. No whistle heard, she hadn’t touched anything, luckily. Ten seconds.

The whistle from before sounded tree times to mark the end of the race. The Planetary Alliance cameras following the racers around stopped and went back to the starting line. Diana followed. Those ten seconds had been less intense than she had expected. Maybe it was because she was in the right frame of mind.

The starting line, with the audience behind it, had a big holographic screen that showed the results. The armors had come in last. Surprisingly, it had been the medusa who got disqualified. This would be a heavy hit on their score, meaning the First Category race for them would be really important.

Diana set herself back in the starting line. This time she was put in a completely different spot to stop her from learning the layout of the forest. One minute until the race started. There were only eight racers left. Seven races, assuming no one else got disqualified.

“Well done,” Hannah said. “How do you think the medusa managed to get itself disqualified?”

“It’s bubble is enormous. Not the best choice for a jungle,” Diana explained. “I’m assuming they didn’t think much of it at first, since they water can probably make things go through it, but the prohibition on touching the trees kind of destroyed them.”

“You’re probably right, as always,” Hannah said, nodding.

Fifteen seconds.

Diana wondered if Akko would even be on time for the race. She didn’t have a way of knowing exactly how long Diana’s would last, particularly if people got disqualified.

Five seconds.

Well, she’d probably make it. Teleporting was one handy thing.

One second.

Race two started and Diana had already seen ahead to mark a path. Right on the first tree, follow the animal trail for one second and go to the right. As she followed the animal trail she was able to see even beyond, and as she avoided one three, jumped over other and vertically squeezed through another two, she found that already seven seconds had passed. She was almost startled when she heard the Blue Star’s weapons firing, and behind her, a missile exploded. Appali. No whistle, however, so neither of them got disqualified. The race ended, again.

She went back to the starting line again. This time the reptilians had come in last. The screen didn’t show any other positions. Just the last one. It was kind of unnerving.

Another minute.

“This gets really old really fast, huh,” Hannah commented. She was bored, obviously. “But you’re doing great, Diana,” she said, making sure to be encouraging. Diana appreciated it.

“You also did great. Thanks for the save,” she complimented.

I’ve gotta win, Diana thought. This race was absolutely horrible for people with anxiety. Sure, every race you survived you technically won more points. But you also had another chance of screwing up, touching or harming a tree, and being left with absolutely zero points.

Thirty seconds.

Third short race. Diana had never imagined she’d be running a race with such weird rules. Above the screen she could see Croix floating, facing the audience. She was doing as the commentator, and the audience seemed to love her. This time, Diana was on the end of the line, with the Daemons directly to her right. Would they try to interfere with her flying? Maybe, though daemon thinking always was erratic, at least to a human. One could say that their thinking was a little too alien.

Diana sighed.

One second.

The third race started. Lean right, dodge left, pass under that branch, careful with the sprouts. How did the plants call these giant trees? Diana believed the translation was something like “Everywhere.” It made sense. They were everywhere.

Wait, what was she thinking about? Five seconds had passed and she had dodged almost on auto-pilot. The daemons were on par with her, though only because the shapeshifter seemed to be having a fun time annoying it. Both of them were risking getting disqualified thanks to their little dangerous dance, though not a single fire was shot.

Another end, another saved. Diana had seen who had come last without even needing to see it announced. The plants. Curious, but as usual, races on home planets didn’t seem to go well. Diana carefully went back to the starting line. In the distance she saw the Shiny Rod flying. Conflicting emotions rose. Amusement at the fact that Akko was taking things so seriously, worry that she was overexerting herself, annoyance at the fact that she wasn’t watching the race, relief that she wouldn’t be there to see if Diana messed up or not…

Silly emotions. She couldn’t focus on them now.

Diana ended up between the octopuses and the daemons. They hadn’t attacked yet, but then again, as the race came to a close, trying to get rid of the competition was not a bad idea. As the sentient flower kept making its petals retract, Diana tried to make her plan. She wasn’t far from that place she’d been in the first race. With some maneuvering maybe she could reach that little straight where she would be allowed to use nitro to gain speed…

One second.

She accelerated. She had been kind of unlucky, starting with a tree right in front of her, which made her unable to gain her full speed from the beginning. Right now, she was in last. But as she flew she started gaining speed. Three seconds. Wait, what were the daemons doing? Four seconds. Red sparks between their wings. Five seconds. Diana saw what was ahead of her. She needed to go faster, but… Five seconds. No, not faster. She slowed down as the daemons shot. Their Inferno projectile missed the Blue Star, going instead towards the octopus ship. Diana saw what was going to happen and accelerated again. The octopuses deflected the shot with their shields. They had redirected it towards the humans again, but thanks to Diana’s foresight, they aimed just a little behind them. Six seconds, a loud whistle sounded as the octopuses got disqualified, their deflected projectile hitting a tree. Diana had lost distance, but the daemons disappeared from her mind. She turned up another gear. Seven seconds. If she went faster she would risk hitting a tree. The daemons had actually fallen back with her to try and continue attacking. Eight seconds. There! Diana thought, recognizing the spot from before. She pressed the nitro. Nine seconds. She went as far as she could, like before, before letting the Blue Star slow down to keep dodging like normal. Ten seconds. The three whistles marked the end of the race.

Diana quickly went back to the start. Was it her or those ten seconds had lasted for way longer than just ten seconds? With her heart on her throat, she looked at the holographic screen.

The daemons had come in last. The sigh of relief that came out of her was long and, ironically, it felt like taking a breath after almost drowning.

“That was great, Diana!” Hannah said. Diana wasn’t so sure, but the daemons’ little performance had caused their downfall and the octopuses’. Now only four racers remained. Cyborgs, Appali, the Shapeshifter and Humans. Two of the teams who she had thought were the least likely to get this far had, somehow, beaten the daemons. Surprises like that were a reason the IPR was so famous among viewers.

Again, Diana was on one end of the line, with the shapeshifter to her left. She was a little nervous. The appali could attack her with relative ease this time, or maybe even the cyborgs would.

“Hannah, make sure to keep an eye out for the appali,” Diana said.

“I already was,” Hannah said. Yes, of course she was. Hannah was a trustworthy gunman.

Each passing second, Diana felt the pressure more and more. She had gotten this far. She could win. She would win. But what if she got disqualified? The Shapeshifters were still better than her, even if in the simulations she had gotten an idea on how to deal with them.

Diana closed her eyes. Focus. She would win. Everyone expected her to. Everyone hoped she would.

But was that because she was Earth’s pilot or because she was a Cavendish and a prodigy? Her family had been important even before the discovery of Magic Energy. When they got into the Magic industry their power grew exponentially. At least, until the previous generation.

Focus! She thought as she opened her eyes. Five seconds. Why was it so hard to just focus?

Win this race. Your aunt is watching. Earth is watching. Akko is- she grunted in frustration.

One second.

She accelerated. Her mind had gone blank, leaving only piloting in it. She took the optimal path, even if it would cross with the shapeshifter’s. Faster. Just four teams. She would not lose here. Her movement seemed to be somewhat slower, but she didn’t have time to worry as to why. She was probably imagining it. A whistle sounded. How many seconds had it been? It didn’t matter. She accelerated further. The shapeshifter still kept pace with her. So frustrating, how did those ships even work? Focus.

Before she even realized it, three whistles sounded. Had she lost? Hopefully not. At the starting line, she was pleasantly surprised by the two losers of this round. The appali had lost, and the cyborgs had been disqualified.

That meant only one race was left. Against the shapeshifter. She got rid of every other distraction. She shoved away expectations, friendship and goals.

She could do this.

She would do this.

Akko smiled as she came out of the Shiny Rod. The next race was in the bag. She couldn’t lose, not with her new ability. But, right now, she would try to cheer Diana on. She quickly climbed the stands to where the humans were, three whistles sounding as she reached the group.

“How’s it going?” She asked Lotte as she sat down. She couldn’t help but notice Barbara had sat on the other end of the group, which was weird because she and Lotte had been spending some time together. Maybe they’d had a fight.

“Look,” Lotte pointed at the starting line behind the giant holographic screen. Akko’s eyes widened with excitement. There were only two ships left: The Blue Star and the shapeshifter’s. “Diana’s been doing great,” she said, and then explained how some of the races had gone.

“She’s amazing,” Akko said, “though that shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore, huh?” She put on a self-effacing smile, really feeling like she had aimed too high when declaring her as her rival.

“It’s about to begin,” Lotte said, pointing at a Plant with a ton of flowers on its body, though most of them had no petals. A couple did, but the petals were retracting one a second. A countdown. It was hard to see how many were left, but not many.

And, when all of them disappeared, the race started. Akko watched closely at the holographic screen as the two ships disappeared between the trees. Diana really was something else. The way she danced among trees was beautiful. What in other racers might have looked like a hard zigzag motion, she made look like a simple sinuous path. The way she leaned the Blue Star to fit between trees or to gain an edge felt natural. If you didn’t have an idea of how to pilot, what Diana was doing might look even like practice. There were no frantic motions. A dodge left, a jump there. All of it… flowed.

I see, Akko realized. But it was too late for understanding now. She had a better strategy than flow now anyways.

And then, the race ended. Ten seconds. Ten seconds of absolute perfection, and Akko had been so infatuated by the Blue Star’s flying that she hadn’t even paid attention to the race as a whole, to the point where she actually had to look at who the loser was.

The shapeshifter.

She instantly changed the frequency on her helmet to meet the one Diana and Hannah would be using.

“Diana that-” She began to say, but she paused as she heard Hannah yelling.

“GET OUT OF THE SHIP!”

Akko froze. What was going on?

“What is this?” Croix’s voice came through the many roombas – why the hell did she use roombas? – over the crowd. In the screen, The windshield opened, Diana coming out of the ship in a hurry. A second later, Hannah also came out of the emergency exit. They didn’t even bother to shut down the broom, they just jumped out and ran.

Something had gone wrong, but what? As Hannah and Diana ran away, Hannah managed to hide behind a tree, but Diana ran in the opposite direction and the nearest tree was further away.

Then, the Blue Star exploded.

The race ended. Hannah had been keeping a close eye on the shapeshifter. Diana had been amazing, like the day before when she’d been angry at Akko. It was like… Like she had entered the Zone or something.

And then, in her screen, something changed. She had been running constant checkups, as instructed, but nothing had gone wrong. Except now. Suddenly, a big notification popped up. Critical Error. The map of the ship showed that something had somehow gotten into the Magic circuits.

“Diana, get off the ship,” Hannah said, feeling surreally calm. A problem with the Magic circuits was probably the worst that could happen.

“Hannah? What do you…?” Diana started, but Hannah didn’t have time to argue.

“GET OUT OF THE SHIP!” Hannah shouted imperatively. She had also heard another voice, but didn’t have the time to think about it as she punched up to open the emergency exit and climbed to run out of the broom. When she came out, she saw with relief that Diana had followed her advice. She jumped out of the ship and ran as if her life depended on it. Her life probably did depend on it.

And, as soon as she could, she jumped behind a tree. Not five seconds later, what she feared happened. An explosion, a scorching wind of hotness mitigated by the temperature-regulating nature of the anti-g suit. Debris from the ship flied around.

This atmosphere is rich in oxygen, Hannah thought. She carefully turned. The ground was on fire, fire that was spreading like crazy. Way faster than it would on Earth. Only one thought crossed her mind, a primal instinct: Run.

Akko didn’t hesitate. She didn’t even think. She climbed the remaining stands and jumped to the ground, which was a good ten meters below. As she fell, she waved her wand. The Shiny Rod instantly appeared below her at its maximum floating height, windshield open, and she fell right on top of the pilot seat as if the broom had known exactly how she was going to fall. Akko heard Lotte freaking out by her sudden motion, but she didn’t care.

“Phaidoari Afairynghor!” Akko instantly commanded, and she didn’t even wait until the transformation ended to being moving. She rounded the stands and in a moment she was going at full speed towards the place of the explosion. There were a lot of trees in her way.

She cut through them all.

She arrived at the place so fast that she barely had time to process it. She Had seen where Diana had fallen but amidst the fire it was hard to see. However, when she saw the horribly marine green figure amidst all the yellow, orange and red, she couldn’t mistake it for a plant. Those were way darker in this planet. Finally some good had come out of the place.

Diana was in a spot of dirt, luckily, and her suit and helmet were completely impervious to fire. Even then, Akko saw something reflecting off Diana’s arm, and her eyes widened.

She hovered until she was next to Diana. She opened her windshield, jumped off, picked Diana and picked her up. Thanks to the lesser gravity of the planet she was able to get her back to the Cockpit without much trouble.

“Noctu orfei aude freator!” she cried. She didn’t have a second to lose. She appeared in front of the medical tent that had been set up for humans. As she picked Diana up again, she noticed a nasty cut on her arm. The reflective thing she had seen was fresh blood. A couple of nurses in front of the tent snapped out of their surprise at seeing the white broom suddenly appear before them and helped Akko bring Diana into the tent. They removed the blonde’s helmet and replaced it with a mask. Then they started removing the girl’s g-suit.

Akko was numb. She should be panicking, worried, maybe even on the brink of tears, but as she looked at Diana’s unconscious body all she could think about was that her underwear didn’t match. Top white, bottom black. A nurse stood in front of her, but Akko didn’t hear what she was saying. The nurse started to push her. Akko let herself be carried out of the tent. And there she stood waiting. Her friends arrived soon, Ursula instantly going into the tent. Barbara started to shake her.

She was saying something, but again, Akko didn’t hear.

“Akko, please, Hannah’s still out there!” Barbara said. Amanda saw the look in Akko’s eyes and understood she was probably too shocked to do anything else. She had acted out of pure instinct before. Everyone was panicking. People on the stands had risen and instantly started to cry out in rage, claiming cheating, though it probably had nothing to do with cheating. Who the hell would cheat after the race was over? That kind of stuff is usually done beforehand. It had been a weird explosion, but…

Amanda couldn’t pretend not to care. She was restless, pacing around. Even if she didn’t show it much, she was worried. Hannah had shielded herself from the explosion, but the fire was spreading like… well, not, faster than wildfire. Her suit would protect her, but she wouldn’t survive if a tree or something fell on top of her.

And then, Amanda got the stupidest of ideas. She changed the frequency on her helmet. “Hannah?” As an answer she heard panting. Relief washed over her. She was at least alive. “Hannah, dude, you fine?”

Barbara turned upon hearing Amanda. She was wearing a mask, so she couldn’t contact Hannah like that.

“Amanda?” Hannah’s voice came from the other side. She sounded equally surprised and disgusted. Yeah, she was fine. “Yes, I’m fine, though I’m surrounded by fire and trying to stay in one place.”

“Firefighter squads should be about to reach the place,” Amanda said. “Stay put.”

And with that, they didn’t exchange more words. Amanda didn’t really need to know more. Hopefully nothing bad would happen to Hannah, but she couldn’t do more right now. It would take too long to get there now, and while she could pilot the Rod, Alcor still didn’t listen to her, so she couldn’t teleport or do… whatever Akko had done just now. Why hadn’t she told her? She had mentioned she wanted to keep it a secret but… Well it was not like Amanda could actually tell what was going on when she was inside anyways.

“Hey,” Hannah spoke right before Amanda switched back to her normal frequency, “Diana is still out there, and she’s not answering. Is…?”

“Akko saved her,” Amanda replied instantly. “Well, assuming she makes it out alive, who knows what happened to her.”

“Akko saved her?” Hannah asked in shock. “Holy shit she finally did something useful.”

Amanda frowned. “Do you really need to insult her like that now?”

Hannah didn’t answer. Amanda sighed. She decided to stay on the frequency, should Hannah try to say something else, though she should probably switch to the general one to also put herself in contact with Ursula. Though, for some reason, Amanda didn’t feel compelled to suggest that.

And then, she heard weeping from the other side.

“I could have died,” Hannah suddenly said. “Oh god, I could have died.”

Amanda stopped pacing. Hannah was definitely crying. “Hey, hey,” she tried to sound comforting. “You sure you’re fine? Have the firefighters arrived yet?”

“What do you care,” Hannah said. Her voice was still watery, even if she tried to sound angry. “You’re just going to end up making fun of us for this, won’t you? Fuck off,” she said. Amanda shook her head, not offended by the comment.

She then realized she was obviously not the person Hannah should be talking to. She approached Barbara, who looked like she was going to pass out at any minute. “Gimme the mask,” she said. Barbara looked at her confused. “I’ll give you the helmet so that you can talk to Hannah.”

“See? You don’t even wanna talk with me,” Hannah said from the other side. Amanda didn’t reply. Hannah was obviously not in a state of mind where she would listen to reason anyways.

Amanda and Barbara quickly made the change, holding their breaths, and in a second Barbara was already talking and comforting Hannah. Amanda took the chance to slowly walk away from the medical tents. For being so outraged, only a small group of humans had actually approached the place to see how their Second Category pilot was doing. They looked at Amanda with curious eyes, so she shrugged at them. They didn’t really know how Diana was. She probably wouldn’t die, but…

As she went back to the stands, she looked at the holographic screen. The win counted, of course, so at least not all was bad. Diana had piloted like a madwoman during that last race. The shapeshifter had barely been able to keep up, it was crazy. Though Amanda was sure she could do just as well, if not better.

“Sudden, huh,” A voice came from behind Amanda, and she jumped, exalted by the sudden appearance of Croix behind her. “You think you’ll be fine for the First Category race?”

Amanda looked at croix up and down. The woman was floating half a meter above the ground in her flying roomba that worked on inferno. “Me? Yes,” Amanda didn’t doubt she’d be ready whether she was worried or not. The Shiny Rod didn’t care about her feelings, probably. “The problem is Akko.”

Croix nodded. She looked towards the medical tents between the trees with interest. “That was one epic rescue, don’t you think?”

Amanda narrowed her eyes. Something felt… off. Croix didn’t sound worried. No, she didn’t even pretend to be. She was obviously preoccupied with something that wasn’t Diana. “Yeah…” Amanda said, tentatively. Truth was, Akko’s rescue had been pretty badass. Akko had reacted before any of them, ran off, jumped and disappeared. Next thing they saw was the Shiny Rod, transformed into some kind of giant axe, cutting through trees as if they were grass blades.

“Guess we’ll have to move the place of the race. Thanks to her now there’s a long corridor without trees…” Croix sighed, “But hey, I’m glad miss Cavendish is ok. Give her my good wishes,” and with that, the lavender-haired, absurdly-dressed woman rose into the air and gave the announcement that the First Category race would be delayed due to the accident.

Amanda sat down against a tree, feeling strangely drained. As people got off the stands, the IPR staff started to dismantle them. The race would resume in about two hours in a different location. Amanda felt like she should go check on Akko and such, but something stopped her.

Then, Jasminka dropped besides her, followed by Constanze.

“Nervous?” Jasminka asked. She wasn’t eating, mostly because she couldn’t eat while on the outside, but it was a weird sight. Amanda shrugged. Jasminka patted her back, and Amanda suspected she would be smiling, though it wasn’t visible behind the mask. “Don’t worry, Hannah’s going to be ok.”

Amanda paused. She already knew Hannah was ok. That wasn’t why she felt like she did. But then again, why did she feel like that? The scare of the explosion, probably. She might not be best friends with Diana or Hannah but she wouldn’t want them dead. “Wonder what the hell happened,” Amanda said, sighing. “It’s weird for a broom to suddenly blow up with no explanation.”

Constanze nudged her. Amanda looked down. She was, as always, holding a tablet-like device. There, she had… “Wait,” Amanda raised an eyebrow. “Is that the Blue Star’s data?” She asked. Constanze nodded energetically, showing something. It was slowly updating, and it was obviously not in real time, or the data would already be gone. But it was impressive nonetheless. The Shooting Star, like most high-end racing brooms, had a lot of anti-hacking systems. For both physical and cybernetic hacking. The fact that Constanze was somehow receiving data on the now blown up broom just went to proof how much of a genius she truly was.

And, as it kept updating, Amanda understood. “Oh, I see! You will be able to tell exactly how things went wrong?” Constanze nodded again. “That’s cool! How far behind is that data?” The tiny girl raised three fingers. Three minutes was obviously too fast, so Amanda went for the next best guess. “Half an hour?” With another nod from her teammate, Amanda smiled. They’d be able to tell what went wrong before the next race started, even. That was reassuring.

And, at that moment, a bunch of red vehicles appeared. They had many different designs, as things like firefighters were not bound by any races. And Amanda was happy to see an auburn-haired girl sitting behind the obviously human red broom. Her g-suit was black in some places, but she was probably ok.

Now, all that was left was to wait.

Chapter Text

When Diana woke up, she noticed she was inside a magical field that recreated Earth’s conditions. Her mind was as if in a thick fog. She could barely recall anything, but she understood she was in an alien planet where gravity was supposed to be half of Earth’s. But she felt normal, and she wasn’t wearing a helmet or mask. And, in fact, she saw a couple of the rods used to create such environments. What had happened?

She knew this sensation of barely being able to think. She was drugged. She looked at herself. One of her arms was heavily bandaged, and one of her legs was in as sling. She didn’t feel any kind of pain, but that was because she couldn’t feel at all. A machine was connected to her unharmed arm, checking her vitals and managing an IV bag. She had lost some blood, apparently.

“Diana?” Ursula’s voice sounded distant, but when she paid attention, she saw the teacher on a chair not far from her bed. “Thanks lord you’re ok,” she said with a relieved voice.

Diana tried to say something, but her tongue felt too big for her mouth, and her eyelids were heavy. “Wha…?” was all she could say before losing strength. Ursula quickly stood and approached, putting a hand on Diana’s forehead.

“Stay put, save energy. Your wound was infected. It was good Akko was so quick to react, nothing mayor happened.”

Diana barely understood a word of what she said. What had happened? She couldn’t recall. She had been… Racing. Piloting. Yeah, short races. Something… Had she won? Her mind was too fuzzy. She didn’t know. In all honesty, she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was sleep…

Ursula watched as Diana fell unconscious again. She had been heavily anesthetized. Her leg was broken, she had lost a decent amount of blood and the sheer force of the explosion had caused her to black out. It was kind of a miracle that she had woken up so soon after the accident, in fact. Relaxed as Diana went back to her peaceful rest, Ursula went back to her chair, feeling like a failure. How could this happen to one of her students? Forget what her superiors would say, she felt responsible.

“Ursula,” suddenly, someone entered the tent. Amanda. “Coach,” she had wide eyes and her expression was a mixture of shock and anger. “You need to see this,” She entered the magic field and took out her mask, handing Ursula one of the devices Constanze always carried around.

Amanda was obviously being serious, so Ursula didn’t ask any questions and looked at the screen. She instantly recognized a status report screen from the Blue Star. She had already been witness of Constanze’s amazing hand for machines and technology in general, but she would seriously have to tell her later about how hacking into things like this was illegal. She had the feeling it wouldn’t work.

Numbers on the top right corner showed the time. It was impressive, not even the mechanics of the Shooting Star had a system like this, but that was because it was forbidden. Still, five minutes before the event everything was in order on the ship.

Ursula watched as slowly the time approached. And then, a critical error notification popped up, a failure with the magic circuits. Not a minute later the data disappeared. Ursula looked at Amanda, confused, not understanding what she needed to see. Every system on the ship had been working properly. She looked up at Amanda, who then touched a button, made the data go back to five minutes before the explosion again and then opened a separate data window.

It showed a 3D blueprint of the Blue Star. Ursula instantly recognized what was wrong: Exactly four minutes before the explosion, something started spreading from the back of the ship. Something that looked a lot like… “Roots?” Ursula asked, frowning. How in hell…?

“Plants!” Amanda exclaimed in a low but highly hostile voice. “Motherfuckers tried to kill us with their plant powers!”

Ursula looked at the girl, who was red with anger, and shook her head. “Plants don’t have powers like that. It’d be like assuming humans have power over flesh and bones,” she thought hard about it.

“But those roots carefully avoided detection until they slipped into the magic circuits!” Amanda insisted, “That wasn’t automatic! Someone had to be controlling them!” She had her hands clenched into fists.

It was strange. Ursula didn’t know a lot about plants. She knew the basics, of course, but this kind of thing… It was suspicious, sure, but they wouldn’t try to kill them, would they?

What is the prize of this race? She thought, looking at the roots spreading through the ship. It was true. They carefully avoided interacting with anything that would have set up any kind of alarm. Controlled or not, they were obviously somehow aware of what they were doing. It wasn’t something Ursula could defend so easily. She liked to give others the befit of the doubt, but this looked like something calculated.

“Don’t tell Akko about this,” Ursula decided.

Amanda, who had been looking at Diana, snapped her head towards Ursula. “What?! We need to tell her, what if they’ve done the same to the Shiny…”

“Even if it was intentional, which we don’t know yet,” Ursula interrupted, “we can’t let Akko worry about this when the next race is about to start. The Shiny Rod is immune to any kind of trickery. She needs to focus.”

Amanda gritted her teeth. “That’s going to be hard, after what happened to Diana.”

Ursula nodded. Akko was an emotional girl. Diana was going to be fine, but the shock of what had happened wasn’t light. Amanda kept looking at the blonde, but it was as if she wasn’t really looking at her. Ursula checked the screen again. Those were definitely roots of some kind, spawning out of a little seed on the back of the ship.

“Wait here until the nurses come back in the ambulance to take Diana to the Dragon, ok?”

Amanda nodded. Ursula took the little screen and walked out of the tent through the back, so that the girls wouldn’t stop her. There was one person who was sure to know what the thing in the screen was, and luckily for Ursula, she wasn’t in a place where she could hide.

“Croix!” Ursula spotted the lavender haired woman floating above the ground, lazily checking the preparations for the new place of the race. Annoyed and angry spectators, both human and alien, walked around them. Some of them looked at Croix with distaste, but they didn’t say anything. Ursula’s translator device picked up a few conversations about how Croix was favoring the humans because she was of the same race.

If only they could have known Croix they would have seen they were horribly wrong.

Croix turned around. She beamed, white teeth showing, as if seeing Ursula was the best thing that could happen to her. “My, Coach Ursula, it’s been what, about a week since we last saw each other?”

“We need to talk,” Ursula said, not bothering to hide her hostility.

“My, my,” Croix said in her usual nonchalant voice, “We’re breaking up already? We only got back together!”

“Croix…” Ursula made sure to slip as much menace into her voice as she could. It didn’t seem to have an effect. Croix turned to look at the construction of the stands.

“Sorry, Cha- I mean, Ursula. I am, as you can probably guess, a busy woman,” she said with fake sadness. “I am sorry but I can’t-”

Ursula held up the screen, the data paused on a frame where the roots were clearly visible. “I have proof of possible cheating. Talk to me now or I’ll go talk to the press,” she threatened.

Croix’s expression shifted from a faked sad one to a genuine curious one. “Well, if there’s cheating involved, guess I can’t ignore it, now can I?” She rose into the air, looking down on the workers. “Keep up the good work! I want this done in the next fifteen minutes!” When she came back, she stepped out of her roomba. She took out a small device that looked like a really old smartphone, pressed something and the roomba suddenly rose and started to casually float over Croix’s shoulder. “I suppose you want to make this a little more private?” she asked.

Ursula nodded. Croix led her away from the stands. They walked for a little while before a big red tent appeared between the trees. No, it hadn’t been blocked from sight before. It just popped up, as if it had been invisible before. Ursula narrowed her eyes at it. Croix had some strange technology, probably developed thanks to the knowledge she had gathered from the many different races of aliens, something she could only do with her position as the head of the Inter-Planetary Race.

The inside of the tent was dark. Darker than it should have been.

“Ok, close your eyes, put these on,” Croix said in the darkness. She handed something to Ursula, which she finally recognized, via touch, as earplugs. Hesitant, she put them on, and did as asked.

And something felt… Strange. Like an out of body experience, she suddenly felt light and empty. She had felt like this before, back when she first looked for Croix on Machina. It lasted just an instant, but that instant was enough to convince Ursula something strange was going on.

That, and the fact that for some reason now Croix was really close to her. They were in a really small space. Croix struggled, rubbing her body on Ursula’s, which the teacher couldn’t help but enjoy, despite all of her unsolved problems with the woman. As they moved, Ursula took off her earplugs, wondering why she’d have to wear them in the first place.

“Darn thing’s not made for two people, I tell you,” Croix said. She finally managed to open a door, and when they came out, they were in… a lab.

No, not a lab. Croix’s lab.

“How?” Ursula instantly asked, looking warily at her old partner. Croix ignored her as she took off her cape and the many belts on her waist. Ursula reluctantly followed, and Croix kept undressing, completely uncaring of the fact that Ursula was there, watching. It wasn’t as if this would be the first time Ursula had seen Croix in her underwear, but it bothered her how casual she could be despite everything.

She put on an utilitarian suit.

“Well, now we’re here,” She took Constanze’s device and examined it closely. “Huh, interesting. Girl was able to hack into the Shooting Star’s systems? You have to present her to me later. She could be the next me!” She looked up, as if expecting Ursula to laugh, but huffed when she got no reaction, “Man, when did you become such a Party Pooper?”

“Just look at the screen,” Ursula said, keeping her voice even.

“Oh, yeah, this is totally cheating. Parasite seeds. Semi-sentient plants that are ‘programmed’ to do one task. Fairly useful, huh?” She handed the tablet back to Ursula, who was speechless. “What? Don’t look at me like that, you expected it, didn’t you?”

Ursula shook her head. “I… And what are you going to do about this?”

“Nothing,” Croix shrugged.

Ursula had no patience for this right now. She instantly got on Croix’s face with narrowed eyes and a menacing demeanor. “Excuse me?”

Croix didn’t feel threatened, obviously. “I can’t do anything. Yes, it’s cheating, but natural Parasite Seeds are fairly common. They will tell you one just happened to fall on the Blue Star amidst practice flights, and that they just happened to naturally do what caused the explosion,” Croix shrugged.

Ursula clenched her fist trying very hard to hold back and not punch her right there and then. “So you’re just going to leave things as they are?”

“Well, I mean, I can speak to the plant’s coach and make sure to tell them you know what they did, but without actual proof – proof that was vaporized in the explosion, as you may guess – my hands are tied.”

She looked like she didn’t care… No. She didn’t care. Ursula turned around, eyes closed. Yes. This was one of the many reasons they’d had that discussion so many years ago.

“I don’t know why I even tried,” she finally said. She opened her eyes. Yes, it was the exact same lab as before. Only lit by monitors, the dichotomy of the working desks being a mess but the rest of the lab being spotless, the exact same machinery as before, some of it looking slightly more worked on than last time… “Teleportation? How?”

Croix walked from behind Ursula and sat in front of the only desk without any project on top of it. “Long story. Complicated. It’s not even teleportation, actually. I repeat, complicated.”

For Croix, ‘complicated’ meant ‘I don’t want to tell,’ so Ursula couldn’t do much. Well, she could try to beat the shit out of her to try and get the information, but it was probably not that important. “We should head back,” Ursula said. “I still need to-”

“Eh, yeah, no,” Croix interrupted. “I listened to you, now it’s your turn to answer some of my questions.”

Ursula turned, not hiding her suspicious look. What was Croix planning now?

“Come on, relax. I just want to ask you if you’ve noticed how quickly that girl, Atsuko Kagari, is developing,” Croix said.

