i am swift and clever

[autokinetic]

Bella plays the fantasy game again now - it is less fun than flying, all raw physicality and poise, in the battle room, but it now compares favorably with a decent fraction of books. She plays it in front of her launch and the boys want to know where in the hell this setting came from.

"Go to the Giant's Drink and I'll show you," she says.

She bypasses the Drink for six boys. They drift through the clouds, but they don't find villages, or pretty landscapes - they just find parts of the game they've already been to.

"Don't look at me, that's the same way I got here," says Bella. She's teaching her bird-people the scientific method now, painstakingly, almost comically, by mime and enthusiastic gestures. They're getting it, a little; a pink-and-gray one has put a cup of water in the sun and a similar cup of water in the shade and is staring at them intently.

By the time Bella has been at Battle School for six weeks she has tried all the games in the game room, and most of them (apart from the newly fascinating fantasy game) are now only interesting if someone will play against her. Most people won't. She's got too much of an advantage over the controls, and even at Battle School, among what really is a better crop of brains than kindergarten, it's apparently too much to ask that anyone think faster.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Hurts," he says at last, and he slowly lets go. "Be okay, though."

He looks up at her, and reaches up wincingly to touch her chin, then tucks his hand against his chest again.

"I'm. Think I'm a. Telepath," he says, slowly and with difficulty.

[autokinetic]

"Oh," she says. Well, she doesn't have to be scared of telepaths, even if the idea is weird to her. "Can you walk? You need to go to the infirmary."

[pythbox]

"Lemme try," he says, and starts laboriously climbing to his feet.

[autokinetic]

She helps him up. "You can lean on me if you have to," she says.

[pythbox]

He leans on her.

But, with her help, he manages to both stand and walk.

[autokinetic]

She paints a path for them to the infirmary (white red white) and takes him there. "Why do you think you're a telepath? What happened?" she murmurs as they go.

[pythbox]

"Most of the older guys, if I shit-talk them a little they think it's funny, they leave me alone," he says. "These guys I guess not. They started in on me. And then... it was like I was yelling in his face, but with my mind. Yelling how they were hurting me. But I guess he was too busy screaming to figure it out, because they all piled on me like they thought if they hurt me enough I'd stop."

[autokinetic]

She's got her arm around him; she squeezes a little, not enough to hurt him where he's injured.

[pythbox]

He drops his head onto her shoulder briefly.

"Hey, thanks for rescuing me," he says.

[autokinetic]

"You're welcome. Do you have any idea how the game knew to tell me?"

[pythbox]

"Nope," he says.

[autokinetic]

"You didn't - I don't know, telepath at it?"

[pythbox]

"I don't think so," he says. "Pretty sure I didn't."

[autokinetic]

"That's strange."

Here's the infirmary.

[pythbox]

"How would you even telepath at the game?" he asks distractedly. "It's not a person, there's nothing there to telepath at."

Oh, the infirmary. Good old infirmary. What a great place to be.

[autokinetic]

"Well, I don't know, there's all kinds of mutant powers. I know you can't telepath at me; I don't know if you can telepath at smart computer programs." She hands him over to a nurse. They don't ask too many questions at the infirmary. He just starts disinfecting Suicide Watch and inspecting him for broken bones.

[pythbox]

One cracked rib and a shitload of bruises.

"I can't telepath at you, but I can tell you're there," he says. "I was trying a little, when I was crying too hard to talk, but you're right, I can't do it."

[autokinetic]

"If you can even tell I'm there that's weird. I stumped all the telepaths they threw at me when they first found out I was a mutant," says Bella. "Maybe you're really strong."

[pythbox]

"I don't feel really strong," he snorts. "I feel like I just got the shit kicked out of me by a bunch of guys twice my age."

[autokinetic]

"I mean mentally strong," she says, petting his hair while the nurse spreads some kind of bruise-healing ointment on Suicide Watch's leg.

[pythbox]

"I know what you meant," he laughs, leaning comfortably into her hand.

[autokinetic]

"Your bird just started flying straight like you weren't there anymore, and I went up and pulled it down, and then your color scheme changed and it showed me a path color," she muses. "That's strange."

[pythbox]

"Weird," he agrees. "Maybe the game was pissed off I'd stopped playing it."

[autokinetic]

"We have to stop playing it all the time. We have schoolwork and battleroom practice and stuff."

[pythbox]

He shrugs, as much as he can without disturing the nurse's work.

"No idea, then."