Alusion
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Chapter Sixty-Eight: Not Thinking About It
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Chapter Sixty-Eight: Not Thinking About It
Morning finds me pacing in my massive bedroom, not having slept a wink last night. By now, I’ve spent the entire night both cursing Akari for kissing me and then immediately leaving and worrying about her by herself in Nagano. However, after an entirely sleepless night, I make a new resolve. Today, I will not think about Akari, not about how that kiss felt, or worrying about her, or… Gah! No, bad brain! Stop it! Akari can take care of herself, and she knows to call on me if she needs help. She’ll be fine.
Instead, I need to worry about figuring out this whole bodyguard thing, doing some more mana practice, and completely distracting myself. Also, Akari going to get Candice from Nagano should only take a few days, and by the time she gets home, I need to have the apartment perfect for her to come back to; that should also take a lot of work — hopefully, enough work that I’ll actually be able to sleep tonight.
Sighing, I finally leave my room and enter the opulent master bath — although I’m no longer impressed by its beauty after pacing through it dozens upon dozens of times. Still, the shower and view of the ocean through the one-way glass is incredible. Sadly, it doesn’t have any soap, shampoo, or conditioner, so I’ll have to make do with whatever I can dig out of my inventory.
Mentally scanning the now truly impressive list of random stuff I’ve picked up from my time as a sentinel, I find that I actually do have the items for my shower. However, attempting to turn on the water and finding that the water heater wasn’t turned on yet was… awesome.
One extremely cold — but amazingly refreshing — shower later, I find myself at least somewhat ready to face my day. So, heading down a level, I go to try and find something for breakfast.
It takes me a few minutes to arrive at the kitchen, not because I got lost, but due to the sheer amount of space I have to cross to get there. Within it, I see Dad staring at the still out-of-place stove with a forlorn expression. Honestly, I’m surprised that he’s also up so early — I wonder if he couldn’t sleep either.
“Morning,” I say, moving into the room to join him. “Are you okay?”
Dad doesn’t answer for a long moment before finally seeming to come back to himself. He smiles, but I can tell that it’s forced. “Yeah, I’m alright. I think we might need to pick up our breakfast on the way to school, though.”
The sadness in his tone makes me immediately want to call his lie, but I don’t. I’m not sure I’m feeling alright either, and I don’t need to call attention to our problems. Instead, I just nod and make my way over to my father to wrap him in a hug. He returns it, holding me to him tightly and lifting me slightly off my feet.
When the hug ends, Dad’s smile seems a lot more genuine. “Are you okay, kiddo? You’re the one I’m worried about.”
I shrug. Honestly, I’m too worried about Akari to be able to honestly say that I’m okay. Despite the fact that she’s a lot stronger than me, I can’t help but be worried about what might happen to her. I suppose that is probably exactly how Dad feels about me.
“Not sure okay is the word I’d use, but… I’ll survive,” I say, looking away. “I… I did want to take a moment this morning to talk to you about what happened yesterday, though. Just me and you.”
Dad’s expression once again turns conflicted, but he just nods his agreement.
After he stays silent for a moment, I just continue. “I-I… I just wanted you to know that what happened doesn’t change anything — not between us, I mean. We have a difference of opinion, but I don’t want that to, like… I don’t know, make things awkward? I just… want things to be like they’ve always been… between us, I mean,” I explain stumblingly, trying to ignore the emotion trying to bring tears to my eyes.
Dad smiles, his eyes twinkling as he once more scoops me up in a massive hug. “A lot has changed, hun, and I think a lot is going to continue to change. That, though… well, let’s put it this way. No matter what happens, I’m always going to be your dad, and you’ll always be my little girl. Whatever life throws at us, that will never change.”
I nod, drying tears on Dad’s shirt as I hold onto him tightly — but not too tightly. It’s an odd sensation for me to have to check my strength around my father or… well, anyone in general. For my entire life, I’ve always been the smallest and physically weakest person around. Now, though, now I’ll never have to consider myself weak again.
We break apart once more, and I give Dad my brightest smile, almost wanting to hug him again. I just… no matter what happens with this case, I want us to still be close.
“Come on,” Dad says, taking my hand in his. “It’s still pretty early, so let’s head out to a breakfast place. I think that Skybreak place sounds good.”
I nod, grinning. “Skybreak Bistro? Sure, let’s do it!”
