“Miss Baron, or whatever you’ve chosen to go by this week, I asked you a very simple question. If it’s not something you can answer, perhaps this class isn’t for you after all. There are simpler courses.” The words coming from the tall, very thin woman with graying hair and a set of blue-tinted glasses were already bad enough, but the fact that she said them with such clear disdain was just… so much worse. She didn’t want me here, and made no attempt to hide that.
“I…” The word, that single word, was all that came. Not because I didn’t know the answer. I did. It was right there in my mind. It was right on the tip of my tongue. But the moment I heard my own voice say that single word, that single letter, I second-guessed myself. Or, well, by that point it was more like eighteenth-guessing myself. Everyone, the whole class, was looking at me. I sat in the back of the class for a reason. But now everyone else had turned around. All thirty-seven of my classmates were staring at me expectantly. I knew the answer. I knew it. But every time part of my brain told the other part to say it, that part kept asking what would happen if I was wrong.
With a derisive snort, the teacher, Mrs. Perrmichel (Purr-Mickle) told me to pay more attention to the lesson and less to my nails next time, before turning her attention to another student, Cody. She talked him through the answer, and I was fairly certain I was imagining at least… like, fifty-six percent of the snickers I heard directed my way, and the lingering stares. What I didn’t imagine was the way that Perrmichel squinted at me before shaking her head as she wrote something in her notebook.
I should’ve told her off. I should’ve walked out. I should’ve said something to someone. Or just answered the question. Why didn’t I answer it? Why didn’t I just say the words? I knew the right answer. It was the same thing Cody had said with a little help. I knew it. I could’ve said it. Crap.
Slumping a bit in my seat, sliding down to make myself maybe two point one percent closer to being invisible, I flinched at the sight of my own fingernails. I’d been so proud of them before, painted pink with glittery silver turtle images. Now, I just thought they looked stupid. I tugged the long sleeves of my hoody (of course it was turtle themed to go with my nails, to the point of having a visible shell on the back) down over them and just listened. Perrmichel had had her moment with me. She made her dislike clear for this period, maybe she’d leave me alone now.
“Cadence.” The whispered voice saying my name came from the desk just to the right, where my best friend, Madison, sat. We almost couldn’t have been greater opposites, with her long blonde hair to my short dark locks, or her white skin to my mixed race Asian and Black heritage. And, well, up until a year ago there had been one other major outward, physical difference.
Without turning to look that way, because God knew Perrmichel would be watching for that, I whispered back, “I’m okay, don’t worry about it.” To make her stop focusing on me, I made a show of turning my book to the right page and running my sleeve-covered finger along the words as one of the other students read them aloud at the teacher’s direction. As an added bonus, doing that meant I didn’t have to pay any attention to the lingering, judging, criticizing stares from my classmates.
Eventually, mercifully, class ended. Madison and I were the first ones out the door. Mostly because no one ever stood in Madison Peyer’s way. Either because they were busy staring at her, or they were afraid of her. Even at sixteen, she was six feet tall and built like a mythical Amazon. She was varsity in more sports than I could name. But then, I could only name like three. Really, if we hadn’t been best friends since we could talk, I totally would’ve crushed on her. Which just would’ve made me part of like seventy-two percent of the school.
In the hall, the two of us moved to the shelter of an alcove with a couple vending machines so we could be out of the way as everyone else beelined for their lockers. School was over, so the energy was high. So was the noise level. Madison and I went to a far corner out of the way to shout a conversation at each other, since neither of us felt like pushing our way to our lockers.
That was how I spent the next ten minutes. And it would’ve been how I spent even more, if she hadn’t randomly asked if I’d gotten the text she sent earlier. As soon as I dug my phone out of my hoody pocket to check, I saw two things. First, I did get the one from her, and yes it was a very cute turtle picture. But then, all turtles were cute. More importantly, I saw the other text, the very important one that came a bit before class had let out, from a person who was going to be very upset that it was taking me this long to respond.
Cursing out loud, I apologized to Madison and told her what was going on. She waved me off, as I bolted from the alcove and dove right into that crowd. No more waiting around, I had to go.
“Hey, watch it, freak!”
“Dude, what the fuck!?”
“Run into me again and I swear you’re not gonna go home with all your fingers, bitch!”
The steady, quick thwap, thwap, thwap of my old and barely serviceable sneakers against the floor as I raced through the crowded and cramped school corridor, ducking and weaving around a stubborn assortment of other students, drowned out a fair amount of their complaints too. My fellow classmates really didn’t seem to understand (or care, probably) how important it was that I get where I was going right now.