“Stay away from her,” Ursula instantly replied.

“That’s not an answer.”

Ursula sighed. “Yes, she is.”

Croix crossed her arms, nodding. “Yes, yes indeed. She’s had the Shiny Rod for barely over a month and she already knows two of the words. Impressive. How long did it take us? About half a year each, right?” She turned around. A roomba suddenly appeared from somewhere in the lab and projected a screen. Ursula frowned at seeing what looked like recordings of Akko inside her room in the Dragon. “What’s more impressive is that she doesn’t seem to be as determined as you. What is she going for? What drives her? She does have the kind of genki demeanor you used to have, though.” Ursula refrained from saying anything. “Though, I do notice that she’s not unlocking them in the same order as we did. Wonder how that works…” The holographic screen she was using wasn’t like normal magic holograms. It must have been made of more than just inferno, or the effect would have been a screen only in a redscale.

Ursula couldn’t take it anymore. “How did you get those recordings?”

Croix chuckled. “I thought it was my turn to ask questions,” she said with a sly smile. However, she shrugged. “These aren’t recordings. They’re just recreations of scenes based on a number of factors you probably wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Ursula insisted.

“Do you know anything about quantum physics?” Croix raised eyebrow. Ursula hesitated. “Thought so, you were never good at physics. Well, you can think of it as actually recording an alternate universe, in short.”

Croix had been right: Ursula didn’t get it at all.

She didn’t care. “Stop recording my students. It’s an invasion of their privacy,” Ursula said in a low pitched voice.

“Could you stop trying to intimidate me? We both know it’s not going to work,” Croix said with a sigh. “Listen, whatever plans I have? You can’t stop me. You probably know what I’m planning anyways. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s no longer within your power to decide if I can do it or not. Can’t we just have a normal conversation? We didn’t see each other in ten years. Don’t you want to catch up?”

Ursula’s expression grew harsh. She took a deep breath. She didn’t know where she was, but she could tell it wasn’t Pan anymore. How had Croix developed a way of teleporting?

Had she managed to implement it in the Noir Rod?

“Just take me back to Pan, please,” she said.

Croix appeared to be genuinely disappointed, but she still rose and pointed at the dark, small room they had appeared in. “There’s no one in your room, right?”

“There shouldn’t be.”

“Perfect, then I can probably send you there. Stand in there.”

Ursula did as asked. Her movements looked stiff, almost robot-like. She was really reluctant to follow Croix’s instructions, even if it was needed to get her back to where she needed to be. Once inside, Croix stood, looking at her for some time, eyes hidden in the shadows. What was she thinking? Would she be planning on how she could use Ursula? Maybe she wanted to do an experiment with her and not send her where Ursula wanted to be.

Could she, maybe, be considering saying something else? Something both of them wanted to hear?

Whatever it was, the door of the room closed, and Ursula felt as light as a feather.

Akko looked at the inside of the Shiny Rod. There were drops of Diana’s blood inside of the cockpit. She pressed her lips. She hadn’t cried. She was just worried. Really worried. The nurses had said Diana would be fine, and she had been taken to the Dragon. Still, it was impossible not to think how things could have gone wrong. What if Akko hadn’t acted on instinct? What if the debris from the Blue Star broke Diana’s helmet? Akko had taken about thirty seconds to get her to safety, she could have died in that time.

But she didn’t, Akko had to remind herself. She’s going to be fine.

Ursula had instructed her to not think about it, but it was like trying not to think about zebras. You just ended up thinking about it, whether you wanted or not.

“Amanda?”

“What?” She sounded weird. Akko wasn’t sure of what had happened but she had been really… Touchy, for the last hour.

“Let’s win this,” Akko said. Even with all that was going on, there was one feeling that rose above them all.

Determination. The rules for this race were strange, but they were still in her favor. It was similar to the Second Category race, but it would just be one two-minutes ‘long’ race – at least, in comparison to the previous ones. The racer who got the furthest would win. And, they were allowed to touch trees. Akko had no doubt about what she’d do. She’d turn the Shiny Rod into what she had decided to call Axe-mode and she would raze with everything on her path.

The worrying thing, however, was that only first place would get points. And only half as much as usual, that being ten. Everyone else would get the amazing quantity of zero.

“Yes,” Amanda said, voice low. Akko had the feeling she was seething. Held back anger didn’t look like Amanda’s style, but it was possible Akko was wrong and Amanda was just tired or- Why the hell do I keep thinking that?! She face-palmed, grunt of frustration leaving her mouth as she sat down. She should clean Diana’s blood, but she decided to leave the red dots there as a reminder. Plus, she still hoped the Shiny Rod would clean itself up. After all, it seemed to be able to do maintenance work alone.

Akko moved up to the starting line of the race. Due to the different start pattern, order had been thrown out the window. To one side she had the cyborgs, to the other the medusa. She technically couldn’t transform the Shiny Rod before the race started, since it would count as a different ship from the one in the official records, but once it started she wouldn’t lose any time. “Amanda? You fine?”

“Me?” Amanda asked in shock. “Yeah, I’m fine, just angry,” she admitted. “You’re the one I’m worried about.”

“I’m fine. I’m going to win this, for Diana,” Akko said with determination.

“And Hannah,” Amanda added. Akko found the addition curious, but didn’t mention it. Hannah hadn’t suffered badly. Well, not physically, at least. She had been shaken, but Barbara was soothing her. Akko decided she didn’t need to try to put herself in Hannah’s shoes. She had enough by thinking about what Diana must have felt. A piece of the ship flying by and slicing your arm, another one hitting and shattering your leg… Stop, she ordered herself.

The flower-plant thing that counted seconds still had like… a ton of petals to go. Akko couldn’t be bothered to try and count them all. Instead, she tried to get everything off her head. Her strategy was simple and unbeatable. She had already proven it worked by going to rescue Diana. Everything was in her favor.

She had failed on Machina, but she would redeem herself here.

With Diana’s points they had managed to stay up. If on top of that Akko managed to get them another ten points, then they would have an amazing advantage over second place. She tried not to smile as she imagined the faces on everyone as she came out victorious.

Just one more minute until the race started.

Hannah sat in the stands, watching the race that was about to begin, but not seeing anything. Barbara was hugging her, but for some reason, Hannah still felt incredibly cold. She was shivering, her body reacting as if she really was cold, despite the humid and hot ambience of Pan and the fact that her g-suit protected from such things.

She had cried, a lot. It had been so close. If she had been more distracted by the win, or if she had tried to figure out what had gone wrong before jumping out of the ship… She wept, trying very hard not to let others see her weakness. On top of that she also felt awful for what she had done to Diana. Or, rather, for what she hadn’t done. She had run, not even stopping to think about one of her best friends until she was far from the real danger.

It was crushing. To know that in a moment of real danger she would run away to save herself hurt. Hannah felt like a worthless piece of garbage. Tears didn’t flow anymore, she was too tired to keep crying, but she suspected this wouldn’t be the last time she would cry over that. Forget almost dying. She had almost let Diana die too. And it had been Akko of all people who saved her.

Barbara didn’t know any of this. No one would know. She didn’t want everyone to know how much of a coward she was. They would hate her for it. Surely if Barbara had been in her situation she would have gone running to help Diana. Hell, the roles had been reversed, Diana wouldn’t hesitate to help Hannah, she was sure of it.

Hannah was hugging herself, on top of Barbara’s hug. She didn’t really know how to take this new revelation. It was said that a woman never knew herself until she was face to face with death. Hannah could understand that, now. She cringed every time she thought about the explosion. She… Just wanted to go home. Not to the Dragon. Home. Right now she longed for nothing more than for her room and a warm meal from her maid.

The race started at last. Hannah tried to distract herself with it. The Shiny Rod started slowly, and as it moved, it shifted and changed. It’s front became wider, with its border changing colors slightly, giving the impression of a sharpened blade, it’s back becoming thinner in the process along with the engines. The cockpit moved to be more centered and in just a couple seconds the whole thing had changed forms.

Then, the ship burst with sudden speed. Hannah cringed at first, expecting a crash and a sudden stop, but the Shiny Rod cut through trees as if they were nothing but sticks. It was impressive.

But stupid. Hannah slowly felt the shock leave her body as she grew angry at Akko. No way she’d… No, this was exactly like her. Hannah looked to the side, where Ursula’s eyes were slowly growing wider and wider. Yes, she hadn’t been the only one to notice. “Coach, aren’t you going to say anything?”

Ursula hesitated, though Hannah didn’t understand why. “I…” She swallowed. “I have to do it, don’t I?”

As she rose her hand to her helmet, the effects of what Akko was doing started. The other racers, desperate at seeing a single ship overtake them all so easily, started doing what anyone in their right mind would do: Get behind the Shiny Rod and the path it was creating. “She’s a fucking idiot,” Hannah mumbled.

Barbara looked at the race with doubt too. She was probably conflicted. Hannah should have been too: Akko had saved Diana, it was hard to be mad at her.

But how could she not be mad at her sheer level of idiocy?

“Akko,” Ursula said, “Go back to normal, raise your shields. You’re far ahead, keep it that way and-” She paused, interrupted. “No, Akko, listen to me, it’s important, this is no-” She paused again, “Akko!” Then she remained silent.

Hannah gave the teacher a flat look. “Hung up on you?”

“Changed frequencies,” Ursula confirmed. She made a movement as if to pinch her nose, but she couldn’t while wearing the helmet.

Hannah kept looking at the race. Now four different ships were trailing behind the Shiny Rod, taking advantage of the open path. Curiously enough, the daemons and their Noir Rod were there. So their ship probably couldn’t do the same as Akko’s. It would have been interesting to know if Hannah wasn’t trying to figure out what the best way of killing Akko as soon as she stepped out of that cockpit would be. The other ones following Akko were the cyborgs, appali and armor. The medusa seemed to be having a way easier time now that it was able to touch trees, and the shapeshifter flew agile and precise, like always.

“Amanda?” Ursula suddenly asked. “No, you’re in the middle of a race. It’s… probably because the Shiny Rod changed forms… Or something?” Hannah frowned. Was Amanda awake? Well, was she even asleep when flying? It was hard to tell. Hannah had only experienced what Amanda did almost every day for a few seconds. “No, Akko is… Being Akko, I guess. You’ll see when you come out.”

From context, Hannah supposed Amanda had asked what was going on. Hannah recalled, there was nothing inside the white box that was the turret normally, at least not until it changed to mimic the Shooting Star’s. Maybe Amanda really didn’t have a way of perceiving the outside. What if she was only some kind of energy source? And it knocked her out, which would mean her having no memory of anything. Maybe all the shooting was done via AI. After all, the aim of the ship was sometimes a little too perfect…

The racers who weren’t following Akko, besides the shapeshifter or medusa – plants, reptilians and octopuses – had been too far away to be able to use that strategy. But the difference was obvious. The Shiny Rod and the other racers had gained a full thirty seconds advantage. They wouldn’t win in a million years.

At the one minute mark, Akko still hadn’t dropped her ‘strategy’. “I’m going to kill her,” Hannah said. “I’m done with her. I’ll dropkick her out of existence,” her voice wasn’t angry. In fact, she couldn’t be angry anymore. She was on the verge of laughing. This had to be a prank. Yes, a really elaborate prank. At any moment now Akko would just stop the entire race, start laughing and the whole thing would be restarted.

It didn’t happen. Instead, Akko’s stupidity finally caught up to her. The race was already more than halfway through. It was time for everyone to get serious. For that, they needed to do one simple thing.

Get rid of the person with the overwhelming advantage.

Almost as if they had planned it, the daemons and armor attacked at the same time. One of the giant stone balls surrounding the armor ship shot forward, followed by an Inferno laser shot from the spheres of the Noir Rod. It was worth noting that the Noir Rod used more than one sphere for this, meeting two different lasers and fusing them into a single more powerful one.

Both attacks hit. Of course they did, the stupid Akko was going in a straight line. The Shiny Rod was thrown off balance. The laser didn’t do a lot, but after it hit, the stone ball hit on almost the same spot- the side of the blade thing. Hannah hoped the Shiny Rod would be able to cut the stone, but to no avail. The broom hit a tree from the side, which in turn made it bounce and hit another one. At that moment, a missile hit the side of the ship, tilting it and making it cut a couple trees on a forty-five degree angle.

“Amanda, keep calm, you can’t get hurt inside the Shiny Rod, ok?” Ursula said, obviously reacting to the shouts even Hannah could hear from Ursula’s helmet. Hannah felt a little worried. With all those movements, nothing even resembling a seatbelt, Amanda could actually get hurt… Or according to Ursula, not? How did she know that? “I can’t do anything, sorry,” she continued.

The Shiny Rod was damaged. The missile was not magic, and while brooms could withstand a fair amount of damage, there were some attacks more effective than others. The white broom was leaking pale green smoke from the side. Hannah cocked her head. “Well that’s strange,” Barbara was the first one to comment on it. Through the smoke, it was perfectly visible that the Shiny Rod had… nothing. It was just another white layer of metal that didn’t look damaged. Why was it leaking magic?

Well, whatever it was, it obviously caused an effect. Slowly, way slower than when it had first transformed, it went back to its usual form. The damage wasn’t repaired, of course, and the ship was definitely going slower. The other racers quickly overtook the humans, and surprisingly enough, it was the appali who had taken the initiative. They started attacking everyone in sight like crazy. They must have used every weapon in their arsenal. Of course they were doing that, they had done horribly in the first race, this was their chance to make a comeback.

Hannah sighed, looking away from the screen. The result was obvious. With only fifteen seconds to go, Akko wouldn’t recover.

“She was probably distressed for what happened to Diana…” Lotte commented from the row of seats above them. Hannah was about to make a snarky remark, but then she remembered what Barbara had said. She kept the remark for herself. If Barbara liked her, then she would have to come to at least be able to stand her, despite how unremarkable she was.

The race ended. To everyone’s surprise, the appali managed to win. Thanks to Akko, most of the race had been a straight line for them. Even if the medusa and shapeshifter had had an advantage, in the end humans helped one of their worst rivals to win. Well, officially, humans wouldn’t admit to being rivals with the Appal people, but everyone wanted to prove they were better than the alien race that looked the most than them. They didn’t seem to have this problem with Cyborgs, though. Well, society worked in mysterious – not to say stupid – ways.

The new leaderboard popped on the giant holographic screen. Curiously enough, thanks to the strange way the pointing system worked this time, Humans shared the first spot with shapeshifters at thirty-two points. Next came the daemons with twenty-nine, followed by the medusas with twenty-six. They had done well enough in the first race to stay on a good position even if they hadn’t earned a single point in this round. Following that, the Appali had made quite a comeback by doing fairly well on their Second Category race and by winning the First Category race, which left them with twenty-five points.

The last five places were armor, octopuses, reptilians, plants and cyborgs. The octopuses and cyborgs hadn’t earned a single point this round either. The cyborgs would probably be unable to recover from this. They score was too low.

Hannah rose. She slowly walked down the stands, with Barbara trailing behind, asking her to be careful and if she was fine. No, she wasn’t fine. But she could use this anger to fuel her for a while. She waited patiently for the Shiny Rod to come back.

It didn’t.

“She ran again?” Sucy asked. “Well, this time I can’t help,” she said in her usual monotonous voice. Hannah sometimes wondered if it was all just a façade, like with Diana, but Sucy didn’t give that impression. Plus, she wasn’t inexpressive all the time. When someone spoke of gross, creepy things she smiled and enjoyed it.

“It seems like it,” Ursula said with a sigh. “I… Should have seen this coming. I realized she had unlocked that new form, but I didn’t expect her to change strategies so suddenly.”

Hannah was about to comment that Akko had done the exact same thing back on Machina. She had discovered something and had completely changed strategies last minute, ignoring all of her training in favor of what she perceived as a dominant strategy, oblivious to all the implications doing that had. With a shake of her head, Hannah turned around. “Let’s just go back to the Dragon,” she said. “I wanna check on Diana.”

Ursula kept looking at the forest for a few seconds, worried expression on her face. “Amanda?” She asked. She bit her lip as she obviously got no answer. “Wherever they are, they’re out of reach.”

Hannah hesitated for a second. Akko had probably teleported away, like last time. What a childish girl.

“She’ll come back,” Sucy said. “She needs to eat.”

Hannah smiled at the joke. Yes, that seemed like something Akko would do. Then she stopped, chastising herself for almost laughing at a joke from the creep.

Ursula sighed again. “Let’s hope she comes back soon…” she sounded worried. “Ok, girls, let’s go to the Dragon.”

Hannah nodded. However, as she walked, the anger she felt at Akko started slipping away, since it had nowhere to go. And, as it did, her previous mood started to set back into place.

She needed to apologize to Diana for what she had – or rather, hadn’t – done. She wouldn’t be able to be at ease until she did that.

Chapter Text

Amanda kicked the door, finally prompting the Shiny Rod to let her go. She crawled from under the ship and looked around, angry. What the hell had…?

This was not Pan. It took her a few moments to realize it, but… Oh fuck, she thought. She instantly jumped on the Shiny Rod and knocked on the cockpit, where Akko was just gripping the joysticks that were the controls and looking straight ahead. She had the thousand year stare. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Akko open this shit!” Amanda cried, removing her helmet. As she had guessed, she could breathe perfectly. They were back on Earth. She felt heavier thanks to the increased gravity, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. “AKKO!”

Akko looked up for a few seconds before looking straight ahead again. Amanda punched the glass, hurting her hand. Great, now her only means of going back were gone.

She took in her surroundings. It was a shore. It was small, and the sky was gloomy, with light-grey clouds that augured a storm. Surrounding the sand were relatively tall rocks, leaving this section of the place completely isolated. The air wasn’t chilling cold, but it wasn’t hot either. Were they in some part of Japan? It was the first thing that occurred to Amanda, given the fact that Akko had obviously teleported away without thinking. With her inner clock absolutely destroyed, Amanda had no way of telling which time it should have been in her time zone. She didn’t even know what day it was most of the time.

She started to get anxious. What if people found them here? Going to the beach on a rainy day might not be the standard but it certainly wasn’t all that weird either. Particularly in a spot like this one, where teenagers and probably not only they would most certainly come to fuck at some point or another.

“Akko!” she kicked at the windshield. “Come on! You brought us back to earth! If you don’t come back to your senses I’m just going to get the fuck out of here and go back home!” The mere idea of going back home disgusted her, but she needed to get Akko to move. Her threat washed off Akko without any effect. “Fine, do whatever you want, look if I care,” she finally said, getting down from the ship. She checked the side where it had been damaged. It still leaked magic. However, she was amazed by what she saw. The metal – was it even metal? – was repairing itself. As the magic leaked out, the hole created by what Amanda could only assume was a missile from appali slowly closed.

The Shiny Rod could regenerate.

Well, that explained how it never needed any kind of maintenance, and how Akko had been able to be constantly bashing it against buildings back in Machina without it ending up as a pile of scraps. “Hey, Akko, this thing can heal itself, how cool is that?!” she shouted in an admittedly not very good attempt to maybe get Akko to react and get out of the cockpit.

She sighed, kicking at the sand below her. Surprisingly enough, her first thoughts after how to get back to Pan were dedicated to wondering if Diana and Hannah were ok. Particularly Hannah. Diana looked like the kind of girl who would be able to deal with this kind of trauma without much issue, but Hannah was an emotional mess of anger and sass.

Well, she had Barbara by her side. She was probably fine. Amanda decided to just rest for a while, trying not to think about how much she wished to burn all forests in the world right now. At worst, Akko would forget about her and she’d have an excuse to travel around the world. She could sell her g-suit and helmet for money at the start. Just that would probably give her enough to live for a month, two if she was sparing.

She distracted herself looking at the ‘wound’ on the side of the Shiny Rod closing. It was hard to think of it as mere damage to a ship. Amanda was starting to consider the Shiny Rod as something alive, and the fact that it could heal itself was, as one may guess, not helping to dispel that notion.

The sky above was boring to look at. The clouds were plain and simple. There was a cool breeze on the shore, and Amanda closed her eyes. The race had been quite the experience. She had woken up at one point, as if the turret had been turned off, and she had started bouncing around in it like crazy. She hadn’t been hurt, but it was still annoying as hell.

So the turret wasn’t available when the Shiny Rod transformed? Ursula had implied something like that. Why, though? Maybe the transformations took up a lot of magic or something. Had Akko known that? Well, she certainly did now. Amanda moved around a little to help the sand adapt to her body shape, her hands behind her head. Maybe she should take off the g-suit and dive into the sea. It looked like it’d be an enjoyable experience.

Why not? Amanda thought, raising from the sand. She removed her g-suit, remaining in her underwear – sports underwear, which was the only kind of underwear she used whenever she wore a g-suit – which wasn’t all that different from a swimsuit anyways. She started to feel more the mild weather now. Not cold, not hot. Maybe a little hotter would have been nicer for a dive on the ocean, but oh well.

Hopefully there wouldn’t be any sharks nearby.

Akko’s knuckles were white. Her tight grip on the joysticks was all that kept her from just falling apart right there and then. She had teleported away without thinking. She didn’t even know where they were. Ocean? Was this even Pan anymore? There were no trees in sight, just rocks, sand and water. She felt like she hadn’t blinked in minutes. She didn’t want to. Amanda had said something to her. She had ignored it. Now Amanda was swimming. How could she be so relaxed?

“Alcor, can the Shiny Rod turn back time?” she asked.

Unknown command.

Well, it was worth a try, she thought, trying to cheer herself up.

It backfired. She blinked. She lost strength on her fingers. Slowly, she brought her hands up and pressed their heels against her eyes, squeezing them shut. There’s still eight races. You can make up for this. You can… “Ah!” She cried, snapping her head up and punching the side of the cockpit. “You… STUPID SHIP!” She bellowed, her hands trembling. “Why did we lose? Why can’t I just do it?” Each sentence was punctuated by another hit. She pushed the windshield open, eyes watery. “I’m done with this!” she said, voice breaking down as she jumped out of the ship and stepped into the sand, throwing her helmet away. She tried to run, but tripped and fell on her hands and knees.

Why? She… She had the transformation! She was faster than everyone! They had teamed up against her just because she was winning! It was so… unfair! She should have listened to Ursula, she… “Fuck you!” She yelled. Tears had started falling at some point, and they wet the sand below her like drops of rain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck all of you!” she had in mind every single racer when she cried about this. No exception. They were just jealous of the Shiny Rod. They were afraid of it. They… “Argh!” she punched the sand, frustrated. Amanda had stopped swimming to look at her, but she didn’t approach.

Akko screamed, shouted, and yelled through her watery eyes. She didn’t care if anybody listened or saw them. She punched and kicked. She was basically throwing a tantrum. Two races in a row she had messed up. She had only won the first one by accident. She was not meant for racing. She had only managed to get as far as she had thanks to the Shiny Rod. But even the best ship in the universe was worthless with someone like Akko piloting it.

A flash of Diana’s unconscious body as she carried it crossed her mind. Her face, dirty from the ground, her arm bleeding. She had also failed her. She had promised not to let the team down. In truth, she had meant she wouldn’t let Diana down. Her crying became less noisy, but more intense for her. Her eyes seemed to never run out of tears. She had her fists clenched, her teeth gritted.

And, as her energy ran out, all she could do was lie with her face on the sand, still crying and weeping. Her chest hurt. She was done. She wouldn’t go back. She’d take the Shiny Rod and go home. They wouldn’t win the race anyways, so nothing would be lost. Let them have whatever stupid thing was the prize for this race. She’d never see Ursula or anyone else again, but she’d rather do that than face a disappointed Diana.

A cold hand suddenly touched Akko’s nape, making her jump up, wiping her face. Amanda looked at her with a serious expression. “Done crying?” She asked. Akko didn’t answer. Amanda’s body was slim and athletic. She didn’t have any defined muscles, but Akko suspected she wouldn’t have much trouble getting them if she went to the gym for a few weeks. “Come on, we already lost the race. No use crying over spoiled milk. Let’s go back, they’re probably looking for us.” Her wet hair made it look straight. It was longer than it appeared to be, probably because she always had it spread out in her tomboyish hairstyle.

“Fuck off,” Akko said, hugging her knees and burying her head between her arms. “Take the Shiny Rod and go back, I don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore,” she said handing over the key-wand.

Amanda took it. The Shiny Rod didn’t run away, but Akko knew what she was asking was stupid. Amanda could pilot it, but she couldn’t command anything. She wouldn’t be able to teleport back to Pan even if she wanted to.

“You know, if you’re going to be like that every time you lose a race you’re going to have a harsh time becoming a pro and being the new Chariot,” Amanda commented. She had sat down and had obviously no intention of leaving.

“I don’t care.”

Amanda sighed. She looked down, then up again. “Listen, Akko: You’re a bad pilot,” she said.

Akko looked up with a flat look. “Really cheering me up here,” she said.

Amanda chuckled. “No, listen to me: You’re a bad pilot. You suck. Not only you don’t belong in the IPR, I’m wondering how the hell you managed to get fifth place on the previous race,” she said in a serious voice. “You don’t think ahead and do whatever you want, disregarding Ursula’s advice half of the time.”

“If you’re going to insult me just say ‘bitch’ and call it a day,” Akko said.

“And you know the best part? I don’t get to experience any of your shitty flying,” she continued. Akko decided to ignore her. “I mean, I only know how bad you do thanks to videos. Imagine. But, you know, you’re also someone who’s been piloting for less than two months,” she put a hand on Akko’s shoulders. “And, as much as you suck, you’re still doing way better than most people do when they just begin. It may be thanks to the Shiny Rod, but you have your own good instincts.”

Akko looked down. Her eyes were probably red, her throat was dry and she still wanted to go home and say hi to her parents. “It’s just the Shiny Rod. I’m way worse if I try to pilot it like a normal person,” she said, recalling how she couldn’t keep up with the many controls of the ship on her own.

“Akko, I’m not a psychiatrist, but if you keep thinking like that you’re just going to feel worse. Come on, get the fuck up and let’s go back. Don’t you want to check on Hannah and Diana?”

“And face them?” Akko imagined the look of disappointment Diana would have, feeling like she was going to cry again. “No thank you.”

“So you’d rather let everyone down because you ran away than give your all in trying to fix your mistakes, got it,” Amanda stood. “Well then, guess I’ll be taking the Shiny Rod back home. Care to open the map for me? I have no idea where we are. We are on earth, right?”

Akko looked up, frowning. “You really think reverse psychology is going to work?”

“Yes,” Amanda said with a smirk.

Akko resisted for a few seconds, but with a sigh, she stood. She walked to the sea, where she washed her face with some salty water. The feeling of the cold water on her face made her feel surprisingly better. She turned around, where Amanda was climbing on the cockpit.

“Are you going to go like that?” Akko asked, pointing at Amanda, who was still wearing her sports undergarments. She didn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable.

“I’m wet and full of sand. Don’t want to get that shit on my g-suit.”

Akko accepted the explanation, climbing on the cockpit. “Why are you riding up here?”

“Don’t want to get sand on the turret either.”

“So it’s fine to leave it here?”

“Hey, it’s not you who has to lay down whenever she climbs here. Doing that with sand would be… Shit, is that Diana’s blood?” Amanda pointed at the dark spots behind the seat. Akko nodded, cringing again when she recalled the moment and pressing her lips into a thin line. “Man, she really was hurt, huh? You know, even if you lost the race, the way you saved her was pretty neat.” While she had started sounding relaxed, with each word her expression grew a little darker.

“Uhm, are you ok?” Akko asked. She was in no position to say that as she barely had the energy to remember what the command for teleporting was but the shift had been a little too sudden.

Amanda sighed. “They cheated, Akko.”

Akko cocked her head. “Huh?”

“The explosion of the Blue Star. It was set up by plants. They tried to kill Hannah and Diana, probably because they saw them as a higher threat than you,” Amanda sat with her back against the side of the cockpit. She had to sit with her legs pulled close, but it didn’t look too uncomfortable.

“How… do you know?” Akko asked, wary. She slowly felt her heart beating faster, the implications of what Amanda had said not helping with her anxiety.

Amanda didn’t look up as she spoke. She was now in the same mood she had been before the race. Well, at least it wasn’t tiredness. “Constanze bugged the Blue Star. It was keeping tabs on everything about the ship and we saw roots interfering with the Blue Star. That’s what caused the explosion.”

Akko felt a chill. “They tried to kill them?” She asked disturbed.

“No, they just wanted to show her a really cool trick,” Amanda said with a smile that quickly turned sour again. “Isn’t it great?”

Akko gulped. “This… is serious, isn’t it?” She asked, suddenly feeling like running away might be the best choice after all. “Diana said it, didn’t she? That it would be more likely for others to cheat from now on…” she recalled the scene at the skyscraper. Of course, she hadn’t given the statement the importance it deserved. “How did it happen?”

Amanda looked up. “Don’t know. A plant suddenly started growing in the back of the ship and it pierced into it. Maybe a seed or something,” Amanda suggested.

“Didn’t they run a check before the race?”

“Obviously. They must have missed whatever it was. Dunno, maybe it was like really small and imperceptible,” she didn’t sound convinced. “Maybe they planted it mid-race… No, no, I don’t think the plants ever got close to Diana or shot anything at her...”

Akko didn’t have enough details about this. She’d ask Constanze about it as soon as she came back. Which she was going to do right now, because something felt wrong and she needed to figure out what it was. With a sigh, Akko looked down at Amanda one last time. “You sure you’re fine wearing that? The rooms aren’t that close to the hangar, you know.”

Amanda shrugged. “What’s going to happen? A bunch of people I don’t know seeing me and probably thinking I’m going swimming or something? Let’s just go.”

Akko nodded. If Amanda was ok with it, then she didn’t have any objections. She hesitated for a moment, thinking about what Diana might say once she woke up and saw what Akko had done in the race. But, somehow, the prospect of never seeing her again because of that seemed even worse.

Plus, she was worried, and if she was going to keep crying, she’d rather do it on top of a comfy bed.

“Noctu orfei aude freator,” she said, and the Shiny Rod teleported away.

Chapter Text

Diana woke up again, this time feeling a lot less drugged.

The first thing she saw was Hannah and Barbara, waiting patiently next to her bed. She found it hard to smile, but she did her best, coming up with a sloppy approximation of what it should look like.

“Hello,” she said, turning around. Her movements felt slow, as if she was moving through a thick substance. She was inside one of the Dragon’s infirmaries. The biggest one, probably, because she had a really small room all to herself. It was barely big enough to fit the bed she was resting in and the medical equipment needed for her. Hannah and Barbara were standing, cramped, on the side of the bed nurses would use to check on Diana. If for some reason there was a need to move her, the entire wall where the door stood could retract to allow for it.

“Diana…” Hannah looked like she was about to cry. Barbara wasn’t too far from that either. “How do you feel? Are you ok?”

“How about you?” Diana asked in return. “Did you manage to avoid harm?”

Hannah nodded, then pressed her lips. “You worry about me even though you’re the one who got hurt,” she said in a meek voice. “I’m not worthy of your friendship.”

Diana raised an eyebrow. Barbara, however, nudged Hannah and gave her an annoyed look. “Just stop being so melodramatic and say what you want to say,” she said in a tired voice. How long had Diana been out?