***
Heading back from breakfast with my dad, I finally find myself feeling centered again after Akari’s midnight escapade in my room. Over the course of all the chaos and everything that’s happened, I haven’t had a lot of time recently to just spend time with Dad. It’s something I’ve sorely missed, and I don’t ever want to lose the closeness that I have with him.
Sadly, life is calling, and now we both have things to do. Dad needs to get to work… or well, he doesn’t have to work anymore, but he still likes to, and I need to head to school. Yet, the early morning adventure was exactly what my heart needed. A little chat about nothing in particular with my father over breakfast did me good.
So, of course, Kayne just had to come and mess it all up.
Stepping inside the compound — we left the door slightly cracked so we can get in until we get the key — we find a surprise waiting for us in the entrance way.
Kayne stands inside, looking out the window at the blindingly bright rising sun, and is joined by four soldiers I don’t recognize and one that I do.
I blink, seeing a face that I haven’t seen since we fought a mind flayer together, what feels like ages ago.
“Lucas!” I exclaim, running over and leaving Dad by the door.
Lucas, the massive GDF soldier who dragged me, unconscious and bleeding, out of the incursion zone to safety, grins. “Hey, Miss Serena! I’ve got to say, it’s good to see you up and walking around again.”
“You too!” I say, looking him up and down. Then, I gesture to my father to come over. “Dad! This is Lucas. He’s the one who got me out of my first incursion zone after I got impaled. Without him, I probably would have just bled out on those streets.”
Dad nods, smiling and bowing his head deeply to Lucas. “It’s good to meet you, Lucas. Please know that you have my utmost and profound thanks for saving my daughter’s life. If you ever need anything, and I mean anything at all. Please, just ask.”
Lucas just smiles and nods his head respectfully. “No debt needed, sir. Besides, your daughter saved a lot of lives by putting that creature down — mine included. Helping her like that was the least I could do, and I hope to do it again if ever required.”
These words make me pause, “What do you mean?”
“Lucas here,” Kayne says, turning towards us, “is going to be your bodyguard for the foreseeable future, Serena. He will be going with you places and will guard your person while you are not in your assault state or on a mission. Essentially, during your everyday life, but not during your sentinel work, Lucas will be looking after you.”
I sigh, “Kayne… I am still a sentinel. I understand the not getting shot part, but-”
Kayne raises a finger, smiling. “I wasn’t done. Dunkin,” he gestures to a burly soldier with a shaggy beard, “will be looking after your father in the same matter, while Lina, Ren, and Endo will be guarding the compound. You are an important asset to the GDF, Serena, and now that you could be an exposed target, we aren’t going to be lax with your protection, nor the protection of your home or family.”
“And I suppose you’re about to say that I don’t get a choice in this?” I ask, my mind-boggling at the idea of assigning not one but five soldiers to look after us.
“Got it in one,” Kayne replies. “Now, I recommend you all get to know each other. You’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”
***
As it turns out, I don’t need to be too upset about the fact that the GDF assigned five soldiers to watch over us. These five are all soldiers who saw active duty — particularly deployment against the volcora — and afterward, vehemently requested not to be sent back. This is something that I absolutely understand from my own experiences fighting the volcora.
Once a soldier has seen that kind of active duty and requests to be removed from it, apparently, they will instead be assigned to some kind of guard duty if they remain at the GDF at all. As a task they can do while staying out of active warzones, most soldiers chose to go in this direction to keep their pay and continue helping the city without needing to see more volcora… you know, hopefully.
According to Lucas, he would much rather be watching over me and protecting me from more mundane threats then going back into another incursion zone — which I wholeheartedly understand, that incursion zone was a death trap.
The others are all in similar situations as well. Most having gone through something similar to Lucas where a bad turn of events happened in an incursion zone and most if not all of their soldier contingents were lost.
Lina, however, is in a more interesting situation. Apparently, she used to be a Communications Specialist for a lot of years, accompanying various sentinel teams into incursion zones and helping them track down the anchor, as Margret did for us.
Having done so for so long, though, Lina is one of the rare non-sentinels to have earned an inscribed sentinel-tier weapon from Ratchet’s shop via her own credits — which apparently soldiers can earn, too. She refuses to tell me what the magic sword she wears on her hip does, but it certainly strikes an image.
To my eyes, Lina looks like an ancient warrior of old, tall, muscled, and battle-scarred with hard eyes that seem to always be looking for the next threat. Despite this, though, she could only be in her mid to late thirties in terms of age. Still, the fact that she’s considered old for a GDF Soldier speaks volumes.
