Victoria's Off Day

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 11, Post Number 270

-The Sheridan Estate, early morning-

Victoria woke up on her living room couch with the television turned to the mecha anime show with that whiny guy who complained that violence was not a solution to problems while blasting other mechas into space dust with a large beam rifle. She was so tired that she could not even roll her eyes at the astounding hypocrisy of the character. She groaned as she sat up on the couch and looked at the time on the television. It was dark in the living room... the only source of light was the television itself.

It was 5:00 A.M. and it was still dark outside. Victoria felt awful and wanted to go back to sleep, but there was no point. She would just wake up an hour later feeling awful and wanting to go back to sleep only to find that she could not. Victoria would just sit up and watch TV until she got bored enough to try and sleep. But first she needed something to drink.

Victoria stood up and stretched a bit, then walked towards the kitchen to go grab a can of soda, a bottle of water, a bottle of vodka, or whatever beverage caught her eye.

-In the kitchen-

Victoria felt the chill of cold tile beneath her feet as she walked towards the refrigerator and opened the doors. She leaned forward and began to rummage through it in search of a drink. She could choose from bottled water, canned soda, or a bottle of vodka. Victoria gave into instinct and reached for the vodka, grabbing the bottle by the neck and lifting it to examine the label.

It was Albino Gander vodka, the good kind. It was good either on its own or when used to make a Screwdriver. Victoria brought it to her and started to unscrew the cap when she suddenly stopped and stared at it.

Something stopped her from drinking it. Victoria was astounded. Normally she would have already started drinking it, but right now drinking the bottle of Albino Gander was about as appealing as drinking motor oil... not that she would know what that was like. The brunette shrugged her shoulders, set the bottle back on the shelf, and picked up a can of Strawberry Slam soda.

She shut the refrigerator door and opened the can, then took a swig of the strawberry soda. It was pretty good and tasted a lot better than the vodka would have tasted. Then Victoria blinked when she thought about what she had just thought.

What was she thinking?

Victoria was a big fan of vodka. Anyone who had known her for any length of time could tell. Now she was uninterested in drinking it. Why was that?

Victoria had no idea.

Maybe something was telling her not to drink her problems away but to face them.

With that in mind she held onto the soda can and walked towards the living room with her other drink of choice, Strawberry Slam. It was still unhealthy, but it was not quite as unhealthy as her vodka habit.

-In the living room-

Victoria walked out of the kitchen and returned to the living room. She sat on the couch and began watching the television to find the whiny mecha pilot whining about how fighting only brought about more fighting. Victoria scoffed at the idea and not just because of the absurdity of it. She also scoffed at the obvious hypocrisy of the speaker.

He talked about peace but flew around in a cutting-edge military mecha armed with the latest weapons. He talked about peace but was eager to kill anyone who disagreed with his distorted view of the meaning of peace. Victoria rolled her eyes so hard that if she were awake Laura could hear it from upstairs. Still, she continued to watch the show because there was nothing else worth watching on, not unless she wanted to watch old Westerns or boring nature documentaries.

-Three hours later-

Victoria looked at the television clock and saw that the time was 8:00 A.M. She did not care. It was not like she had anything important to do today... she had come here to take a day or two off and relax for once.

The Order Of Lightbringers had nothing to report on Zupazu's Executioners, so the cult must have been laying low and plotting to take back the two "Instruments Of Discord" that Victoria and Abigail had taken from them in Silent Cemetery. Victoria was sure that the Order would send for them if the situation changed. In the meantime the brunette was content to sit back and take a mini-vacation before she was inevitably called to do battle with some new threat to Earthland's safety. Maybe she should not be so lazy when a demon cult was on the loose, but after both the border skirmish with Pergrande's forces and the encounter with Zupazu's Executioners in Silent Cemetery, Victoria felt that she had earned the right to take a mini-vacation for a day or two.

Sabertooth had plenty of powerful and competent mages that could fill the gap left by her absence until she returned. Samira, Gaia, Luna, Itori, Kenna, and Imai could handle things in her absence. They were mages who could get things done and Samira was the strongest mage in the guild, so Samira alone could more than make up for Victoria, to say nothing of Luna or Itori.

Victoria sat on the couch and flipped away from the mecha anime she had been absentmindedly staring at for the past few hours, which was now going through a rerun of the same episodes she had stared at earlier. The next channel she landed on was another anime about people trapped in a video game where if someone was killed in the game they died for real. It was not the most original idea, but it looked interesting enough to merit at least a few minutes of viewing to see if it was any good.

The brunette stopped on the channel and watched as a black-haired young man in full steel plate armor and wielding a claymore sword led a group of a dozen similarly armed and armored colleagues in a fight against zombies led by a necromancer in black robes with a skull for a face and beady red eyes. Victoria shuddered and could not help but to think of that skull-faced necromancer she and Abigail had killed in Silent Cemetery that time a few months ago. She had still not gotten over that completely and it was doubtful if she ever would. Getting over those tiny emerald eyes in the skull with the flap of flesh around the lips had not been easy, but the brunette had progressed to the point that she did not think about him all the time. She only thought about him when looking into pitch blackness or when viewing a human skull with no flesh on it.

