Summus Proelium

I was in the closet. My closet, specifically. I had transformed into a pink puddle once more and was stretched out along an empty part of the top shelf there, luxuriating in that feeling. It was like being able to stretch and relax into a hot tub when you were were the hot tub. Or something.

Yes, it was probably a bit dumb to use my powers like this in my own house. But I was in my room, and in my closet. The odds of anyone bursting into my room without using the intercom were slim to begin with, and I had the door locked. And even if they went through all that, I would still be out of sight, giving me enough time to drop down and shift back before coming out to see whoever it happened to be. If it was a threat, I would have time to… to do something. Even if the details were kind of murky right now.

The truth was, no matter how I justified it to myself I didn't need to be doing this. But I was just so bored of studying. I had been getting ready for finals next week for hours before ever going into my closet and putting myself up on the shelf in puddle form. I had started at my desk, moved to the floor, then my bed, then I had been on the floor with my legs on the bed, then out on my balcony, back to my desk, and had even tried reading my textbook while doing a handstand in the corner of my room. Anything to stop my mind from drifting away and daydreaming about other things.

I was a pretty average student to be honest, before all this started. Not some genius, but I wasn't about to flunk out either. I did the work I needed to do, got some extra help with the harder stuff now and then, and basically stayed around the middle of the pack. A lot of that was because I didn't really care that much about academic stuff. I just did what I needed to do to keep my parents happy so I could go out and do the things I actually loved. Over these past months, I had let that slip just a little bit. I was still pretty average, but I was definitely doing even more of the bare minimum. It couldn’t be helped. There were only so many hours in the day, and too many of those were taken up with all this other Touched stuff. Between all that and the stress I was feeling lately thanks to the situation with my parents and the others affected by Sleeptalk, it--yeah. At least no one was really questioning why I wasn’t very focused on school right now.

But even if I wasn’t focused on it, even if I had plenty of reasons to be distracted (some of which could even be used without spoiling my secrets), I still couldn’t totally blow off school. And I definitely couldn’t blow off finals. They were too important, and when my parents woke up, if they found out I screwed that up, they’d lose it. Disappointing them would be bad enough on its own, but they’d also probably clamp down a lot on where I was going and when I could be out. They’d pay a lot more attention to what I was doing in my freetime. That… yeah, that would be a bad thing. If my parents focused too much on me, I wouldn’t be able to do what I needed to.

So, no matter how bored I was or how much my mind kept trying to drift, I needed to focus. I had to study and get ready for finals. Which meant, in this case, going to drastic lengths to keep myself on-task. Thus being in puddle form in my closet, reading my textbook as it was propped up on the shelf in front of me. Every once in awhile, I focused on pushing a small tendril of my goo-self out to turn the page.

See? I was multitasking, testing and practicing my power and studying.

Most of my attention was finally firmly centered on that, though I was keeping half-an ear out for anyone being at my door, or for my phone to ding. I’d made it clear that the others should only contact me in an emergency. And I wasn’t the only one. Peyton, Murphy, and Roald were all deep in their own studying sessions. Paige was kind of doing the same with the help of Sierra, but the two of them were also out finding their own way to deal with the death of their father/creator. Not grieve him, exactly, but a way of saying goodbye to the idea of him or whatever. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, exactly. It seemed like a private, personal thing. I just knew they were out somewhere in the city.

The point was, none of Avant-Guard were actively patrolling or doing anything Touched-wise at the moment. It was our day off, and hopefully it would stay that way. Wren, Qwerty, and the Cuddles were at that secondary lab location by the bookstore going over everything the Ministry had handed over. Part of me felt nervous about not being there with them just in case anything went wrong, but that was probably a bit too much paranoia on my part. The Cuddles may have been small and young, but they’d been active members of their Minority team for much longer than I had been doing this stuff. Plus they were basically immortal, with their fluffinating thing. Between all that, the powers they had, Wren’s tech, Qwerty’s speed and agility, and Fred being there with one of Wren’s special guns… they would be okay. They’d be fine. This was just my brain trying to distract me again so it wouldn’t have to focus on the actual schoolwork. Nice try, brain.