Hannah sighed, looked at Diana with some doubt, waited a few seconds, took a deep breath, fidgeted with her fingers, looked at Diana again and then she finally took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for running away,” she managed to say. “I should’ve gone back to save you, but I-”

Diana didn’t really recall what had happened, but given the context clues, she could imagine how it had happened. She shook her head. “You probably wouldn’t have been able to outrun the fire. Plus, it was better to leave me wherever I was,” well, now that she thought about it, she recalled the explosion. The sudden burst of power, something slicing her arm, something hitting her leg… “That way rescue crews would have found me more easily.”

Hannah suddenly leaned forward, carefully hugging Diana. Diana didn’t feel much, but she felt a slight stab of pain from her arm. It must have showed in her face, because Barbara put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder and pushed her back. “Come on, you’re hurting her,” she said, pulling her back.

“Sorry,” Hannah instantly said.

Diana smiled, for real this time. She was too tired to put on her mask right now, and Hannah and Barbara were her best friends. “It’s fine,” she said. She actually wished the hug lasted a little longer, but Barbara was probably right, she could reopen her wound accidentally. She moved a little in bed. Her leg was in a sling, a cast encapsulating it. She was surprised it hadn’t been a compound fracture. She was lucky it hadn’t been one. Whatever had hit her had probably done so after bouncing off the ground, losing speed and making it weaker. If not, her leg would have probably been absolutely destroyed.

The door opened – an automatic door – and a nurse… No, a medic peeked in. An old lady in her golden years, but despite her age, she had a keen look to her. “Ah, Miss Cavendish, you’re finally awake,” the doctor said. “Sorry, girls, can you give me a few moments with the blondie? You can gossip all you want later.”

Hannah and Barbara nodded, exiting the room and allowing the old lady to come in. “I’m Greta, but a lot of people end up calling me granny, so just use whatever you want,” she said, looking at a board in her hand which probably held Diana’s medical info.

Diana’s first question was more instinctive than thought out. “Can I still pilot?” she asked, nervous. She doubted a leg and arm injury were enough to make her have to retire or something, but she was still doubtful.

“Of course you can,” Greta instantly dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “You’ll be back on your feet in two weeks. Before you ask, you are going to miss two races. I can’t give you the schedule, so don’t ask for it.” She flipped a page or two. “Ok, let’s begin by basic questions. Do you remember who you are?”

“Yes,” Diana said. “Diana Cavendish.”

“Do you remember where you are?”

“Inside the Dragon, which is landed on Pan… Unless it has already taken off, I’m not sure how much time I was unconscious.”

“It’s still on Pan, don’t worry. Do you remember who those friends who just came to see you were?”

“Hannah England and Barbara Parker, my best friends and teammates,” Diana answered all of these questions seriously. They were simple things to make sure nothing went too wrong.

“Do you recall what happened before you fell unconscious?”

Diana paused. “It’s fuzzy, but I recall an explosion. The Blue Star failed.”

Greta nodded, making some annotations. “Can you spell ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’?”

Diana blinked. She recognized the word, of course. “Let’s see… S, U, P, E-”

The old woman chuckled. “It’s fine, it’s fine. It was just a little joke. You don’t mind the bright lights or the ring of my voice?” Diana shook her head. “You don’t feel any pains in your head?” Again, Diana shook her head. Finally, Greta nodded. “Ok, young miss. I don’t think you hit your head too badly, so you should be fine. With magic treatment you’ll be repaired in no time. Unless it kills you,” she winked at her.

“Thanks a lot,” Diana said. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Greta laughed. “Please, kid, I get paid for this, it’s my job. Plus, you’re a great pilot, wouldn’t want you to retire so soon, huh? Keep it up,” she said before turning and walking away. As she crossed the door, she spoke to those outside. “Go before the next dose of anesthesia kicks in and she falls asleep again.”

Barbara and Hannah entered again. Through the door, Lotte also peeked in, waving and smiling before disappearing again. “Everyone’s worried,” Hannah said, her tone sounding as if she didn’t believe it.

Diana wondered if Akko was outside. However, as she thought about Akko, her expression slowly steeled itself. Hannah noticed it, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Akko’s not here. She ran away after losing the race, hasn’t come back yet. She took Amanda with her, too.”

But, as she thought, she realized something. “She… lost?”

Hannah and Barbara nodded. They brought up a little tablet – one of Constanze’s – and showed her a recording of the race. Diana watched it patiently. When it finished, she thought for a while. She didn’t know how to feel. During her first race she had lost, but it was easy to see that she had tried. This time, however, it was as if she wasn’t even thinking. She had found a new tool and she had insisted on using it despite not knowing how to. She had basically shot herself in the foot.

Diana hummed. “It’s…” She doubted.

“Idiotic?” Hannah suggested. Diana shook her head, but she understood. Idiotic could be a way to describe it, even if it was too mean for her taste.

“Oblivious,” Diana finished. “Akko was completely oblivious of her surroundings. She lost because she was too confident in that new form of the Shiny Rod.”

Hannah shrugged. To her it was the same. Barbara, on the other hand, nodded. “I mean, she had some right to…” She trailed off as someone entered the room.

Ursula. “Hey Diana,” she said with her usual warm smile. She was cramped in the back of the room, but there wasn’t much space to move. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Diana admitted. “Other than that, nothing hurts too much.”

Ursula nodded, sighing in relief. “Great. I’m not sure if you’re allowed to eat anything, but I got an apple for you. You’re probably hungry,” she said, handing a shining red apple to Barbara, who then passed it to Diana. Diana examined it. It looked perfect, and it felt perfect. She assumed it had been washed.

“Don’t you want it peeled?” Barbara offered.

Diana nodded, and Barbara quickly pulled a small knife, peeled the apple and cut it without missing a beat. She was good at that. She handed it to Diana, who started eating after a thanks. It was juicy and crunchy. It was a perfect apple. “It’s wonderful. Thanks, miss Ursula,” Diana said after swallowing, instantly taking another piece. She really was hungry. As she ate, Barbara and Hannah’s expressions relaxed a little. Appetite was a good sign in these cases.

While chewing, Diana couldn’t help but think of the race. If she was right, Akko had discovered that new form not long before the race, but her memory might have been a little jumbled because of what had happened. Still, she should have talked to them about it. It was pretty much like Akko to act on her own without thinking ahead, and Diana didn’t think she had hidden it on purpose or anything, but… maybe when you see something you don’t recognize on a tree you should think better than to just climb it.

Akko had climbed the tree without thinking again. She had slipped and fallen. Truth be told, the kind of race First Category had suffered was a harsh one. Akko hadn’t really understood it, had she? Diana should have been more direct. When she came back, she’d explain to her what she had done wrong and…

She finished her apple. When thinking about speaking with Akko, she had started tapping her finger. If I give her advice, would she think I’m just looking down on her? She thought. Amanda probably would, but Akko wasn’t like that, right?

She had thought the same before and had been disappointed. In the end, people perceived Diana as they did for a reason. What use would it be talking to Akko now? If she was perceived as nothing but a rich girl, then she’d just live with it. She had done so all of her life, anyways.

“Diana, you ok?” Barbara asked.

“I’m rather tired,” Diana said. It wasn’t a lie, even if that wasn’t the reason Barbara was asking. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep now.”

Her friends nodded as Diana closed her eyes. She heard the door opening and closing. She opened her eyes again. No one was left in the room. For now, at least, she preferred it like that.

As Hannah turned the corner next to the infirmary with everyone behind her and Barbara, she bumped into someone, and both of them bounced back. Hannah tripped, but the person she had bumped into caught her by the arm and helped her gain stability again. Hannah looked to see who it had been.

The couple of emerald green eyes that looked down towards her surprised her more than they should have. Was that Amanda? Had her hair grown? No, it was just humid. “Hey, watch where you’re-” She stopped as she noticed that Amanda wasn’t wearing anything besides sports underwear. She blushed. “The hell are you wearing?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “There’s no time. Ursula,” Amanda looked up at the teacher who had been behind the group. “We need to talk. With everyone.”

Hannah, still bothered by Amanda’s indecency, turned towards Ursula, who had a hesitant look. She knew what Amanda was talking about, obviously, and wasn’t too excited about the idea. Still, she nodded. Hannah frowned. “Aren’t you going to ask about Diana?” She asked, annoyed.

“You’re not crying or anything so I suppose she’s mostly fine,” Amanda said. “Come on.”

“Wait,” Ursula said. “Where do you plan on talking?” she asked.

“In our rooms, duh.”

Ursula bit her lip. Then, she shook her head. “I… Don’t think that’s a great idea. We should talk somewhere we’re sure no one is spying on us,” she said, looking around. Hannah raised an eyebrow.

“You think there’s someone spying on us?” She asked, a little bewildered by the idea. Ursula nodded.

“It’s not a stretch, given what they’ve already done… Oh, I have an idea,” Amanda said, sly smile appearing on her face. “Let’s go to a place where no one would ever be able to spy on us.”

Ursula looked at Amanda with some mistrust. After all, you didn’t always hear a teenager in her humid underwear say she knew a secret spot that no one else knew. Well that sounds a lot worse when phrased that way, Hannah thought, blushing slightly.

However, no one seemed to have an objection, so they decided to follow Amanda.

Hannah came out of the Shiny Rod and looked around the beach. The sky was grey with clouds, a storm probably in the making, but it was day still. Hard to tell which hour due to the even lighting. The gravity of this planet was normal. She saw Amanda – who had finally put on some clothes before leaving – without a helmet on, so she took hers off too.

“Good to be back home, eh?” Amanda said. Lotte and Sucy were also walking around the beach, while Barbara cautiously glanced at the redhead with glasses. From the cockpit, Ursula came out. The Shiny Rod disappeared again as the teacher dropped on the sand. Constanze and Jasminka were still missing.

Back home? Was this Earth? Just how many surprises did the Shiny Rod have…?

Hannah huffed, not giving Amanda the satisfaction of an answer. She had been shocked before, but she hadn’t forgotten that she was mad at her. Amanda’s hair had gone back to normal by this point. Hannah couldn’t help but wonder if she was still wearing that humid underwear. Probably not.

Akko came back not long after, and once everyone was together they sat down in a circle in the sand. Hannah was wearing her g-suit, luckily, so she didn’t mind the sand. Wait, why had Amanda sat down next to her? And she was too close. Hannah moved away from her and closer to Barbara. Amanda didn’t move, but she had done that just to mess with her. Hannah knew she wasn’t paranoid.

Well, maybe just a little.

“Ok,” Amanda started. “Let’s get straight to the point. Akko, get the fuck over here,” Amanda said to Akko, who was standing a few meters away from the circle. Akko approached slowly, not looking anyone in the eye. She sat down next to Lotte, who softly patted Akko’s back. Hannah no longer felt super mad at Akko, but she made sure to show her annoyance through a look.

“Akko,” Ursula said. “Don’t be ashamed. You messed up. You can make up for it,” well, at least coach Ursula wasn’t sugarcoating it. Or maybe she had done so. ‘Messing up’ was an understatement. Akko had royally fucked up. She had basically thrown an entire race away for no reason.

But, well, at least she seemed to regret it. Did she understand why she had failed? Probably not, but it was Ursula’s job to point that out.

Once Akko sat down, Amanda took out one of Constanze’s tablets. “Ok, here’s the deal: The Plants cheated. The reason the Blue Star went kaboom was because of this,” she connected her wand to the tablet, creating a 3d holographic blueprint mid-air, not unlike the one they had first seen back on Earth… Wait, they were on Earth now, weren’t they? It was a strange notion.

“What is that?” Hannah instantly asked, noticing something out of place. A small dot on the back. Amanda, instead of replying, just pressed something. The dot slowly grew and spread like roots, and Hannah was aware of how perfectly it was avoiding touching anywhere the alarms might have gone off. It went directly for the magic circuits. “What? A kamikaze plant? Those bastards…” Hannah felt her chest start to burn as she thought back to the explosion. Don’t cry here. Not in front of Amanda. She already heard you, don’t give her more ammo.

“Parasite Plant,” Ursula answered. “They’re… Like animals, you could say. Not completely sentient, but can follow instructions if trained. Problem is, there is no way of proving if that one had been trained,” she explained. Amanda looked at her with some surprise.

“Well, whatever it is, look at this,” Amanda made the engine section bigger. The roots retracted and went back to being a now particularly noticeable dot. “According to this, that thing had been there for hours, or more.”

Akko pointed. “Oh, that’s what had been bugging me!” she exclaimed. “That was planted way before the race, after all! But why didn’t the mechanics deal with it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was going to point out,” Amanda said. “Highly doubt that thing was invisible. So… Why?”

Hannah thought for a while. Maybe they had missed it, but it was a little big to miss, and it was in one of the places that should have been inspected more thoroughly: The engine zone. In fact, the weirdest part about all of this was how the hell had that thing survived with the heat coming out of the magic engine.

“They could just have dismissed it as a rock, or something,” Lotte suggested.

A rock, Hannah thought, suddenly remembering something. “Hey, that kid!” Hannah said, “That piece of shit was the one who planted the thing on us!” Everyone turned at Hannah’s sudden outburst. “Sorry, It’s just- While practicing, after we ran out of fuel yesterday, a little plant I’d assumed to be a kid threw something at us. I thought they were a couple rocks, but…”

Amanda snapped her fingers. “Ha! Do you have a video? We can use it and-” Hannah gave her a look. “Oh, of course not. Hmm…” Amanda thought for a while. Then she threw some sand behind her with a grunt of frustration. “We really have no proof, then.”

“Are you sure this isn’t some paranoia of yours? Parasite Plants can grow in the wild,” Sucy said. Hannah raised an eyebrow, surprised Sucy knew details about an alien plant. “It might all just be a horrible coincidence,” she pointed at Hannah, “the kid could have been just throwing rocks, the Blue Star could have just casually got a parasite stuck on it, and the crew might just have missed it,” she said seriously.

“Do you really believe that?” Ursula asked, a little surprised.

“Just because something is unlikely it doesn’t make it impossible. The easiest explanation is that they cheated – and statistically, the simpler answers tend to be the correct ones – but someone has to be skeptic here. This is all circumstantial evidence.”

“Sucy, don’t be mean,” Lotte nudged her. Hannah wasn’t sure mean was the right word, but well…

“They’re reasonable doubts, Lotte. Dunno about other planets, but here on Earth I’m fairly certain we have the concept of innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.”

Hannah frowned. “She’s right,” she admitted, not without some reluctance. “This could be a big coincidence.”

Amanda stared daggers at her. Hey, I was the one almost caught in the explosion, Hannah thought, but decided not to derail the entire conversation for a discussion with Amanda. “Ok, whatever, even if they didn’t cheat, do you people honestly believe the mechanics wouldn’t have been able to see that thing?”

The Parasite seed was about half as big as a normal fist. It wasn’t precisely subtle. Hannah had to agree with Amanda in that statement, even if she wasn’t particularly eager to admit it.

“It is strange,” Ursula admitted.

Constanze stood from where she was and walked towards Amanda, pointing out something in the tablet.

“Oh, and this,” the redhead pointed at the holographic clock on top of the hologram. “It started hatching mid-race,” she said. “It’s really strange, if you think about it. How did it survive? Not only the amount of magic, the heat too.”

Amanda looked at Ursula and Sucy for an explanation. Ursula shook her head, she didn’t know much about these plants it seemed. Sucy, on the other hand, sighed. “Parasite Plants aren’t that different from Earth’s plants, just a little more… resilient, maybe. No, they couldn’t survive those conditions normally. That is sketchy,” she admitted.

“Ha!”

“It’s still no proof,” Ursula interrupted Amanda before she claimed victory. “They can probably come up with an explanation. And, just for the record, this hologram you’re using to show us all the evidence is actually illegal, so even if it was accepted as evidence you’d probably give Constanze serious trouble.”

Amanda frowned, looking at her short teammate. Why didn’t she ever talk, anyways? Hannah didn’t think she was mute, but maybe she had some kind of condition she wasn’t aware of. Maybe it was related to her unusually short height, too. “Maybe there’s proof of it in the recordings…” Amanda said, opening something else in the tablet. The 3D model of the Blue Star disappeared, replaced by a video of the final moments of the race before the explosion. Amanda zoomed the camera. Yes, the ‘rock’ was visible, but none of its roots were. As far as anyone would be able to tell, it was a simple rock.

“They certainly thought this out,” Jasminka commented. She had a strange ring to her voice. The usually peaceful girl sounded way less cheerful than normal, her kind smile replaced by a poker face. Hannah didn’t fail to notice she had stopped eating from the bag of snacks she had brought with her. It was weird enough to hear her talk, but seeing her actually angry was really something else.

“Maybe the mechanics ignored it on purpose,” Barbara suddenly said after staying silent for a while. Hannah looked at her with some surprise. Everyone turned to her. “What? It’s possible. Remember that Grand Prize thing? Who says they didn’t just buy some of our crew to betray us?” She explained, “the faeries were willing to offer you absurd amounts of money, why not the plants? This planet- I mean, Pan surely has gold and stuff like that.”

“Pan actually ships out most of its precious metals,” Ursula said. “Gold is common there. More common than iron is on earth…” She paused for a second. “It’s not a stretch to imagine they could just give an exorbitant amount of it to some of the workers to let a mere ‘rock’ sit on the ship.”

Hannah, who had slowly grown more and more frustrated with the situation, growled. “So you’re saying we can’t even trust our engineers? The fucking crew that’s supposed to take care of our ships?” She said in annoyance. Ursula smiled awkwardly, she obviously didn’t have an answer to Hannah’s question.

“Yes,” Amanda said instead, “yes, it makes sense.”

“I never trusted them anyways,” Akko said.

“They never touched your ship,” Sucy said, deadpanning Akko.

“Yes but I see how they look at it! They want the Shiny Rod, I tell you,” she asserted. “I have no proof, but also no doubts.”

Hannah shook her head. “Take this seriously, you idiot,” she couldn’t help but insult her. “If we can’t trust our crew we might as well just drop out. Anyone could do anything to our ships – well, our ship, since we have only one now – and we’d have no way of knowing if our engineers are actually doing their job.”

Amanda laughed and smirked. “Allow me to disagree, Hannah,” she said smirking. “We have here a little prodigy,” she pointed at Constanze. “Our pal here is an expert of mechanic and engineering, aren’t you?” Amanda put her arm over Constanze’s shoulders. The girl seemed annoyed at the contact, but she was obviously used to it.

“She’s not allowed to touch the ships,” Ursula said.

“That didn’t stop her from doing this,” Amanda pointed at the tablet.

“This is different. She wouldn’t be allowed near one of our brooms before a race,” Ursula continued. Amanda frowned, refusing to accept defeat.

“Can’t we get her a special permit?” Akko asked before Amanda could continue arguing. “I mean, we have permits to pilot even though we’re minors.”

“Your cases are special.”

“Well,” Sucy said, “we have reasonable proof that our mechanics might be corrupt. It might be a good enough excuse to get someone we trust into their ranks.”

Amanda looked at Sucy with annoyance. “Hey, which side are you on? Do you think they cheated or not?”

Sucy shook her head. “This isn’t about sides, you hot-headed prick,” she said. The casual way she insulted her made Hannah annoyed. Why did she have it so easy? “I have a reasonable doubt that the plants might have no cheated. We also have a reasonable doubt about our crew and it’s fine if we want to get it checked. Being precautious is one thing, being judgmental is another.”

“I mean,” Lotte said, “we could always look for more proof before jumping to conclusions? I believe crews are always being recorded when checking ships to make sure they don’t mess with the ships,” she extended her finger, “if we look for those recordings we can see exactly what went down.”

“Those are stored under heavy security, though,” Barbara said. “To make sure no aliens get a hold of videos of our ships getting dismantled.”

Amanda’s eyes lit up at the mention of ‘heavy security’. She smiled. “No biggie. Just tell me where they are and I will-”

“Do nothing,” Ursula interrupted. “You are going to be practicing on the Shiny Rod’s simulator.”

Amanda’s expression became bitter. “Akko doesn’t need me anyways,” Amanda said, “an AI would probably do as good as me,” she explained. That reminded Hannah of her theory. She might have been right, after all.

Ursula shook her head. “You’re not going to be in the turret this time,” she said. Hannah frowned. Amanda did too. She couldn’t be implying that… “You’re Diana’s substitute for the next two races, Amanda.”

Amanda’s jaw dropped. Akko’s too. Akko stood, pointing. “Wait! Then I won’t be able to turn on the turret!”

Ursula looked at Akko with a strange expression. Hannah couldn’t quite read it. Pained, maybe? Doubtful? “Jasminka will be your substitute gunman.”

Akko looked at Jasminka, who seemed as surprised as everyone else. “You’re a gunman?”

Jasminka nodded weakly. “Why me?” she asked.

Ursula smiled. “Because we have no one else, to do it. I know how well you performed back home before starting at Luna Nova. You’re a good choice, I know it.”

Jasminka seemed baffled. However, it dawned on Hannah just what this meant. “Wait a second, that means I have to become Amanda’s gunman?” Ursula nodded. “I refuse!”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to drop out of the race,” Ursula simply said. Hannah started, knowing she didn’t really have a good reply to that. It was true, I a pilot didn’t appear for a race, they would be disqualified, which was why substitutes were admitted in cases of injury.

“But wait, Amanda is a gunman, she can’t pil-”

“I’ve already checked,” Ursula said. Was she smiling? She was totally smiling. She had expected this discussion, didn’t she? “there are no rules about a gunman becoming a pilot for another category, as long as you have a substitute gunman for the category they left.”

Hannah pressed her lips, looking at Amanda, who hadn’t recovered yet. However, Amanda’s expression slowly turned from shock to a cocky smile. She looked absurdly overconfident. “Ha ha! Allow me to show you how a real pilot does it!” she cried, pointing at Hannah. “You’ll never want to be Diana’s gunman again after meeting with me!”

Hannah huffed. “You wish!” she couldn’t let this go by, “You’re just going to get a taste of defeat and will have to accept Diana’s skill!”

Amanda laughed. “Get ready for some next level piloting, pretty girl!” She said. There was something new in her eyes. More than humor or her usual mischievous spark. No, this time there was confidence. Pure, unaltered confidence. She wasn’t bluffing. She believed every word of what she said.

Hannah found this incredibly irritating. Her face had gone red with anger at the insult towards Diana. It was definitely not because she had been called pretty by the girl she knew to be homosexual. Was it wrong to consider someone’s compliment – if it could be considered a compliment in this context anyways – differently because of their sexuality?

Whatever, Hannah wasn’t in the mood for political correctness. And she was angry about the insult, not flustered about the compliment!

“We’ll see about that,” was all Hannah could come up with. Why did she find it so hard to retort to the redhead? It was probably because she knew few things would actually get under her skin, while Amanda seemed to know how to push her buttons. “Ok, we should get going, I’m hungry and tired.”

“Wait, we didn’t finish discussing…” Amanda started.

“Yes we did. We have no real proof. We’ll just have to be extra careful from now on,” Hannah was certainly never going to let another plant approach her, “And Ursula will try to get Constanze a special permit to work with our mechanics. Do we really need more than that?”

Amanda moved her jaw from one side to the other while thinking. In the end, she sighed. “Well, guess you’re right. It’s going to rain soon anyways.”

Barbara stood, brushing the sand off her clothes. “How do you know that?” she asked.

“Look,” Amanda pointed the horizon. It had become kind of blurry. “That’s the rain approaching.”

It was close. “Ok, I claim first ride,” Hannah instantly said.

“Girls, let’s not fight. Akko,” Akko had already risen. She was next to the Shiny Rod when Ursula called to her. “You and I need to talk later.”

Akko nodded. Hannah walked up to the rod and climbed into the cockpit. She hadn’t ever been inside it, had she? Akko looked nervous, probably expecting Hannah to say something. Hannah decided not to be mean, at least not right now. She’d criticize Akko when she wasn’t at risk of being stranded somewhere she didn’t know, even if it was on her home planet.

After two girls climbed on the turret – Jasminka and Constanze – Akko spoke the magic words and the Shiny Rod lurched a little as it teleported.

Chapter Text

“Akko, I’m your friend, so I respect your decisions,” Amanda was saying while patting Akko’s back. She was paralyzed in front of the door to Diana’s room in the infirmary. Hannah and Barbara had been talking to her for a while, since the moment she had woken up. Akko had used them as a good excuse not to bother Diana for the time, but after they exited… “If you feel like you’re not ready, then I will support you.”

“Really?” Akko looked at Amanda, hopeful. They were already in space after everyone had gone to sleep. With this trip taking about two more days at this point, Akko figured she’d have plenty of times to talk with Diana... However, the pats in the back suddenly became a little stronger. Amanda opened the door.

“Yeah, I’ll support you by making sure you don’t do anything stupid like not actually talking to Diana. Go,” Amanda pushed her inside.

Akko turned, but the door was already closed, and Diana had seen her. Diana’s expression was neutral, as usual. Well, not as usual. She looked tired, and, well, she was spread on the bed, wearing nothing but a patient’s shift. Her hair was a mess, but even then she was still pretty. It was unfair. “H-hello.”

“Hello,” Diana replied. Was her voice a little too cold, maybe? Akko approached the bed, wishing there was something to sit on, but all she could do was look down into Diana’s blue eyes, like pools of water…

“Did you need something?” Diana asked, noticing how intensely Akko was watching her. Diana’s body was stiff, tense, and it wasn’t because of the meds. She didn’t really have an escape route here. She would be forced to talk to Akko, at least for a while. She wasn’t sure why that made her so anxious, but she wanted to be done with it quickly.

The question took Akko by surprise. “I… Just wanted to check if you’re ok,” Akko lied. Well, not fully, she did want to check if she was ok, but she could have done that by asking someone else to come.

“I am quite allright, thank you,” Diana said. It kind of sounded like a dismissal. Was she angry? She was definitely tired, and this wasn’t because of Akko’s absurd assumptions about anyone who was grumpy. But… No, this didn’t seem like normal grumpiness.

“I also wanted to congratulate you on winning the race,” Akko said. Diana’s expression darkened a little. Yep, she was definitely mad.

“A shame I can’t say the same about you,” Diana said. The comment had been harsh, even for her, but she kind of wanted Akko to go. Maybe if she offended her a little she’d do it. Why did she feel so bad about it, anyways? Akko had also offended her and she hadn’t said sorry.

Akko looked down. No, Diana had all the right to say what she had said. It stung a little, but she wasn’t wrong.

“I… Well…” Akko desperately tried to search for a way to not end the conversation. “I’m sorry.”

Diana’s expression softened a little. “For what?” She asked.

“For not keeping my promise. I let the team down, after all,” Akko said. Surprisingly enough, Diana’s expression darkened even further than before.

Diana looked at Akko through narrowed eyes. She had been a fool for expecting Akko to apologize for something she didn’t even know she had done. She was too clueless to realize what was going on. Of course she wouldn’t apologize for what she had said. Why did Diana feel her chest growing heavier?

“I see. Well, this was a nice chat, but if you excuse me, I would like to get some sleep,” Diana said, all willingness to talk to Akko gone. Akko opened her mouth, but Diana’s expression said that she really didn’t want to continue talking. With a defeated expression, Akko turned around to leave.

However, she hesitated. Maybe she should just ask. She didn’t have much to lose, after all. She turned once again. “Are you mad at me?”

Diana was caught off guard by the question. She had made her anger too obvious. Her eyes widened a little. Should she tell the truth? Akko’s expression was one of worry and earnestness. She was genuinely preoccupied by how Diana felt, and realizing that, Diana couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

Akko’s little hope was lost. “Oh. I… I should have guessed it. I screwed up that race pretty bad, huh?” she said, laughing nervously.

Diana sighed. “That’s not why I’m angry, Akko. It’s ok, just leave, please.”

Akko looked at her, this time with confusion. What had she said? “Wait, you aren’t mad because I lost? Then why?”

Diana shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Just-”

Akko frowned. She had come here expecting to get chastised because of a bad race, but instead she found out that Diana was actually mad at her for some completely unrelated reason? She had been acting kind of strange before the race, now that Akko thought about it. “It does matter,” she interrupted. “Aren’t we friends? If you’re mad I wanna know why,” she said, stubbornly.

Diana, instead of getting more emotional, put on her neutral face. Akko got visibly annoyed at that. “I would rather not talk about it,” she said. She wasn’t in the mood for explaining. What good would it do, anyways? Akko would keep being Akko, knowing why Diana acted the way she did wouldn’t make a difference. Or, at least, not a big one.

“Why not?”

Diana paused. “Because I…” she looked for an explanation. Or rather, an excuse. “Because I’m tired. It’d be a pain to explain it to you, so I would appreciate it if you came back later and-”

“No.” Akko could see what Diana was doing. She might not be as smart as the blonde, but she wasn’t stupid. She would talk to Diana even if she grew even angrier at her.

“What?”

Akko sat on the floor. She was cramped, but she would do. “I’m not moving until you tell me.”

“I could always call the nurses to take you away, you know?” Diana said, threatening to press a button on the side of her bed. Akko crossed her arms.

“Hmpf. You won’t,” she said, closing her eyes and raising her chin.

“How do you know that?”

“Because you’re not that kind of person,” Akko said. She had already decided, and she was sure what she was saying was true. Diana wouldn’t call the nurses just because she didn’t want to talk with Akko. As Akko made sure to stay stubbornly in place, Diana seemed to hesitate as to what to do.

Diana looked at Akko, not believing what she had said. ‘Not that kind of person’? Whatever did she mean by that? What kind of person did Akko think she was? What… No. She… But, well, if she didn’t…

She gave up. “Fine, just… please, stand. I can’t take you seriously like that.”

Akko thought about it. Instead, she decided to kneel. This way she was closer to being at eye level with Diana. She didn’t’ seem satisfied but she didn’t complain either. “So, what is it?” Akko asked.

“I…” Diana closed her eyes. “What do you think of me, Akko?” She sounded even… Scared, when asking that. Akko cocked her head. That wasn’t the answer she wanted, but she could tell Diana was being serious, so she decided to go along with it, at least for now.

“What I think?” Akko thought about it for a while. “I think you’re a good person and an amazing pilot. Ehm… You’re pretty and kind of harsh, sometimes, but it never comes off as ill intended. Uhm… You’re a hard worker, I guess, and you obviously take great pride in your name- Wait, that’s just a fact, not what I think of you. I… well, that’s about it, I guess?” Akko had grown a little red when saying she was pretty, and she had instinctively counteracted it by pointing out something negative about her. Why had she done that? Diana was pretty and harsh, but there was no need to pair those up.

Diana opened her eyes. She does think I'm a hard worker? She thought. “And what about money? Don’t you think I’m just a rich girl?” She asked, this time with a little more… Intensity.

Akko cocked her head. “I mean, aren’t you? I don’t know, I guess,” Akko shrugged.

“No guesses,” Diana said with a serious tone. “Please be honest.”

Akko felt like this was important. She pondered over it. Well, Diana was rich, wasn’t she? There wasn’t that much to think about. But why did she seem hung up on that? Akko tried to… “Oh, that’s why you’re mad,” she realized, suddenly feeling stupid. “You… Didn’t like it when I said I wanted to be rich like you, back before we landed on Pan.”