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-10:30 A.M.-

Victoria had finally fallen asleep around 9:20 A.M. after watching one-and-a-half episodes of the anime about the people stuck in a video game and having to fight for their lives. She did not even get to see the rest of it, but what little she saw she sort of liked. Victoria finally woke up around 10:30 A.M. to find that the anime show had changed from "trapped in a deadly video game" to a "slice of life in high school" anime. Victoria rubbed her eyes and looked at the television while trying to get up so that she could go to the kitchen and get a bottle of water to help with the bad case of dry mouth she had developed from sleeping with her mouth open.

On the screen were a quartet of cutesy blonde girls in matching school uniforms of white long-sleeved shirts and blue skirts with black dress shoes performing in a band they had formed named Cram School Soda Break. The band had the typical setup of lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and a vocalist. The music was so sappy it was a wonder Victoria's television did not start oozing syrup. It was a song the lead singer had written about her search for a boyfriend and what she wanted out of her "ideal" boyfriend. Victoria could not stand the high-pitched vocals and the cutesy aesthetic of the characters.

"I didn't know you were a fan of anime, Miss Sheridan!" Laura's voice said from behind Victoria, who was not expecting anyone to be standing behind her. The startled brunette shrieked and jumped forward, landing on her feet and managing to avoid falling on her face. Once she was stable she turned and faced Laura.

"Where did you come from, Laura? I didn't see you anywhere in the house earlier!" Victoria asked the silver-haired maid. Laura's clothes were looking wrinkled like she had slept in them. Since Victoria had slept on the couch in her blue Steel Matron shirt and black skirt, she had no room to be casting stones at Laura.

"I apologize for scaring you, Miss Sheridan. And to be honest... I slept later than I intended. I normally get up at 6:00 A.M., but today it just didn't happen. I apologize for that too." Laura apologized for both scaring Victoria and not waking up in time. Victoria blinked.

"You get up at 6:00 A.M.?" Victoria asked Laura. Laura nodded.

"Dude, I usually don't get up until 9:00 A.M. at the earliest. I'm NOT a morning person." Victoria commented on Laura's morning person tendencies. Laura smiled.

"I've always been a morning person, Miss Sheridan. I've been that ever since I was a child. After becoming a maid I get paid to be a morning person, so that's even more reason to wake up early." Laura informed Victoria. The brunette could not argue with that reasoning. It was sound reasoning and Laura had been completely honest, something that Victoria could respect about her.

Victoria's sleep schedule was not a normal sleep schedule. She tended to stay up late and sleep for short intervals because she was a light sleeper, which was a tendency she developed during her days living on the streets. It was a survival mechanism... for small, weak girls like her it paid to be alert to sounds unless she wanted to never wake up again because her head had been bashed in while she slept. Being a light sleeper was a behavior that she could not quite eradicate.

Even after becoming a mage in Sabertooth who had the safety net of a guild supporting her, becoming the second-strongest mage in Sabertooth in terms of raw magical power, and having her own room in a guild hall, Victoria still could not sleep normally. No matter how secure her quarters were her sensitivity to noise would wake her up. It could be something as innocuous as a door closing down the hall or someone whispering outside her door and Victoria would bolt upright like Zupazu's Executioners were kicking down her door.

"Unless it's an emergency or I'm going on a job I'm getting paid for, I'm not a morning person, Laura. Sometimes I don't sleep very well at night... when that happens it's irregular. Sometimes I can sleep for hours on end and other times I'm lucky to sleep for half an hour without waking up because someone down the hall from me coughed." Victoria admitted to the silver-haired maid. Laura folded her arms.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but that explains quite a bit about your behavior. I heard you wake up around 5:00 A.M. after going to bed around 2:00 A.M." Laura said to the brunette. Victoria laughed a little.

"Yeah. That's how I am half the time." Victoria remarked. She could afford to be that way in the safety of her own home, but she might need to try a little harder to have a normal sleep schedule whenever she was sleeping at Sabertooth Guild Hall. However, that was easier said than done. Over a decade of irregular sleeping could not be altered by wishful thinking alone.

"I won't pass judgment on you, Miss Sheridan. You've been a good employer to me and I don't want to rock the boat by sounding like I'm judging you." Laura said in response to that. Victoria felt bad when she heard Laura's response. That response made it feel like Laura had to watch what she said because she feared Victoria firing her for the slightest negative remark, even one offered in jest or offered during a conversation where Victoria asked for her opinion.

Victoria was not sure what to say in response to that, so she went with her first instinct.

"Don't worry too much about offending me, Laura. I'm not easily offended, so you don't have to walk on eggshells around me." Victoria assured Laura that it would be hard to offend the brunette. She had been called all manner of ugly names and had taken a lot of verbal abuse as a child, so she was hard to insult. Mostly. After being "Tall Victoria" for so long, it was hard to go back to being "Normal Victoria" and having a mostly flat chest. That was still a sore point for her because in her shorter form people either mistook her for a guy in drag or deliberately pointed out her flat chest just to take cheap shots at her.

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-12:30 P.M.-

After their conversation Victoria and Laura had spent the past two hours watching the anime channel and watching the show with the four cutesy blondes and their band Cram School Soda Break. While watching Victoria learned that the show was also called Cram School Soda Break, presumably after the band that was the show's subject. The music was sugary, the characters cutesy, and the formula simplistic and well-worn, but the show had a certain appeal. Victoria found herself watching Cram School Soda Break despite her initially unfavorable reaction to it, probably because it was a simple "slice of life" show where the world was not in danger if the main characters made mistakes, no characters had a tragic backstory or skeletons in their closet, and there was no Machiavellian scheming anywhere in sight.