I had just started to read again when my phone buzzed from its place on the floor below me. Eyes widening as a whole flood of paranoid thoughts washed over me, I shoved my goo-self off the shelf, transforming as I fell back into my normal self just in time to land on my knees. Only then did I realize this was my personal, normal phone, the Cassidy one. The Paintball one still lay there silent. So the call wasn’t coming from my team or anyone looking for help. It was… huh. The number wasn’t familiar, and there wasn’t a name attached to it. That could’ve meant it was spam, but hell, I was distracted now. Or maybe I was still just looking for something that could distract me, against my better judgment. Even if the very idea of talking to anyone, let alone a probable stranger, over the phone if I didn't absolutely have to would have been basically unheard of not so long ago. Phones were for texting. If someone wanted to ask me something or whatever, why wouldn't they text?

Either way, I hesitated only slightly before answering the call. If it was nothing, I could just hang up. “Uh, yo?” Yes, very articulate of me. Also, fairly masculine. I’d transformed into my male-presenting self. Fortunately, there wasn’t really that big of a difference in my voice. Not enough to be detected over the phone, hopefully.

“Cassidy Evans?” The voice that responded was familiar, but I couldn't place it immediately. Not over the phone. “This is Maki, Tomas’s… ahh…”

“Maki!” Why were they calling me? What possible reason could they have to want to talk directly to me like this? Now I was even more confused about why this hadn't been a text. “Uh, hi, what's going on? Did something happen?” At this point, my paranoia had even more fuel to work with. Considering we had just recently been trying to figure out the best way to break into Maki’s family's house to find out what the hell was going on with that list, some part of me was spiraling out. Did they somehow know that we were talking about that? Did they have some way of instinctively knowing if someone was planning to break in? Did they know who I was and what I was doing in my spare time? Was this entire call a trick to distract me while the Ministry assembled outside my door? Could they detect that my voice sounded slightly more masculine than it should and was that about to give away every secret I had?!

Okay, maybe no more caffeine for me for a little while. I was definitely just a bit too wound up right now. With effort, I forced the panic back down to something approaching a more reasonable level and breathed while listening to Maki's response.

“No,” they assured me immediately. “Nothing happened. Nothing bad. Tomas suggested that you might benefit from a bit of extra studying, and given I am covering the same material for upcoming tests, he believed it might be beneficial for us to study together. If that happens to be something you would be… open to? He had planned to speak with you about that himself before being pulled into some sort of family meeting. From your reaction, I presume he couldn't pull himself away to text.”

Oh. Oh, studying. Right, that thing I was supposed to be doing right now. That was right, I had mentioned to Tomas about how I was going to have to buckle down and lock myself in my room to study today. Obviously, I hadn't gotten into the details about why I had been so distracted lately, but still. He knew I was doing this, so suggesting I pair up and study with Maki made sense. There was nothing untoward or dangerous about it. Even if I was more than a little curious about what this distracting family meeting was all about. Something big enough that it had stopped him from even texting to let me know Maki was going to call. It didn't even necessarily have anything to do with the Ministry, and yet I couldn't help but dwell on that. Even if it wasn't about the Ministry and he was completely clueless about that whole thing, I still wanted to know what was going on.

Speaking of dwelling on things, I realized at that point that I had been silent for a couple seconds. Probably long enough for Maki to start feeling awkward. Or more awkward. Quickly, I agreed, “Oh, yeah sure, that sounds good. I could use some help staying on task, to be honest. I get… uh, let's just say distracted easily. How should we do it? Do you wanna meet at the library or…” Wait, what was I doing? This was a tailor-made perfect excuse for getting into their house without any suspicion whatsoever, and I was just throwing that away? How could I casually bring up the idea of going over there without being too obvious? Maybe I could find a way to make going to the library a bad idea. But then they would want to know why we couldn't just come here. I had to come up with something that would make going to their house the only reasonable option. Something subtle that wouldn't waste any of their suspicions. Something--

“You should come to my house,” Maki interrupted my rambling thoughts once again. “We have everything we need here, and I promise it is comfortable enough. More comfortable than the public library, in any case. Besides, my parents would prefer that I study here under their roof and in private, where it is… convenient.” It was clear that their last word was going to be ‘safe’ before they changed at the very end, which raised all sorts of questions. Not that having questions about Maki and their family was anything new, of course. It was just another bit of oddness to chuck onto the pile.

But then, bricks and glass houses. For all I knew, there was someone out there trying to figure out what was up with all the strangeness I exhibited.

God, I really felt sorry for that poor person if so.

