Chapter 81 – School Cafeteria

I swung back and forth in my office chair while looking through the file Vesper gave me. It was already the next morning, and for once I actually got some decent sleep last night. Slept like a baby, actually. It was a weird fluke.

I closed the file, and tossed it into a sealed drawer. “What do you think?”

Vigil remained silent on my desk. The plushie looked up at me with his dim eyes, not offering any solutions. I booped him on the nose, and stood up. The practical was today, which meant a whole lot of preparation. 

Quinn was actually handling most of it for once. She already went ahead to the amusement park. After lunch, I was going to meet up with her. The freshmen cohorts would come over after school ended, and finally take their first practical exam.

I checked the time and left my office behind. I, for once, actually had plans for lunch. Instead of heading up to the faculty cafeteria, I cut down a hall to the student one. I easily merged into the crowd of people going from one class to their next. Although training Guardians was an incredibly important part of Silverport Academy, it also trained normal people for related support, logistics, or research roles. 

I flashed my badge at the cafeteria door, and slipped into the massive cafeteria. It was absolutely stuffed full of people—so much so that it was surprisingly hard to find my sister. Usually I could just look for the shock of silver in the crowd, but there was hair of every color around the cafeteria. Seek wasn’t so easily misled, and pointed right to her.

”Reyna!” Sylvie stood up on her toes and waved at me happily from just next to the door. Instead of going through the line, she’d waited for me.

“Sorry.” I headed over to her. “Did you wait long?”

”Nah, not at all.” Sylvie grinned up at me. This was the first time we were actually going to eat together in the school. At first I was too busy, then I was waiting ‘cause of that creep. I thankfully hadn’t seen him in a while, so he probably wasn’t interested anymore. “C’mon, let's go get something to eat. My friends should be here soon.”

”Friends?” Heh, right. ‘Course the other students would also be eating at the same time. I buried the momentary bitterness, and tried to look at it a different way. My sister was finally going to introduce me to her friends.

”Yeah! You’ll love them! Especially Vanessa. She’s, like, in love with you.” Sylvie dragged me off to queue up in the cafeteria line. The entire time, her tail swished back and forth in cheerful swipes.

“Um… in love with me?” Vanessa? She was the White Rabbit Apex if I wasn’t mistaken. Her Awoken ability was… Expedition? The more I thought about her, the more details came back from her dossier. 

“Well, not in love-love. You know what I meant.” She waved it off with a laugh. One of her ears curled down to the side, and her eyes narrowed in thought. “She’s obsessed with everything Harbor, and you’re the famous Canary, so… closer to a fan?”

“H-how should I act around her? And the rest of your friends?” I didn’t want to scare off a fan. I mean, I wasn’t sure why they liked me. People always said to never meet your heroes. I didn’t want to be one of those heroes that totally ruined my fan’s hopes.

”Just be yourself, sis.” She patted my shoulder. “If they don’t like you, I’ll punch them in the face.”

Heh. I wonder where she learned to speak like that. I grabbed the two plates with steak on them before she could. The Academy always did feed its students well. “Where are we headed?”

“I’m not a kid.” Sylvie tried to grab a plate, but I used the full extent of my enhanced agility to dodge the motion. She broke into a soft pout, and her ears pulled back ever so slightly. “Sis~”

”Where are we headed?” I didn’t give into her puppy-eyes, and just walked past her. My tail swished back to thwack her arm.

“Fine…” She moved past me, though shot me a dirty look as she did so. “River got us a table.”

I followed her through the crowded cafeteria. My tail whipped up out of the reach of a kid curiously stretching out her hand. She practically wilted under my glare, and slumped back into her seat. 

Sylvie led me back to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. There was only one person sitting at it, playing on his phone instead of eating a salad. His familiar curly black hair and cobalt eyes were impossible to mistake—River. My archenemesis.

River slid his phone into his pocket, no doubt having just sent a message to his underworld masters. He stood up, and stuck his hand out to me. “You must be Reyna. Sylvie’s told me a lot about you.”