Victoria found herself liking Cram School Soda Break exactly because of what it was. It was a simple "slice of life" show which was not much of a departure from the formula for that kind of show but was entertaining nonetheless. Whenever the brunette watched television she wanted to get away from the real world for awhile and that meant watching shows that were mindless, shows that were entertaining, or shows that were both mindless and entertaining. Cram School Soda Break fit the "mindless and entertaining" category nicely. The show was just coming back on when Laura spoke to her for the first time in a little over two hours.

"Would you like me to prepare lunch for you, Miss Sheridan?" Laura asked Victoria out of the blue. The brunette blinked. She had not even thought about food until the silver-haired maid brought up the subject.

"No thanks, Laura. I'm not hungry right now. You can go fix yourself something if you need to eat. You don't have to wait on me." Victoria replied, declining the offer of food for the time being. She was not particularly hungry right now. She was more tired and introspective than hungry... mostly tired when she really thought about it. Laura stood up and spoke to Victoria.

"I'll go prepare myself a meal then. If you want me to make you anything, just let me know!" Laura said to Victoria. Victoria gave a thumbs-up and Laura walked out of the living room towards the kitchen. The brunette turned her attention back to the television and watched the band practice in the leader's music room in her house. The band's leader and vocalist, a young woman with green eyes and waist-length blonde hair named Harriet Marshall, lived with her wealthy parents and siblings in a mansion that had a dedicated music room to practice in as opposed to the garages or basements her less wealthy friends had to use.

Victoria stood up and stretched her legs while the show continued to play. The band was tuning up their instruments and checking the connection to their sound system while Harriet did a microphone check. Victoria winced when she heard the feedback from the microphone and the blonde hurried to fix her microphone while her bandmates covered their ears and shouted in pain. Once the painful noise stopped the brunette smiled a little as the band exchanged jokes about the microphone mishap and prepared to play their instruments. The blonde quartet looked and sounded like friends united by a common interest.

Victoria watched the scene and found herself wishing that she had more friends besides Abigail Windstrider and Florence Manderley. Having some friends outside of the magic world would be nice. Then she realized that she could have more friends... if she really wanted them and was willing to work to keep them.

Victoria's lack of friends was not anyone's fault but her own. She could get along with others well enough to form acquaintances and have basic social interactions, but she had trouble forming deep connections with others. Part of her problem was her reluctance to open up to other people about the image issues stemming from her two forms "Normal Victoria" and "Tall Victoria", her thrill-seeking tendencies, her mercenary nature, or her numerous other problems.

Speaking of image issues, Victoria had grown accustomed to being "Tall Victoria" and did not care much for "Normal Victoria" despite the latter form having been the one she had spent most of her life in. After having to put up with countless jokes about being a guy in drag and having a flat chest it was nice to have an unmistakably feminine appearance. It was also nice to have the ability to shift back and forth between forms at will instead of being stuck in one form forever. However, staying as "Tall Victoria" all the time was probably not the best idea because she was only hiding from her issues instead of working to solve them. She was covering up the issue by staying as her more attractive form to avoid dealing with it.

Or maybe she was just overthinking things.

That had to be it.

Victoria was just tired. She was just overthinking things. While she had a lot of problems and most of those problems were self-inflicted, not every problem of hers was a symptom of some deeper malady. For example, she liked drinking vodka because she liked the taste of vodka, not because she was trying to drown her problems in alcohol until she forgot about them. Then she thought about that and realized that the assertion about vodka was not entirely true.

There were some problems that she would rather forget about and alcohol helped her cope. For example, alcohol helped her soothe the emotional impact of seeing a Maw Of Hell open its mouth at her during a job in Silent Cemetery and seeing how the demon got its name. That kind of emotional turmoil was something she could not just will her way through with an action movie one-liner and a weapon in hand. She needed to get professional help for that problem some day, but how many psychiatrists had dealt with patients who were mages? How many psychiatrists were trained to talk to mage patients who had seen and fought actual demons summoned by a demon cult bent on handing the world over to their infernal patron?

Victoria had no idea. She could deal with that issue later. Right now she really needed to sleep. Maybe when she woke up she would have a better perspective on her problems.

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[Total Word Count: 3,318/11,000]

-3:00 P.M.-

Victoria had meant to get up and go to sleep in her bedroom, but instead she had stayed glued to the anime channel because it was mindless entertainment. She had watched Cram School Soda Break until it went off and had been replaced by the first episode of another "slice of life" show called Fortunate Meteor about a group of young teenage women in high school who went about their daily lives and stressed over schoolwork, studying for exams, and just living their lives in a completely ordinary town. Unlike Cram School Soda Break, there was no band gimmick in this show.

Victoria watched the show and was not quite sure what to make of it. The show's lead characters were talking about different kinds of soda and which one was the best while eating lunch outside their school. It was not exactly thrilling to watch, but shortly after that scene things got more interesting when the pink-haired lead, a bespectacled young woman named Momo, learned from her friends that they had an Algebra test in less than an hour. She screamed and ran into the school, leaving her lunch behind and her friends asking if she would be OK.