Diana seemed surprised Akko was able to make the leap to realize that because of her question. She flushed. “I know it sounds silly,” she instantly got defensive. “I just…”

Akko tried to recall exactly how the conversation had gone. It had been such a simple comment, she hadn’t even considered it might have been offensive to Diana. But, as she put herself in Diana’s shoes, she could kind of imagine why she had seen it that way. “It’s not silly”, Akko said. “But… Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Diana hesitated again. She hadn’t done it because she didn’t feel like it. She hadn’t done it because she wanted Akko to figure it out on her own. She hadn’t done it because she was a lot less mature than she liked to make herself believe. She hadn’t done it because… “I’m… not sure,” she said meekly, accepting the truth. “I just… Was afraid of what you’d answer, I guess,” she admitted. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to look Akko in the eyes again if it turned out that she perceived her like everyone else in the world. She wasn’t sure why it was so important for her, but it was.

Akko nodded. “I’m sorry for that. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just frustrated,” she apologized. “I never meant to imply you’re only good because of your money, you know? I know how hard you work.” Diana nodded, flustered at the compliments. She was kinda cute. “But, I don’t think I would have figured it out if you hadn’t told me,” Akko continued. “We’re friends. It’s ok to tell your friends when something they do bothers you.”

Diana understood what Akko was saying. It was a really old concept, but she wasn’t very experienced in close relationships. Yet, she could see it was true. A weight had been lifted off her chest, and now she could finally talk to Akko normally again. She hadn’t realized just how much she wanted to just talk to the brunette. Akko was a fun person, in general. “I was being childish. I should apologize-”

Akko jumped forward, putting her hand on Diana’s mouth. She had noticed the change on the blonde, the way she now spoke more naturally. Basically, save for the fact that she was on a hospital bed, she seemed like the normal blonde Akko knew. “Don’t. You weren’t childish. I…” Akko gulped. “I was just careless, saying just what came to mind. I have a ship all the money on Earth couldn’t buy,” it was true. In the years following the last IPR, people had invested millions in trying to discover similar tech. It didn’t bear any fruits. “You don’t have to feel bad for, ehm, well, feeling bad.”

Diana pushed Akko’s hand away lightly. “Thank you,” she said. “I really should have spoken about this sooner.” She looked at the brunette. Why had she thought not talking to her was a good choice? “I judged you based on something you said on a moment of frustration,” she said, looking down. “Guess I’m no different from everyone else.”

Akko cocked her head. Everyone else? Everyone sees her as a rich girl and they probably think she’s this good because of her family and money, she thought. So what Akko had said hadn’t been just offensive… It had been way more hurtful than she had at first assumed. Diana must have been so tired of that, it really made sense she would get so upset. She looked Diana in the eyes. She was glad to no longer find that hostility from before. “Hey, if it makes you feel better,” Akko said, smiling. “Most people act the same, some are just better at hiding it than others.” That’s what Akko’s parents had told her long ago when Akko had complained about how high and mighty one of her classmates acted.

Diana smiled back. She wasn’t sure why, but the comment Akko had made did make her feel better. At least it was obvious that Akko didn’t hold against her how stupid she had been acting.

And, then, there was a beep. More meds were going to get injected into her body, along with some magic to fasten her healing. It had to be done in very small doses, lest she suffer from magic poisoning, but it was incredible what a Healing Spell – the machine Diana was connected to right now – could do. She’d soon fall unconscious again.

“Akko, may I ask something of you?” Diana said. It had to be now, since she didn’t really know how much time she’d be unconscious and she didn’t expect Akko to be there when she woke up.

She wouldn’t mind if she did, though.

“Uhm, sure,” Akko doubted. Diana waited for a few moments before voicing her question. It was strange for her to ever open up about these things, particularly to anyone besides Hannah and Barbara, but after the way she had been treating Akko for the past days she had to.

She stared Akko in the eyes. Big, red eyes. Somehow, Diana didn’t think she’d ever seen someone who could take red eyes like those and make them cute like her. “Please excuse me if sometimes I act a little too coldly. I promise it’s not because I don’t enjoy your company,” in the past it might have been the case, but Akko had proven herself to be someone who Diana could find enjoyment with.

Akko nodded. “I promise,” she said. Then, she looked down. “Though, I suppose my promises might not be worth much after the last race.”

Even if Diana didn’t seem to be mad anymore, she could still be disappointed. Akko sure was with herself. After the first emotional outburst she had slowly come to realize exactly how failed her mentality had been going into that race. The worst part was that it had nothing to do with Diana’s situation. She had had that mentality from before. The absolute single-mindedness of it might have come from the emotional distress, but then again, the idea originated way before anything went wrong.

Diana patted Akko’s arm, which was resting on the bed. “It’s fine,” she sounded a little sloppier, “next time we talk, let’s go over that race. And don’t forget to talk with Ursula about it. She’s our coach, after all.”

Akko nodded. Diana looked extremely relaxed now, and Akko guessed what was going on. “Ok,” she said. Diana nodded weakly, and a few seconds after, she had closed her eyes and gone to sleep. Her hand was still on top of Akko’s arm. Akko found herself kind of reluctant as she kindly moved the hand and stood, Diana was peaceful as she slept. Akko hesitated before leaving the room.

“Sleep well, you’ll get better soon” she said, feeling like leaving without saying anything was wrong.

Somehow, even if their exchange hadn’t been particularly long, Akko felt like it had lasted hours.

She wouldn’t have minded it if it had actually been hours, though.

Chapter Text

Amanda, Jasminka, Barbara and Hannah had been waiting patiently next to the Shiny Rod. Akko wouldn’t take much longer. Amanda hoped she’d be here soon, since the situation was pretty Awkward for everyone right now, if only because Hannah kept glaring at Amanda. Amanda would have liked to tease her, but with Barbara present, she couldn’t do much more tan sometimes return the stare.

When Akko finally appeared, Amanda couldn’t hide her excitement. The Shiny Rod was left without a cloth this time, but it was in turn carried all the way to the back of the hangar, where all the bigger brooms normally were. This place was arguably the safest place on the place, even if it wasn’t much better than the normal positions.

“Come on, Akko, let’s do this,” Amanda said, climbing up to the cockpit. Hannah shook her head. Akko looked… relaxed, now. Amanda suspected that she had probably solved the issue with Diana. Now that that was out of the way, they could focus on the really important stuff.

“You’re going first?” Akko asked.

“Of-fucking-course,” Amanda said. “I’m tired of that goddamn turret. Come on Hannah climb into it and let the party begin!”

Hannah looked at her with annoyance, but truth was, both of them needed to grow used to working with the other in a really short amount of time. They had about two more days of travel and then who knew how much time they’d spend on the next planet. Not much, probably.

As Amanda climbed in the cockpit, sitting on the pilot’s seat, she recalled the little thing they had done in Sídhe and Machina, where they had teleported up to the highest place they knew of and stared down on the world for a while. But Pan didn’t have a place to do that, and it didn’t turn to night while they were there, sadly. So this little tradition would have to wait for a while – and it wasn’t as if Diana could accompany them now, anyways. Amanda doubted Akko would want to do it without her.

“Alcor, simulate the Shooting Star,” Akko said as she entered the cockpit and closed the windshield. The entire thing changed, becoming thinner, lots of different controls appearing on the little counter-thing that was empty before. Amanda smiled. She recognized what most of them were for.

“Wait, where are we going next?” Amanda asked.

Akko opened her mouth to say something, then recalled she didn’t know, and looked at the controls. “Alcor, tell me where we’re headed towards.”

A 3D map of the Dragon suddenly appeared. It slowly panned out until it was nothing but a dot. Different things passed through the borders of what Amanda guessed were the limits of the map. The ship took a minute or two to reach its potential destination. It was a planet that had another not far away. Not a moon, a planet. And, further down the line, two more planets were also in sight.

Amanda instantly recognized the place. Everyone with a little knowledge of IPR culture, or just aliens, had heard of this place.

“Trashcan,” The garbage planet. She smiled, as she had always found it to be a really curious place that she had wanted to visit.

“Trashcan?” Hannah said from the turret. “Oh hell, I knew this day would come but I didn’t want it to,” she sounded repulsed. Amanda shook her head. Of course Hannah would think like that. People like her didn’t understand how cool that place was. A planet that for centuries had been the space dumpster of three other planets, all of them inhabited by octopuses. In official records the four planets usually stood as equals, but Trashcan was the real main character in this situation. Somehow, some octopus had managed to get to Trashcan and get stranded there. After who knows how much time, they had evolved beyond their cousins in other planets, becoming way smarter and with a higher technology. When people thought about octopus, the image they formed in their heads was usually that of the ones in Trashcan, not its nearby planets. Octopuses considered themselves the smartest races on the universe, and Amanda, having seen some of their inventions, had to agree. They could turn trash into basically anything they needed. Though they often did complain about lack of some resources that were scarce in normal trash. Trashcan, sadly, didn’t have much in terms of local resources.

Amanda didn’t know nearly as much about any other planets in the IPR, but she couldn’t not find a race that had built itself from the ground up with fucking trash cool.

“Ok, Alcor, simulate a race in Trashcan,” Akko said. The racing circuit in Trashcan usually required to traverse a long plain that was officially named as ‘The biggest dumpster in the universe.’ That could apply to the entirety of Trashcan, of course, but that area was considered wilderness on the planet.

Slowly, the landscape shifted. It was daytime, and all that surrounded Amanda were big piles of trash and garbage. A lot of it had strange, alien forms that Amanda didn’t recognize. Was that thing on her right supposed to be some kind of rotten fruit? It was as big as her chest but it looked organic. It was black, though Amanda wasn’t sure if that was its natural color or if it was like that because of being in the middle of decomposing.

Not that the trash was the most impressive. Being trash you couldn’t really focus much on it. If you didn’t look closely it wasn’t that different from human trash.

Now, the sky, that was interesting. A deep crimson red. It was midday, and gosh darn was it beautiful. The sun, a very light blue, was about double the size of earth, at least in perception. Trashcan didn’t have breathable air for humans, but its temperature was normal, despite what one might expect.

“Wow, this place really is a dumpster, huh?” Akko said as she looked around. “What’s that?” She pointed at a piece of metal shaped a little like a five-pointed star, but one if the points was double the length of the others.

“I have no idea,” Amanda admitted. The place they were in had a particularly wide gap between the heaps of garbage. It was the starting place for the race.

To the sides of the ship, simulations of all Second Category pilots started appearing. It was amazing. “You wanna start like this?” Akko asked. “You’re not used to flying, are-”

“Akko,” Amanda said in an even voice.

“Huh?”

“Do not put in question my piloting abilities. Let me show you what a real master can do,” Amanda said. She knew she was cocky and self absorbed, particularly when it came to flying. But there was a good reason for that, and she would show it to them.

“Yeah, a master of bullshittery,” Hannah said.

Amanda scoffed at the comment. “Just try to keep up, pretty,” she had seen the effect calling her pretty had had back on the beach. She had spat that out as a kind of insult she’d used in the past, but she had never expected Hannah to actually get flustered over it.

She wouldn’t ever let it go.

She started preparing the Shooting Star for the race. As Amanda checked the control panel, she made sure to modify a few things about the default state of the ship. The sensibility of the Shooting Star was near perfect – any movement of your hand would instantly get transmitted to the ship. This, however, Amanda wasn’t used to. So she decreased the sensibility. Then, she set the neutral flying height – the height any broom would maintain when not pushed to go up or down – at exactly three meters. Diana had had it on automatic, but that was bullshit. Amanda wanted to always know exactly how her movements performed. Maybe automatic was more convenient, but in her opinion, it was worse in the long run. She made some other minor modifications, making sure to get the ship to work as she wanted it to.

“Ok,” Amanda said. Akko commanded for the race to start and a giant three appeared in front of the Shiny-Rod-Simulating-Shooting-Star.

Three. Two. One.

Go, Amanda thought with confidence.

It was instantly obvious to her that she wasn’t going to be as great as she claimed.

She was going to be better.

The Shiny R- Shooting Star responded exactly as she wanted it to, delay included. With shapeshifter to one side and daemons to the other, she was against rivals who would be perfect for measuring her ability. The race was a long, straight line, at least the simulation version. That was fine, as it was only for getting used to it.

Amanda accelerated. She still needed to get used to the feeling of piloting again, but better to learn on the fly than to think too much about it. The wide gap between the mountains of trash closed, and the real race started. She Everyone had been more or less even during this first segment, but as soon as they had to split, quick decision making was key. The Shooting Star wouldn’t be able to fly above the mountains of trash. Amanda wasn’t sure of how the hovering system for these ships worked – she didn’t care about that particular technicality – but inconsistent terrains such as water and giant heaps of trash didn’t really mix well with it.

Amanda went to the right. She wasn’t sure why, she was just following her instincts. She trusted her instincts, especially when flying. Another four ships took the same path, including daemons and shapeshifter, so it was certainly promising. Time to test a little something, Amanda thought.

As giant as these piles of trash were, they didn’t last long with the incredibly high speeds that Amanda was reaching. Before she knew it, she found herself alone in a labyrinth of trash. She needed someone to perform her little experiment though.

And, as soon as she re-encountered with another racer – the armors, who had somehow gotten ahead of her – Amanda smiled. “Hannah, attack,” Amanda simply said. She didn’t care how she attacked, she just wanted her to do it.

Hannah snorted, but did so anyways. She started rapid-firing at the armor. Not very effective, but enough for Amanda’s little experiment.

As she attacked, she accelerated. The armors’ giant ball instantly tried to repel her, but Amanda could see the movement coming from miles away. She dodged nonchalantly and kept getting closer. Of course, as the boulder came back, it tried to hit her again, but without much trouble Amanda dodged again. Another fork ahead. Amanda smiled. She was where she wanted, and thanks to Hannah’s distraction, it seemed like the armor hadn’t realized what it was.

The slipstream.

Slipstreaming or drafting – using someone’s else’s air resistance to shield you from it – was not usually used on races of this nature. It was too easy to get shot or crash, and a lot of ships didn’t create a good slipstream anyways. The Armor ship, though, did.

Amanda could feel the decreased resistance, and she didn’t hesitate to slingshot forward as soon as they reached the fork, separating from the armor. She soon came into contact with a shapeshifter. “Hannah, don’t attack, only defend,” Amanda ordered. Hannah grunted as an answer that Amanda took as a yes.

The shapeshifter, sadly, seemed to catch wind of what she was doing quickly. It started to move in erratic ways Amanda couldn’t predict.

Well, that was one idea down the gutter. She wouldn’t be the one to discover how to use slipstreams on broom racing, sadly.

“Akko, stop the race,” Amanda said, letting go of the controller.

“Huh?” Akko looked confused. The Shiny Rod, however, seemed to notice that Amanda had let go, and the simulation paused automatically.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.

“I was trying something out, but it didn’t really work,” Amanda explained. “So, instead of going on with a lost race, I’m just going to restart and take things a little more seriously.”

Hannah didn’t answer. Amanda wondered what her expression would be. Well, not that it mattered for the moment. With a hand, Amanda gestured for Akko to start again, so she did. A big three appeared in front of the Shooting Star again and, as it went down, Amanda tried to think of some other cool thing to do.

Oh, maybe she could…

The race started.

This time, she didn’t accelerate instantly. She waited five seconds. “Amanda, I think you forgot to mo-” Right as Hannah started reproaching Amanda for her decision Amanda accelerated and pressed nitro. Her high speed was dangerous, but she recalled the route she had done previously, so she was fine. Even having lost five seconds, it took barely ten to catch up to the last in line. This time, to Amanda’s surprise, it was the daemons. Extremely weird, but well, simulations worked the way they did for a reason. This wasn’t an impossibility. “Hannah, keep an eye out for attacks from the back,” Amanda said, accelerating again. She was keeping track of her fuel, and knew she was being wasteful, but this particular simulation would let her do what she wanted. She’d probably have to try out some other setups later to make sure what she was trying to do was doable.

For now, she would focus on the current race.

She was trying to get past the daemons, but with so many curves and the constant change of directions she wasn’t having any luck. She needed to take risks if she wanted to get ahead. That was fine with her.

She pushed forward, coming dangerously close to the daemons. They seemed to notice what she was planning to do, so they didn’t attack. Amanda smiled, this was exciting. She pushed even more, the nose of her ship now almost touching the back of theirs. It was convenient that they didn’t have any visible engines; no fires to bother her view. She was now riding a slipstream, which wasn’t what she intended but was wonderful. The daemons didn’t dare move too much and give her a chance to slingshot herself forward.

Too bad this track was full of alternate routes… Or not, because Amanda didn’t go for the easy route. She remained behind the daemons for longer than needed, careful to never crash with them. Brooms were resilient, but she didn’t want to lose balance. As expected, they soon were along with the main racers again. Daemons weren’t one of the four strongest teams on the race for nothing.

But Amanda was better than them.

As soon as they caught up, an Armor tried attacking. Daemons dodged upwards, Amanda did downwards and pressed nitro. She was boosted thanks to the drafting, and in a single second she had overtaken both daemons, armor and even reptilians that were in the same short stretch of trash. The path seemed to steer a little to the left here, but Amanda saw that the trash wall guiding them that way was a rather short… Or, to better put it, short enough to jump.

It was a risk. She couldn’t know what was on the other side. But, again, she trusted her instincts. She couldn’t go wrong. She jumped-

No, she was wrong. It happened to be a particularly strange stretch of trash, like a small sea of it. It had probably been cleared away for the race, which had created the ‘wall’ Amanda had tried to exploit.

“Stop!” Amanda let go of the controls again.

“Again?” Hannah asked in annoyance.

“Yes,” Amanda said, slowly rubbing her chin. “Hmm, I’m really not feeling it…” Slipstreams weren’t a reliable tool, jumping over piles of trash didn’t work either. The Shooting Star didn’t have a map feature as reliable as the Shiny Rod’s, so she couldn’t use that as a substitute.

“Oh, I guess you’re not as good as you claim, huh?” Hannah said. Amanda could hear her smile, and she narrowed her eyes.

“I’d rather fix my mistakes before making any more,” she defended.

“You can’t just pause a real race, you know” Hannah insisted.

Amanda rolled her eyes, though Hannah wouldn’t be able to see that. “Which is why I should take this chance, don’t you think? If I have crazy outlandish ideas then I better try them out on a simulator and if they don’t work then reset it and move on.”

“If you get used to pausing and being able to fix your mistakes with something like a Control Z you’ll mess up in the real race and won’t know how to react.”

Amanda pressed her lips. Hannah had a point. “Fuck, you’re right,” she admitted.

“Ok, then can we start practicing for real?” Hannah sounded triumphant.

“Not quite,” Amanda said. “It just means I don’t have to grow used to making mistakes so that I don’t feel compelled to pausing and resetting,” she explained.

She kept on her chin rubbing. She never did that to think but it seemed fitting for her current situation. She could feel incipient hair there. She needed to shave at least once a week, though she wouldn’t have minded wearing a beard if it wasn’t so damn inconvenient.

“So… Are we going to start or what?” Hannah said, “Your flying is a little more shaky than Diana’s, I need to grow used to that if we’re going to be working together.”

Amanda didn’t answer. She was focused on her own mind. She needed to visualize what she was going t do. The piles of trash surrounding her, the red sky, the blue sun. She needed to develop instincts as sharp as she had back on Earth. In Sídhe she’d done good, but she needed to get rid of that and get used to the new environment. She needed to explore this planet a little more, see how the terrain was laid out. A forest and a city were tracks anyone could get used to. A dumpster? Now that was a real challenge.

“Akko,” Amanda said. “Call off the race. Just let me explore the planet.”

“Really?” Hannah asked with disgust.

“Uhm, sure,” Akko said. She was distracted. Amanda found this annoying, didn’t she want to see how crazy good Amanda was? She was probably thinking about Diana. Amanda wondered if she had developed a crush. Seemed unlikely for Akko to have a crush on anybody, but that was the kind of unpredictable thing she often did. Though, if Amanda had predicted it, then it shouldn’t be… Ah, whatever, she didn’t like to think this hard about stupid things. She only thought hard when stealing something or pulling a prank was involved. Or when she wanted to seduce a pretty girl.

Akko did as asked and Amanda started to roam about the dumpster. She tried to perceive patterns in how the trash was handled, in why it was set up the way it was. Was it random? A lot of it came from space in giant containers that now laid incinerated and in pieces around the place. Amanda could recognize some of them from videos in school where a teacher had explained why throwing your trash into space was not a common practice for most races.

And, she did notice some patterns. No pile trash was higher than twenty five meters. In fact, some ended in flat tops, which implied that there was some kind of regulation. Also, every pile had about three to five meters of separation between them, save for some scattered trash on the ground. Was it because this was a racing area? Likely but interesting to know. That meant the little sea of trash she had seen previously was an irregularity and probably a planned one. Why would that be? A lot of racers would be able to go over it. The Shiny Rod would too, so Amanda doubted it to be some kind of trap set up only for humans or something. Wait, did aliens knew that the Shiny Rod didn’t follow normal broom rules? They probably did. If not, they weren’t earning their salaries.

“Oh, look at that,” Akko pointed at what looked like the carcass of some really old vehicle. It was cylindrical and rusted. Rust meant the atmosphere of the planet had oxygen, right? Amanda wasn’t precisely a scientist, but this made her wonder if there was a lot or too little, and what made it non-breathable.

“There doesn’t seem to be a pattern as to what trash gets thrown in here,” Amanda pointed out. “There are organics, things that look like plastic – Did this planet or one of its cousins have dinosaurs? – metals, glass, small trash, big trash… This is some kind of general dumpster. I heard the planet had specific places where different kinds of garbage were thrown, but maybe this is where things that for some reason fail to meet all other requirements end up.

“I’m surprised you know so much about this planet,” Hannah said.

“Why, because I’m not Diana?” Amanda asked sarcastically. “Sorry, I guess my taste is trash,” she joked. She chuckled at her stupid pun. Akko did too. Hannah grunted.

Amanda continued her exploring. Why was this the race area? Surely there were more convenient places to race, easier places to set up than a place where everything is so inconsistent. This was nothing but Amanda’s guess, though, so she didn’t entertain that idea too much. It didn’t matter why it wasn’t elsewhere. She needed to focus on this terrain and what advantages it could provide. The Home-Race Curse was a staple of the IPR. No one had broken it yet in a hundred and twenty years of race. So, why didn’t more planets attempt to change their terrain for races to one advantageous to their ships? Tradition? Likely for some races, but not all of them, though Amanda new next to nothing about other planet’s social dynamics.

It would be nothing if she hadn’t already been to two planets. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen how Plant society was like since the racing area was so far away from their cities. Did they even have cities? She guessed it didn’t matter, at this point. She would never set foot on Pan again.

She also started to notice a pattern on how the mountains of trash were set up. They were set in lines, but not obvious ones. More like sinuous lines, but it was definitely a pattern, because as she moved, she could clearly recognize the difference in lines. If she could look at the place from above she would probably see it. Did it help her somehow? Of course if she could read the pattern then she would be able to basically fly with her eyes closed. Few things were more effective when flying than being able to see the path before you had to traverse it, which was a thing Akko didn’t understand, sadly.

Amanda would have tried to explain it, but she was too lazy for that.

“Akko, can you give me an aerial look of the area?” Amanda asked. Akko, who had been looking at the trash distractedly, ignored her. “Akko.”

“Huh?” Akko suddenly snapped. Was she smiling? “Oh, yeah. Alcor, can you make us fly for a while?”

Instantly, the Shooting Star rose above the ground. Then, it disappeared. Even the seat disappeared, leaving Amanda hanging mid air. Her eyes widened. She could feel a soft breeze that she shouldn’t have been able to feel, since she would probably die if she breathed it, but...

For a second, she forgot why she had asked for this. I’m flying, was all that crossed her mind. However, quick it came and quick it went, since Hannah suddenly let out a high pitched cry and started panicking.

“What’s going on?!” She said.

“Hannah, dude, it’s just a simulation,” Amanda said. She tried moving, but she couldn’t control her movement. Well, that was sad. She wondered if Akko might have been able to pull it off, since the Shiny Rod answered to her fully.

Hannah didn’t show signs of relaxing. She was slightly below Amanda and Akko, in the relative position of where the turret was. Amanda sighed. She couldn’t have a distressed gunman, sadly. She looked down. Yes, that was a pattern allright. The mountains of trash were set in a strange sinuous way. Like depictions of the sea in paintings. They had been crossing the land cutting through the pattern. But, in that direction there was a pattern too, that somehow turned into a constant, strange V-shape, if a little broken.

She saw why the simulator would have placed her on that direction. It had a less obvious way of flying effectively. Going in diagonal would allow you to gain speed but get you away from the goal – which, at least during the simulation, hadn’t been big. A lot of races often did that, wide tracks with a small finish line. If you missed it you had to go back and cross it from the correct side. A little asshole-ish but Amanda would have done the same to make things interesting.

She examined the landscape closely. This pattern was broken in a few places. Small – relatively – areas where trash seemed to cover things without rules. To these there was definitely no pattern. Amanda wondered how those came to appear. The octopus race, particularly the ones living in Trashcan, obviously were people who liked order. Maybe these were places where trash had collapsed for a reason or another and they just didn’t have the means to go back and clean it. Amanda did notice that there, trash seemed to not quite reach twenty meters as with almost all other places in sight, though it was hard to tell from up above.

However, that was the only truly random element on the landscape. She examined the pattern for long enough to memorize it, and then nodded softly. Hannah had already relaxed, but she didn’t look comfortable. “Ok, we can go back down now,” she said to Akko, who was amazed by the view. It was beautiful. The landscape being bathed in the blue light of the sun made even a dumpster look like a place taken straight out of a fairly tail.

They went back down, were the Shiny Rod again turned into the Shooting Star.

“Can we start a race now?” Hannah asked, annoyed.

Amanda nodded as an answer. Then she realized she was stupid. “Yeah,” she said. “This time I’m going to ask you to try to keep anyone from following me.”

“Try to keep others from following you?” Hannah asked in disbelief. “I can try to keep them away but I don’t know how I would do that.”

“You’ll come up with something,” Amanda shrugged. “Akko, let us begin.”

Akko commanded another race as Hannah mumbled something about knowing that working with Amanda was going to be a pain in the ass. Amanda paid no mind to that as the Shiny Rod spawned the other ships and the big three appeared on screen. The race started on the same place as before, though Amanda had to wonder if it would be like that on the actual race. Even if the Shiny Rod had some kind of system that allowed it to predict where races would be held, Croix had stated that rules for races would be completely random and therefore where they were ran would surely also be affected by that.

But worrying about that wouldn’t do her much good, would it? She’d just have to try to cover all her angles. Or, in this case, all of her directions.

The race started, and she accelerated. She tried to get the mental map of the place in her head. Almost as if she was seeing it drawn, she imagined a red line travelling through the trash. She could almost see it and herself erasing it as she moved through it, all of her surroundings a blur of colors, with black and maroon being the dominant colors. Blue light usually made red appear black, though of course it wasn’t purely blue light, and the rust wasn’t only red, so it had a somewhat watered down effect.

It was pretty edgy looking. Amanda liked it.

She was going nose to nose with the daemons, but the reptilians had somehow gotten ahead of her. However, in the next divergence, they took the wrong path. Amanda smiled as she started following what she had deduced to be the least resistance path to the finish line. After two more divergences the daemons kept taking the same path as her. She growled. Had they figured it out too? Or had the Shiny Rod cheated and given them that knowledge? How did those AI even work?

Hannah started to do her job. She attacked the daemons, who tried to retaliate. Amanda was more of a pure-racer type, she wasn’t exactly a fan of fighting, preferring tests of speed. But she could appreciate the awesomeness of a laser fight – even if Magic and Inferno were more like plasma than actual lasers.

Amanda rose into the air, tilting, then leaning, then completely turning as she jumped – upside down – over the daemons. She heard Hannah yelp. It had been a risky move, but rather than dodging her intention had been to get on the other side of the daemons, with her goal being that of turning in that direction. “Hannah!” she cried, trying to get Hannah to understand that she needed to go all out now.

Hannah, to her surprise, understood. She instantly shifted to single-shot while Amanda tried to dodge the barrage of shots from the daemons – but not fully succeeding, resulting in a few smoking dents on the frame of the broom. The single shots came out quickly, more powerful and precise than the rapid-fire mode but in lesser cadence.

It worked. The daemons decided to disengage the combat, going the other way. Now, Amanda thought, pressing nitro.

The acceleration and g-force was something she could handle, even if noticeable. Akko didn’t seem to notice it at all, though. Why not? She wasn’t even wearing a g-suit. Did the Shiny Rod ignore her with the simulated effects? When she sat down would she feel as if she was wearing one? She thought of this as she flew, following the pattern she had discovered. She didn’t do perfectly – she could feel the broom scraping through trash and hitting things from time to time – but for her first time she certainly did better than she expected.

It was strange. Despite not having piloted in a lot of time, not counting her little ride of the Blue Star back on Sídhe, she felt as if she hadn’t ever actually stopped. Yet, last time she had done it was before starting the school year in Luna Nova. Back when she piloted the Blue Star she hadn’t noticed – and she had been a little too focused on trying to win against Diana to – but now that she was going at preposterous speeds, she didn’t just feel as if it was muscle memory. She understood the ship she was piloting despite having piloted it just once before.

She stopped using nitro, as she needed to save some fuel. She kept flying in her pattern – two heaps left, one heap right, one heap left, two heaps right – without breaking her concentration too much. She was surprised to someone see other ships close as she peeked through the different mounds. It was annoying, but she was certain she wasn’t the only one who had figured out the pattern and others were also using it to their advantage. Maybe others had seen her using nitro and decided to use their own equivalents of it to keep up.

In any case, she had already proven her strategy should work. What she hadn’t quite proven yet was if she could win the race or not with it. The daemons appeared behind her, and soon the cyborgs also did. Their bronze, jet-like big ship followed rather nicely. It was big but it could maneuver surprisingly well, even among all of this trash. Amanda was a little surprised it wasn’t bigger, actually, giving the fact that cyborgs were basically giants to human standards. It was as if the Shiny Rod was only as tall as Amanda’s sitting posture and just three meters long. Amanda wondered if they could connect themselves to their ship through their robotic limbs. That seemed like a cool concept with absolutely zero ways of backfiring.

Amanda kept on her way. Left, left, right, left- left. A wall rose in front of them. Amanda already knew what these were, so she had to steer in the wrong direction whether she wanted to or not. She rounded the thing she had decided to call Trash Plateau. It kinda made sense, in her mind. Didn’t know if the others would use it but it was too late for her now.

As soon as she noticed the trash plateau end, she made sure to go in a diagonal line up to the place where she knew her optimal path was… well, optimal. The end of the race approached. A minute at best. This meant a lot of different racers converged. Amanda had the daemons up in her tail, but the others were behind them. The shapeshifter, curiously enough, seemed to have some kind of trouble piloting through this area. Amanda wondered why. She wouldn’t say it was easier than moving through trees, but it didn’t seem that difficult. In fact, it was strange. It was almost as if the shapeshifter was just afraid of touching anything related to trash. Did they find it so disgusting that they wouldn’t touch it? Well, their ship was half alive, so…

For a second she forgot to steer, which ended up in her wing colliding with a mountain of trash and a sudden lost of speed. The daemons didn’t lose a second, getting ahead of her. She gritted her teeth, accelerating. Oh no you don’t! She thought with anger. The daemons weren’t about to let her get ahead again, though.