”River, huh?” I slid the plates of steak onto the table, and warily watched him. My eyes flicked between him and Sylvie, though I accepted the handshake with a little bit of extra squeezing. “You two… talk about me?”

I was half—no, maybe quarter joking about him actually being a syndicate plant. At least, after having watched him carefully for so long. If they were talking about me… was he actually an infiltrator? And fishing for information from my own sister no less. My eyes narrowed on him.

He smoothly retracted his hand like I hadn’t just tried to crush it. ”Yeah, you’re Sylvie’s favorite subject—“

Wumph!

“Ahem.” Sylvie retracted her foot from where she’d just crushed his foot. My eyes perked up, and a small smile bloomed on my face. We really were alike, weren’t we? “Take a seat, sis!”

”Is it just us three?” When she said friends, I thought that meant, you know, friend plural. Not that I minded. It was better this way, actually.

“Vanessa and Triss should come here in a bit.” Syvlie’s head tilted to the side. “Um… Noah and Caliber said they were going to the library for some last second research?”

”Yeah. They’re a bit worried about the practical tonight.” Now that the two of us finally arrived, he started to dig into his salad. Was he… vegetarian? Even more of a reason he and Sylvie weren’t compatible. 

“And you aren’t?” I asked.

”Nuh-uh.” Sylvie called out through a mouthful of steak. She skipped forks and knives, and instead directly dug into it with the phantasmal blue claws of her Aspect. “Maybe a bit.”

”Really, Sylvie?” I sighed, and rubbed at my temples. When I finally learned that she’d awoken an Aspect, this so wasn't how I thought she’d be using it. “I swear I taught you table manners.”

She gulped down the mouthful of steak, and pointed her claws at me. “Uh-huh. And rules are made to be broken.”

“Reyna Vargriev!” A shout came from behind me, and a White Rabbit practically teleported in front of me. Her shout drew the attention of several people all around us. “Can I have your autograph!”

”Um… sure.” Vanessa didn’t seem all that interested in me the first time around. Just what kinds of tales was my sister filling these kids’ heads with? “You have a pen?”

”Of course!” She practically tossed her food, a giant heaping of chicken, onto the table. The White Rabbit dug through her backpack, and pulled out a silver wolf plushie that was almost a perfect replica of the one I had in my own arms. “Here!”

I carefully signed the tag on the stuffed animal, and handed it back to her. Vanessa was already waiting with a picture of me to sign next. By the time I finished that, she held a poster of me and Quinn. Quinn had already signed it at some point. I hesitated for a moment, and then signed it as well. Predictably, she had a second copy—

“Ahem.” Sylvie coughed. “What did I say, V?”

”Ah, right!” Vanessa carefully packed away the things I’d signed, and then dropped into a bow at the waist. Her long white bunny ears flopped forward slightly. “SorryifI’mbeingannoying!”

Sylvie raised her hands when I shot her glare, one of which was tipped with a piece of steak she darted forward to snap off. “I did not call her annoying.”

“Right! Sylvie’s been nothing but the bestest friend!” Vanessa jumped to my sister’s side, and wrapped her arms around my sister’s shoulders. “That’s just something my mom says!”

How can you say that with such a bright smile on your face? I felt a pang deep in my heart. What was I thinking? ‘Course Sylvie wouldn’t talk down to one of her friends like that. This poor child… 

Another girl, Triss, sat down on the other side of the table from me. I recognized her from the Cohort 3 files. She was Vanessa’s Canary, and basically the exact opposite from her. She was quiet, with a straight bob of hair and circle frame glasses. 

The girl looked up to meet my eyes, and then went back to eating almost lifelessly. Triss… I actually didn’t know much about her, to be honest. She was in training to be long range support, matching the ability of Vanessa. Specifically, a sniper. Vanessa slid into a seat next to her. 

“Guys, this is my sister, Reyna. She once lost a fight to a mirror!” Sylvie smirked at me, and broke into a silly laugh.

“Stifle…” I groaned softly.

”Woah!” Vanessa looked genuinely awed by that fact. “You fought an anomalous mirror?! That’s so cool! What was it like?”