The scene shifted to Momo hurrying into a library with her math textbook and notes, finding an empty table, and quietly sitting down at it before opening her textbook. Once she opened it orchestral music began to play as Momo began sweating and her internal dialogue indicated sheer panic as she exclaimed that her parents would kick her out of their home if she made less than a B. A female chorus began to sing a slow song in what sounded like Latin as Momo did her best to study with the test coming closer and closer. She listened a bit closer and thought that the chorus sounded like Mozart's Lacrimosa, but she was not certain. Victoria was somewhat amused by that scene and continued to watch the pink-haired girl do her best to cram for the math test as the clock in the library ticked slowly in a countdown to the great trial Momo was going to face.

The show then skipped to the day after the test and Momo got her test back after school ended for the day. She was sweating profusely when she got it back and to her immense relief she made an 88 on the Algebra test. Momo smiled widely and wiped her forehead as she quietly celebrated her victory. She would get to stay at home tonight instead of having to crash on a friend's couch. A girl with long white waist-length hair who was part of the group, a young woman named Kasumi, walked over to Momo and looked over the bespectacled girl's shoulder at her test paper.

"Wow, Momo. You were born under a lucky star!" The white-haired young woman exclaimed. Kasumi showed her test paper and she had made an 80.

"You can say that again, Kasumi. I don't need to make this a habit, though. If I count on luck to see me through everything one day my luck will give out at a really bad time and I'll be spending the night outside my home!" Momo said to her friend. The third member of the friend group, a young woman with long blue hair in a ponytail named Kaede, sauntered over to the group and slammed her test paper onto Momo's desk.

"I got a 72!" Kaede remarked happily. Momo and Kasumi stared at her with blank looks.

"What? I'm proud of that grade! I'm really bad at Algebra, OK?" Kaede said defensively.

"You really need to study more, Kaede." Momo suggested to her friend. Kaede frowned and took back her test paper.

"You really need to study more, Kaede." Kaede repeated mockingly in a nasally "nerd" voice. Momo frowned.

"Don't give me that look, Momo. You know that I study hours and hours for math tests. I study until I see numbers and equations in my sleep, but then I go blank when I actually get the test! I'm slowly doing better, but I won't ever be as good as you!" Kaede defended herself and her grade. Momo's face softened.

"Look, Kaede. I didn't mean anything by it. If you want me to help you study, I can help you study." Momo offered. Kaede's face softened.

"Don't waste your time on me, Momo. You've got your own grades to worry about. Your parents literally throw you out of your house if you make anything less than a B, so don't worry about me." Kaede replied in all seriousness. She also sounded a bit sad when she said that. She walked away from the pair and Kasumi and Momo watched Kaede leave the classroom while slow and sad music played.

Outside the classroom Kaede looked out a window. She looked towards the horizon and various voices began to echo in her head.

"YOU FAILED YOUR MATH TEST! YOU'RE SO STUPID!" A woman screamed at Kaede. Seconds later a little girl stumbling over multiplication tables was heard.

"2 times 4 is eight! EIGHT! IT'S NOT THAT HARD! Why can't you learn your damn multiplication tables?!" A man screamed at Kaede and both the man and woman started to call Kaede hurtful names. Victoria winced and the scene changed to a flashback with a small blue-haired girl sitting on a bed with pink sheets in a room decorated with children's toys and crying. The girl was a younger Kaede shortly after the verbal beating she received for failing her math test. The scene was getting harder and harder for Victoria to watch without wanting to cry, but she pushed herself to keep watching anyway.

Victoria's perseverance was rewarded when the scene mercifully switched back to the present and Kaede continued to look out the window.

"I wish I was born under a lucky star like Momo." Kaede said to herself. The episode took a commercial break and Victoria was relieved to receive a break. The episode was emotionally draining, especially the brief and sad flashback of younger Kaede crying in her room after her parents berated her for not getting her multiplication tables right.

She watched the commercial for Cram School Soda Break and some other shows on the anime channel, then five minutes later the episode continued and showed Kaede finishing her homework at 1:35 A.M. the next morning, then setting the alarm on her alarm clock for 5:00 A.M. The blue-haired young woman then shuffled over to her bed and fell on it, going to sleep without even bothering to pull back the sheets. The scene shifted to Momo asleep at her desk in her room with her schoolbag sitting on the floor to the right of her chair. The scene then shifted to Kasumi finally going to sleep at 2:05 A.M. after finishing her homework. Then the scene changed yet again to the girls arriving at school around 8:00 A.M. with Momo taking the lead, Kasumi following close behind Momo, and Kaede following Kasumi with a bottle of water in hand.

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-5:00 P.M.-

Victoria had watched four episodes of Fortunate Meteor and was feeling hungry after the last episode had ended, so she got up when the show went off the air and that mecha show with the whiny hypocritical pilot came on. Victoria did not want to see that whiny guy complaining about how violence solved nothing in one breath while effortlessly tearing through enemy forces in the next breath, so she left the television on and walked towards the kitchen to go get something to eat. While she walked towards the kitchen she thought about Cram School Soda Break and Fortunate Meteor and how much she enjoyed them despite the poor first impression both shows had made on her.