Hannah was busy making sure no one got to close from behind. However, Amanda saw a chance. Armors. Right behind them. She started carefully riding the daemon’s slipstream again. They had definitely figured out the perfect path like Amanda had, for they did exactly as Amanda would, which also made them predictable.

And, again, the armor attacked. Maybe they didn’t notice what Amanda was doing, maybe they didn’t care. Amanda appreciated the move anyways. She subtly dodged the ball – barely tilting the Shooting Star so that it didn’t break her wing – and allowed it to move towards the daemons. They caught on, and of course, they had to dodge.

Amanda dodged in the opposite direction. She shot forward. She didn’t have much fuel left, but she pressed nitro anyways. Now or never.

She regained her advantage. With how little race was left, the daemons weren’t able to recover.

The race ended, and as Hannah started to complain about how rough her flying was, and about how she was having a hard time adapting to her sudden and apparently random moves, Amanda could only think about one thing.

How do I know the shapeshifter’s ship is organic?

She hadn’t ever heard that. She hadn’t ever seen it in a report, or on random comments on the internet, or anywhere. She hadn’t seen the theory thrown around either, though she was sure someone else must have figured it out. The problem wasn’t if it was true or not. She was one hundred percent sure it was. But how? When? She couldn’t be this sure if it hadn’t come from a reliable source, and she was sure she hadn’t known that before starting the IPR.

It wasn’t hard to sum one plus one. She hadn’t heard it before the IPR. She hadn’t heard it during her downtime. There was only one place that information could have come from. Amanda looked at her surroundings. The Shiny Rod was a strange ship. It didn’t look made of metal, not really. The white was too white. It didn’t look painted, but there were no metals that were this white naturally. There were no bolts or screws on sight, nor any kind of welding had been done on any visible surface.

That, plus the regeneration thing, apparently infinite energy save for a limit on how much it could use at any given time, and all of its other strange attributes – built-in simulator, wiping of memories, the ability to just straight up change forms – painted a picture Amanda was starting to see as something way less trivial than a mere broom.

Were, maybe, the shapeshifter ships something akin to the Shiny Rod? Was that how Amanda was able to recognize it? Or was it something else?

Why could Amanda apparently recall that one detail from her time as a gunman in this ship but not anything else?

Or maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention at her own thoughts. What did she really know? She hadn’t ever questioned her memories before. It wasn’t like her. She usually took things at face value. If she recalled something she didn’t know ever learning, then maybe she just hadn’t been searching for memories long enough, or hard enough.

“Amanda?” Akko snapped her out of her mind, softly touching her shoulder. “You look strange.”

“Maybe she’s dizzy from her crazy flying,” Hannah said. “I know I am.”

“Sorry,” Amanda closed her eyes. She had to practice, so she shouldn’t lose focus, but she wouldn’t be able to focus unless she tried to sort things out. But what was there to sort out? If she tried to recall, nothing came to her. The shapeshifter detail had come so naturally to her, as if she had just known about it for a long time. Was the Shiny Rod messing with her memories beyond deleting them? Was it inserting knowledge in her she didn’t want or need? Why would it? Maybe she actually needed it for firing at people. Maybe it had failed on one of the memory wipes and had left that tiny bit in there.

“Did… You just apologize?” Hannah asked with a confused voice. “Are you alright?”

Amanda hummed as an answer. She needed to focus on her flying. She had won the race at basically her first attempt. This wasn’t just easy, this was a piece of cake. Though, of course, she didn’t trust the simulator to be completely accurate to real life. She wondered if Akko’s mind had some kind of effect on how it worked. Like, maybe, because she was happy, the simulator was running on easy mode or something. Didn’t seem like something practical and logical to do but Akko wasn’t a logical being either.

“Let’s do another race,” Amanda simply said. Maybe flying some more would help her figure it out.

The race started, and she went basically on auto pilot, trying not to think too much. This time the shapeshifters did a lot better, being an actual menace to her piloting. They attacked a lot more than before, though Hannah wasn’t having much luck with the ‘don’t allow others to follow’ instructions. Amanda knew she had asked something kind of outrageous so she didn’t get too annoyed at that.

The second race ended up with her in second place. She was too distracted by this sudden revelation. She just couldn’t focus. “Akko, your turn,” Amanda said, thinking that some free time to think would help.

“Uhm…” Akko hesitated. “Sure…” She looked at Amanda with doubt. Was she aware of Amanda’s weird attitude? Probably. Amanda wasn’t sure if Akko had good emotional intelligence or not. She seemed to realize when people acted weird but act uncertain about it anyways.

“This is going to be hell,” Hannah commented as she exited the cockpit. Now it was Jasminka’s turn. Maybe, with another person suffering from the same things as her, Amanda would be able to figure out her own thoughts.

Chapter Text

Akko didn’t find Ursula in her room. Using Lotte’s wand, she managed to locate her, finding that she had been in a reunion with her superiors. Since Ursula was hungry, they had agreed to meet up on Bronze Deck and eat on a food stand and then walk around. Now Akko waited impatiently next to the food stand they had agreed on. She had performed horribly in her simulation earlier, which had led her to just give up on that for the moment.

“I mean, it’s been ten minutes already,” Akko was saying. “Maybe something went wrong and she had to stay. Or maybe she’s so angry at me she ditched me… Nah, that’s not like Ursula. Wait, is it?”

The poor man next to her was nodding and smiling, trying very hard not to appear engaged on the conversation to not scare off clients. It wasn’t working.

“I mean, I get it if she did it,” Akko said, feeling a stab of guilt. “I ignored her big time during the race. Everyone’s probably angry at me anyways,” she was sitting on the edge of the stage in the middle of the deck, her legs bouncing with slight anxiety. “Are you angry at me, Hotdog man?”

“I’m Carlos,” the hotdog seller said, “And not really. You did pretty good in my opinion, miss pilot,” He said with respect. That didn’t stop him from looking like he wanted Akko to leave him alone, though.

“Thank you, hotdog man,” Akko said with a sigh. She knew he probably didn’t understand why she had failed so miserably, but at least not everyone was angry. Diana wasn’t any longer. Akko smiled slightly while thinking about it. She’d go to talk to Diana after talking to Ursula… Well, assuming Diana was awake. And assuming Hannah and Barbara let her.

“Akko,” suddenly, a voice made Akko perk up. Ursula stood there, uncharacteristically wearing something that wasn’t a g-suit. However, she was still wearing something that was probably an uniform. It was a purple ceremonial robe, looking like a witch’s attire. Down to her ankles, relatively wide sleeves, a belt and an oversized hat that was a little too cartoony, but it looked nice on her.

“Hello, coach. What’s up with the outfit?” Akko asked.

“I had a meeting with the headmistress of Luna Nova today. I wanted to be at my best and dress for the occasion,” Ursula explained.

“With the headmistress? Don’t you talk with presidents and stuff sometimes?” Akko could swear Ursula had mentioned it somewhere.

Ursula smiled. “Well, yes. But to me, Headmistress Holbrooke is much more important than any president could ever be,” she said. “But let’s ignore that, wanna eat?”

Akko nodded. Both of them grabbed a hotdog, and Akko waved the hotdog man goodbye as they walked away. They ate in peace, with Akko asking how had the meeting gone, and with Ursula simply stating that it had been not different from usual. Of course, Akko didn’t know what ‘usual’ was so she decided to leave it at that.

Well, not quite.

“Guess you could say it went as ursulal,” Akko said, dumb smile on her face as she tried to get Ursula to laugh. Ursula gave her a flat look, but her expression quickly shifted to a smile and she began to chuckle.

“Please don’t ever make that joke again,” Ursula said as she finished. Akko couldn’t help but keep smiling.

When they were done with the food, Ursula sat down on one of the benches nearby the windows that showed space as if in a giant cinema screen. Akko stood there, hearing the teacher taking a deep breath. She knew what was coming, even though neither of them wished to have this conversation, probably.

“Come on, sit down,” Ursula patted the bench. Akko did so, steeling her heart for what was to come.

Ursula put a hand on her shoulder, staring kindly. Akko looked at her with some confusion.

“You made a mistake,” Ursula said. “And I know you realized that. But I need to ask you, do you know what your mistake was?”

Akko thought for a while. She didn’t want to appear stupid. “I… didn’t pay attention to my surroundings?” She hadn’t, after all. If she did, she may have noticed that half the racers were following her.

Ursula nodded, but then shook her head. “That’s part of it, but you did something unforgivable by racing standards,” she said. “You drew attention to yourself.”

Akko cocked her head. “Huh?”

Ursula was looking at her in the eyes. She had beautiful red eyes, eyes that Akko felt weird at when looking. She felt as if she’d known them for a long time. Maybe it was Ursula’s motherly aura playing tricks on her mind. After all, she was the only figure of authority they’d had in quite a while.

“Tell me, Akko, what do animals do when they feel threatened?”

“Run away?” Akko answered uncertainly.

Ursula nodded. “Then, what do they do when they feel cornered?”

“Attack,” that was an easy one. Again, Ursula nodded, and Akko was failing to see the point of the conversation. What did animals have to do with all of this?

“Tell me. How do you think everyone else felt when they saw you do what you did?” Ursula asked.

“You mean, transforming the Shiny Rod?” Akko asked. Ursula nodded. “Well…” She thought back to the situation, but her memory of the race was foggy. She had been rather distressed because of the Diana situation, and while she didn’t believe that was the fault of her faulty behavior, she was currently having trouble piecing together why had she acted the way she did. It just made so much sense, back during the race. Now everything was turned upside down. “They… were jealous?” Akko supposed. “They saw that...” She trailed off, eyes widening. “They felt cornered. They saw me with an incredible advantage and attacked all at once to throw me off.”

“Correct,” Ursula smiled. “See? You’re smart. You should have been able to figure it out by yourself,” she put her arm around Akko’s shoulders to give her a small hug.

“I drew attention to myself,” Akko was still thinking. “And I got careless, thinking Amanda would protect me, but…”

“When transformed, the Shiny Rod lacks weaponry and shields,” Ursula said. Akko nodded.

Then she frowned. “Wait, how do you know that?”

Ursula paused, suddenly releasing Akko from her light hug. “I, well,” she looked away, smiling nervously, “it- it was obvious, I mean, whenever Chariot transformed the Shiny Rod back then, she never used weapons or stuff like that, right?” Ursula said. Her voice had gone a pitch higher, and she was obviously uncomfortable with the topic.

What she said made sense, though. “I…” Akko thought about it. “I never noticed,” she admitted. She felt weird. Had she really never noticed something that seemed like such an important detail about her idol?

“Well, that’s not important,” Ursula was quick to dismiss the topic. “What’s important is that now that you know it, you can work with it.”

“You’re not mad?” Akko asked, not without some fear. It seemed impossible that after she had done so badly, Ursula would still treat her with such normalcy.

Ursula giggled. “Of course not,” the kind smile she gave Akko was so warm it kind of burned. “You were emotionally distressed. I can forgive that,” then her expression grew a little colder. “But until next race, Akko, you are not allowed to do anything but practice. And you will listen to what I have to say.”

Akko felt a chill run down her spine. She hadn’t planned to do anything else, but she would now definitely not do that. “And also going to the gym. Everyone in the team is going to start doing at least one hour a day,” Ursula also said. Akko opened her mouth, not to complain, but to ask why, but Ursula still shut her up with a stare. The answer was obvious, anyways. Everyone should have been going to the gym on a regular basis, but with everything going on, it was hard to find the motivation to do so.

“O-ok,” Akko said, feeling slightly threatened.

Ursula stood. “Ok now. Let’s go find Hannah, Amanda and Jasminka and go do some exercise.”

“Right now?” Akko asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Ursula said. “After a session of exercise your mind will be in a better mood for piloting,” Ursula asserted. Akko doubted that was the case for most people, but what could she do? As Ursula walked away, Akko followed.

She stared at her teacher’s back, feeling a strange sense of joy. She had expected something much worse to come her way, but instead, Ursula had been as kind and understanding as ever. Save for the slightly menacing end to the conversation, but that was warranted.

She’s such a great person, Akko thought with a smile. She considered hugging Ursula, but she was afraid she’d ruin the fancy outfit she wore, so she’d leave it for some other occasion.

Hannah didn’t hate doing exercise, but she wasn’t a fan of it either. She didn’t like being sweaty, or the feeling of her tits bouncing around as she ran, even with sports underwear. Plus, for some reason, she seemed to be the person who had the worst shape in the room. Even Jasminka was doing better than her. She probably had a lot of muscle under her fat. Did she exercise regularly or was she just naturally athletic? She wanted to ask, but that would be prying into something she probably shouldn’t.

What did surprise her were Akko, Amanda and Ursula. Amanda, well, she had the aspect of an athletic girl, but she could really hold up. She had barely broken a sweat while they were warming up by doing some light running, but she could also do a fair amount of pushups and the ten minutes of yoga they had done showed just how amazingly flexible she was.

Akko, on the other hand, was maybe less aesthetically athletic, but she surely had energy. Sweat or not she didn’t seem to grow tired at all. She had determination in her eyes as she did whatever Ursula instructed her to do, be it running, climbing, pushups, crunches or even some lifting.

And, of course, there was Ursula. She was on a whole another level. She had been instructing them, sure, but she had also taken part on the training and she looked as fresh as if she had just taken a shower. She had subtly toned muscles, far from a herculean body but also above your average pilot. She was clear in her explanations and didn’t push them too far. It seemed like this first round of exercise was about finding where everyone’s limits were more than about the actual exercise, and she’d then think about how to work with each of them individually.

Hannah wondered if this new mindset from Ursula had come thanks to the accident on Pan. It was likely. Hannah tried to keep it out of her mind, but she had realized she was kind of afraid of fire and loud noises now. Not panic-attack levels of afraid, but she did grow kind of nervous and anxious.

She thought she was lucky the explosion had gone off after the race. If it had happened mid race, or when she was focusing on the turret, she might have associated those two unrelated things with one another, which might have impeded her from being in her best while acting as a gunman. In the end, the things she had ended up relating to the explosion were… Well, things everyone related to them. Fire and loud sounds.

“Hannah, its ok if you can’t do more, don’t push yourself,” Ursula said as Hannah struggled with her twentieth pushup. Hannah let out a relieved sigh and stood. Her arms and legs were tired. “And we’re about to be done anyways,” Ursula looked around the gym, where everyone was doing something different. Save for two random persons, the place was mostly empty. “Ok girls, come here.”

Everyone approached. Hannah and Jasminka were the more tired, followed by Akko, then Amanda. Ursula was a fit monster, for she wasn’t agitated at all.

“How do you feel?” Ursula asked.

“Fine,” Amanda said, cleaning the sweat from her face with a towel.

“Hungry,” Jasminka said.

“I can keep going,” Akko said.

Hannah shrugged. “I’m tired, but fine,” she lied. She was tired, and not fine. She just wanted to go check on Diana, since she had woken up not long ago, as Barbara had said to her through their wands.

“Perfect,” Ursula said. “Now, let’s go back to the Shiny Rod and practice.”

“What?” Hannah asked, soul falling down to her feet. “But I want to talk with Diana…” she explained. Akko perked up at the mention of Diana being awake. So she did make up with her. Hannah was slightly disappointed by this, since having Diana be more harsh to Akko would do everyone some good.

Ursula smiled faintly. “I get that, but Diana’s not going anywhere. We should take all of our chances to practice,” Ursula explained. “Everyone else is playing with the advantage of experience.” Ursula pointed out. “So I’m going to make sure you make the most of our own advantage.”

Hannah wasn’t happy, but she couldn’t argue. Ursula had a point. Akko was also kind of disappointed, but she still looked determined. Amanda, on the other hand, looked kind of troubled. Something had happened during that first race, Hannah had noticed. The way she had almost crashed against that pile of trash was very unlike her.

Not that Hannah was interested. She had probably gotten high on the excitement of flying and it had just worn off.

Ursula told them to stretch before leaving. Everyone was wearing casual clothing, so she also told them to go dress up in their g-suits. As they exited the gym – located relatively far from the elevators, but close to a staircase that did leave them close to their rooms during this trip – Amanda paused a second, looking at Ursula, who was behind. Whatever she was thinking, however, she cast away with a shake of the head and moved on.

Somehow, Jasminka had gotten her hands on a snack’s bag. Hannah wondered if she had some kind of pocket dimension where she hid those. It seemed like whenever she turned her eyes away for a millisecond, the pink haired girl had a new bag of something to eat in her hands. She wasn’t even carrying any bags, and she hadn’t brought that before entering the gym. How?

“If you want to shower, do so quickly and with hot water,” Ursula said. Hannah was planning to; she didn’t need Ursula’s advice for that.

After going about fifteen meters up – just some more exercise, Hannah had to tell herself – they got to their new floor, not far above Magic Deck. The small corridor was similar to the one they had first stayed in, with three doors, one for each team. Ursula’s was a little further down the corridor, after the crossroads.

Hannah entered her room. It was the same as last time, which was kind of a disappointment. She had been kind of excited about what new upgrade they’d receive this time, but there was none. Unless you counted automatic doors as an upgrade, though she could honestly not recall if it had been last time or the previous where they’d had manual ones. It didn’t make much of a difference either way.

She took a quick shower and put on her g-suit. She sent a message to Barbara explaining why she wouldn’t be able to go see Diana this time. Then, she exited her room.

Jasminka was outside, already showered. Hannah assumed Amanda would be doing so now. Akko was either already gone or was taking her sweet time. “Hey,” Hannah said. She didn’t have any particular feelings towards Jasminka. She was a nice girl, that’s all she knew.

“Hey,” Jasminka said in her usual kind voice. “Want some?” She offered Hannah some… biscuits, were they? Hannah nodded, taking one and putting it in her mouth. They weren’t as dry as she had expected.

“So, you also lost your memory of the time flying with Akko?” Hannah asked, trying to start some kind of conversation.

Jasminka nodded, but said nothing more. She was a girl of few words. While Hannah could respect that, it didn’t really make her approachable. She seemed content with the situation, though. Hannah wouldn’t lie, Jasminka’s sheer aura was calming. She was that kind of girl. Hannah wondered if someone ever got mad at her. Probably not. It would be like being mad at a teddy bear. Utterly impossible.

After a while, Akko finally came out of the room. She… didn’t look showered. “What were you doing?”

Akko pointed at her g-suit. “I noticed it was stained, so I washed it quickly,” Akko explained. Hannah was about to chastise Akko for even letting it get stained, but then she realize what Akko must have meant with stained. It was probably Diana’s blood. She decided to instead not be so insensitive.

“You know there’s a special place reserved for pilots in the ship’s laundry, right?”

“Yeah,” Akko said, “But I hadn’t noticed the stain beforehand.”

“What about your other g-suit?”

“In the laundry.”

Hannah gave Akko a flat look. Akko smiled as if she was proud of herself. Hannah decided not to get too close to her. She wasn’t curious about how her sweat smelled.

Lastly, Amanda came out of her room. She had chosen to wear Luna Nova’s g-suit instead of Earth’s. Hannah couldn’t blame her. She often tried to forget how horrid hers looked. Most of the time she succeeded. Not now, though.

No one said anything as they walked, meeting up with Ursula in their way. That was fine with Hannah. Luckily, this time Ursula would be there to give some advice. Maybe she would be able to tell Amanda to stop being so reckless. Their steps resounded in the metallic corridors of the Dragon, mixed with those from so many other passengers. As they walked, they crossed a couple families, an old dude and a really, really tall black man who had to walk crouched, for his head reached the ceiling of the place with ease.

Once in the hangar, Ursula said that Akko and Jasminka would be first. She needed to instruct Akko. She had already been filled out on what their new destination was – Hannah grimaced every time she recalled it. Why did it have to be a literal garbage planet? Why? – and had already planned a strategy for Akko to use.

This, however left Hannah alone with Amanda. She made sure to keep her distance.

While waiting, Amanda started pacing. At first Hannah didn’t think much of it, but it didn’t take long for her to realize Amanda was going in circles with her in the center. This wasn’t technically any kind of impediment, since Hannah was standing still, thinking about her stuff – mostly Diana and her status.

It still somehow bugged her.

“Could you stop?” Hannah asked.

“Huh?” Amanda acted as if she hadn’t heard, stopping her walk.

“God, you’re so childish,” Hannah said, putting her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to annoy me, at least do it directly, don’t be a coward.”

Amanda stared at her for a few seconds. Then she chuckled. “I mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied. She had to be lying, “but if you want me to annoy you directly I could always just start to sing in your ear.”

Hannah snorted and looked away. Amanda walked closer, which made Hannah turn. When she did, Amanda was almost in her face. Hannah yelped and walked back. Amanda cleared her throat, as if preparing to sing.

“So tell me, do you prefer Irish or Texan songs?” Amanda asked.

“What?” Hannah couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I suppose you’d prefer Irish,” Amanda said, nodding. Then, taking a deep breath, she started yelling at the top of her lungs. “OH, DANNY BOY, THE PIPES, THE PIPES ARE CALLING, FROM GLEN TO GLEN, AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN SIDE.”

Hannah backed away, but Amanda followed her with her horrible singing. “Hey, fuck off!” Hannah said, looking around, thinking that someone might be down here and might hear Amanda doing the ridicule. Amanda, however, didn’t seem to care, and kept going.

“THE SUMMER'S GONE, AND ALL THE ROSES FALLING, IT'S YOU, IT'S YOU MUST GO AND I MUST BIDE,” whatever she was singing lacked a melody, whether it had one originally or not was up to debate in Hannah’s mind. With how Amanda was shouting it was hard to even understand her. Hannah was blushing, imagining what others might think.

“Please stop!” Hannah begge, “You’re fucking nuts!”

“BUT COME YE BACK WH-” Suddenly, she stopped, looked at Hannah, and smiled. “Ok, now, that was me trying to annoy you,” she said.

Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Do you really have no other way of entertainment than teasing me?” She asked with disgust. Amanda raised an eyebrow in inquiry. Hannah didn’t understand what was up with the expression, until, of course, she tried to think like the redhead. “Oh, you think I’m a hypocrite?”

“I mean, yes,” Amanda admitted, shrugging, “but the main problem here is that I’m not really teasing you, I’m annoying you, completely different things. I thought a bully would understand,” she said with a self confident smile. Her breathing was kind of funny, and Hannah suspected she was trying to hold back from laughing.

“Just for your information, what I do and what you do are completely different things,” Hannah said. “You’re just doing to get a reaction out of me.”

“And you just do it because you want to feel better than others,” Amanda replied without hesitation, “at least I’m just doing it for fun.”

Hannah glowered at Amanda, but it wasn’t effective. “I never tease people anyways, I just point out their flaws, what’s wrong with saying the truth?” she defended herself.

“There are ways and there are ways,” Amanda said. “You know, it’s not that hard. I can joke with Jasminka and tell her that she’s fat, but if you mocked her for that I would knock you out,” she explained, punching the palm of her hand. Hannah didn’t feel too threatened by that. She wouldn’t make fun of Jasminka anyways, she was probably the nicest person she knew.

“I’m not that bad,” Hannah said. Amanda just gave her a flat look. “Fine, I may be, but it’s not like I actually harm anyone,” she was starting to feel uncomfortable with the conversation. “If they get moody it’s not my fault. They should grow a thicker skin.”

Amanda chuckled. “Yeah, like that one time I called you an idiot and you got all mopey? Really thick skin right there.”

Hannah crossed her arms. “We both know that’s not really how it went,” she defended. “I was down because of disappointment, not your words,” she made sure to point it out so that Amanda couldn’t deny it.

“I don’t even know why you got like that,” Amanda said, walking over to the Shiny Rod and sitting there. “You’ve got no chance with Andrew anyways. He’s like, rich, powerful and famous. You’re rich and… Well, that’s about it,” she pointed at Hannah, looking unimpressed. “Hell, probably I have a better chance with him than you, and I hate him.”

Hannah pursed her lips, frowning. “Well…” She looked for a retort, “He still let me go with him to that play!”

“Play in which he barely paid any attention to you? Yeah, really impressive,” Amanda was quick to dismiss her argument. Truth was, even Hannah could feel how feeble it had been. “And he probably hasn’t contacted you ever since. I dunno, maybe you’re not as hot as you think you are.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. Hannah had gotten her hopes up only to be severely disappointed. Maybe Hannah really wasn’t as hot as she believed. Maybe she really-

“Ah, see that expression?” Amanda interrupted her thoughts. “Now, that’s the expression of someone who needs to grow a thicker skin. Why do you suddenly look sad? I just pointed out truths, you shouldn’t get moody.”

Hannah looked up. Amanda had a neutral expression, save for a slight curvature in the corner of her lips.

“Fuck you,” she barked.

“Thanks, Hannah Banana,” Amanda replied, bowing. “But I will have to reject your offer. You see, I only fuck girls with thick skins,” she said, trying – and failing – to hold back a smile.

“Banana?” Hannah laughed, “What are you, five years old?” she said, trying to sound condescending. It really was a stupid name.

“Yes,” Amanda said. “Though the fact that I’m outwitting you probably means you’re even younger, at least mentally.”

Hannah huffed. Why did she have such a hard time dealing with Amanda? Stupid redhead. “At least I don’t suddenly call people fucking Bananas just because it happens to rhyme with their names,” Hannah said. She sounded petty. She felt petty. Stupid Amanda.

“Oh, that? Yeah, you probably prefer me calling you pretty, huh?” Amanda winked at her. Hannah paused, growing slightly red. Why did that stupid thing have such an effect? True, she wasn’t used to interacting with boys, and she hadn’t gotten called pretty by people who could see her as a romantic partner very often, but it was obvious Amanda was just doing it to annoy her.

Well, she had called her pretty before. Maybe that was why Hannah couldn’t help but think there was some truth behind that, even if Amanda was obviously mocking her.

“Just shut up,” was all Hannah could reply. And she would be forced to protect her during races? Maybe she should just let them all lose. Amanda wouldn’t be able to fend off enemies by herself. Stupid accident. Hannah could have been speaking with Diana, but no, she had to stay here and deal with Amanda’s bullshit. All because she had to train and yada yada yada.

Amanda laughed, though this time it felt a little more heartfelt. “Now, that was teasing,” Amanda said. “See? The difference is that teasing is more fun.”

Hannah gritted her teeth, trying hard not to just straight up punch Amanda. She really looked like she was enjoying the conversation. Well, Hannah supposed this banter was better than the hot discussions they’d had in the past, but the problem was that Hannah couldn’t come up with something to try and answer back. She wasn’t used to discussions like these. She was more of a poke-fun-at-the-right-moment type of teaser.

“Whatever,” was all she could say. She looked at the cockpit of the Rod, hoping Akko would be done so that this could be over. She’d get back at Amanda later when she messed up in the simulation.

Amanda went quiet for a blissful minute. She looked rather pensive. Maybe she was coming up with new ways to annoy Hannah. Or tease her. Or whatever. There was no one around, luckily. Hannah couldn’t get out of her head the idea of someone recording Amanda screaming that song in Hannah’s face. How would people react if they saw that their team was screaming in the face of each other instead of acting amiable?

Speaking of which, Hannah had a realization. Press. She hadn’t seen reporters after the incident with Diana. No one had come to interview them in any way, neither for winning nor for the explosion. Why was that? Hannah clearly recalled seeing people rush towards Chariot in recordings. Were they not interesting at all? Was it because they were minors? It might be. But, no, some press had approached them. Not that Hannah wanted to get interviewed, but she wouldn’t have minded…

“Hey,” Amanda interrupted her thinking. “How important do you think memories are?” she asked, not looking at her. She looked serious.

Hannah stood there, stupefied by the sudden change in mood the girl had gone through. “Huh?” She asked, wary of another strategy for teasing.

Amanda took a few seconds to ask again. She didn’t look like she was trying to make fun of Hannah anymore. “I mean, if memories are what makes us ‘ourselves’, then what if something changed in them?” She said.

Hannah was caught so off guard by the question that even if it was a tease of some kind she wouldn’t have been able to tell. “Well, I’ve heard stories of people with amnesia who have completely changed personalities. Though, there’s also stories of people who are just basically the same. I suppose it depends on your surroundings more than the memories itself,” Hannah offered. “What brought this on?”

Amanda hesitated. Weird. “I think I remember something,” she said. Hannah raised an eyebrow. “From my time being a gunman. I’m not sure, but…”

“So you work so hard to convince me that you remember nothing and now suddenly you actually remember something?” Hannah asked with instant distrust. It had to be a joke. Or maybe not, because no one could make this shit up.

Amanda opened her mouth, but then suddenly fell on her back, sighing. “I guess you’re right. Nevermind me,” she said. For some reason, Hannah felt a little guilty. Why should she, though?

“Oh no, now you continue,” she said anyways. “You can’t start with that and not finish.”

Amanda remained quiet for a while. Right as Hannah decided Amanda had opted for ignoring her, however, she spoke up again. “The shapeshifter ship is organic.”

Hannah frowned. “What?”

“It’s organic. And kind of intelligent. Not sentient, but… Like an animal,” Amanda said. She sounded completely serious.

“How do you know that?” Hannah asked. She couldn’t be blamed for being suspicious. What Amanda was saying was just outrageous, it would have been proven by others a long time ago. Sure, the ship looked like a shapeshifter, but most people just assumed it had something to do with Darkworld.

“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “I don’t recall ever hearing, seeing or reading anything about it. Like… It just popped into my head,” she explained. “Which is why I think the Shiny Rod might have fed me that info, somehow.”

“How would the Shiny Rod know?” Hannah asked.

“It can create real-time maps of space from across several light years of distance. Do you really think it wouldn’t be able to analyze other ships? It somehow makes perfect copies of them in simulations too, even if they’re completely new, unseen ships,” Amanda said. “That’s not the problem here.”

“You’re wondering why you retained the info, assuming it really came from the broom and not some random internet forum where someone posted a stupid theory, right?” Hannah asked.

“Hey, random theories on the internet have a lot more merit than you’re giving them credit for,” Amanda said. “Anonymous geniuses are an unexploited resource in the world.”

“Hey, I think the same thing,” Hannah quickly clarified, “but let’s be honests, for every good theory there are a hundred dumb ones.”

Amanda nodded. She had to give in to that point, as it was more of a fact than anything. Actually, Hannah would have probably pushed it further down the scale. For every good one, there were probably a thousand dumb ones. Or more. But that was besides the point.

“I’m just worried,” Amanda said. “If I start remembering stuff out of nowhere, what if it changes how I see things? What if I’m suddenly terrified?”

Hannah didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t really in a position to give much advice. Instead, she went through another route. “Why ask me?”

Amanda sighed, as if she had expected the question. “Because I know you probably will tell me what you think whether good or bad. Constanze and Jasminka are my friends, but Constanze would probably want to run an analyzes on my brain and Jasminka would just tell me everything will be all right,” she paused. “I guess I just want the opinion of someone who has no reason to want to make me feel better.”

Hannah could understand this, even if she didn’t really agree. As far as Amanda knew, she might be trying to make her feel bad. Particularly after the spectacle from earlier. But it didn’t really felt as trust. It felt more like… understanding. Amanda, for some reason, seemed to understand Hannah, even if the understanding didn’t go both ways. Hannah wondered why she had such a hard time figuring out Amanda when the redhead seemed to understand her so well.