“I… can’t tell you. Classified.” I coughed lightly, and pretended I couldn’t feel Sylvie staring at me. “You know how it is.”

”Classified my ass,” Sylvie hissed near silently at me.

“Oh! Reyna!” Thankfully, Vanessa seemed the sort to be easily distracted. “What’s it like being a Canary?!”

”Fine, I guess… Triss would probably be a better person to ask.” I cut off a small piece of my steak, and chewed on it slowly. Next to me, my sister picked up the bone and just directly gnawed on the meat like a dog. This girl…

“Eh, we don’t quite have the experience, you know?” She shrugged her shoulders. After a moment, her ears flopped upright. “How about Calamities? What’s it actually like fighting them in the field? Share some stories!”

“Didn’t Quinn share our stories?” I tried to shift the topic. I had a lot of stories, naturally, but none I wanted to bring up while I was eating.

”A few, a few. She told me she had something to do and that she’d share more with me.” That sounded like Quinn. She was always willing to talk about—“That was a week ago. I even went to her office a couple times, but she wasn’t in.”

No way… did this girl even out talk Quinn? I mentally raised my threat estimations for Vanessa. That was truly an anomalous ability if I’d ever seen one. Are we sure she actually woke Expedition as her ability instead? 

“I’ll get you the key to her office so you can ambu—ask as many questions as you want.” As for why I was sabotaging my best friend… did I need a reason? ‘Sides, she was just teaching the future generations. It’d be a good thing, really. 

Sylvie eyed me like she’d never seen such evil… for all of a few seconds before she poked at my steak. “Are you going to eat that?”

”Go ahead.” I pushed my plate to her, and leaned onto the table. “Don’t eat too much, though. Don’t want to be weighed down for after school.”

She stopped just shy of shoving what was left of my steak into her mouth. “You calling me fat, sis?”

I thwacked her arm with my tail. “Oh stop. You know what I meant.”

“What weapons are we going to have available?” Triss spoke up for the first time since she sat down. My ears perked up to catch her incredibly soft voice.

I didn’t immediately answer. Would saying something give them an advantage over the other cohorts? It wouldn’t be like I was telling them which Calamity they’d face so they could prepare in advance. They’d be the second to last cohort to go, so they’d know anyway off the sound. ”Just ballistics. Vi-weaponry shouldn’t be needed.”

”Mhmm…” Triss slowly nodded her head, and went back to eating.

”So it’s a low-level Calamity?” River asked.

”Obviously. They wouldn’t send a bunch of trainees against a Tier-5.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. Her rolling eyes stopped on me, and she perked up once more. “Oh! Share a story! What was the Mire like? I imagine it was wet and cold, but—“

”V.” Sylvie’s tail wrapped up onto my thigh, and her voice dipped low in warning. Her ears pinned back aggressively as her eyes locked onto the White Rabbit.  

“Oh…” Her ears drooped, and the wind left her sails. “S-sorry, Canary Vargriev. That was probably insensitive of me.”

”It’s fine,” I said a little too quickly. “I… it was very wet, and very cold. I actually got sick on the way back, if you can believe it.”

I stared down at the table, and scratched at my arm. It still felt like a dream that I was back in Silverport… or maybe the Mire was just a nightmare that hadn’t yet faded. I reached for Vigil—only to touch nothing. With him still repairing himself, I left him behind in my office.

Sylvie’s tail flopped up into my hand, and lightly brushed my palm. “You don’t have to talk about it, Reyna.”

”I know…” I patted her tail lightly 

Vanessa’s ears twitched, and she tilted her head to the side. ”Um, actually, I was also wondering about the Anarchs you faced! Can you tell me about those?”

”Sure?” She was going to drop it just like that? I shrugged, and leaned back in my chair. “Tidebreak and I actually just fought one not that long ago. Ghostscale, a notorious thief…”

I broke into a few of the lighter stories as lunch passed. Before I even realized it, I’d talked for close to an hour and the bell rang for the end of lunch. It was kind of nice? Maybe just a little bit? Soon, I also had to leave for the Silverport Amusement Park.