Well, they might really care if I was actually allowed to tell them the truth. But that would be violating the oath. There was no way I’d ever do that. Not when it came to Rachel. In the end, it wouldn’t be worth breaking her trust. Nothing was worth that. I’d sooner stand on the roof of the main school building, right in front of the courtyard during lunch, and scream about how much of a crush I’d had on both of the Kagen twins (Jason and Melody) since we were all in fifth grade.
And speaking of people I’d had a crush on, a tall, dark-haired man in loose-fitting jeans and dark blue polo stood in the doorway of his classroom and called after me. “Hey, Cadence, you don’t need me to tell you the rules about running in the halls again, do you!?” There was just enough of a reprimand in his voice to make the intention clear without actually threatening detention, yet.
My mumbled apology probably wasn’t even audible over the crowd, but I did slow down slightly. Which was enough to mollify him. I wasn’t technically sprinting anymore, just doing what probably amounted to a record-setting fast walk. Still, I had to weave my way through the crowds, which meant it wasn’t long before there were too many other students in the way for my English teacher to actually see what I was doing. So, I started to run again. Sure, he was a cool teacher, and seeing him lean against his desk with a book in one hand while he read to us still tended to make my heart pound a bit faster. But I had to move.
The halls were so busy because school had just let out for the day. But I wasn’t heading for the exit. This wasn’t about getting to the bus on time. Not in this case. The bus would just have to leave without me. Instead, I was running to a classroom. Actually, maybe that was why it was so hard to get past everyone. They were heading for the exits and I was going the opposite way. The art room was basically in the basement of the school, in a forgotten corner near the janitor’s office and just a few feet away from a door labeled, ‘Boiler - No Admittance Students.’ It was supposed to say No Admittance For Students, but that word had been painted over with a penis.
I ignored the penis, and the rest of the door, going right past it on my way into the art room. As soon as I stepped inside, the distractingly enticing scent of a cheeseburger greeted me. And so did a familiar voice. “Hey, Cadence!” The art teacher, an older, gray-haired and rather pale woman named Mrs. Ammers, waved from her desk on the other side of the room. A desk that was just plain covered in a mix of art supplies and fast food wrappers. Mrs. Ammers didn’t eat healthy, that was for sure. And she didn’t talk like an old person either. She ate a lot of burgers and pizza, and said things like, ‘dude’ and ‘radical’ despite being something like seventy years old. Not that anyone would be able to guess what her dietary habits were based on her rail-thin figure.
“Hey, Mrs. Ammers, bye Mrs. Ammers!” I didn’t stop to chat. But then, she didn’t expect me to. She knew better. As I ran through the classroom, past several tables full of half-finished art projects and scattered supplies, the old woman reached under her desk to press a button there. The moment she did, a piece of wall next to a cute (but not as cute as a turtle would’ve been) motivational cat poster slid smoothly out of the way just in time for me to pass right through the now-open space instead of face-planting.
Only then did I come to a stop. Mostly because there was nowhere else to go. I was in a small, confined space. It was an elevator, with video screens on all four walls that were, in that moment, showing a view of me from all sides. I stood about five feet, seven inches tall, with messy brown hair that was cut short and spiked up. I had black tights under a pink skirt, ancient tennis shoes that should’ve been replaced months ago, and that turtle-themed hoody. Under the hoody, if I ever took it off, was a black tank top with a bright pink sparkle pattern across it. What skin was visible was dark enough to reveal my mixed-race heritage, neither of which was white. Asian by way of South Korea, and Black by way of Chicago. I had a slightly lighter complexion than my very dark-skinned dad, courtesy of my mother, along with almond eyes and a rounder face. Not that I knew her from anything more than pictures and stories. The woman herself was long gone, thanks to the Intruders.
I was given a really good look at myself as the security system gave me a thorough scan to make sure I was actually supposed to be there. Me, Cadence Baron, riding a secret elevator in the basement of the school on my way to… well, a pretty cool place. Definitely the coolest place I’d ever heard of being in a school in my sixteen years on this planet.
Not that I’d actually spent every second of those sixteen years on this particular planet, but still.
Once the system was satisfied that I wasn’t an Intruder (and I swore it took its sweet time doing so just because it didn’t like me), there was a chime and the elevator started to descend with a pleasant whooshing sound. It only took a few seconds then before the thing came to a stop and the doors opened. Which meant the video wall in front of me slid aside, rather than the wall behind me where I’d entered upstairs. And yes, it was a little disconcerting to watch the live video feed image of myself sliding out of the way like that to reveal a white, tube-shaped hall.