“I mean, worst case scenario, you might be a little scared. Doubt it’d change much from you. Plus, you don’t even remember most of what goes on, so I don’t see why you would suddenly start to recall all of those things. Maybe it’s something that you internalized because it was important or something and managed to take it out with you,” Hannah offered an explanation. “Not saying this is it, but I don’t think the memory of shooting things up will change you much anyways.”

Amanda didn’t answer. Hannah sighed. She walked over to the shiny rod, and despite the awkward side angle, she sat on it. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was better than standing up. She made sure to stay out of the way of the glass spheres, though. Better safe than sorry.

The silence became awkward, at least for Hannah. She felt like something should be said, but she couldn’t think of anything. Amanda didn’t seem particularly angry at her, but Hannah felt angry at her. Why was that, again? Oh, right, the kiss. Maybe it was because of the mood, but thinking back to it, she may have overreacted. And, in the end, Amanda didn’t do it.

“Would you have kissed me if I hadn’t lost my shit, back at the party?” Hannah asked carefully. Amanda, who had her eyes closed, cracked one open, giving Hannah a lazy look.

“Probably,” she admitted. “Kisses aren’t a big deal for me.”

Hannah frowned. “Why not? They’re a show of affection. You should reserve them for the one you love, don’t you think?”

Amanda closed her eye again. She chuckled. “Love is a stupid thing. Haven’t felt it before. I’ve liked girls, sure, but the concept of love is alien to me. Why would I want to be tied down to a single girl when there are so many hotties out there?” Her tone reflected her views. She spoke as if the concept was ridiculous. “What about you?”

Love. Did Hannah love someone? Sure, she liked Andrew, and she would be totally up for coming to know him more, but… “I don’t think so,” Hannah said.

“What about Andrew?” Amanda asked.

“Well, I mean, he’s an option, but I’m not sure if I love him. I barely know him,” Hannah explained. Seemed like Amanda had thought similarly to her. She nodded, not opening her eyes. How much longer was Akko going to take? It had already been like ten minutes, right? Maybe more. Hadn’t they heard Amanda screaming? Probably not. The interior of the ship was really well isolated from everything, including sound.

“You’re placing too much importance in kisses, anyways. It’s just touching your lips with someone, maybe your tongues too. It feels nice,” she explained.

“You’re probably just used to it,” Hannah said. “When did you have your first time?”

“You mean kiss, right?” Amanda asked. Hannah grunted, since Amanda wasn’t seeing her. Amanda smirked. “Yeah, I guess you are. I was… what? Ten? This real cute girl sat next to me in class. Back then I didn’t have many friends, and this girl was kind of a bully. She often tried to make fun of me, but I just shrugged it off. My life was pretty filled with shit, adding her didn’t change much. Then, during a school assembly, I sneaked off. Bitch was in the hallway right as I exited the gym, and I was fully aware that she was also a teacher’s pet. She instantly tried to snitch on me, so I did what I had just seen done in a movie: I pinned her against a wall and kissed her,” she chuckled as she remembered. “Man, that was so satisfying. You should have seen her face. She blushed, fell to her knees, and stared off into space. Fairly certain she developed a crush on me, but I changed schools that same year, so I never got to find out.”

Hannah had pressed her lips into a thin line. “That was… not what I expected,” she admitted. “You kind of assaulted her, don’t you think?”

Amanda shrugged. “Bitch had been bullying me for the entire year, so fuck her,” she said. Hannah couldn’t really argue against that. She wasn’t sure what bullying meant, exactly, but if even Amanda found it annoying then it probably was serious. Hannah didn’t really feel like asking.

“And do you think so lightly of… Well, doing more too?”

“Sex?” Amanda asked.

“Yes, sex, jeez,” Hannah blushed.

“Seriously, get over it. It’s just a word describing something most people do at one point or another. Anyways, I actually did that when I was thirteen, I think. Rather young, huh?” Amanda opened her eyes. Hannah cocked her head. Just thirteen? It felt like way too young. “I think I had had my first period like just four months before or something like that. It was a pretty hormonal time of my life,” she said that with disgust. “Anyways, there was this huge family meet up. Everyone in the family I knew and everyone I didn’t know showed up. Cousins of cousins, distant cousins, people who just happened to be Irish and weren’t probably directly related but since they were Irish they were probably family in some way or another. Well, we were at this party and I had this cousin – I say cousin but I have honestly no idea what she was. She could have been an aunt, a nephew or even a family friend that happened to be a redhead, dunno – and she was sixteen. I had long hair back then, and she said my hair was pretty. I had already awoken to my sexuality back then, and I thought she was pretty hot. After some flirting we made our way to a distant room and she taught me the beauty of sexual intercourse,” Amanda spoke casually about it, but Hannah could barely believe what she was saying.

“Your first time was with a cousin?” Hannah asked, expecting Amanda to laugh and say it was a joke.

She didn’t. “I mean, maybe. Probably. Potentially. Irish families are weird,” Amanda shrugged. “Not that it matters. I mean, in homosexuality I think everything goes, you know? The reason people tend to be so against incest has a lot to do with genetics, but fuck that, I can’t have a kid with another woman – at least not by natural means.”

“Dude, she was like three years older than you, too. Wasn’t it a bit creepy?”

“Despite what people seem to believe, I was fully conscious of what I was doing, Hannah,” Amanda rolled her eyes. “Teenagers aren’t retarded. Most know perfectly what sex is and what it means. I know I did. I already masturbated constantly before my cousin… Uhm… I don’t even remember her name, came. Never saw her again, too.”

“You seem to have a history with never seeing people again,” Hannah commented.

Amanda smiled. “Well, yeah. That may have something to do with my views in this, I suppose,” she looked at Hannah. “Where do you get yours, though? Romantic novels? Movies?”

Hannah looked away awkwardly. “I… suppose,” she said, feeling lame.

“Eh, I found that a lot of girls are like that,” Amanda closed her eyes again. “Just be aware, real life usually doesn’t turn up as in stories. You’re going to get disappointed if you expect your first kiss to be like something out of a romantic novel. First kisses rarely happen during the sunset of perfect days,” she said, and then, she went silent.

Hannah was blushing. That… was exactly what she expected. Had Amanda read her mind? Obviously not, but she couldn’t be that predictable, could she? “And how do you think my first kiss is going to be?”

Amanda shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe you’ll kiss Andrew after a date on space, or maybe you’ll kiss someone back on Earth at a party after getting too drunk,” Amanda said. She didn’t sound too interested. “Hey, who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to steal it one of these days!”

Hannah punched Amanda’s shoulder. Amanda grunted, but didn’t react otherwise. Why was Amanda so overly sexual? She said Hannah should get over her apprehension, but in her experience, most people preferred to be subtle about these themes. It was about propriety and basic social cues. A lot of people didn’t feel comfortable talking about sex, and that was it. Hannah didn’t mind it too much, but she did was a little shocked by the fact that Amanda could just speak about it like if it was the most common thing in the world. Maybe it was, for her. Like a wall, a wall she had gotten over but Hannah hadn’t.

Hannah looked at Amanda. “Were you like this? Before having sex?” She asked. They were already on the topic, so she might as well go all the way.

“Depends on the time frame. Not as a child, obviously, but it started around the time I turned ten. Recall that bully? I didn’t really like her, but she was real nice looking. Then I turned eleven and I learned about masturbation. The first time my parents caught me they tried to tell me some bullshit about how I should be careful about how and when I do it and all that really uncomfortable chat,” she sounded grossed out.

“That sounds like something pretty normal,” Hannah commented. She had also had a similar chat with her parents after her first period.

“Yeah, no, my parents tried to hold me down, basically. It’s not as simple as I make it sound. In any case, it didn’t work. I did it frequently. By the time I turned twelve I was experienced at it, though I had moved on from that bully, of course. By the time I turned thirteen I did it whenever I saw a chance. I was caught by a maid a couple times. Really uncomfortable… Though I did shlick to fantasies involving that scenario,” she smiled and let a breath out through her teeth, finding it funny.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl doing it so frequently, though,” Hannah asked with some skepticism. Maybe Amanda was just blowing things out of proportion to fuck with her. Didn’t sound like a stretch. Hannah was a little uncomfortable hearing that. She imagined a maid of her finding her in the middle of doing that. She would never be able to see her and probably anyone else in the face ever again.

“Honestly, I think I just did it because of what my parents told me…”

“Wait a second,” Hannah interrupted. Amanda stopped, not opening her eyes. “You said maid? You have a maid?”

Amanda grimaced. “I didn’t like her much, though. Well, save for those fantasies, but that’s another ordeal, hormonal teenagers can like anyone as long as they can imagine themselves having sex with them.”

“That’s not the point,” Hannah tried to get the idea of Amanda trying to seduce an old lady from her head. She wasn’t succeeding. “When you speak about her, you speak as if she was a… full time maid?”

With a sigh, Amanda opened her eyes. “Yeah.”

Hannah waited for more, but it didn’t come. “Amanda, are you rich?” She asked, failing to read Amanda’s expression. Expression that darkened a little.

“Won’t be for much longer. I’m doing everything in my power to get disinherited,” Amanda stated. “Well, everything short of killing one of my siblings.”

Hannah frowned. Amanda was speaking seriously? It was hard to believe, but she didn’t have a hint of humor in her voice. Though, that wasn’t bothering her as much as the confession that she was actually rich. “But, don’t you hate rich people?” Hannah asked.

Amanda nodded. “Why do you think I do? It’s because I know them. I’ve been to their parties, I’ve talked to them, I’ve been one of them. I technically still am. Money changes people. They start to see themselves above others,” She opened one eye to look at Hannah. The implication was obvious. She then closed it again. “My parents aren’t different. My siblings aren’t different. I used to try to get my parents to make my little brother the heir, but my family is kind of a matriarchy, so I have to be it,” she growled for a moment. “I just hate people who try to impose their ideals in me.”

This whole ramble wasn’t something Hannah could directly relate to. Her family had gotten rich not long ago, and her life had been nothing but bliss since. Or, at least, that’s how she perceived it. “Do you hate your parents?” Hannah asked carefully.

“Kinda. Though, I suppose they’re not really to blame,” Amanda said, eyes on the ceiling. She didn’t appear to be focused on anything. She was just lazily looking into space. “I guess my problem is-”

She was interrupted by a sound. The Cockpit suddenly opened. Hannah looked towards it, annoyed. As she saw Ursula waving, however, she started. Why was she annoyed? She had just been talking to Amanda. But… It was a nice conversation. Maybe more than nice. It was strange.

Why had Amanda suddenly opened up like that? Hannah wondered if Amanda was going to continue, but the redhead had already stood and was dropping on the cockpit. Akko was coming out of it too. “Wait, who’s going to command the Shiny Rod if not you?” Amanda asked.

“Ursula made me realize I could just order Alcor to follow your instructions too.”

Hannah deadpanned the brunette. Had she really not thought of that before? It seemed like such an obvious thing. “Well, let’s begin,” Amanda said, eagerly dropping inside the cockpit and closing the windshield, not before shooting a strange glance at Hannah.

Hannah reluctantly crawled under the ever-floating Rod and climbed in the turret, crossing paths with Jasminka in the way there. She was still surprised by the fact that it looked exactly like the Shooting Star’s. It was uncanny.

“You ready, Hannah?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, already in position.

“Great, make sure to keep in mind that thing about not following, let’s begin!”

And so, the simulation started. Hannah had actually forgotten about the no-following thing. As she recalled it, she began to forget about the nice conversation. Amanda was a crazy pilot, and right now, she needed to be an equally crazy gunman.

Hopefully she’d be up to the test.

Chapter Text

Diana had been awake for no longer than an hour, yet she already felt like going back to sleep. She didn’t, though. She didn’t feel any sort of pain, luckily, but she was still basically tied down in place unable to move. Barbara had been talking to her for a while, but Diana had insisted she go do something else for a while. She had wanted to think.

Think about what this meant for her. She’d lose two races, maybe three, depending a little on her post-recovery treatment. She had already been put through some test to make sure she didn’t have any kind of PTSD, but the fact that she didn’t remember the explosion remained as the ultimate protector of her brain. On the other hand, she had heard that Hannah was having a little trouble with fire and loud noises, which made Diana worry. Well, at least it wasn’t too bad. She had been surrounded by fire for a good time, scared. She had been talking to Barbara, though, so that probably helped.

Amanda was her replacement. She wasn’t sure how to feel about this. I would be Amanda’s chance to prove if she really was better than Diana. Would she win? Would she fail? Whatever the results, she finally had her chance. Her big moment. And her attitude towards Diana was bound to change after it. If she lost, would she have more respect or resent her more? If she won, would she become even more cocky? Would she try to get Diana into another race?

Not that she could, anyways. The original Shooting Star was still fully functional after they repaired its wing, but the Blue Star was impossible to recover. The engine had been destroyed in a way that made it impossible to put back together. Not that the rest of the ship was. There was a spare engine, but even then, it would basically mean just building the entire thing from zero.

The engineers had said that maybe they could do it with enough time, but they didn’t have the right tools for it in the Dragon. Even if they tried, it would be faster to go back to Earth and make them do it there.

Meaning, they had to pray nothing happened to the only Shooting Star they had left. If something bad happened, they wouldn’t be able to fix it before the next big race. That would basically put humans out of the IPR.

Akko hadn’t won a single point this round, either. To be fair, all First Category pilots hadn’t earned them, save for the Appali. This had allowed Humans to be first in the leaderboards. That was, however, another problem. It made them a target. After studying Akko’s most recent race, Diana had come to the conclusion that Akko had to be emotionally distressed to commit such a massive mistake. Not even her would be that clueless. Hopefully Ursula would be able to tell her what she had done wrong and fix it.

Akko wasn’t stupid. She was a novice, and on top of that an easily distracted person. To make her race under the conditions of the previous days was asking for her to lose. Maybe that was the poin.

Diana suspected someone had made the Blue Star explode. But when she had mentioned it to Barbara not an hour ago she had suspiciously changed topics. Diana had gotten the clue, not pushing Barbara to answer, but she and hopefully everyone else had probably already noticed.

Diana shifted positions as much as she could. She didn’t like touching the inclination of the bed too much, but sometimes a change in angle could be refreshing. She was patient, but she wished she could stand up and go practice. Apparently their next destination would be Trashcan. Diana was really disappointed. It was an interesting planet with rich culture and incredible technology born out of the most creative minds in the Planetary Alliance.

But she couldn’t complaint much, either. She was alive, which was more than enough for her. That explosion had blown the Blue Star to smithereens. It had been a miracle of probability that nothing had pierced her body. Not a bolt, screw or piece of metal. Well, save for the one that hit her arm. And the one that had hit her leg hadn’t really penetrated as much as it had impacted.

The fact was, Diana was as ok with this situation as she could be. Even if she wanted to pilot and walk and go to the bathroom like a normal person, she had to be thankful nothing major had happened to her. And she was luckily a pilot. Magic treatment was expensive. Really expensive. She probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise – and her aunt sure as hell wouldn’t have done it. What would be around two weeks of recovery would have turned into who knew how many months.

This trip still had about a day and a half before landing. If Diana’s intuition was right, they would probably spend three to four days on Trashcan. The next destination would be a complete mystery until they set out for it, but Diana hoped it’d be a long trip. There was always a weeklong trip at around the midpoint of the race. If it happened now, Diana might be able to get out of the infirmary before the fourth race started, and while she probably wouldn’t be able to pilot for another few days, she would still have time to practice for the fifth one.

Then the sixth, where a big ball was supposed to be held. It was always scheduled for before the race, as a celebration of the start of the second half of the race. It was also a place where every important person of every race would be. The random party Croix had thrown at Machina would be nothing compared to it. That ball was a dangerous place, always targeted for its concentration of highly assassinable people.

Diana would be one of them, technically. Akko, Hannah and Amanda too. This realization was a little surreal.

Diana sighed. She didn’t want to sleep, but on the other hand, the more she slept, the quicker this whole ordeal would get a move on. Maybe she shouldn’t have sent Barbara away.

Right as she thought she’d like to talk to someone, there was a soft knock on her door. “Come in,” Diana said in her neutral voice. She half expected the newcomer to be Barbara. So, she was greatly surprised when a tall guy with perfect brown hair and green eyes entered the room wearing a suit.

“Greetings, Diana,” Andrew said, uncomfortably standing next to the door. The room really was little, and he hesitated before slowly approaching to stand besides Diana.

Diana looked him up and down, her surprise slowly turning into apathy. “Why are you here?” She just asked.

Andrew stood with his hands behind his back, looking absolutely proper. He wasn’t unlike Diana in that regard, always trying to appear as a gentleman. “Well, I have obviously heard about your accident. I thought it’d be appropriate to drop by and give you my good wishes,” he explained.

Diana nodded. It was kind of strange Paul hadn’t made his way over here yet. Maybe that’s why he had sent Andrew – because, yes, Diana had no doubt Paul had sent him. There was no way Andrew would have chosen to drop by on his own. “Thanks for passing. As you can see I am mostly fine. I will be back on my feet in two weeks at worst.”

Andrew examined her broken leg and bandaged arm. “It must hurt,” he commented.

“Thanks to drugs and Magic I barely feel anything,” Diana explained. Andrew’s lip twitched at the mention of Magic. He and his father weren’t big fans of it. They thought it wasn’t different from petroleum, in a way. Or that’s what Diana understood. When the topic of Magic came up, their arguments didn’t always end well.

“My father told me to give you this,” he said after a moment of silence. It was a small device Diana didn’t outright recognize.

“Wait,” Diana said, slowly looking at it. It was really small, and it kind of looked like a tamagochi. “Is this…?”

“An Entangled Communicator,” Andrew said. Diana touched one of the buttons on its side. This had been the answer to the Crystal Balls from non-magic tech developers. A communicator that could send messages even across light years in an instant, like a Crystal Ball allowed, but somehow using Quantum Entanglement. It had taken a lot of time and development, particularly because up until a couple decades ago, it wasn’t believed that quantum entanglement could be efficiently be used for communication.

A short message appeared on screen. Get well. Good luck: Daryl ;).

“It doesn’t allow for long messages, does it?” Diana asked.

“And it only works if no one is looking at it when the message is sent or received. And it only works with its pair. Its… complicated,” Andrew admitted. Quantum physics usually were.

“It is really impressive,” she said. Andrew nodded. Though she could have used the Crystal Ball we have at home to contact Ursula, Diana thought. She decided not to say it, since she didn’t want to start an argument with Andrew over this.

Diana handed back the Entangled Communicator. Andrew put it in his pants’ pocket and stood there, silently looking around the room. Diana waited for him to say something else, but he just remained quiet.

“Was there something else you needed?” Diana asked, kind of annoyed. Sure, she had wanted someone else to talk, but Andrew wasn’t really on the list of persons she enjoyed talking to. Even Amanda was higher on that list.

“Not really,” Andrew said, sighing. “I don’t know if your friends are aware, but there’s a couple reporters staking out the room from a distance. Fairly certain they take notes of who enters and exits, and how much time they spend in here.”

Diana frowned. She knew a thing or two about nasty reporters. “What do you think they want?”

Andrew looked at the door, then back at Diana. “Probably this,” he said.

Diana understood almost instantly. He was referring to him entering her room. It was kind of a known fact that she and him had known each other for a long time. While no one had ever made an official piece about it, or mentioned it directly, Diana had often times been asked if she had ‘any boy she liked’ or if she knew of any ‘girl who might like Andrew Hanbridge.’ It was annoying at best.

“Then why aren’t you leaving?” Diana asked. The more time he spent in here, the more the reporters’ imaginations would get creative.

“If I go so quickly, they will think we’re not on good terms,” Andrew explained. Diana pressed her lips. They were not in good terms, but that had never been made public. Mostly because Diana’s aunt was always kissing Paul’s shoes. In the public eye, their families had an amiable if kind of distant relationship. Of course, that didn’t have to stand for every member of the family, but neither Diana nor Andrew wanted to deal with the possible storm that would follow if it was found out that they all but outright hated each other.

Diana sighed.

“So, how are things going with the race preparations,” Diana asked, if only to make conversation.

Andrew didn’t look at her. “Fine. It’s a lot of work, though now we’re in one of the downtimes for activity on the race. Races three and four are usually the least important for the audience.”

Diana knew about this, of course. The Sixth and Seventh races were usually down times too. Maybe Eight, too, if things weren’t particularly interesting. Diana didn’t really press for more details. She wasn’t particularly interested on what was going on in Andrew’s life, and he was obviously not willing to make the effort to keep the conversation going himself.

Five minutes passed of silence. Not uncomfortable or awkward silence, just silence. Neither of them felt the need of saying anything, and Diana was perfectly fine with that. And at one point, Andrew just raised his hand and looked at the clock on his wrist – it was way more than a simple clock, probably being also basically his computer, not unlike a Witch’s wand – and nodded. “I suppose it is time for me to go,” he said. “Get well, Diana. Good luck.”

“Good bye,” Diana waved weakly as Andrew exited the room without pausing to look at her. The short exchange had left her somewhat annoyed, though she should have been used to things like that. Well, she had gotten to see an interesting piece of technology – that her aunt probably also had but had chosen to hid it. Magic just made things simpler, though.

She closed her eyes. She longed to a talk with Hannah or Barbara. Maybe one with Akko, too, though the thought of that made her a little nervous. She wasn’t in a state to really be able to handle the hyperactive brunette. Still, she was surprised that she wished for such things.

Diana had grown up essentially friendless. Focusing in her studies. She had kind of accepted she’d probably be alone forever at one point. Even after meeting Hannah and Barbara she still had preferred to be alone most of the time. It wasn’t until recently that she’d started opening up a little more to them. And then there was Akko, who had kind of steamrolled her barriers and had gotten Diana to consider her a friend in under two months.

Diana didn’t consider herself socially inept. In fact, she usually managed pretty well at social events, particularly with adults. But between the adoration and the hate, it was really hard for her to recall ever having someone she could call a true friend.

Why was she thinking about this, anyways? Friends. She had the feeling she often avoided thinking about what friendship really meant because it made her uncomfortable. Diana wasn’t willing to admit to herself that maybe she wasn’t a very good friend. She was cold and distant. The only reason Hannah and Barbara stayed with her was probably because they were in the same team and had eventually just gotten used to her.

But what about Akko? Their relationship was weird. Even if Akko considered her a friend, and if Diana considered Akko to be one, she couldn’t really say she knew her. They had interacted little, in the big scheme of things. And a lot of that time had been relatively hostile.

Maybe Diana should ask Akko more about her life… But that would probably bring questions about Diana’s life into the mix, too. She didn’t want to answer any questions related to her life, so she probably shouldn’t pry into Akko’s either. Akko seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t find it fair to answer questions and then not get her chance. And she had proven to be really, really stubborn when she had outright seated herself next to Diana and just forced a confession out of her.

Though, that had also helped Diana get over her silly hang up.

She smiled. That scene was funny, now, even if it had been annoying back then.

And slowly, she drifted into the land of dreams.

Andrew was sick and tired. Of being trapped in this damn ship, of the IPR, and of being the center of attention. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, someone always seemed to recognize him. How did Diana handle it? She probably didn’t and just lived with it. But Andrew had one major disadvantage during this particular trip.

He wasn’t a pilot, or a part of Earth’s team at all, other than being the son of the person who was technically in charge of them all. That meant, the non-spoken rule of not bothering the team during their daily lives didn’t seem to apply to him.

After taking a couple weird turns to disorient the reporters that were following him, he made his way to the nearest staircase. He had a meeting soon. Well, his father had one, technically, but he nowadays insisted of bringing him to all of them. Irreplaceable experience, according to him. He was technically right, Inter-Planetary Races only occurred once a decade.

That didn’t make those meetings any more interesting for him. While at first he had been curious, he had soon realized these meetings just consisted of subtly making bets and trying to predict who would win, all under the guise of discussing things like budgets and such. Andrew understood that chat was complete inane babbler. The IPR made more money in three months than some countries made in entire years. Depending on the country, maybe decade. And very little of that went to the actual race.

Budget was not a problem. Then, what was the actual reason for these discussions? His father had asked him to figure it out on his own. At this point, he wasn’t sure yet.

Something was going on. Something big. Paul had said something was different about this race. These discussions included something grander. ‘Grand Prize’ had been thrown around a couple times, but each time it was mentioned everyone just trailed off and quickly changed topics. There wasn’t any ‘Grand Prize’ for the IPR, save for fame and honor. Winning didn’t even give one any kind of political power, as other sports did on earth. Given that winning was considered for an entire planet, no politic could make use of it. And pilots were Earth’s pilots, not any nation’s, no matter where they came from.

As Andrew finally reached the top of the staircase and made sure no one was following, he went to a nearby elevator – one that was technically to be used only by the Dragon’s crew. Andrew cared little about this. He had access to all elevators on the ship, though of course he never dared use the emergency ones.

He reached one of the top floors of the ship. His room was nearby, but that wasn’t where he was going. Slowly, he made his way towards a particular room differentiated from others only by the fact that its number was framed by gold. He didn’t hesitate before knocking. The reunion shouldn’t have started yet.

The door opened, and his father stood on the other side, with his grey hair. He was wearing his reading glasses. He looked as serious as he ever did, but something was off. The room was dark, and nine glowing, holographic figures stood around a large square table. One for each planet.

“You’re late,” Paul said.

Andrew didn’t pause as he pointed at his clock. “In fact, father, I am seven minutes early,” he said. “Though I can see you have already started.”

His father nodded. “I must have given you the wrong time,” he said. Then, he sighed. “Not that it matters. I’ll explain later, but for now, you should stay outside. Maybe have a class with your tutors, or just have fun, I don’t care right now. See you later.”

The door closed automatically in front of Andrew, and he was left a little confused, concerned and annoyed. However, he wouldn’t argue with his father in front of the other representatives. He calmly turned and walked towards his room. It was on the same floor, four hallways and two turns away. He couldn’t help but wish he got treated like the official team. Maybe changing rooms every trip would add some life to the incredibly dull routine.

There was supposedly some kind of small event today, though it wasn’t something he cared about. In fact, he suspected very few people cared about it. It would be a light show of some kind on bronze deck. Well, maybe not few people, just few of those above the tier. For Bronze tiers, it would be one of few spectacles they would experience for ‘free’.

He wondered if someone from the team would be there. The pilots and gunmen probably not, but maybe the other five would be there. What were their names, again? He kind of recalled the name Barbara, but he could not for his life recall anything but some characteristics from the rest. The meek redhead girl, the short mechanic girl, the fat girl and the creepy purple girl. And then that Barbara was probably Hannah’s friend. She had been really unremarkable, in his eyes.

He entered his room. It was spacious and luxurious. He had a king sized bed for himself, a couch, a TV and gaming consoles, not to mention a large collection of games and movies. He barely touched those, but he liked the small library. There were libraries and bookstores on the Dragon, but he didn’t like reading in public, and didn’t enjoy going to the third deck, since it was a really concurred area where he got recognized easily.

Andrew sat on his bed, realizing his father hadn’t asked after his Entangled Communicator, or after Diana for that matter. Whatever he had been discussing inside that room had him really distracted.

His mind quickly went back to his normal thinking, however. He wondered why he was as recognized as Diana seemed to be, or even more, given the fact that right now Diana was one of the more famous persons on earth. Sure, Paul was a public figure as known as important presidents, but most people would be hard pressed to identify a president’s kid at random on the streets. Well, he was called a prodigy of the fields he studied – even if he actually didn’t study much. He just knew how to pay attention, and most stuff just stuck with him. His friends often hated him for that.

His friends. Andrew sighed. Save for the little outing he’d had to that play with Hannah England, he hadn’t done anything else he considered ‘fun’. Even the day they had gone to the pool had only been to speak to some of Paul’s friends.

However, he had found Hannah incredibly boring. She wasn’t different from all other girls, just… worshipping him. He knew he was kind of a douche, but could others really blame him? He had to put up with so much shit in his life – having the girls who liked him only do so because of his outward appearance was not something he liked thinking about.

Well, here were a couple girls who didn’t worship him. Diana, of course, but she didn’t really count. And then there was Atsuko Kagari, Akko. She was a funny girl, but a little too energetic for Andrew. In honesty, he actually used to like Diana. He had given up on that years ago, and now was kind of aimless in regards to love.

Probably for the better. With how busy his life was, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep a relationship stable for long. Maybe he should just go into Bronze Deck’s stage and ask people – particularly young girls – to stop bothering him.

He considered that a little more seriously than he should have.

He took a book. It was related to economy, one he used with his tutor. Where would his tutors be now? Some of them had come in the trip. Andrew felt like he should force them to teach him some more, to pay for the free vacations they were taking, but it wasn’t their fault his father liked to drag him around and show him the ways of Earth’s head of the racing Committee.

He couldn’t concentrate in his book. Not only did he already knew its contents, he was still wondering why his father hadn’t let him into the meeting. Only one thing occurred to him, and that was that they were discussing some big secret. But even then, his father wasn’t usually secretive with anything, at least not to Andrew.

Maybe the discussion would be related to the results of the last race. It had been a shock for everyone. Humans in first place despite not earning a single point in first category, and more importantly, the amazing recovery of the appali. Andrew was aware that almost every racer somehow learned what their next destination would be, despite that being technically against rules. Daemons had Inferno technology that allowed them to predict trajectories, Shapeshifters had an incredible sense of orientation in space, which usually allowed them to just know what the next stop was by instinct, Reptilians probably got their information leaked from one of their higher ups, and so on.

But Appali were an exception. They actually played by the rules. They hadn’t had that information. They weren’t considered particularly threatening racers. Yet their incredible performance this time put that into question. Andrew wondered if that was the nature of this discussion? And for humans too, probably. Diana had piloted like she already knew the terrain and was used to it. And Atsuko… Well, she had kind of ignored what the point of a race on Pan was.

Of course, Andrew was aware of the fact that the brunette didn’t really belong in this place. He made sure not to ever point it out, for appearance’s sake. Same with the redhead, Amanda.

Both of them performed rather well. Amanda seemed to be a great deal better of a gunman as Andrew had expected, but Akko’s performance wasn’t far off what Andrew expected. Well, save for the fact that she didn’t end up in last place, maybe.

He closed his book. He was obviously not going to be learning anything from it. He stood, stretching. He considered changing into more comfortable clothes and sleeping, but he wasn’t particularly tired. Maybe he’d go to the fifth deck. Or maybe he should go eat something.

He could probably do both.

Chapter Text

Akko felt good.

She stood in her room, Lotte and Sucy watching her as she dressed up. Lotte had some plans to go out with Constanze, while Sucy was remaining in their room to do… whatever Sucy liked to do when she was alone. Probably experiments. Experiments she’d sooner or later try to test on Akko.

“You look cheerful today,” Sucy said. Akko had slept for like ten hours straight, of course she felt good. Though that wasn’t really the main reason.

“I’ve been doing great in the simulations,” Akko said with a smile. “Ursula is really smart! She figured there’s a pattern to flying in Trashcan. She’s also been teaching me how to better handle manual controls, though we only practiced a little of that.”