Both of them were good "slice of life" shows that were a bit cutesy but were entertaining once Victoria had looked past the exterior. She liked the mindless entertainment and the lack of danger where no one would get hurt or killed if the main characters did not succeed. There were no demon cults running around and working to revive their infernal patron, no floating demons that looked like the gates of Hell whenever they opened their mouths, and no fights with slavers trying to cart off innocent people into slavery.

Victoria shook off the bad memories that had accumulated over her mage career and walked into the kitchen to grab something to eat.

-Inside the kitchen-

Victoria walked across the kitchen floor and walked over to the refrigerator, then opened it. Inside was the same selection that was available to her earlier, which was canned soda, bottled water, or vodka. The brunette reached for the vodka again and realized what she was doing, so she pulled her hand away from the bottle just before her fingers wrapped around it. She removed her hand and went for a canned soda, specifically a can of Cherry Charge. She grabbed the can and pulled her arm out, then closed the door.

She opened the Strawberry Slam and started to drink it when she saw a few drops fall from her lips and fall to the tile floor. Victoria saw the drops spread and noted how they resembled blood. Victoria walked over to the sink, set down the open can on the kitchen counter, and reached for a roll of paper towels. She tore off a paper towel and walked back over to the spill, cleaned it up, and walked over to the trash can, where she tossed the paper towel into the trash. The brunette then walked back to the sink and grabbed the soda can.

She was about to drink from it when she saw a small amount of cherry soda near the mouth of the can. It resembled blood, so she wordlessly held the can over the sink, turned it upside down, and poured the soda out. It was a shame to waste perfectly good soda like that, but right now the brunette was in no mood to drink it and she had already opened the can. If she put it back in the refrigerator it would go flat within the day, so it was best to just pour it out if she was not going to drink it. For a few moments the soda collected in the sink and made it look like she had poured blood into the sink.

Victoria stared at it until it began to go down the drain. Once it started going down the drain the brunette watched it as it went away. She then turned on the faucet to wash away what little Cherry Charge soda remained in the sink.

"Miss Sheridan, are you OK?" Laura asked Victoria. The silver-haired maid had a penchant for arriving unannounced and startling Victoria, but this time the brunette did not shriek and jump in fright.

"I'm fine, Laura. I just spilled some Cherry Charge on the floor. I cleaned it up, though." Victoria calmly replied to the question without facing Laura.

"I see that, but why are you holding an empty soda can over the sink?" Laura asked Victoria another question.

"The soda reminded me of a bad memory." Victoria admitted without telling the whole truth. Laura remained silent for a few moments like she was not buying the brunette's story, but after a few moments she spoke again.

"Should I stop buying Cherry Charge then?" Laura inquired. Victoria shook her head.

"No, Laura. I'd like you to keep buying Cherry Charge. The spill just happened in a way that reminded me of a bad memory." Victoria replied. The brunette had a lot of bad memories, so Laura would not know which one the former was talking about. That was for the best.

"Are you sure you'll be OK, Miss Sheridan?" Laura asked again.

"I'll be fine, Laura. I'll be fine." Victoria assured the faithful maid.

"Would you like dinner now, Miss Sheridan?" Laura inquired, letting the matter of the soda drop.

"Yes, please." Victoria answered.

"What would you like to eat?" Laura inquired.

"Fettucine alfredo, please." Victoria replied. She rinsed out the soda can, took it over to a recycle bin, and dropped it in. She then walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of water, and shut the door before walking out of the kitchen to let Laura prepare the meal in peace.

-In the living room, five minutes later-

Victoria left the kitchen and sat on the couch in front of the television. The mecha anime show with the whiny protagonist was still on. The brunette grabbed the remote and tried to find something else to watch, but nothing good was on TV except old Westerns, old war movies, old black-and-white detective movies, formulaic modern crime shows, and other types of  that she did not care for. The brunette sighed and set the remote back down. She would stick with the anime channel and hope that a better show came on soon.

-In the dining room, twenty-five minutes later-

Victoria had been called to the dining room by Laura, who had prepared the fettucine alfredo for the brunette. Victoria sat at the table and looked listlessly at the food. Laura was a skilled cook, but right now the fettucine alfredo looked like strips of papier mache slathered in glue. Victoria began to eat it with her fork, but it did not have much taste to it. It was not Laura's fault that the food had no taste.

At the moment Victoria was in a strange place mentally and it would take awhile for her to get out of it. She would eventually get out of that place, but it would take a bit of time for her to do so.

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-Victoria's Room, 12:05 A.M., the next morning-

Having squandered the rest of the day watching various anime shows, Victoria finally pulled herself from out in front of the television and went to her room five minutes after midnight. She really wanted to sleep, but various thoughts floated around her mind and kept her from sleeping. She kept thinking about the numerous jobs she had completed in the past and she kept thinking about the Cherry Charge soda she had spilled earlier. There was something about the soda that brought back a bad memory, but she could not quite put her finger on what that memory was. It had something to do with blood, though.

That was not specific enough to help her recall the memory in question.

A lot of her bad memories involved blood because she had killed a lot of evil beings over the years.

Victoria, unable to find the specific memory that spilling the drops of soda on the tile floor had brought back, just gave up on it. She had spent the better part of a day trying to figure it out, so if she had not figured it out by now, she was not going to figure it out. The brunette did not even bother changing out of her clothes and decided to sleep in them because she was too lazy to care. No one would really care and if anyone called her on it, she could always assert that she owned this house.