Well this really worked out, even if-- nope, I was not going to go shoving my head down the throat of any horses looking for soldiers. The fact was, if Maki was working for the Ministry and this was a trap, they all had much easier ways of corralling me. Seriously, I was sitting in the home of their leaders. I already came nice and pre-trapped.

As I agreed to come over there, Maki asked if I remembered where it was. Which, naturally, sent yet another wave of paranoia through me about whether this was a test and they knew I had been watching the house as Paintball. But no, duh, I had seen the house when we dropped Maki off there.

Assuring them that I knew where to go, I promised to be there in just a little bit, and that I would bring some food so we wouldn't have to interrupt the whole studying thing later. Then I headed out.

To be perfectly honest, it felt strange to be leaving my house and going somewhere else entirely as Cassidy. I wasn't even going to change and paint my way through the city to make the trip faster. This was all a complete civilian Prev thing, which felt strange by this point. So much of my life was taken up with being Paintball, especially since Sleeptalk happened, that doing something as normal as this was practically unheard of. And even this didn't really count if I thought about it. After all, I was going to use my time there to scout out the house and see if I could spot anything that would help us break in later so we could get answers about the list. And yes, I still felt guilty about that whole idea.

Actually, I felt even worse now. Maki was trying to help me with school when they didn't have to, just because my ex-boyfriend, their current boyfriend, had said something about me having trouble. They were being nice when they didn't have to, going out of their way, and I was rewarding it by making plans to sneak into their home and search the place.

But it couldn't be helped. We had to know what was up with that list and why I was on it. No matter how uncomfortable the whole situation made me, we had to get to the bottom of all that. And hell, maybe the reason they had even invited me over anyway had something to do with me being on that list.

Oh, right, that really could be a thing, couldn't it? This might not be a trap involving being Paintball, but it could have something to do with that list. Great, now I really was going to have to keep my eyes open. All of which was making my paranoia do ‘I told you so’ dances deep in my stomach.

But oh well, I would just have to take all that as it came. If anything went wrong, I would deal with it. But one thing was for sure, I was going to have to be very careful in that place. Especially if they were paying attention to me for list-related reasons.

I did text Paige to let her know what was going on and what I was doing, just in case. From her quick response, it was clear that she was about as nervous and uncertain about the idea as I was, but also recognized that it was our best chance to get eyes in the house so we could see what was going on there. She did make me promise to text her every half hour to let her know things were fine.

Technically, she wanted it to happen every fifteen minutes at first, which felt like a bit much. I talked her up to thirty. She also swore that if I didn't check in and failed to respond to her, she would find an excuse to visit even if it meant kicking in the door.

Suggesting that she be a little more subtle unless she absolutely had no choice, I took a moment to make sure Izzy and Amber were up to speed as well. They were out doing Minority things. Which, yes, the idea of my little sister and friend being out there potentially fighting when I wasn't had made me feel guilty. But they had both sworn to shove me in a dumpster with my books and a flashlight if they caught me out trying to help instead of studying. Which I thought might have been a little excessive, but it did manage to get their point across at least.

I was doing my best not to let that paranoia jump on the fact that neither of them responded right away. They were just busy, that was all. They would be fine. No, this wasn't an excuse to suit up and go find them. If they needed help, they would ask for it. And the second they did, I would be out Maki’s door so fast I might break the hinges off.

As I was picking up food, Maki texted to let me know that we were going to have another person. Their tutor was swinging by to help. And by tutor, they meant Ryder. So he was going to be there too. That was-- huh, that could work. Though if they worked for the Ministry, I felt like they had a good chance of knowing who he was and what his powers were. Which meant they would probably be watching us even more closely. I had to keep things as cool and normal as possible. Good luck to me.

Finally, I made it to that house, stepping out of the rideshare I had been using. Thanking the driver, before handing over an extra cash tip so I could be sure the company wouldn't take their cut of it, I stood with my backpack full of textbooks over one shoulder, and a bag of food in my other hand. I had grabbed enough for Ryder as well, of course.

Taking a breath before letting it out, I started walking up to the house. Here went nothing. With any luck, I was going to get closer to finding out what was going on with that list of Maki’s. Not to mention all the other curious things about them.

Oh yeah, and if there was any spare time in all of that, I would do my best to get some actual studying done so I wouldn't end up failing out of high school while I was at it.