It was true. Sure, she wasn’t doing as great as Amanda was apparently doing, but she had won at least half of the races she had simulated. Jasminka was as good a gunman as Amanda had been – maybe better, though Akko wasn’t sure, since both were absurdly precise.

Sucy seemed extremely bored by Akko’s talk, though Sucy looked at her with proud eyes. As Akko watched the redhead, however, she recalled something. “Lotte, you said you were going shopping with Constanze?” Lotte nodded at her question. “What about Barbara?”

Lotte looked down at the mention of Barbara. “I tried, but she’s too worried about Diana,” Lotte explained. Akko hesitated, but it made sense. Akko would probably be the same if something happened to Lotte or Sucy. She wanted to do the same for Diana, but she understood Diana would probably hate her if she neglected her training just for her.

“Sure, worried about Diana, let’s go with that,” Sucy said, turning and facing the desk. Lotte turned to her with a raised eyebrow, but Sucy didn’t see it.

After a moment, Lotte sighed with annoyance. “Whatever. Akko, here, eat something,” Lotte said, giving Akko a croissant and a cup of coffee. They had asked for it to room service before Akko had woken up, so the coffee was cold. Akko didn’t even like coffee, and her parents had actually completely banned from her house. It made weird things to her normally hyperactive attitude.

But she was not at home, and no parents were around. She ate the croissant in almost a single bite and then gulped down the coffee without hesitation. She swallowed quickly. Too bitter. She would have added a lot more of sugar to that, but whatever. She needed to get to the hangar. They would be landing in about twelve hours. She wanted to get her win ratio a lot higher before they landed. Hopefully she could show off in front of everyone once they were in the actual planet.

“Well guys, I’m leaving,” Akko said after she grabbed the last croissant in the small tray on the desk, walking out of the room and eating it in almost a single bite again as she walked. She did so quickly, looking for a sign that someone was around, but no luck. She had hoped to find Jasminka or someone on her way, but they were probably already there.

However, as she turned a corner, she found something curious. A small red disk on the ground, that soon proved to be a roomba. One of Croix’s, to be precise. Akko cocked her head while looking at it, wondering what the hell was it doing all alone in the middle of the corridor with no one around. It seemed deactivated. Akko crouched and poked it, but nothing happened.

Hesitant, she picked it up. As she did she must have pressed something, because the thing suddenly turned on. It flew out of Akko’s fingers, pointed Akko with a laser and spent about five seconds hovering before turning and slowly flying away. Akko looked at it go, half tempted to follow. Well, half-tempted was an understatement. She was fully tempted. In fact, every fiber in her body wanted to go after it.

But she had training and she wouldn’t-

Oh well what harm could a little detour do?

She started to walk behind the little roomba. The thing was faster than she anticipated, but following it wasn’t much trouble.

The thing went up. And up, and up. Akko had expected it to go to the main bridge of the ship, which was located near the center of it, but it instead started going towards the back. Well, Croix wasn’t the captain of the Dragon, so Akko’s expectations were set up for disappointment anyways.

After climbing some floors up – there weren’t that many left from the one Akko and company were currently using – they reached the top floor. This place was for rich people. Or important people. Shouldn’t pilots be allowed to be here too? They were technically the most important of them all!

Corridors here were a little wider and taller. The separation between rooms was bigger, and all doors required keycards and some even fingerprints. She suspected those were for things like presidents or whatever. Were there presidents on this trip? Akko wondered how responsible would be for one to leave his post for about three months. Not much, probably.

The roomba started moving slower, which Akko thanked. She was wearing comfortable clothing, but she didn’t want to be all sweaty when she went to practice.

Finally, the roomba stopped in front of a door. It hovered up to the electronic lock and within a couple of seconds the door opened. Akko hesitated. Should she?

The obvious answer was ‘no’.

The interesting one was ‘fuck yes’.

She slipped behind the roomba right as the door closed again, almost catching her shirt on it. She imagined what walking around shirtless would feel like. Embarrassing, probably, though Amanda hadn’t cared when she’d do it the other day. Well, everyone had their way of looking at their body.

The room was dark. As Akko moved, she expected it to light up, but that didn’t happen. The roomba glowed as it hovered in the center of it. It was a small room, not like the others on this floor at all. And as Akko’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and thanks to the red Inferno glow of the roomba, she soon saw that it was an empty room. No bed, no desk, no bathroom. Just an empty closet-like room. Was it for storage? Why was the roomba in it, though? It just hovered there, as if waiting for something.

Akko stood there, waiting for a while, but nothing happened. She quickly grew bored. Whatever this roomba was doing, it was definitely not interesting. She sighed, exiting the room – luckily, a keycard wasn’t necessary for exiting. Now that would have been uncomfortable. Would the Shiny Rod fit in the room? The answer was no, and Akko didn’t want to find out anyways.

She walked out of the room, and with a sigh, she set off towards the elevators. What a waste of time. She’d say she had just taken a really long time in the bathroom – that seemed to be a good enough excuse.

Man, what a disappointing adventure.

Amanda was doing incredibly. It was surprising, even to her. It was as if all of her time not piloting anything didn’t exist. She was now as accustomed to the Shooting Star as anyone could be. Maybe more.

She could, now, actually fly in basically auto pilot. As she noticed some sparks starting to form inside the medusa’s bubble, she didn’t hesitate to dodge and roll right as a ray hit a bunch of trash and set it on fire. The fire died rather quickly, though. What was this atmosphere made of? Amanda had no idea – and in all honesty, she didn’t care.

Dodging had been easy lately. She felt as if she already knew how every racer operated. He knew as if she knew the signs of imminent attacks. It was surreal, but even when she failed to recognize one, Hannah was there to protect her. She had finally figured out a way to stop others from following her, assuming they had enough of an advantage over them: If she shot a trash heap in just the right way, everything would topple down. Their magic shots seemed to go from a soft lime green to an intense forest green thanks to the blue light of the sun, and Amanda was really liking the effect. It made her feel more badass. Maybe that added to her motivation.

Hannah shot at the medusa, hitting it but not breaking any rules. She really was a really good gunman. She had already kind of adapted to Amanda’s flying, even if she still complained about it. Amanda was grateful for that. She had worried Hannah wouldn’t be able to adapt, since Diana’s flying was definitely way less dependent on instinct.

Amanda wasn’t sure, but she had the feeling she was doing better than she should have. She was also at a point where she could just fly and ponder about things like it was no big deal.

It was kind of strange. She had only been practicing for a day. She wasn’t complaining, of course, but if she could she would have totally tried to check out her flying in other ships. Maybe she’d run a simulation on the Shiny Rod later. Now that the thing listened to her – to a limited extent, at least – she could activate and deactivate the simulations at will and most importantly, she could change parameters. So she made sure to practice both during daytime and nighttime. The dumpster was harder to fly across at night, due to the lack of light. Trashcan didn’t have a moon, and starlight was barely enough not to be shredded by trash in absolute darkness.

Hannah shot down another trash mountain, almost making it fall on top of the medusa, but the giant jellyfish stopped and got cut off. “Well done,” Amanda said with a smirk.

“That could backfire,” Ursula reminded her for the hundredth time. “Be careful when doing it.”

“I know, I know,” Amanda said. God, so annoying. She understood Ursula only wanted to protect her or whatever, but she honestly couldn’t care less. She trusted Hannah. It was rather surprising, but she did. Hannah was skilled, and Amanda wouldn’t be performing half as good as she was without her. Of course, even half of her actual performance was enough to completely obliterate the competition, but… Well, some extra help always worked.

“I promise not to let that happen,” Hannah said as she aimed for another approaching racer. The reptilians, with their weird ring-like ship. She shot a couple times, but the ring ship was particularly good at rolling around and spinning, somehow never deviating, making it hard to hit.

Amanda didn’t focus too hard. She was aware that the ring was really hard, and it made for a good weapon. If they decided they wanted to crash against Amanda the Shooting Star would probably lose. They also had some physical ranged weapons as well as something else Amanda wasn’t quite certain what it was. Maybe it was because they hadn’t used it before, as far as she could think. In fact, she was having trouble recalling if the reptilians had attacked anyone during the race at any time. She had never paid much attention to them. Still, the ship wasn’t the most dangerous around, as the armors showed up from the other side of the heap Amanda had been rounding.

“Amanda, stay stable for a while,” Hannah said. Amanda didn’t like being ordered, but she listened. Hannah probably had an idea.

Amanda flew with a little more self restraint for the entirety of thirty seconds. In those thirty seconds, Hannah managed to not only hit the reptilians, but also doing so in a way where they cut off the armors. Then she created another garbage avalanche and blocked the path. As soon as Amanda saw that the things menacing her were gone, she didn’t hesitate to go back to her rougher style. Sharper turns and movements, very unlike Diana’s elegance. The race had about one minute more, in which Amanda just thought about how cool it had been for Hannah to do as she had done. She didn’t recall what she did inside the Rod’s turret, but she sure as hell would try to remember that for next time.

It took a whole ten seconds for someone else to appear. Daemons. Amanda took a deep breath, these were a real pain in the ass. They knew what they were doing and weren’t easy to lose. Plus…

As Amanda thought about that, the daemon ship started glowing and spinning like crazy. Yes, that was it. That movement they had done in Machina. It had cost them the race back then, but here…

Amanda had no choice but to move out of the way. The daemons shot forward, completely piercing through two trash mountains, a straight line that gave them an incredible advantage. Amanda accelerated. The length of that strange burst only allowed them to get about two mountains ahead, which Amanda could work with… But it was a pain in the ass.

She was now in nitro, the pattern in which she needed to fly so engraved in her brain that she no longer needed to react to things. Good thing the octopuses were so neat and every trash heap was so perfect, or she would have crashed and destroyed her virtual ship.

Amanda wasn’t sure why the daemons didn’t use that technique as a final burst – a thing to cross the finish line more easily. She suspected it might have something to do with their way of looking at competitions, making sure their rivals could prove their worth. Maybe Diana would have a better insight on the whole thing, but Amanda didn’t know enough about them to know if what she suspected was plausible.

Still, the chance to fight back existed, and Amanda of course took it. Now, as she and the daemons followed the same path in flying, they were less than thirty seconds away from the finish line. Amanda couldn’t get close, but the daemons couldn’t get away either.

“Got it,” Hannah said. Amanda hadn’t said anything, but she understood why Hannah had spoken. She aimed at the daemons.

However, the daemon ship started to glow. Again? No, they couldn’t do it twice in a row. In fact, Amanda was sure it left the ship in a state of emergency. So if they were using something else, it had to be something separate from normal functions.

When Amanda realized what it would be, she pressed nitro. But it was too late. Suddenly, a screen of red Inferno appeared. Solid energy. A shield that was dropped in the spot. Amanda ran into it at full speed, and the simulation ended in that instant.

She sighed. “Hey, didn’t know our goal was to make Shooting Star pancakes today. Well done!” Hannah said, mocking her.

“Didn’t expect that,” Amanda explained. “They haven’t used it before during simulations, have they?”

“Maybe they have,” Hannah said, “but did it to others. Some racers disappeared after being left behind daemons. I don’t know what is the reason they decide to do what they do, but that’s the thing with this simulator. It’s so realistic, we’re basically living alternate versions of reality.”

“Dude, chill,” Amanda said, grimacing, “I just asked, no need to get philosophical.”

Hannah clicked her tongue, obviously disapproving. “You’re too simple minded. Diana would agree with me. I mean, it’s so close to reality! Imagine the possibilities! We’re using it for racing, but with something like this we could create the ultimate VR game and become rich!”

“We’re already rich,” Amanda reminded her.

Hannah sighed. “Yeah, I guess,” she sounded a little disappointing. “But we could become famous!”

“We’re already famous too. Only four people each ten years become part of Earth’s official racing team, remember?”

Hannah didn’t reply to this. Amanda shrugged. “Ok,” Ursula interrupted the exchange. Amanda had kind of forgotten she was there, again. “Akko should be here by now. Let’s take a break. Amanda, next time you see the daemons doing something like that, think better than to accelerate and just destroy your ship.”

“I miscalculated, jeez,” Amanda rolled her eyes. She didn’t like being scolded for things she knew she had done wrong. Well, no one liked having their failures remarked by others, she supposed.

“Yes, but you had a chance to just take another route. Even if not optimal you still would have had an advantage.”

Amanda frowned, unhappy. Ursula wasn’t wrong, though. She hadn’t taken that turn because it would have made her lose time – the failure was a pain in the ass, however. She would think twice about things next time.

With a sigh, she rose. Everyone exited the Shiny Rod. As soon as they were on the floor, Ursula stretched a little. The position behind the pilot seat wasn’t comfortable, and particularly for someone taller than a teenage girl. Hannah grumbled something about having to crawl, and Jasminka looked at all of them with her usual smile and eating snacks.

“Akko’s not here?” Amanda asked, looking around.

Jasminka begun to shake her head, but speak of the devil, Akko suddenly showed up. She was a little flustered, as if she’d been in a hurry, but otherwise was fine. “Sorry,” she said. “I had… Bathroom troubles,” she said. Amanda raised an eyebrow, but well, one didn’t question someone when they said they had bathroom problems. Amanda would know, having been on her period until a couple days ago.

“Akko, do you recall what I said to you?” Ursula asked in a harsh tone. Akko hesitated for a second before nodding with energy. What were they talking about? Whatever it was, they didn’t explain it to Amanda or the others. After some quiet chatter, they both started climbing the ship. Jasminka crawled under the ship and entered the turret.

This left Amanda and Hannah alone again. Seemed like they’d get a lot of alone time until Diana recovered. Maybe this realization had been what had driven Amanda to open up yesterday. Or maybe not. Truth was, she didn’t really dislike Hannah anymore. She wasn’t sure if she’d say she considered her a friend, but neutral feelings were better than nothing. Plus, teasing her was just fun. Before she had done so out of genuine disgust, but, well, she now enjoyed seeing Hannah flustered. Was it bullying? Well, not that Hannah didn’t deserve it anyways.

“You need to calm down,” Hannah said after everyone disappeared. “Half the times I’m about to shoot at someone you make a sudden zigzag motion as if we were being attacked or something.”

“It’s to be more unpredictable,” Amanda explained. “They can’t know what we’re doing if we don’t know what we’re doing,” she explained. Hannah gave her a flat look.

“That’s horrible logic,” she said. “In the end they’ll just end up figuring out why you do what you do, aim after you do a zigzag and take you down.”

Amanda considered this. “You’re right,” she admitted. She rubbed her chin, thinking. “Guess I need to start doing double zigzags, that’ll disorient them further!”

“You’re insufferable,” Hannah said. Amanda smirked, moving to sit on the Rod. Hannah looked at her. “Isn’t it kind of uncomfortable?”

“You sat here yesterday, you tell me,” Amanda said.

“I mean, you butt is all inclined and whatever,” Hannah explained. It was true, the Shiny Rod, when looking from up front, had a kind of rhombus shape, with some curvatures on the sides. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing ever.

“Eh, better than standing,” Amanda shrugged. She didn’t really care. She also felt strangely comfortable when touching the rod. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome or something. She thought back to the time she’d been alone in the turret, the Shiny Rod turned off. She hadn’t gotten a lot out of the experience, but she felt strangely inclined to repeat it.

“I suppose,” Hannah said, sitting relatively next to her. “I would suggest sitting on the ground, but I don’t want to ruin my clothes,” she said. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a couple of white shorts. None of it looked too fancy, but it probably was.

Amanda moved to lie on her back, staring up. “It’s kinda hot,” she said thoughtlessly.

Hannah suddenly turned, flustered. She looked Amanda up and down, as if looking for something. “What is?” She said in a suspicious voice.

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “The temperature. The rest of the ship is neutral, but the hangar is hotter than the rest of the ship. What did you think I was speaking about?” She asked. Hannah flushed, turning her face away from the redhead. “Wait, you thought I was speaking about your clothes?”

“No, of course not, I just-” Hannah went on the defensive.

“Because, I mean, they kind of are,” Amanda smiled. “You showing a lot of leg and arm there. That nape below your ponytail is cute too,” she teased.

Hannah stood with a huff. “You know? I’d rather sit on the ground.”

Amanda chuckled. She looked as Hannah looked at the ground in disgust, obviously not really wanting to do it. “You shouldn’t act so flustered,” Amanda said. Why was she saying it? It was just a way of ruining her fun, but… “It only makes it easier to tease you,” she explained. “One would think you’d realize it, being a bully yourself.”

“I’ve never been on the receiving end before,” Hannah explained. She turned, her blush gone, but her face still distrusting. “I’ve always been held in high regards by my peers,” she said. “I had never had to deal with someone like… Well, you, before Luna Nova.”

Amanda nodded. “Well, of course, I’m unique,” she said with full confidence. Hannah narrowed her eyes. “But maybe you should keep what I tell you in mind. After all, why do you think I try to never react to your comments? If I don’t react, you’ll eventually grow tired.”

“You’re rather talkative lately, aren’t you?” Hannah pointed out.

Amanda nodded. “I think I’d rather build a kind of relationship with you were we can talk to each other instead of being constantly bickering. I mean, yeah, I tease you, but you know it’s just to annoy you and nothing more, right?” Hannah grimaced, but reluctantly nodded. “Well, that. If we’re going to be a team for the next two to three races, then we better be on relatively good terms.”

“Your flying style is going to scar me for life, though,” Hannah said. “Do you really need to be so… acrobatic?” She looked genuine.

Amanda considered this. “I don’t know,” she explained. “Flying is… Kind of second nature to me. Diana has her practice and mind, Akko has sheer determination and relatively good instincts. Well, I was born to do it. I’ve known it from the moment I first saw a broom race.”

Hannah approached the Rod, cautiously sitting again. “I seem to recall you had the dream of flying,” Hannah said.

Amanda was taken off guard by the comment. Her eyes widened a little. “You remember that, huh?” Amanda had kind of just spat that in the moment. Being so high had been inspiring. “Yeah. I though about doing things like gliding or mounting one of those giant fans, or even some of the more normal brooms that allow you to fly pretty high without a roof and such. But…” She paused, trying to find the words for it.

“It’s not the same kind of thrill,” Hannah said. “Broom-racers are special. They’re fast, made for speed rather than flying.”

“Yeah,” Amanda nodded. “I suppose that’s it,” she tried to imagine herself flying. Maybe being high wasn’t the point. It was more about the thrill. The speed of racing fulfilled her. “That’s probably why I’m in such a good mood,” she said.

“So you’re only being nice because you get to pilot?” Hannah asked.

Amanda shrugged. “Maybe,” she admitted. “I’m just… Fulfilled, when I pilot. Speaking of which, you already believe I’m better than Diana?” Amanda asked.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. You’re doing good, sure, but Diana would probably do just as good,” Hannah got defensive. Amanda sighed. Hannah wouldn’t admit Amanda to be better even if their lives were being threatened. She would have liked to race Diana again, but without a second ship, they wouldn’t get very far.

“What do I need to do to prove that I’m better?” Amanda asked, “Other than a currently impossible race.”

Hannah hesitated. “Nothing,” she admitted. “Unless you beat her at a race I don’t think I’ll ever accept it – and even then, I’ll probably just say Diana had a bad day, bad luck or something else. You’d have to beat her consistently and completely.”

Amanda was surprised by the honesty. “Then I guess we’ve nothing to discuss in this regard,” she said, sighing. “What a shame.”

Hannah hesitated. She had something in her mind. “Why do you care, anyways?” Hannah said. “Do you really need to prove you’re better than her so badly?”

Amanda sat up, trying to search for the right answer. “No,” she said. “Or maybe yes. I just…” How to word it? “I just want her to get off her high horse.”

Hannah frowned, as she always did whenever someone badmouthed Diana. “Why do you think Diana is so bad? Seriously, she’s never done anything to you.”

Amanda didn’t want to turn this into another hostile discussion, but she still wanted to say something. “It’s not about doing something to me. It’s her demeanor, the way she looks at everything with judging eyes. It’s hard not to think she’s an egotistical queen when she always has this face of… unimpressed, whenever she speaks of something.”

“She’s just not comfortable showing her emotions to everybody,” Hannah explained. “She doesn’t look down on people.”

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, she surely doesn’t look down on Akko and thinks she can do better, huh?”

“Aren’t you the same?” Hannah instantly retorted.

Amanda nodded. “Yeah, but at least I still interact with Akko as if we were on the same level.”

“Diana never interacts with Akko as if she was on another level!” Hannah said. “She always speaks to her kindly and tries to explain things to her when she does them wrong and-”

“And talks as if she were superior while Akko is below her?” Amanda interrupted. “Dunno, Hannah, what you tell me sounds a lot like talking down to people.”

“Context matters,” Hannah instantly said. “Akko doesn’t feel like she’s being looked down on, is she?”

“Well, she probably doesn’t realize,” Amanda said.

Hannah shook her head. “Back at Luna Nova whenever we made fun of her she’d get worked up and call us out. She’s not a quiet, timid girl who we bullied because she didn’t fight back or something,” Hannah said. “She’s not an… Well, she is, but not that much of an idiot.”

If Amanda were to be honest she didn’t really remember that far back. She started rubbing her chin again. She didn’t usually do that, but she liked to look like she was thinking hard in front of others. Maybe that way Hannah would think she was considering things way more deeply than she really was. Not that Amanda didn’t consider this enough, but impressions were like half the points in social interaction. “Then, if Diana is such a good person, why didn’t she ever call you out on your bullshit?” Amanda said.

Hannah paused. “Because…” She looked away. “Because she’s our friend, probably.”

“Wouldn’t you call out your friend if she was doing stupid bullshit?”

“Listen,” Hannah looked at Amanda again, clearly annoyed, hands on her hips. “Diana isn’t a perfect human being, yet you’re judging her as if you expected her to be. Wasn’t that the entire point of you hating her? That she isn’t perfect?”

“Yeah,” Amanda said, shrugging. “So she should stop acting as if she were.”

Hannah closed her eyes. “You know, every time I think you may not be as bad as I thought, you say something like this and I can’t help but believe I was right. Diana isn’t a very social girl. Why don’t you try talking to her instead of judging her, like you so much hate her for doing with others?”

Amanda opened her mouth, but shut it. “You got me there,” she admitted. If she thought about it, she hadn’t ever really talked to Diana one on one, save for that one time in Machina. Man, that chat seemed to be so far away, even though it had been less than two weeks ago.

Hannah sighed. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to not judge Diana.”

“Well, she’s rich and famous, of course people are going to judge her,” Amanda said. Hannah stared daggers at her. “What? It’s true, I’m not saying she should be judged, but that’s just the way of the world,” Amanda shrugged.

The auburn hair of Hannah danced as she turned to go away. “I think I’m just going to go speak with her,” she said. “Akko’s probably going to be there for a while.”

“Is she awake?” Amanda asked, dropping from the Rod and following Hannah.

Hannah gave her a look over her shoulder. “Yeah, she woke up a while ago, Barb’s there,” Hannah said. Amanda nodded. Hannah kept looking at her. “Are you going to follow me?”

“Hey, I just said I should give Diana a chance, didn’t I?” Amanda smiled.

Hannah sighed. She didn’t react as Amanda expected. Damn, maybe she shouldn’t have said that after all. “Fine, you can come.”

I shouldn’t, Amanda thought. But I will, “Jeez, Hannah, at least invite me to dinner first,” Amanda said. It was such a stupid joke, but she was chuckling to herself.

Hannah started, not getting the joke at first. Then she went beet red and huffed, stomping away. “You’re truly insufferable!” She yelled as she got away. Amanda had to run to catch her before the elevator doors closed.

Chapter Text

“Well done,” Ursula said behind Akko. “You made the right choice,” she patted Akko’s back, which Akko took with a smile.

She had been flying in the pattern Ursula had taught her, but at one point she had been overtaken by both armor and plants, somehow. So, instead of going behind them and risking getting attacked, she took a little detour and accelerated to make up for lost time. She was also flying with manual controls right now, which she was trying hard not to think about. She would fly as she always did, and if she felt like she needed to change something, then she’d worry about it. As of now, the ship worked just fine.

In the end, Akko had managed to win another race, though it had been by a shadow’s width. The data showing on the screen showed it had been a centimeter, and she was tied with armor. The armors seemed to have an advantage in this terrain, and that was that they could use their giant stone balls to throw mountains of trash on the competition. Apparently Amanda had a similar strategy, though Akko didn’t feel good with that. Plus, she wasn’t sure Jasminka would be able to pull it off – mostly because she wasn’t sure to which extent the gunmen on the Shiny Rod understood what she was saying.

“Ok, another one,” Ursula said. “This time, however, don’t fly so close to the ground. You’re limiting yourself. The higher you go, the more space you’ll have for flying. The Shiny Rod is small, but that’s exactly why you should make yourself a harder target.”

Akko nodded. She felt none of the frustration she had felt back on Pan when flying, or even Machina. She was doing fine, she felt confident. Would Diana see her flying as good? How would Diana fly in this situation? Akko had seen some of Amanda’s flying, and it had been pretty different from Diana’s. When Akko came to be as good as them, would she have a distinctive style too? Would people be able to guess what type of person she was by her piloting? It was easy to infer from looking at Amanda or Diana.

“Prepare another race, Alcor,” Akko said.

The familiar did as told, as always, and the race restarted, everyone getting transported back to the starting line.

“Wait,” Ursula said. “You want to keep practicing with manual controls?” Ursula asked. Akko nodded. “Fine, let’s leave it at that,” she sounded happy. Akko wasn’t too used to it, but she was starting to get a grasp on it, and maybe if she kept up she could use it before the race started. She would still use automatic, though. Not necessity to risk making mistakes just because she had learned something new.

Like her two previous races.

“Alcor, start.”

Akko closed her eyes for the three seconds that the starting of the race took. Then, she accelerated. She had been set next to the Noir Rod and the armors. Akko, curiously enough, didn’t feel particularly compelled to prove her worth over the Noir Rod. IT was strange, but she had just kind of accepted she wasn’t as good a pilot as everyone else. She’d just have to use the Shiny Rod and use it as best as she could. It was a handicap. She wasn’t as good as the others – so she’d gotten an advantage. Maybe it was destiny.

Well, she wouldn’t have been here if she hadn’t found the Rod in the first place, so…

Suddenly, the daemons attacked. The shields protected her, but Akko was a little surprised by how quickly they had attacked. As soon as they stopped, Jasminka retaliated, but the Noir Rod had its own shields to protect it. And, at the first heap of trash, they took different paths, Akko going left and the daemons going right.

The armors followed her, though. Their three constantly moving rings sometimes scraped the trash, but they didn’t seem to care. Their ship was made for things like crashing, though Akko didn’t recall them being very physical in their contact. It was strange, if one thought carefully about it. Well, maybe they didn’t want to deal with the trouble of having to fix their ship if it was damaged, though Akko wasn’t sure there was much to damage in the first place. Their ship was some kind of rock, couldn’t they just get a new rock? It was probably not that simple, but still.

Akko started to fly in the right pattern. Right, right, left, right, right.

She dodged an attack from the armors. She was getting a better hang of dodging, too. She hadn’t been attacked much during her previous races, and when she had… Well, everyone saw what happened during the previous race. On Sídhe she had been on that tunnel and she had been basically impossible to hit. On Machina she had fallen behind and barely saw any of the other racers. It was strange, given how much trouble Diana had had.

Jasminka tried a few attacks, but the armors were ready for it. However, Jasminka’s attacks did cause them to miss a good turn, so they ended up going on a different direction than what Akko wanted. This race felt strangely non intense, despite the attacks towards her. Maybe Akko was actually getting the hang of it. She was no longer caught completely off guard by these things.

However, what did catch her off guard was that from the other side of the trash heap, just ahead of her, the giant ball suddenly appeared. Right, they could do that. Akko made a sudden movement, which wasn’t the wisest choice, since she ended up half burying one side of the Shiny Rod on rash. She managed to pull off by accelerating, but the speed was lost, and as she continued flying, the armor had definitely gotten ahead of her. This wasn’t the first time armors had done that to her, but she was always surprised by the move. It was hard to predict, since they didn’t always do it. Akko wasn’t sure what the trigger was for it. What differentiated this trash from all the other garbage? How did they aim so well? It probably involved a bunch of mathematics.

“You need to stop getting surprised by that,” Ursula said, “you can’t make these mistakes on a real race.”

“I know, sorry,” Akko said. She focused, flying in the pattern she had learned. All she had to do was grow used to it, be able to perform it thoughtlessly and then she’d be able to focus on other things like attacking, dodging and defending. Become an automatic machine of flying and an active machine of… other stuff. Still, Akko was encouraged by knowing she was getting better by the race.

Soon, they encountered the double-ring ship of the reptilians. Akko wondered why the rings had to be constantly spinning in opposite directions, but she suspected she wouldn’t get an answer even if she asked nicely.

Though, that was just her assumption. Who knew, maybe the reptilians were really nice people and they would explain it. She didn’t really count on that, though.

This place wasn’t a labyrinth, but it sometimes felt like one. Encountering random ships constantly was annoying, since…

“Wait,” Akko said. “Alcor, stop.”

“Akko?” Ursula asked, obviously surprised by the sudden shift in Akko’s mood.

“Alcor, activate the map. Can you track every racer in the area?” She was sure Alcor could, but… Yep, as expected, a map of the dumpster appeared. It wasn’t colored but it worked. Then, nine dots besides the Shiny Rod’s appeared, representing the other racers. Akko hummed to herself. Closer, but not what she wanted exactly. “Alcor, can you assign a different letter to every racer?” Ursula watched with interest as every dot morphed into a comic sans letter. H for humans, D for daemons, M for medusa, S for shapeshifter, A for armor, P for plants, R for reptilians, O for octopuses, Ap for appali and C for cyborgs.

“Hey,” Ursula put a hand on Akko’s shoulder. “That was really smart,” she praised, but she didn’t sound happy. “Yet, are you sure you need another distraction? You’re more the kind to tackle problems as they come. I would totally encourage Diana and maybe Amanda to do this, but…”

Akko considered this. She was making progress with the manual controls, but… “Alcor, return the controls back to normal.” The control panels flipped, and Akko was now in a seemingly empty cockpit, save for the control joysticks and the pedals.

Ursula nodded. “It’s not a bad option,” Ursula said. “This way you’ll at least know what to expect,” Ursula said.

Akko smiled slightly. She felt strangely proud at her idea. It had been simple, yet now, as she saw every other racer, she could imagine what would have gone down. If she kept going on her route she would have most certainly ran into the shapeshifter, and that would have been a pain in the ass. They were hard to hit and to lose, and while shields could protect them, one of those smoky bombs they used thrown in the right angle could blind Akko for an instant. In this race, being blinded by an instant was enough to make you end up under two tons of trash.

“Ok, let’s redo this,” Akko said.

She restarted the race. She wondered if this was how Croix would make them run, anyways. The rules for the race on Pan had been so weird and unfair. Who knew? Maybe this time they’d be forced to fly in a straight line and humans would be screwed or something. Well, Akko wasn’t sure if the Shiny Rod could hover over trash or not. Ursula had said brooms normally couldn’t but brooms couldn’t normally go over water and yet the Rod could.

Maybe she should try it, but later. She didn’t get the feeling it would work, anyways. The simulated race started, and Akko stopped thinking about that.