The brunette crawled into the middle of the bed and tried to go to sleep before she had to wake up the next morning. She stared at the ceiling until she went to sleep a few minutes later.

-5:00 A.M, the next morning-

Victoria had slept a few hours, but she had not slept nearly long enough to truly rest. After staring at the ceiling for what seemed like forever, Victoria just gave up on getting any sleep and got up, then went to the living room to see what was on the anime channel. She sat down in front of the television again and turned it on. The television flickered to life and the mecha anime with the whiny protagonist was on. Victoria groaned... she did not want to see that annoying face this early in the morning.

The protagonist was whining about how violence was not the answer to disputes while floating amidst the debris of the enemy mecha he had just destroyed with his fancy beam rifle. Victoria counted at least twelve red enemy mecha suits the protagonist had destroyed and the debris of what looked like an enemy transport vessel that had been turned into Swiss cheese before exploding. Victoria had had enough of the protagonist's hypocrisy. If he wanted to make his message stronger, he would not whine about violence after wiping out an entire enemy force and their transport vessel by himself.

Violence had been the answer to many of Victoria's problems and that approach had gotten her far. Slavers, demon cultists, zombies, werewolves, demons... none of them were going to stop terrorizing innocent people without being made to stop by force. Victoria had stopped plenty of them with violence and no one had complained about "violence not being the answer", least of all the young women she had rescued from Zupazu's Executioners months ago.

Victoria flipped away from the whiny mecha protagonist and tried to find something else worth watching. It was too early in the morning for her to listen to his drivel. The brunette changed the channel and began flipping through the shows that were currently on. There was that cooking show with the overly dramatic music, there was a car auction rerun, there was an old Plague Doctor music video where rats were running through a grimy city street on a rainy night, and some other shows that failed to interest the brunette. Eventually she gave up and landed back on the anime channel... it seemed like she had no real choice but to listen to that mecha protagonist spew flagrant hypocrisy for half an hour.

Victoria settled in to watch the guy complain about how the other side was "evil" for attacking his friends on board his ship, which was on approach to pick him up after the fight. The brunette groaned. What did that dimwit expect to happen?

Of course the other side was attacking his ship... it was a giant white warship with four gun turrets that featured three giant laser guns apiece. Two turrets were on the ship's front and two turrets were on the back and they were all mounted on the ship's centerline. The space between turrets was liberally packed with small-caliber anti-missile and anti-fighter guns. It was not a diplomatic vessel by any means.

The fight had taken place in a contested region of space that both sides were funneling warships and mecha suits into. The region, called Cornucopia by the protagonist's side and Bounty by the enemy side, was home to several resource-rich planets that could turn the tide of the war in favor of whoever captured them and harnessed their resources. It stood to reason that there would be fighting in the area, so she did not know what the protagonist was whining about when he complained about the enemy targeting his ship.

Then things got interesting. Victoria saw a large enemy fleet of over a dozen warships and five dozen red mecha suits led by a white mecha suit with red shoulders and large thrusters on the back appear. The white suit with red shoulders was flying towards the protagonist as fast as it could go. The calm post-battle music changed to a dramatic orchestral sound that did not bode well for the protagonist.

"Captain! There's a large enemy force heading our way and they're loaded for bear!" A blond young man in a khaki uniform sitting at a radar console warned the white ship's captain. The captain was clearly not expecting another enemy force so soon after defeating the last one, but to his credit he quickly reacted to the situation.

"All hands, prepare for battle!" The captain, a middle-aged man with short black hair and wearing a brown uniform with black shoulder boards that had gold braid, ordered the ship's crew to get ready for a fight. The two front turrets of the ship turned towards the enemy and the small-caliber guns whirred to life, ready to shoot down any enemy missiles and fighters that came within range. The gun crews quickly loaded the turret guns and aimed them carefully at the oncoming enemy force, waiting for the order to fire.

[Post Word Count: 1,112]
[Total Word Count: 6,732/11,000]

Victoria watched the scene unfold with great interest. The ships in the enemy fleet aimed their guns at the white ship and their mecha suits flew towards the action as fast as they could go. The suit that led the formation greatly resembled a knight's suit of armor and looked like something from an earlier era. When compared to the generic red mechas it was leading, it looked like the elegant and knightly mecha might belong to an ace pilot. Victoria thought that after seeing the new threat the protagonist would get proactive in defending his home ship, but true to form, he began whining instead.

The protagonist whined about how the ambush was a "dirty trick" and that he would "bring peace to the galaxy" by wiping out the enemy side, which (according to him) was full of "barbarians" who fought for the sake of fighting while he fought to defend innocent people. Victoria simply rolled her eyes.

The white mecha with red shoulders zoomed towards the protagonist and the latter aimed his suit's beam rifle at it while declaring he was going to destroy the enemy suit in one shot. He fired and the enemy pilot did a barrel roll that put him a meter to the right, allowing him to dodge the beam rifle shot with ease. Without missing a beat the enemy pilot aimed and fired back with his own gun, which resembled an anti-materiel rifle scaled up to the size of a real-world passenger jet, if not larger. The shot hit the protagonist's beam rifle in the magazine and it exploded in the suit's hand, causing the protagonist to scream.

"That shot was too precise for a human to make! HOW COULD ANYONE MAKE THAT SHOT?!" The protagonist asked in disbelief.