The door had barely slid open enough for me to slip through before I was lunging that way.
Running as fast as I could, I bypassed the doors to the right leading into the equipment and training rooms, and went right to the heavy vault-type door at the end. There, I danced anxiously back and forth while the system scanned me again, as though it hadn’t literally just done that.
Finally, there was another chime, and the vault door rumbled, sounding like it was annoyed about needing to wake up and move, as it rolled out of the way. And there it was. The sounds reached me first. Sounds of heavy machinery, engines revving, people shouting, tools clattering, and so much more. It was loud, it was chaotic, it was absolutely ridiculous. And it was amazing.
Quickly, I stepped forward into that noisy room, and tried to ignore the tingle that passed through me in the process. It was just the slightly disorienting feeling of crossing thousands of miles in a single step. There was basically a permanent portal there, linking the secret underground subbasement tunnel beneath Crystal River High School in Chicago, to the hangar bay of Arbalest, an actual cloaked space station that sat about midway between Earth and the moon.
“Cadence, duck!” The warning came in time. Unfortunately, my reaction didn’t. I started to turn instead of following the very useful advice, and was just able to make out the huge piece of metal flying right at my face as it grew to take up my entire line of sight. I saw nothing but that giant chunk of metal that was about to make me have something else in common with my dead mother.
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And just like that, as I yelped in terror and recoiled, anticipating… well, a whole lot of nothing since I didn’t actually believe in any sort of afterlife, the metal stopped. Or rather, it was caught. My eyes opened to find another girl standing right next to me. She was a few inches taller than me, with the darker skin of someone who wasn’t mixed, and a curly black hair that fell to her shoulders. The blue and white training jumpsuit she wore practically seemed to glow with power and authority, while her raised hand casually held the six hundred pound, pill-shaped piece of metal that had accidentally gone flying off one of the vehicles a few guys were working on. A six hundred pound, pill-shaped piece of metal that would have turned my entire body into paste if she hadn’t jumped fifty feet in one lunge after realizing her shouted warning wouldn’t work, just in time to casually catch the thing one-handed. She held it up, looking my way with a grunt. “Are you okay?”
A tiny, black and pink mouse perched on her shoulder added his own squeaking query.
“Uhh…” Trying not to think about how close I’d come to dying. Or how close I’d come to needing a change of pants, I gave a tiny nod. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. “Uh huh. Thanks, Rachel. You too, Derecho.” My half-sister, Rachel. Product of my father and his first wife, before he cheated on her with my mom. Now both our mothers were out of the picture, hers leaving when she found out about the cheating thing, and mine… leaving in a different way. But Rachel had always treated me like a full sister. Well, since I realized I was a sister rather than a brother, anyway.
That was two years ago, and Rachel had referred to me as a girl ever since I told her. She was the first one I told, and she was the one who took me to my evaluation appointments for the next year so they could make sure it wasn’t just a phase. She also forced our dad to wake up out of his drunken stupor long enough to sign permission forms, or forged them herself when he couldn’t be roused. Then she drove me to the Self Center for my transition. Ten years earlier, I would’ve had to go through multiple incredibly invasive surgeries with long recovery times. Actually, I would’ve had to wait until I was eighteen to go through the surgeries. But at the Self Center, they just put me to sleep for eight hours and shifted my genetics around to make it just like I had been as much a girl physically from birth as I had been mentally. I went to sleep in the wrong body and woke up in the right one. All thanks to Self Technologies.
The point was, my big sister looked out for me, even when I didn’t deserve it. And when they asked her who she wanted to be her Squire, mine was the first and only name she’d given them.
Rachel Baron, the perfect high school athlete, basketball and soccer star (really, she had more in common with Madison than me), prom queen, and soon to be going straight into one of the best colleges in the city on a scholarship as soon as she graduated in a few months. Of course she had become a superhero. I mean, obviously. She practically was one even before being Fate-Fallen. She was sure as hell my superhero. She helped me become the person outside that I had been inside. For the past year, ever since going through that Self Center program, I’d been able to live comfortably, no longer a stranger in my own skin. And for the past six months, I’d done everything I could to pay my sister back for all her help with that, by trying to be the very best squire she could possibly ask for. It didn’t really work, judging by all the things I saw the other Squires managing to do. Some of them were practically Freestylers themselves. I could never really live up to that. But I tried, and so far I hadn’t quite screwed up badly enough for grouchy old Jasper Rinweld to go through the effort of convincing Rachel to pick a better Squire. He might even have started to not actively hate the sound of my voice.