“Well that was unfortunate,” Amanda said.

Hannah sighed. She turned around, annoyed, trying to throw an apologetic smile at Barbara. “That’s the third time you’ve said that,” Hannah said. When they reached the room, Diana was in the middle of some checkups, so they couldn’t enter. Not because they were particularly dangerous, but because the room was so small the nurse had told them to fuck off and leave her space to work.

“And I plan to keep saying it until you answer,” Amanda smirked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hannah wouldn’t admit it, but she had listened to Amanda’s advice. Maybe if she reacted in less entertaining ways Amanda would stop trying to piss her off. She wasn’t doing a great job, but baby steps.

“We should go back, anyways,” Amanda commented. “We’ve been gone for about half an hour, Akko’s probably done or going to be done soon.”

Hannah sighed. “Yeah, I guess,” she looked at Barbara.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Barbara smiled. “I can just go to the room and read or something.”

Hannah narrowed her eyes. She looked at Amanda from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you hang out with Lotte?”

Barbara blushed. “I… Ehm…”

“She went shopping, didn’t she?” Hannah had heard her saying something like that at some point the previous day. Barbara nodded meekly.

“You know, Barbara,” Amanda interrupted. “While by doing this you’re making it fairly obvious to everyone you like Lotte – Well, you did back at the party, but that’s besides the point – Lotte will probably just think you’re avoiding her because of some other reason.”

Hannah gave Amanda a harsh stare. Barbara didn’t seem particularly surprised by the fact that Amanda knew – Well, she had made it obvious, in retrospect. Amanda shrugged. “What? You should just confess.”

“I already told her,” Hannah explained in an annoyed voice.

“Then why is she doing exactly the opposite of what you told her?”

Hannah closed her mouth, looking at Barbara now. Barbara didn’t look her in the eye. “I… Feel weird, when I’m with her, ok? Plus, we never really get a chance to be alone. She’s always with Sucy or if not there’s someone else and-”

Amanda groaned, rolling her eyes. “If you like someone just go and confess and get it over with!” She said. “If she rejects you then you can start the process of moving on, if she accepts you then you’re happy! You’ve got nothing to lose but maybe some tears, for fuck’s sake.”

Hannah didn’t like the tone Amanda was using, but… Well, she didn’t disagree. Barbara Had confessed the truth to her days ago and she had only gotten more and more distant with Lotte since. As if coming out to someone had only made her more self conscious. Being self conscious wasn’t really like Barbara, either. She was usually confident and determined.

“But… Well, we made fun of her in Luna Nova,” Barbara explained, looking at Hannah. “What if she resents me for it?”

“Then apologize,” Hannah said. “Don’t think you need to, anyways, since she’s obviously into you and doesn’t give a fuck, but if that’s what’s stopping you I’m seriously going to just knock you out, tie you to a chair and force you to confess.”

Barbara smiled meekly. “I don’t…”

“Or I’ll just tell Lotte myself,” Hannah smiled. “And this time I’m being serious. You have until I get back from training.”

Barbara’s eyes widened in panic. “W-what? But I don’t even know where she is!”

“Somewhere in Gold Deck,” Amanda instantly replied. “She was going shopping with Connie. They’re probably at a bookstore or a place that sells electronic parts.”

Hannah nodded. Then she wondered why were there even bookstores or electronic shops in the Dragon. They didn’t seem like things people would buy a lot of during trips. But, well, to each their own. Hannah sighed. Maybe she should go eat something before going back to training. On the other hand, she could probably wait until the next round, and she had just told Barbara to go and do her business.

“Go,” as they reached the elevators and waited for one to come, Barbara stood there, waiting. She looked around at the many doors waiting to be opened.

“B-but…”

“You’ve been warned,” Hannah made sure to remind her. Barbara pressed her lips, noticing how serious Hannah was. Amanda nodded at Hannah’s resolution with a satisfied look. At least they could agree on this account.

“Ok, whatever, but if I do it you’ll owe me one,” Barbara said.

“What? Why? It’s for your sake, I gain nothing,” Hannah was baffled by how Barbara was suddenly going in the defensive.

“Because you’re basically forcing me to do it. If you’re going to threaten me then at least be fair and give me a reward.”

Hannah was failing to see the logic in that statement, and she suspected Barbara was only saying that to make her go back on her previous threat. But she couldn’t possibly- The elevator arrived. Hannah looked at it, at Barbara, and grunted. “Fine, whatever,” she said, stepping in next to Amanda. “But I will not kiss anyone, got it?”

Barbara nodded, but Hannah saw a sly grin grow on her face as the elevator doors closed.

“You just made a horrible deal,” Amanda pointed out as the elevator went down.

Hannah grimaced. “Yeah, I did,” she realized. She sighed. Well, she would stay true to her word. But hell if I’m going to let Barbara let me do anything like at that party.

When the examination finished, Diana was told that in about twenty four hours she would probably be allowed to stand and walk around for a few hours a day. She would still have to spend most of the time in the infirmary, though, because she still needed the magic treatment to recover quickly. She sighed. She wondered if that regenerative liquid being worked on at Earth would be better than magic. It had proven to work great on rats, bringing them back from near death in just a few days. Of course, as always, it was nothing but experimental, and it would probably be a couple decades until it became available to the public.

She sighed. Thinking of faster ways of regenerating would get her nowhere. She’d probably refuse to go walking most of the time. She’d rather heal faster than lose those two hours… though she should probably get some sort of exercise. What an annoying situation.

Diana looked around the room. The Medical Magic Unit beeped while working. Of course, it wasn’t permanently using magic on Diana’s body. The hours she’d get to walk around would probably be times she also wouldn’t have magic inside her body. She was starting to think irrationally because of the cooping up she was going through. She supposed she’d rather have this small room than a big one where she might have gotten the urge to move around, though.

Yeah, forget her previous thoughts, she definitely needed to go walk. But, would that make it worse? Like an drug-addict that said ‘just a little’ and then ended up wishing for more? She shook her head, those things weren’t comparable. She was getting tired of thinking – something she’d never thought she’d suffer from.

She hoped the nurse hadn’t driven the other girls along. Greta was rather grumpy, particularly when performing exams on Diana. She was good but harsh. Not that this bothered Diana a lot, but she was now carving for some interactions, and she was definitely not tired. She’d even take Andrew, though she highly doubted that would be happening again.

Curiously enough, she found herself wanting to see Akko. Sure, Hannah and Barbara were fine, but she could use some of that natural energy Akko seemed to have. Her simple way of thinking was also refreshing, in some aspects. In a way, it challenged Diana, even if it wasn’t so much at an intellectual level as it was on an emotional one. While Diana was a firm believer that feelings had little place on a serious discussion, she also couldn’t deny how her emotions had taken a hold of her previously.

But Akko would be practicing now. For what Barbara had told her, she was apparently doing better, which Diana was happy for. If Akko finally got a high score on a race she could be more relaxed about the whole situation. Right now they were on top thanks to her wins, but if Akko managed to do better – even if she wasn’t first – they might just be able to keep up the first place until Diana was able to race again.

Akko seemed to be a lot on her mind recently. Well, it was bound to happen, due to her being a fellow pilot and the time they spent together, but Diana often found herself thinking about her beyond just piloting settings. She wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe it was because of the strange relationship she had with the girl. She had started as nothing but a troublesome student in Diana’s mind, which then evolved into a really troublesome individual after she illegally signed up for the race. And then they had become friends, and Diana no longer saw those troublesome aspects of Akko as a bad thing necessarily. Sure, she could work on them, try to make them disappear, but they were also a part of her. Without them, Akko wouldn’t be Akko.

She felt like she had thought something like that multiple times, but not in such a good way.

Diana sighed. A book would be nice. Any kind of book, as a distraction was all she wanted right now. Something to take her mind off the absolute nothingness that was her life right now. Diana wondered if the girls would come back at some point. She was aware that at least Barbara had connected her wand to the MMU to keep track of when Diana was awake and when not, which Diana was glad for. She almost always got to see at least Barbara whenever she woke up, and if Hannah wasn’t training she’d probably drop by too. Amanda had also showed up for a few seconds today, though that had been during Greta’s exams and it hadn’t ended well for any of them.

Lotte and Constanze had also interrupted the exam session, dropping a small basket with fruit and some snacks for Diana to eat. They had gone back to shopping after that, though. Or maybe not shopping but just hanging out. There was blasted little to do in these rooms, after all. Diana didn’t even have a TV, though she suspected she would be given one should she ask. She didn’t want one but that was not the point.

At least she would probably be up for the big event before the sixth race. She would maybe be ready for the fifth, too, but it was hard to tell right now. Greta had said she had been recovering at a good pace, but that was debatable.

Diana shifted a little in bed, grabbing a banana and starting to peel it. She was so bored…

Lotte and Constanze sat on a bench at the edge of Shopping Town. The park was behind them, the small shopping district of the third deck in front of them. They were eating ice-creams while taking a short rest. After taking fruit to Diana they had gone back to their shopping – though in truth, it was Constanze’s shopping more than Lotte’s. Lotte had already gotten what she wanted – a book on Plants. After learning about their cheating, she had felt so powerless… She just wanted to help somehow. And they had agreed not to tell Diana for now, as she had enough to worry about. She wasn’t sure learning about plants was going to do much good, but she could hope.

Constanze, while eating her ice-cream, was also checking something on her tablet. It looked like a map of the Dragon, and she was monitoring the hangar. There was a really bright light over there, though Lotte didn’t know what it represented, she suspected it had something to do with the Shiny Rod.

“What is that?” she asked, leaning a little over the screen. Constanze made a few signs, and Lotte nodded. Internally, however, she cringed. She wasn’t understanding what Constanze’s signs meant. She didn’t exactly speak sign language – she had her own way of communicating. Not that Lotte knew sign language, but learning to speak with Constanze was a matter of trial and error. Sometimes what she meant was intuitive – most times, though, it took some concentration.

“Uhm…” Lotte hesitated. “You look a little concerned.” When Constanze explained why, Lotte half understood. She was saying something about making sure no one touched the Shiny Rod. Right, they had reached the conclusion that the mechanics of their team may be against them. Lotte wondered if Ursula would get that permit for Constanze to become an official mechanic. It wasn’t likely, but it would help them. “It’s fine, no one can touch the Shiny Rod anyways.”

Constanze shook her head. She pointed again at the screen, but Lotte wasn’t really understanding. Constanze zoomed in on broom. Then more. Then it showed a small point inside it. Lotte smiled hesitantly and slowly moved her head as if trying to find another angle. Constanze rolled her eyes and pressed a button, at which the screen turned to white. Then she wrote something with her finger. ‘Bug.’

Lotte took a few moments to understand it, and she realized her ice-cream was melting as a drop of it touched her hand. She made sure to lick it all over and get it back to a decent state before making a mess of herself as if she was five years old.

“Oh,” she suddenly realized, “you… put a bug on it? Why…” Lotte made a little ‘O’ with her mouth as the implications hit her. “Wait, so you can cheat the Shiny Rod somehow! Constanze, you need to show this to everyone!”

Constanze, who had already finished her ice-cream, put her free hand on Lotte’s mouth and looked around. Lotte blushed, realizing she had exclaimed that in a loud voice in the middle of a super public place. She doubted many people would recognize them but they were still with the group of the arguably most important passengers in the Dragon.

“Still,” Lotte said in a lower voice as Constanze released her, “this is incredible. You really should become the new mechanic for the team, you’re a prodigy!”

Constanze shrugged. Lotte had the feeling she’d do what she could whether she got official recognition or not. Good or not, Lotte couldn’t really blame her. If they were dealing with cheaters, then she would probably never get that special permit anyways. Who knew, it could even be dangerous.

Well, that was for another time. Lotte managed to finish her ice-cream while Constanze checked her tablet, and once she was done, she stood and took her book and one of Constanze’s bags. The tiny girl followed carrying her own bag. Sadly, Lotte wasn’t as strong or Amanda, so they couldn’t bring as much as Constanze had wished, but she had settled for this since Lotte had been willing to accompany her with no real need to do so. Lotte was happy to help, of course. Constanze was a good girl, even if a little weird.

When they were about to reach the elevators, however, Lotte saw something… weird. It may have just been her imagination, but when she had looked back for a second, she could have sworn she had seen Barbara.

She took out her wand, and with a swift movement activated one of the spirits in her bag. It was a small, black spirit meant to be a spy camera. She hadn’t wanted it, but her parents had insisted on her taking it to make sure no one tried to assassinate Akko at night. It was good because it also directly connected to her wand, giving her live-footage of whatever was being recorded.

She sang to it. Most of her spirits had passwords, voice passwords that required the exact intonation she used, along with her voice. It was a very useful security method that her grandparents had implemented in the spirit industry.

The spy-cam unlocked and she was able to fully guide it and activate it with her wand. Lotte sent it at the corner where she thought she had seen Barbara and, indeed, the girl was there, looking incredibly nervous and flustered as she hesitated about looking around the corner again or not.

Lotte felt strange. For one, she was confused. Second, she was also happy. Sure, what Barbara was doing was kind of creepy, but this probably meant she wasn’t as much avoiding her as… No, wait, she was definitely avoiding her. But not in a bad way?

“Uhm, Constanze, can you wait here for a second?” Lotte asked. Constanze nodded and didn’t hesitate to just put all the bags down and sit in the middle of the wooden street. Well, she looked enough like a child, most people wouldn’t complain too much.

Lotte left her own bags with Constanze and decided to round the building keeping an eye on Barbara, who had failed to see the camera.

After Lotte rounded the ‘square’ of buildings, she entered the small alleyway Barbara was using for hiding from the opposite side. Barbara was now looking confused around the corner, probably wondering where Lotte was. Lotte wasn’t normally a mischievous girl, but she couldn’t help get the urge to scare the girl.

Carefully, she walked over to Barbara and, in a loud but not annoyingly so voice, she cried ‘boo!’

Barbara turned around in surprise, tripped on her feet, and fell on her butt. She looked at Lotte as if she was a ghost. Then, as she came to her senses, she blushed and looked down, staying on the ground. Lotte felt her heart race a little. She had never seen such a reaction from Barbara. It was extremely cute.

Lotte offered a hand to help Barbara up. Barbara hesitated, but took it. She didn’t look Lotte in the eyes, and to be honest with herself, Lotte was a little glad for that. “Hey,” she said.

“Y-you saw me…” Barbara pointed out, red.

“Yeah,” Lotte said, blushing softly. “Why didn’t you just come hang out with us?”

Barbara shook her head as only response, but slowly looked up. She hadn’t let go of the hand Lotte had offered. Lotte didn’t want her to. When they met eyes, Lotte’s heart skipped a beat. Barbara looked incredibly nervous, but that was cute too. “Can… I tell you something?” Barbara asked.

“Sure,” Lotte said. She felt Barbara squeezing her hand. It was nice.

Barbara was nice. Maybe she should tell her that. Maybe…

“I-” She hesitated, took a deep breath and tried again “I like you,” she said, eyes closed shut, almost as if she was struggling.

Lotte’s eyes widened. Her hand and Barbara’s remained together, as if they had been shaking hands for a while. Not precisely romantic. Slowly, Barbara cracked open one eye to look at Lotte’s reaction. Lotte was dumbfounded. Had she really heard what she had heard?

“Lotte?” Barbara asked with an anxious voice. Lotte shook her head, looking at Barbara’s teal eyes and wondering if maybe this wasn’t a dream.

“Pinch me,” Lotte asked. Barbara cocked her head, so Lotte repeated. Gently, Barbara pinched Lotte’s cheek. She seemed to be doing it with extreme endearment. “It hurts.”

“It should,” Barbara said, finally understanding why Lotte had asked her to do such a thing.

“I…” Lotte was left speechless. The relatively dark alley became everything in the world. The bustle of the people walking, talking, shouting and laughing in the street became nothing but white noise as Lotte slowly let go of Barbara’s hand and stared at her in shock. “I’ve never been confessed to before,” she stated.

“I hope I did it well,” Barbara looked down.

Then, Lotte grinned from ear to ear. “You did!” she said, grabbing both of Barbara’s hands into her own. “I mean, you were so cute and determined and… Well, yeah, the stalking was kind of creepy but I guess you were super nervous!” she praised Barbara. “Oh, this would be a great moment to replicate for a fanfic…” Lotte paused for a second to make a mental note.

Barbara smiled too. “Lotte, I’m glad you liked my confession, but… do you like me?” she asked not without some nervousness.

Lotte started, realizing she had failed to answer. “Of course!” She asserted. “I… I thought I had made it pretty obvious, back at the party,” she hesitated. “I thought that was why you were avoiding me.”

Barbara opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she laughed. “Seems like we both felt the same!” she exclaimed, looking at her and smiling.

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. It eventually became kind of awkward. Lotte coughed. “Uhm… Should we, like… Kiss or something?” She asked to Barbara, who was back to blushing.

“I mean,” she looked around, “I’d rather not have my first kiss be on an alleyway. Maybe we should go back to my room and-” As she was saying that, she realized that her room would be empty, probably. Lotte blushed even before Barbara finished. “B-but don’t think anything of it! We can do it wherever you want, I…” She seemed to choke on her own tongue for a minute, “I mean kissing, of course! We can kiss wherever you want!”

Lotte looked as Barbara shut up and tried to hide her face, but since Lotte held her hands tightly, she couldn’t. Even while flushed, Lotte chuckled at the display. “This is always a lot simpler in the romantic subplots of Nightfall,” Barbara complained.

Lotte nodded. Then she looked at the end of the alleyway. “We… Should probably get going. Constanze is waiting for me.”

Barbara looked at the hands Lotte was still holding, and in a nervous voice said, “Sure, but… can you let me go?”

Lotte let go, laughing nervously. Walking rather stiffly over to where Constanze was still on her tablet, she picked up a couple bags. Barbara picked the others, and in the meantime, Lotte called back her spy-cam spirit and put it on her bag. Barbara looked at it with some surprise.

“Hey, wait a second…” She said, frowning.

“Welp, let’s go!” Lotte exclaimed in an exaggerated manner, walking towards the elevators.

She had an ear-to-ear grin on her face.

Chapter Text

Akko was waiting for Amanda and Hannah to come out of the Rod. Jasminka stood at her side, having somehow managed to get a small bag of chips. Akko had a few, but she was saving appetite for going to eat later. Now that she thought about it, they could ask for room service, but who would do that, being able to access like a ton of restaurants in here?

Akko sighed. She was hungry, she wanted meat or something. It had already been like five hours since she’d woken up, and she’d been basically practicing half that time, the other half spent waiting outside the broom doing nothing. She wished she could at least see what Amanda was up to, but she guessed Ursula staying with her was the best for all of them. This didn’t make her any less bored, though. They had agreed they’d go all eat together after Amanda and Hannah finished this session, since Amanda wanted to try something, but Akko was growing tired of waiting.

“Do you think they’ll mind too much if we go without them?” Akko asked Jasminka. The girl shrugged. Akko took that as an approval of her ideals, so she started walking among the different brooms on the hangar. However, as she moved, she heard something weird. Like a… heavy breathing?

Jasminka, who had followed, also stopped. Akko put a finger to her lips – kind of useless, since Jasminka rarely spoke anyways – and tried to listen harder.

Yeah, there was a soft… rustling, and panting. Someone was agitated and moving nearby. Akko followed the sound with caution, wondering if maybe something was wrong, and rounded a nearby broom – a big bus for tourism.

The sounds got stronger, and when Akko finally peered over the corner, she was faced with a couple of figures on top of each other, kissing passionately. Akko instantly recognized them as the appal pilots. Neither of them saw her, so she slowly backed off, red on the cheeks.

Jasminka raised an eyebrow.

Akko hurried for her to follow. Once Akko was sure they were out of earshot of the couple, she finally allowed herself to blush in full force. “I think I saw something I wasn’t supposed to,” she explained, covering her face. She hadn’t ever had a relationship – hell, she had never liked anyone. Except maybe Chariot, but even she failed to understand exactly how her feelings of admiration worked in that regard.

In short, she wasn’t used to seeing that kind of thing. Sure, she had seen movies, but she wasn’t a fan of spicy things. She knew what sex was, and she had seen porn videos and such – everyone has, after all – but to see it in real life was very different.

“I didn’t know appali had the same customs as us,” Akko tried to concentrate on something other than the act itself. She imagined this would be how Diana would react to the situation.

“Well, we are really similar,” Jasminka commented.

Akko nodded, but she couldn’t really get into an analyst’s mindset. Why weren’t they in their rooms? She shook her head. Stop thinking about it!

It wasn’t that easy.

As they got on the elevators, Akko couldn’t help but wonder a lot of things she probably would never get an answer to. How had they gotten together? When? Was it casualty that they were both pilots or they were together because of that? Why did she care, anyways? They were the enemy! They were probably plotting against them or something.

But seriously, why were they doing that in the hangar? Hopefully they wouldn’t go past kissing, but that had seemed pretty intense.

“Akko,” Jasminka snapped Akko out of her thoughts. She had already exited the elevator and was waiting for Akko, who just stood there looking at nothing. Akko walked out of it, and realized this wasn’t any of the decks.

“Why are we here?” Akko asked. Then she paused. For a second, something crossed her mind. Some kind of… joke. But she couldn’t remember it, so she let it go.

“I thought you’d like to see Diana,” Jasminka mentioned. Her ever kind smile warmed Akko’s heart. She had stopped in her way towards getting food to let Akko speak with Diana? She was way too good.

“If you want to go ahead, go,” Akko said. She was starving, but Jasminka was right, this would be a good chance at speaking with Diana, assuming she was awake. She had been not long ago. Akko wasn’t sure how long the blonde could remain awake, but hopefully it was enough. Jasminka stood there and, with a nod, she got back into the elevator. “We’ll meet at the Rod later,” Akko said as the elevator closed. Jasminka waved goodbye.

Akko took a deep breath. The prospect of seeing Diana overpowered the thing she had just seen, taking away the awkwardness and replacing it with… other kind of awkwardness. A nicer one, probably.

She walked through the metallic corridors of the Dragon and towards the infirmary. Why did all corridors look the same? They could add some decorations, or something. Maybe some visual cues to tell passengers in which floor they were or something. Maybe it was to discourage exploration or something like that.

The infirmary, of course, wasn’t far from the elevators, even if it had its own private one. Akko knocked on the door, waiting with a held breath, hoping Diana would answer. When she heard a ‘come in’ she sighed in relief.

“Hello,” Akko said cheerfully as she stepped into the room. Diana, for a second, put on a neutral face. However, she soon let loose and smiled.

Akko stepped closer to the bed. Such a cramped room. Akko would die in a place like this. “Hello Akko, how was your practice?” Diana asked.

“I’ve been doing great! I think,” Akko hesitated a little. “I mean, I don’t win all of my simulations, but I think I just developed a good method to keep better tabs on what’s going on,” she explained. Diana’s expression faltered a little. “Oh, but don’t worry! It’s not something crazy! And Ursula agreed to it too!” She quickly clarified.

Diana smiled again, looking relieved. “I see,” she said, nodding. She looked so weak, in bed like that. Her big cut would definitely leave a scar, though it shouldn’t be too noticeable, since it had essentially been a clean cut. It would be just a line. She was wearing just her patient wear. It looked really light. Well, it was. But, somehow, Akko thought it suit her. At least, the color did. It was a light blue that went well with her eyes. “You’re kind of red. Are you feeling well?” She asked, looking up. Akko wondered if her blue eyes perceived things differently from hers. They probably did.

“Oh, yeah,” she was still blushing? “Must be because of those two…” Akko mumbled. Diana raised an eyebrow. Akko wasn’t sure if she should answer, but she figured the pilots wouldn’t appreciate it. “Oh, it’s nothing, I just saw a couple making out on the hangar,” she said. That wasn’t too explicit.

Diana looked a little shocked. “In the hangar?” She shook her head. “Some people get off in the most bizarre of ways…”

Akko laughed, somewhat awkwardly. In truth, she wasn’t sure what was going on, but she’d rather stop thinking about it. Once and for all. Please, brain.

“And how about you?” Akko asked, tapping her foot. It was kind of uncomfortable, standing like this. “Feeling better?”

Diana nodded. “My dose of drugs has gone down, I think. I don’t feel so tired all day, though I suppose my leg seems to be palpitating more often than not, now,” she explained.

Akko looked at the leg, cringing a little at the memory of Diana in the middle of the fire. “I’m glad you’re getting better, though.”

“Yes, and I’ve been told I will be allowed to take some walks outside the infirmary starting tomorrow,” Diana said. Akko smiled at that. “It’ll be nice to get some fresh air,” Diana said. Of course, that was an expression. The ventilation system of the Dragon allowed fresh air everywhere.

“That’s great! If you need any help with it, ask away!” Akko said with excitement. Knowing that Diana would be up on her foot – not feet, because she would only be using one – in such a short time was wonderful.

Diana cocked her head. “Of course. Barbara will probably be there to accompany me,” she said. Akko hesitated for a second. Of course, Barbara would be the one to help Diana around.

“And while you walk,” Akko said, “I’ll make sure to get way better with my flying!”

“I look forward to your next race,” Diana said. Then she paused. “But please, don’t feel pressured. Just do your best, ok?”

Akko cocked her head. Was Diana telling her it didn’t matter if she won? Well, she was probably just telling her that because she didn’t want Akko to be too nervous. Still, Akko couldn’t feel like she was being looked down on. Of course, that was just her perception. She already knew Diana probably meant nothing by that… “Of course,” she said with a smile.

And, even if Diana was looking down on her, it was probably not on purpose anyways. After all, they were in completely different leagues in terms of ability. Akko had no right to get upset over…

“You look uncomfortable,” Diana said. Akko had been fidgety, cramped up as she was. “Want to sit down?” Diana patted softly the bed.

Akko sighed in relief and didn’t hesitate to let herself drop. Diana cringed a little at the sudden movement. “Did I hurt you?” Akko asked, raising her hands as if to catch something that wasn’t falling. Diana shook her head, showing she was ok. “Sorry, it’s just a little frustrating to stand like that,” she explained.

Diana chuckled. “You looked like you were about to burst,” she said. Akko thought she was cute. Diana smiling wasn’t something she got to see usually, and she chuckling something she got to see even less. Her hair, better than the day she had been brought in, but still not perfect, still fit her wonderfully.

While she looked at Diana, something suddenly sprang to mind. “Hey, if you can walk, then maybe we can go do what we did back on Sídhe and Machina when we’re on Trashcan!” She said.

Diana took a few seconds to think about it, until she understood what Akko meant. “Oh, you mean… I’m not sure,” she said with a sad smile. “I don’t think I’ll be able to ride the Shiny Rod, you see,” she explained.

Akko pouted, unhappy with the answer. “I can carry you, no problem,” she flexed her muscles. They weren’t particularly toned but it wasn’t really to show them. Diana shook her head slowly, finding what Akko had said funny.

“And, how did it go in Pan?”

“We didn’t do it,” Akko said. “We were worried about you, and even then, we’re not going to do it unless every one of us is present, got it?” She looked at Diana with determination.

Diana seemed bewildered. “Ok?”

Akko nodded with energy. “So when you get better we’ll all go and have a nice time. Maybe we should bring Jasminka too, since she’s technically part of the team now too,” Akko said, thinking about how hard Jasminka was working too.

For a second, it looked like Diana would oppose to the idea, with her face becoming extremely unexpressive, but she quickly regained her smile and nodded. “Yes, of course. Though… I’m not sure we’ll all fit.”

Akko opened her mouth, but she had nothing to say. Diana was right. They barely fit inside… “Maybe…” She thought for a while. “Maybe I can make the turret of the Rod bigger to allow us in or something.”

Diana seemed to find the idea amusing. “How much do you think the Shiny Rod can transform?” Diana asked. “Have you tried testing its limits?”

Akko shook her head, but stopped. “Well, I did learn that I can teleport at apparently any point on the universe,” she recalled. Diana raised an eyebrow. “When I was distressed after the race I teleported back to Earth,” she explained.

Diana’s smile widened. “My, how amazing!” She exclaimed. Akko could see, through her eyes, the gears of her mind working. “Akko, this teleporting technology… It can be what we need for finally taking the final step on space exploration!” She said. “With such technology, even exploring Darkworld wouldn’t be impossible!” Akko cocked her head. She was aware of the troubles to explore the harsh Darkworld, but she was having a little trouble making the leap to see how being able to get there with the Shiny Rod would help anyone. “It will be incredible! Maybe scientists and engineers can also find out what is the Rod’s source of energy and-”

Akko’s eyes widened. “Wait, scientists and engineers?”

Diana looked up, as if taken out of a daze. “Oh,” her smile dropped. “Right. I guess you aren’t particularly inclined to giving up the Shiny Rod,” she said.

Akko nodded, feeling a little defensive. “Not until I find Chariot and ask her. It’s her ship, after all,” Akko said. “But she obviously didn’t want it to get investigated, so I will respect her wishes.”

Diana pressed her lips. She was obviously troubled by Akko’s mindset. Akko could see where Diana was coming from, human advancement was something to get excited about. But… “If Chariot didn’t let others touch the Shiny Rod, it must have been for a reason.”

Diana sighed. “You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “I guess I got a little too excited,” she said. Her expression slowly fell back to her neutral one.

“Don’t feel bad,” Akko instantly said. “I will find Chariot and I’m sure she’ll give me permission,” Akko reassured. She didn’t want Diana to use her neutral face again. Not with her, at least, now that she seemed to have opened up somewhat.

“It’s fine,” Diana said. “It’s your ship. You’ll probably need it to become the greatest Witch out there, after all. Letting others dismantle it wouldn’t be too smart, now would it?” She smiled again, though this smile seemed faked. Akko wasn’t sure of what to do. Diana was an inherently scientific person, while Akko was more about what felt right and didn’t. Diana was surely having a hard time understanding Akko’s reasoning, but there wasn’t much Akko could do about that.

There was some awkward silence for a while. Akko wasn’t sure on how to carry out the conversation, but Diana didn’t look angry or ask her to leave or acted like she was sleepy or anything, so Akko assumed she wasn’t mad. “Uhm,” Akko said, trying to break the silence. “Would you like me to bring you something to eat or something?”

Diana gave Akko a warm smile, but shook her head. “I shouldn’t eat anything outside of what they bring me and some fruit,” she pointed at the basket of fruits that laid in the little nightstand next to her. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Akko frowned. “Why not? It must be horrible…” Akko was reminded of the life of pure potatoes back at Luna Nova. Please never again.

“It’s because of the MMU,” she pointed at the machine she was connected to. “If I eat something that disrupts me too much, it could affect the effectiveness of the Magic entering my body, maybe even make it go crazy. I need to take things slowly.”

“So… no cheeseburgers, I assume,” Akko said. Diana gave her a deadpan look. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Speaking of food, do you want anything,” she offered Akko a fruit. Akko looked at the basket, thought for a while, and then picked up an apple. “Should I ask for a kni-” as Diana spoke, Akko bit into the apple without hesitation. Diana looked at Akko as if she had just killed a baby or something.

“What?” Akko said mid-bite.

“I… You didn’t even peel it,” Diana said, looking distressed.

“Uhm… Yeah? I always eat them like this,” Akko said. “This is a good apple, juicy and crunchy. You should try one.”