Chapter Twenty-Five

“Just like that?” Amber asked.

Morgan shrugged both shoulders then dabbed at her lips. “It’s only... four and a bit? Not even. If we send in the request now I’m sure they’d move to accommodate. It’s once everything is set up in a week or so that there are schedules and the like.”

Amber hummed to herself and speared another potato with her fork. “Well, why not? It sounds kind of fun.”

Morgan pulled out her phone and set it between her tray and Amber’s. The four members of Team Svalinn were around a table in the cafeteria. I think I’m spending nearly as many waking hours here as in our dorm. The room wasn’t empty, but other than their team there weren’t that many others.

Jade was polishing off her plate across from Amber, and Cassy was frowning at her meal while picking away at it. Morgan cleared her throat and tapped two fingers onto the table next to her phone. “Just got a text back,” she said.

“That was fast,” Jade commented.

“I suppose so,” Morgan said. “This is from a... Lieutenant Garnt, with the Airforce. They’re saying that there’s a training flight from the flight club heading out at five this afternoon.”

“So, we wouldn’t be the only ones to join,” Amber surmised. “That’s not bad. Do you know which teams are there?”

Morgan shook her head. “It doesn’t say. Not even a number of people who joined. I think they’ll be posting more about it later in the week, if this year is anything like that last.”

“So wait,” Cassy said. She wiggled her fork in Morgan’s direction. “You repeated the year, right?”

“I did,” Morgan admitted.

“Huh, cool. I’m not the only one that’s shit at doing homework and stuff,” Cassy said. She chewed on one last bite from her salad and set her fork to the side. “Should we get going?”

Amber eyed Morgan to make sure she wasn’t hurt by the comment, but the older girl seemed unphased by Cassy’s... Cassy-ness. “Yeah, sure. You ready too, Jade?”

“I suppose so,” Jade said.

Amber led her team out, but stalled once she was outside. “So, where are we going anyway? I’m assuming somewhere with planes and such but, uh.”

“I can show you,” Morgan said. “In the second half of the year, some of our Agarthan Studies classes have things with the military. How to fight certain monsters and the like. And our Combat classes have a few lessons on air-drops.”

“Air drops?” Cassy asked.

“Launching yourself from a helicopter to reach a target faster,” Morgan explained.

“Awesome,” Cassy cheered.

Jade wore a complicated expression at that. “Is this a good time to mention that I’m not too fond of heights?”

“You seemed alright with us joining a Flight Club,” Amber said.

“I’m not afraid of heights. I’m just, you know, not keen on falling from them,” Jade replied. “I know we’re all magical girls. We can probably land like cats, and even a crash probably wouldn’t be that bad. I just, well, I’d rather not.”

“Are you okay with the club idea then?” Amber asked. “We could find something else everyone agrees on.” Cassy didn’t seem too happy with that idea, but Amber figured she could placate the flier later.

Jade sighed. “No. I want this. Spending time with the team, as well as learning to overcome a rather childish fear. Two birds with one stone and all that.”

“I don’t think being afraid of falling to your death is childish,” Amber said.

“It isn’t,’ Morgan agreed. “But it is something that’s better overcome sooner than later. I suppose I ought to applaud your bravery, Jade.”

“Um, thanks?” Jade said.

Morgan led them next to the bridge in the middle of the academy, then down a set of stairs to the passage splitting the school in half.

“What’s up with this place? These walls, I mean,” Cassy asked as she pointed around.

“They’re meant to funnel in enemies so that they can be struck from all sides,” Morgan said. “The multiple exits means that a rallying force can swing around the outer walls and hit an adversary from any direction too.”

“Military nerd, aren’t you?” Cassy asked.

Morgan didn’t deign to answer.

“I think it’s cool,” Amber said. “Knowing how all of this works, I mean.”

Cassy laughed and skipped ahead a bit before hopping onto her broom. “Sure, sure,” she said as she slumped down. She almost looked tired. Post-meal nap-time? Although she didn’t eat much again.

“Thank you, Amber, I appreciate it,” Morgan said.

She shared a quick, very small smile with Amber before she continued on her way, head held high.

Cassy chuckled and Amber worked to ignore her.

They left from one of the small doors next to the main gate at the end of the passage, the same one that Amber had first used to arrive at the academy. “It almost feels weird to be outside again,” Amber said as she looked around at the open fields and the rocky outcrop that marked the space where the cliffs overlooking Norumbega began.

“We’ve been outside a fair bit, haven’t we?” Jade asked.

“I mean, outside of the walls,” Amber said. “It’s like... uh, are you guys from rural places?”

“I’m from New York,” Cassy said. “Like, the actual city part of the state.”

“And I’m from Boston,” Jade said.

“Really? You don’t have the accent,” Cassy said.

Jade smiled. “I know. You, on the other hand, do.”

Cassy frowned. “What? Nah, I speak normal.”

“I don’t think you’ve said a normal thing in your entire life,” Morgan said.

Amber held back a giggle at that. “I’m from this little town called Hollowpoint. Really small. Lots of fields and forests all around. We had to drive an hour to get anywhere important.”