Once she was sure I was okay, Rachel carried the heavy piece of metal back over to a group of horrified, incredibly apologetic mechanics. Which gave me a chance to look around this place a bit more and just take everything in yet again. The hangar was ginormous, stretching about six hundred feet across from one end to the other, and four hundred feet going the other way. The ceiling was about fifty feet up. A high control room with a bunch of windows overlooked the hangar on one side of the place, near a few doors leading to other parts of the station. On the opposite side from that were the main hangar doors leading out into open space. Right now they were closed. When ships needed to launch, there would be a shield keeping the atmosphere in.
About half of the hangar was full of a few dozen Pebbles. That’s what everyone called the basic starfighters that anyone with enough training could fly. They looked like, well, small, smooth stones. Each was about twenty feet across and twelve feet tall, with visible holes in the front where the cannon emplacements were. Pebbles started out gray, but as soon as one was assigned to a pilot, that person tended to have them painted to match their own style.
Beyond the Pebbles, there were a few Vans (rescue shuttles that looked like seventy foot long tubes with wings), and a single gunboat that basically resembled a one hundred foot long, thirty foot wide metal crocodile. The gunboats were known as Gargoyles, and were armed to the teeth. This particular one was named Pink Floyd. I was pretty sure all of them were named after bands.
And then was the open space at the front right corner of the hangar, near the exit doors. That was where the Kites set up and took off from, when they were in their starfighter mode. It was empty now, but there was enough space there for all six of them. All six of the ones assigned to this station, anyway. Everything here, everyone here existed to serve as support for those six ships and their pilots. Pilots like Rachel. Freestylers like Rachel.
It didn’t matter how many times I saw it, the Arbalest’s hangar bay always left me in awe. Well, all of the Arbalest, inside and out, let me in awe. But the hangar bay felt special. This was where the Kites launched. This was where the magic started.
Speaking of magic, old Rinweld seemed to appear out of nowhere while I was looking around. He was a tall guy, reaching almost seven feet and rather heavyset. Which made the fact that he could move around that stealthily just plain unfair. The guy was like a really sneaky Abrams tank. His pale face was heavily-lined, but he had a full head of bushy black hair that everyone I asked swore wasn’t artificially colored or anything. As usual, he wore a white lab coat over a gray Army shirt, black jeans, and combat boots. The pockets of the lab coat had like fifty different-colored pens.
“Miss Cadence!” His voice was loud, even over the sound of dozens of mechanics working through the hangar. “First, I’m glad to see you were unharmed by that accident just now. But second, you are late. The call for launch went out five minutes before the end of your final class of the day. Assuming your phone was on your person, as it should always be, you should have received the message in plenty of time to know that you were to leave the classroom the moment the bell rang. It requires precisely three minutes at a steady walk to proceed from that room to the, ahem, elevator. Add another two minutes to reach this hangar, and you are… seven minutes later than you should have been. Lives depend on you treating this seriously. Yours and your sister’s included. To say nothing of her squadron, and the innocent people they… you all protect.”
This was worse than being singled out in class. I felt a cringe of shame come as I struggled to apologize. But again, the words wouldn’t come. God, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just say the words? Just say I was sorry, apologize for missing the text, promise to do better. Just like with Mrs. Perrmichel, the words wouldn’t come, even though I knew what I wanted to say.
“Hey, don’t be too hard on her, Rin.” The new (but familiar) voice came from a very tan, very attractive red-headed girl about the same age as Rachel. Her hair was fashioned in a simple braid, and she was literally dressed in a cheerleader outfit, and she had a green and white rabbit hopping along beside her. “It’s just a scouting mission, after all.”
“That is true, Alicia. Nonetheless,” Rinweld insisted, “she did not know that at the time. She should treat every summons as a matter of life or death. And keep her phone on her.”
Alicia was joined by her own Squire, a skinny, kinda emo-looking guy with shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes a lot. He wore baggy jeans with holes in them, a chain for a belt, shoes that were falling apart even more than mine were, a Black Sabbath teeshirt, and a beanie. His name was Slater, and he gave me a quick wink before speaking up. “Hey, if we didn’t already know Cadence was one of a kind, let’s just take a moment to process the fact that you’re scolding a teenage girl for not being glued to her phone.”