"Calm down, Arik!" A female voice on board the white warship tried to encourage the protagonist, who was busy trying to keep it together. Meanwhile the enemy ace continued to zoom towards Arik's suit with his rifle aimed at the suit's torso. The enemy fleet, not content to sit back and let their best mecha pilot do all the fighting, began to fire everything they had at the white warship. A lot of red laser beams began flying towards the ship and several of them hit the vessel's front. The first front turret took a direct hit between the second and third barrels, putting it out of action.

"Arik! ARIK! Listen to me! We need your help! The Selene can't fight them alone!" The white ship's captain pleaded with the protagonist, who was in the middle of a major freakout. Arik's hands were shaking and he was so scared that he looked like he was about to begin crying at any moment. The brunette was taking immense pleasure at the sight of the protagonist who minutes before had been mouthing off about how he was going to "bring peace to the galaxy" realizing that he had finally met his match.

Victoria got the impression that Arik was freaking out because he was not used to fighting an enemy pilot who could actually threaten him. The brunette sat up straight and gave the show her undivided attention. She wanted to see how Arik would get out of this mess with his sanctimonious attitude intact.

Scratch that.

She wanted to see how he would get out of this mess at all.

Victoria watched the enemy pilot fire at Arik's suit while on the move and hit it with three shots to the torso, leaving mild dents in the armor. The enemy pilot, having learned that his rifle was not much use against the protagonist's suit, threw the rifle towards a friendly unit flying twenty meters behind him and drew a large beam sword and ignited it. In the meantime, Arik was fumbling to draw his suit's beam sword.

"Arik, listen to me! We need your help! The enemy's hit us several times and we've lost Turret Number One! We're outnumber twelve-to-one by enemy ships and the enemy's mecha suits are headed straight for us!" The captain of the Selene urged Arik to snap out of it and begin fighting back. Arik had finally managed to draw his beam sword and ignite it, but by then the enemy pilot was only three meters away from him.

"ARIK! WE NEED YOU TO PROTECT US!" The young woman on board the Selene called Arik's name. Instead of rising to the challenge Arik began flying backwards, but not to get some distance for a counterattack.

"G-G-GET AWAY FROM ME! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" He screamed at the enemy pilot while flailing his beam sword about without really aiming the swings. The enemy did not listen and zoomed towards him, then abruptly stopped a meter away and decapitated Arik's suit with a single swing of the beam sword. They then performed a 360-degree spin attack that cut Arik's suit in half at the waist. Finally they executed a downward one-handed chop that severed the suit's sword arm before darting off towards the Selene, leaving Arik floating in the torso of a trashed mecha while the enemy mechas flew right by him to follow their leader.

The scene shifted to show the Selene's crew doing their best to keep up with the ship's condition, which was gradually getting worse as it took more and more battle damage.

"Captain, the Selene's taken serious damage! Turrets One and Two are offline and we're being swarmed by enemy mechas! Our point defense guns won't be able to handle them all!" The young woman who had called out to Arik earlier updated the captain on the ship's condition. The view shifted to the outside of the ship as red mechas were flying towards the Selene and firing large bazookas at it. A few rockets hit the front of the Selene and did only minor damage, but since their lone mecha pilot was floating uselessly in a trashed suit, the Selene was vulnerable to a swarm attack by the enemy mechas.

"Sir, what are your orders?" A red-haired young man wearing glasses and sitting at a console turned away from it and asked the captain.

"Send out a distress call to the Salamis Battle Group! We need help immediately!" The captain ordered. The young crewman quickly turned to his console and began making the call for help. The captain closed his eyes and took a quiet breath.

"Now all we can do is hope that they get here in time." The captain mused to himself.

The episode ended on that note and the credits began to roll. Victoria was now hooked on the show and wanted to see more. She wanted to see whether Salamis Battle Group would get there in time to help the Selene... and rescue that Arik guy, who was currently floating in space in part of a mecha suit after getting utterly stomped by the enemy ace.

[Post Word Count: 1,154]
[Total Word Count: 7,886/11,000]

-12:30 P.M.-

Victoria woke up after having passed out on her couch after the mecha show ended on a cliffhanger. She should have stayed awake to see if the Salamis Battle Group managed to rescue the Selene... and Arik. However, Victoria could not manage to stay awake to watch it, so she would just have to catch it on a rerun. She was sure that she would get plenty of chances to watch the episode in question thanks to frequent reruns on the anime channel. In fact she had woken up to reruns of the first few episodes of Cram School Soda Break.

Victoria thought back to the inordinate glee she had felt when Arik got his ass royally kicked by the enemy ace whose name she never learned. She should not have taken the joy she did in watching a person who was obviously terrified and afraid for their life get stomped into the dirt, but something about Arik made watching that scene so enjoyable. Part of it was the gratification of seeing someone who mouthed off about their own moral superiority for at least two consecutive episodes finally get fed a slice of humble pie. Another part of it was watching the previously invincible protagonist finally meet his match and have to fight someone he could not just steamroll thanks to the power of his mecha. The enemy ace had both a powerful mecha and more skill than Arik, so when Arik ran up against the ace there was only one logical outcome... the brief but thorough thrashing she had witnessed near the end of the episode.

