“Just what I needed.” Victoria sighed as she sat on her bed.

“What's wrong?” Lacie asked as she too sat. “Can I have your pickle?” The teen pushed the gherkin spear that was on her plate over toward the pixie.

“Tomorrow I have to see the school counselor.” She said morosely as she picked at the sandwich in front of her. “Mrs. Dorgon has been out to get me from before I got to high school. She was our counselor in elementary and moved up to middle school partway through my first year. She is an obnoxious busy body.” Victoria noted that the pixie was unable to respond with the large pickle in her mouth. “I don’t know I’ve never trusted the old bat.”

“Instincts are good to listen to,” Lacie said as she finally stopped eating long enough to talk.

“Well, that's for tomorrow. I need to know about these notifications.” The teen said as she put the picked over sandwich aside and got dressed for bed. She chose a comfortable t-shirt and pajama bottoms to put on after a shower.

"What about them?"

“I’m not getting any. I see the notification there but there are no notifications. I mean will we have to hack my brain or something to get the notifications going as they should?”

The small girl mused in thought. The started to pace, hands behind her back while her wings fluttered. Her short pale green dress flapping. “You could be suppressing them. Maybe?”

“Suppressing? Why? How?” the teen asked with a look of confusion on her face.

“It’s no secret that you are conflicted. You want to use your power but at the same time it scares you.” The teen nodded along with the pixie's reasoning.

“I guess, I can see that.” She bowed her head in thought. “It’s just I don’t know I’ve never wanted to have to kill anything.”

This time the pixie nodded. “And because you are of two minds the interface is locking uu or glitching.” The pixie turned to the young girl. “Look its hard, I’m sure the rest of your family out there they all grew up knowing this. But you really won’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean?” Victoria asked sharply.

“You’ve already been targeted by a Mazakeen. A queen bee has already spotted you and I keep getting the feeling something is prowling around you.” The Fairy sighed.

“But…”

“Let me finish.” She said as she interrupted the girl. “Magic is already filling you. For some of the monsters out there you are a tasty snack” She looked down. “I wish there had been another choice. But there wasn’t One way or another.” She said with regret in her voice. Then she beat her wings and started to fly off.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to get a look around outside while you take your shower.” Then she turned into a streak of light as she flew through the door, leaving a thoughtful and confused teenager to hash out her own feelings.

X X X

The teenager found herself soaking up the heat from the hot water as it cascaded over her head. She didn’t know what to think in some ways she wished that the water could wash away the past few days of her life and she could be who and what she was before that fateful birthday surprise. “Really it comes down to who I want to be.” She started to wash her hair. “Or maybe its who I always thought I was.”

The musings brought her mind full circle. “This isn’t Star Wars and I’m not Luke Skywalker and there for damned sure are not midichlorians in my blood.” She snorted at that. “So first I’m no hero. Second I have power, “ she said as she started rinsing the soap out of her hair. She continued to muse as she finished her wash and dried off, wrapping the towel about her. Looking in the large oval mirror she started to brush her teeth. Then stopped. “Well if I can’t talk to you about it, who can I talk to?”

Maybe it was her ID she heard in response. “No one.”

“I guess I don’t know what I want out of life. I had always wanted to be an architect. Build huge buildings.” She started to brush her teeth again.”

“There's nothing to stop you from that.” The mirrored self replied.

She stared into her own eyes. “But can I trust what I’ve been told?”

“No,” was the reply. “We can’t take everyone on their word. We know so little about what happened back then and what's happening now.”

“We need a secondary source for information and we don’t know where to go to get it.” She mused.

“Sure we do we can find a monster and question it.” Victoria could have sworn there was a wolfish smile on her doppelganger from the mirror.

“So the next intelligent monster we get and question?”

Her imaginary self nodded in reply. “Then we squeeze them for everything they have, maybe they will like to monologue but first we need you to get stronger so you won’t get killed before you find out whats going on.”

There came wrapping on the bathroom door. “Vic I need the restroom” Called out her brother. “And who are you talking to in there?”

“Just finishing.” She said as she rinsed her mouth out and gave herself a smile in the mirror. “Now we have to plan.”

X X X

Once more she sat in bed this time ready for sleep and a bit more settled in her own mind. She closed her eyes and tried to focus and meditate. She calmed her troubled spirit took deep breaths then opened herself up as she had learned in the meditation class she had taken. Opening her eyes she focused on the prompt and let her will extend. She was greeted by a flood of messages that began scrolling to fast for her eyes to perceive. Then after a few moments there was a flashing message that caught her eye.

You have had a reasoned and empathetic breakthrough;

Wisdom earned +1

Charisma earned +1

The young girl felt elated by the news but still felt as though what she had accomplished was relatively minor. “All in a days work right. Then she willed the log of messages back and started reading.

You use Detect Monster:

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Mossegada Amb Mosca Detected.

Abella Reina detected.

The next several messages dealt with the game of Dodge Ball:

You hit Mossegada Amb Mosca for 10 points of nonlethal damage.

Mossegada Amb Mosca is stunned and drops off of the host.

Other messages came in giving the details of her own exploits in the game.

You dodge Bludgeoning weapon.

You catch Bludgeoning weapon.

You receive +0.01 to Dexterity.

You Dodge Bludgeoning Weapon.

You receive +0.01 to dexterity.

Finally, she got to the actual battle and she saw that each of the other girl's actions had been accounted for. “The Mossegad Amb Mosca must be some kind of a control device or something.” She said as she recalled an article she read about insects using offspring to help control others. The implications were somewhat frightening each of the other girls that had had one might still be able to be controlled or worse yet a victim to the monster that had tried to claim her and Caroline. “Would it have forced me to become a cheerleader?” She said out loud with a bitter laugh.

Her eyes though rested on a flashing notification offering her a quest:

Save the cheerleaders;

Yes/No

She knew she was no hero. But she thought to herself can I be enough like peter parker to accept on immutable fact. With great power came greater responsibility? Was she a seventeen-year-old girl responsible enough to maybe save the lives to the cheer squad. She groaned as she massaged her head and thought about what to do. She shut off the light and lay back. And as she closed her eyes she thought. “Yes.” As she drifted off to sleep.