“So why did you end up wanting to retire to do something like this?” I ask Lina, looking up at her with wide eyes after she tells me her history.
At this, Lina shrugs. “Too many close calls,” she says, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword — which looks to be made out of some kind of orange crystal. “Incursions are far from safe, and after I gave birth to my son a year back, I decided to swap over to something safer.”
“With a history like that, though, couldn’t you have gone to a prestigious position within the GDF?” Dad asks, all of us sitting around on our old living room couch — which now seems wildly out of place when surrounded by the opulence around us.
“They offered me lots of different promotion options, but I didn’t like any of them,” Lina says, her voice gruff. “I signed up to the GDF to protect folks, not to manage the people doing the real protecting. This might be a slightly different kind of protection than what I used to do, but protecting a sentinel when you and yours have already done so much to protect others… it just felt right. And so, here I am.”
I smile, “Well, we’re happy to have you. All of you, even if I don’t love the idea of being followed around.”
Lina stands, moving over to shake my hand.
“Don’t worry, Miss,” Lina says with a wicked smile over our joined hands. “You’ll be a whole lot less happy to have us once we start implementing the new security protocols.”
I meet her eyes, allowing some of my swirling blue power to enter my own. “I’ve seen a lot in my short time, Lina. You do what you need to in order to keep this place safe. If you lack funds, I’ll provide them.”
At this, I allow my glowing gaze to sweep over all those assembled, even Kayne, who looks approving.
“Let me make myself extremely clear,” I say, sapphire power tinged with gold burning out of me. “Now that you’re here, we will be doing whatever it takes to keep my father and our home safe. We patch every security hole and take every precaution. I understand you all have orders to protect me as well, so I’ll allow that as well. However, any harm whatsoever coming to my father will not be tolerated.”
Lina meets my eyes, her own clear and unintimidated by my power, and grins. “I’m supposed to be the one giving that speech,” she says with a light laugh. Then, she glares around the room as I did. “You heard the woman! Let’s get to work! Lucas, you’re with Miss Serena. Dunkin, you’re with her father. Ren, Endo, you’re with me. We have a hell of a lot of work to do to get this place properly secured.”
***
Arriving at my first class at school is awkward for three reasons — each of which makes me even more uncomfortable.
First, we arrive late for obvious reasons. Going out to breakfast was fine, given that both Dad and I woke up incredibly early this morning, but the meeting with our new protectors ate a lot of our time. I’m not upset that we did it — in fact, I would much rather miss the entire school day than miss out on interviewing the people in charge of my father’s safety. But still, it makes me late enough that the period is nearly over by the time I arrive.
The second reason is closely related to the first. Lucas has absolutely no qualms about following me into the classroom and looking around at everyone as if they might jump up and attack me with a knife or something at any moment. Luckily, he does stand at the back of the classroom and not right beside me, but he isn’t exactly what you might call subtle.
The final reason I blush bright red upon taking my seat is my familiar. Apparently, Celeste decided at some point that if Lucas was going to be following me around everywhere, she might as well be loud and proud. As such, she sits proudly atop my head, wings flared and majestic sapphire-gold power rippling along her form.
And so, as I take my seat… literally everyone is staring at me. A fact that makes me want to curl in on myself and disappear. I mean, it was bound to happen eventually. I agreed not to ever put any restrictions on Celeste’s visibility, and I literally have a bodyguard following me around, but… come on, really?
My poor math teacher — because yes, this isn’t even one of the sentinel-only classes — clears his throat after way too long a time of staring at Celeste. However, I give the man credit as he simply nods in my direction and resumes his lesson.
“Did you really have to glow?” I ask Celeste, resigned to my fate.
[Of course!] Celeste exclaims, still sitting proudly on my head. [Your ascension has you looking way too pretty not to show off. Besides, if we’re going to get found out anyway, we might as well go in with full confidence.]
I sigh, feeling through our bond that Celeste is extremely happy with all the adoring looks she’s getting. Well, I’m not about to rain on her parade now. The cat's already out of the bag, and there’s no point in trying to stuff it back in.
My school day passes in a blur of people staring at me, avoiding me, or coming up to ask questions. However, I am somewhat saved when I get to my homeroom class with Professor MacCorkindale — the loudest teacher to ever grace Silver Ridge.
Apparently, Troy, in his infinite wisdom, decided that my walking around proudly with Celeste fully visible was a fashion statement. Indeed, he convinces not just one but nearly half the class to do the same thing — even Claire joins in due to her lack of fucks to give. And so, by the time I arrive at my last class, there are nearly fifteen sentinels walking the halls with familiars on full display.