While Alicia and Rachel snickered, Rinweld coughed. “Well, ah, quite. Still, this mission is important. And Cadence has managed to miss the briefing for it, so--”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Rachel cut in. “We better not lose any more time. Especially since it’s just us.”
“What about the others?” I asked despite myself, glancing around for some clue about where the other eight members of Dust Squadron (Four Freestylers and their Squires) were.
“They’re on a Jaunt,” Alicia informed me. “So it’s just the four of us today. Don’t worry, we can handle it. Ready, Rach?”
My sister gave a short nod. “Better believe it.”
Together, both of them intoned, “Let’s Take A Trip.” Those weren’t just normal words. They were the codephrase to start what came next.
The first thing that happened, as soon as Rachel and Alicia said those words, was that their arms started to glow. Rachel’s pink-black and Alicia’s green-white. They each brought both glowing arms up and slammed them together in front of themselves, in a sort of ‘put up your dukes’ motion. Their fists blocked the view of their faces, just as the colorful glow got even brighter. Right when it was almost too bright to look at, they brought their arms down, fists together and elbows out to either side. Both of their suits were already mostly-formed by then, and the two finished the transformation by lowering their arms, fists unclenching into open hands as they extended them out to the sides.
It was done. They both changed. They weren’t in civilian mode anymore. They were Freestylers.
Every Freestyler had a different… uh, style. Kinda went with the name. But they were always colorful and stood out in a crowd. No one would ever mistake one of them for a normal person when they were suited up. Alicia’s ‘Styler suit consisted of dark green tights with white boots and a matching skirt. The top half was made up of a long-sleeved shirt that looked like it was made out of very fine, intricate white chainmail that had faintly glowing green lines spread randomly through it. Those lines were brighter as they went down the arms to where the green metallic gloves were. Her head and face were covered by a full helmet with the same sort of color scheme. The base of it was green, with a narrow white visor.
Then there was Rachel. Where Alicia was green and white, she was black and pink. The base of her suit was the black metal armor. Which looked sort of like a futuristic medieval knight style, conflicting as that was. It was like if you took a knight and slimmed the armor down a bit so it was almost, but not quite, form-fitting. Over that, she wore a long duster coat that was black on the outside, with pink accent lines running through it, and matching pink lining on the inside. Her helmet was like a knight’s as well, contrasting Alicia’s more motorcycle-like version. There were narrow slits to see out of, but those were sealed by what looked like faintly glowing pink glass so it was impossible to see her actual eyes.
As soon as they had both transformed, Alicia and Rachel each pointed at Slater and me, respectively. I felt a portion of my sister’s power wash over me. It changed me too. When the light faded, I was wearing a full-covering black jumpsuit, boots, and gloves with a simple helmet that had its own pink visor. There were pink lines over the boots and gloves too. It wasn’t fancy, but it kept my identity secret. Slater had basically the same suit, but mostly green with white lining and visor.
And there we were. Two ‘Stylers and their Squires.
The mechanics scattered through the hangar were all watching through that. I guess no matter how many times you saw this, it never got old. It sure hadn’t for me, but then, I was experiencing it.
“Well,” Rachel started in a voice that was slightly electronically distorted to protect her identity, “let’s hit the sky, navigator.”
So, we moved toward that open space in the hangar bay. At the same time, the mouse that had been on Rachel’s shoulder and the bunny that had been by Alicia’s feet both went bounding forward ahead of us. They transformed into a couple dogs, then into a cheetah and a leopard, racing into the open area. Once they were there, both separated to give themselves space. And then… well, then they got a hell of a lot bigger. They weren’t just any magical transforming animals. They were Kites, magical transforming animals who could also become mecha.
And just like that, the big open space was a little smaller, as those two animals became a couple of big, roughly thirty-five to forty foot long starfighters. Each very different from the other, but both absolutely amazing.
As we got closer to them, the main doors began to slide open, revealing Earth below. Or at least… what was left of it. The entire southern hemisphere, water and land alike, was covered in what looked like bright red crystal. Most of South America, the bottom third of Africa, all of Australia and New Zealand, were completely gone. The land and everyone who was still there at the time, who hadn’t managed to evacuate, were taken. They’d been replaced by that red crystal, the Eighty-Seven’s preferred habitat. It was a sign of what the entire planet would look like if they had their way.
But that was why people like Rachel and Alicia were here. It was why the Freestylers were given their power, to stop the Eighty-Sevens.
And there was no one I trusted more than my sister to save the world.
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