“We had to drive an hour to get down the block,” Cassy said. She sidled up to Morgan. “What about you, miss up-tight? Where’re you from?”

“Washington,” Morgan said. “The capital, not one of the little towns called Washington around there.”

“Yeah, that parses,” Cassey said.

One of Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “Was that an insult or just a comment?”

“Bit of A, a bit of B.”

“Cassy,” Amber said. “Please.”

Cassy raised her hands before her in surrender. “I’m just teasing.”

Morgan pointed off to the side, where a dozen buildings were laid out in neat rows. Not nice ones either, but simple pre-fabs. Some, especially those near the cleared strip running out on the other side of the base, were large and tall. Hangars, Amber guessed. The nearer buildings looked more like sheds and barracks and administrative buildings.

She noticed the fence around the entire compound for the first time as they came closer. It was opened, with a couple of little towers along its length where men and women in uniform were standing.

“That’s an eyesore,” Jade said.

“What’s that?” Morgan asked.

“The base. It’s all grey and flat. The Academy looks like it belongs. The stone is local, the buildings are, I guess aesthetic would be the right word. These buildings, the army ones, are all function over form.”

“I guess that’s normal,” Amber said. “The academy has been around for a while.”

“And shipping materials to build something nicer would be expensive,” Morgan added. “I don’t know if this base was ever meant to be permanent.”

As they crossed the gates, a couple of young men jogged over to them and saluted. Amber wasn’t entirely sure what to do, but Morgan just took out her phone, opened one of the apps on its main page, and turned it towards the soldier.

She fished out her own and found an ‘identification’ applet on the front. Opening it showed a sort of school ID, with her image next to it, and a lot of gibberish she didn’t understand next to her age and gender and height.

The guard checked their IDs, then indicated that they could wait in an open spot nearby.

Team Svalinn stopped a little ways into the base. It wasn’t the busiest place Amber had ever seen, but there was a lot of movement. Groups training off in a yard, lighter vehicles moving here and there and trucks being loaded and unloaded at a few of the warehouses.

“Do they do much here?” Amber asked. Don’t really have a point of reference to tell if this is a big base or not.

“It’s a full forward base,” Morgan said. “And it’s been one for long enough that the name is starting to wear thin.”

“Huh?” Cassy asked.

“I think that’s for us,” Morgan said as she nodded ahead.

An SUV rolled over towards the gate and turned ahead of them so that it was side-facing them. A young woman in a digital-camo uniform leapt out of the driver’s seat and moved over to them at a brisk pace. She stopped some meters away and fired off a quick salute. “Hello Team Svalinn. I’m Corporal Dean. If you want to follow me, I’ll be leading you to Lieutenant Garnt over by the runway.”

Amber looked to her team-mates, then followed the corporal into the SUV. It was a plain thing, stripped of all the bells and whistles that made a car comfortable, but it had seats for all of them, and even Cassy’s broom once she wedged it in.

“You know, you could dismiss that,” Morgan said as she squeezed into the back. It left Jade, the smallest of them, sitting in the passenger seat in the front while the rest were sardined in the back. We could have thought of that some more.

“This thing is awesome, I’m not letting it go,” Cassy said. “You don’t nag Jade about her scarf.”

“Her scarf never poked me in the ribs,” Morgan said.

Amber wondered when they would arrive. Being between the two was somewhat less than pleasant.

Jade turned around so that she was facing them, but mostly she was looking at Amber. “How long before they start making out?” she asked.

Huh? “You mean.” She pointed to both sides, and Jade nodded. The smaller girl was entirely ignoring the protests from the other two. “I don’t know. They don’t have the right kind of chemistry, I don’t think.”

“Really?” Jade asked. “I find that Cassy has this... brat vibe, and Morgan definitely has that mom style going for her.”

“Uh,” Amber said. “No comment?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” they both said in unison.

“I ship it,” Jade said, entirely too seriously.

Amber imagined that if the poor corporal had any illusions about the grace of magical girls, it shattered as Morgan and Cassy broke out into an argument about how they very much did not like each other.

The SUV slowed to a stop. They hadn’t driven more than a couple of miles from the edge of the base, to the other side where a few hangars were waiting with their doors opened and with aircraft waiting within.

Amber climbed out and thanked the corporal, then felt silly as the woman came out of the car and escorted them towards one hangar in particular, where a team of technicians in overalls were pulling a helicopter out with a little tractor.

They weren’t the only magical girls there, Amber discovered. There were two other teams, both some that Amber recognized.

“Amber!” Jess called out. She was hanging off of Oli’s back like some sort of limpet. “And the rest of your friends. What’s up! You coming to kill some monsters with us?”

Amber shook her head. There was team Glasir, the four girls standing to one side. And deeper in, just on the inside of the hangar proper, was another team of four girls. Amber only recognized Evelyn from the bunch, but the other three had to be her team-mates.

“Hey there,” Amber said. “Are you guys here for the Flight Club? Ah, should I introduce my team?”

Cecilia from Glasir grinned. “Sure! Pleased to meetch’a girls. We’re just about to take off to do a quick bombing run before it gets too late. Wanna join us?”

***