This, obviously, isn’t the smartest thing to do for my classmates. However, it also isn’t too bad. A lot of sentinels don’t bother trying to hide their identities at all — we’re soldiers, not superheroes, and our existence is fully supported by the government. So, while outing themselves as sentinels does make them targets for organizations like the Reavers, it’s only a minor threat. And, to some teenagers, doing something like that simply for social status is worth it.
Thus, by the time I arrive at Mr. Yamamoto’s archery class, the entire school is abuzz with the realization that there are more than a few sentinels in their midst.
Unbeknownst to me, however, setting the school ablaze with news of sentinels amongst the class was the perfect distraction for one of my best friends.
Hayley didn’t reveal her sentinel status to the school at large; she simply came out quietly to the teachers and the school in general with the use of a very heavy-handed order from the GDF. Essentially, Baylee took Hayley straight to Prof and ended up getting her a signed order from Karma and the city mayor themselves saying that she was named Hayley, and her legal gender and sex were to be considered female.
With this order in hand and new identification already issued, anyone who might have had a problem with her was shown, in no uncertain terms, what fucking with a sentinel would get you. Not to mention that I’m reasonably certain that all of Team Picnic and probably even Team Firestorm would come down on anyone trying to mess with her like the hammer of a vengeful god.
All these things combined, plus Hayley’s newly rearranged class schedule, mean that very few students even stop to think about where their old classmate went and who this new Hayley girl was. That is until we arrive at archery class together.
I stand right beside Hayley as we step into Mr. Yamamoto’s classroom to pick up our archery gear — her having told me about her day on the way. I do my best to use Celeste’s presence to distract the others from Hayley, but we both know that won’t work forever.
I’ll be honest; all of my absences lately make it so I don’t know Lyra, Vahn, or Kenji very well. However, they know Hayley very well, as she has been attending every single practice without fail. Me showing up as a shiny sentinel might serve as some distraction for Hayley, but it won’t work for more than a few minutes. Still, I’m more than willing to show my work bow to anyone who has any kind of complaint about Hayley’s new appearance.
Arriving in class, Mr. Yamamoto just gives me a knowing smile upon seeing Celeste on my shoulder. However, his eyes widen with shock before softening into concern upon seeing Hayley.
I stick close to my friend’s side, holding her hand and standing tall and proud in an attempt to attract attention away from her. Sadly, Hayley is still quite a bit taller than me, and her pink hair isn’t exactly subtle.
Our other team members haven’t arrived yet, but they will soon. And then… I’ll just have to help Hayley as best I can.
“Not one but two sentinels on my team,” Mr. Yamamoto says, shaking his head with a smile. “The other schools are going to call me a cheater.”
Gesturing, Mr. Yamamoto says, “Come on in, girls, take a seat. We’ll make sure to get everything all sorted out and talk with your team members before beginning today.”
Comments
Ria Corvidiva
Serena said it best: anyone who gives Hayley a hard time can stare down the business end of a magical bow that cost more than most people's homes.
Metal(Liz)ard🏳️⚧️
Akari inflicting immense psychic damage on serena by kiss and running is one of my fave bits yet
Metal(Liz)ard🏳️⚧️
aww hailey being looked after by everyone is so sweet! im really glad you're writing this story it really gives me something to look forward to
Ria Corvidiva
Yay, finally some of that there Celestial Healing, helping to bridge the gap between sentinels and their familiars / centurion partners, and the public at large. I'm not sure if that's her new Path influencing her or not, but it sure feels like the sort of thing a Healer of the Heavens would do. And Mr. Yamamoto is perfect trans ally right there. No fuss, no making a big deal about it. Just 'alright, you're Hayley now, let's get down to practice'. Gives me a nice warm, fuzzy feeling. Actually most of this chapter gives me warm, fuzzy feelings. Just lamenting the lack of cute Sekari cuddles. And yes, Sekari is their official portmanteau couple name. <3 > most of not all of their soldier contingents were lost. most *if* not all, I believe. > each of which making me even more uncomfortable. either 'each of which makes' or 'each of which is making' > My school days passes in a blur of people staring at me days -> day (as far as I can tell, it's just one day) > the loudest teacher to ever grade Silver Ridge. while 'grade' could be correct in the sense of 'grading papers', I wonder if this should be 'grace' instead.