Most anime shows would have given the protagonist a deus ex machina to bail them out of a bad situation. Victoria had expected Arik to receive one when the young female crew member on the Selene called out to him. However, Arik did not get a miraculous bailout and he suffered a thorough ass-kicking, which was unusual for a mecha anime. Mecha anime sometimes had the protagonist using a top-of-the-line mecha with special features exclusive to that model. That went double if said mecha was a prototype and went triple if the mecha's designer came up with the concept of mecha suits for their side.

Arik was using a top-of-the-line mecha packed with all the latest technology his side had to offer, but Victoria was glad to see Arik get stomped near the end of the episode. If he had gotten a deus ex machina super mode at the last moment that allowed him to effortlessly defeat the enemy ace, the enemy mecha formation attacking the Selene, and the twelve ships of the enemy fleet, Victoria would have been immeasurably pissed. As it stood she got a certain satisfaction from that scene that was hard to describe. She would make an effort to catch the rerun of the next episode, but for now she had to get up and do something somewhat productive today.

"Hello Miss Sheridan. Did you finally manage to go to sleep?" Laura asked Victoria. Victoria smoothed out her wrinkled shirt and skirt, then turned to face Laura.

"Actually, I did. I went to sleep on my couch after staring at the television for half an hour at 5:00 A.M., but I finally managed to go to sleep and stay asleep." Victoria replied. It was not a full night's sleep, but right now the brunette would take what she could get when she could get it. Yesterday had been a weird day filled with trying to recall a bad memory that she could not quite determine the contents of. All she knew was that it involved blood, but that one clue was not nearly specific enough to allow her to pinpoint the exact memory that was brought back by spilling drops of red soda on a tile floor.

"Would you like anything to eat, Miss Sheridan?" Laura asked Victoria. The brunette shook her head.

"No thanks, Laura. Not right now, anyway." Victoria replied. Laura nodded in acceptance.

"OK. Let me know if you need anything." Laura told Victoria.

"Sure thing, Laura." Victoria replied. Laura then walked away to do something else while Victoria walked upstairs to get her iLac. She hoped that someone had not called or texted her while she was asleep, but she was sure that if someone had called or texted Laura would have let her know.

-In Victoria's room-

Victoria walked into her room and found her iLac lying on the nightstand to the left of her bed. She picked it up and tapped the screen. She did not see any new text messages or any indication that she had missed a phone call, so she just set it back down and walked towards the doorway to go down the hall and get a bathcloth and towel so that she could take a shower. At least that was the plan until she got a phone call.

Victoria walked briskly over to the iLac and answered the call.

"Hey Vic!" Abigail said to Victoria. The brunette set aside her plans to get a shower and listened to Abigail.

"Hey Abby! What's going on?" Victoria asked her old friend.

"Not a whole lot. Listen, I'm headed to Capital Crocus to do some shopping. Do you mind if I drop by your place?" Abigail asked Victoria if she could drop by the Sheridan Estate.

"Not at all, Abby. Come on over! I'll be here!" Victoria let Abigail know that she was welcome to come by.

"Great! I'll see you in a few hours!" Abigail replied before hanging up. Victoria set her iLac on her bed and let the room to get a bathcloth and towel. She would needed to take a shower before Abigail arrived, but the blonde had estimated that it would take a few hours for her to get here, so the brunette had plenty of time. There was no need to hurry, so Victoria would take a leisurely shower and be ready long before her friend arrived in Capital Crocus.

-Victoria's room, forty-five minutes later-

Having taken a leisurely shower that had lasted a bit longer than Victoria intended because she had almost forgotten to wash her hair, the brunette had walked into her room and changed into a green t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. Laura was busy washing her blue Steel Matron t-shirt and black skirt, so it was a good thing Victoria had left some extra clothes at the Sheridan Estate or she would be in a difficult situation right now.

Dressed in clean clothes that were not wrinkled, Victoria left her hair to hang freely for the time being. She would put it in a ponytail later. Right now she just wanted to get something to eat before Abigail got here.

[Post Word Count: 1,130]
[Total Word Count: 9,016/11,000]

-The dining room, 1:55 P.M.-

Victoria was having a late lunch of leftover fettucine alfredo that Laura had made for dinner last night. Unlike the fettucine alfredo from yesterday afternoon or evening (she had forgotten when she had eaten it) this serving of fettucine alfredo had taste. The lackluster taste of dinner was not Laura's fault. The silver-haired maid had done everything she could to make the meal appetizing, but the brunette was in a strange mental state and at that time even the best meal would have tasted about as appealing as eating newspaper.

She finished the meal and stood up to carry her plate into the kitchen so that for once Laura did not have to do all the cleaning up after a meal.

-In the kitchen-

Victoria walked into the kitchen and walked over to the sink, then dropped off the dirty plate and silverware so that Laura could wash it at her convenience. Victoria then walked over to the refrigerator and looked for something to drink. She had had bottled water for lunch, but she wanted something else to drink and she was exercising her privilege as the owner of the house to get it... not that she really needed to do that. No one was going to call her out on getting another bottle of water or a can of soda.

Victoria opened the refrigerator door, pulled out a bottle of water, and closed the door. She then walked away with her beverage and twisted off the cap. She left the kitchen and went back to her room to grab her iLac and check to see if Abigail had tried to call her since the last time they had spoken. She doubted it, but Victoria would check anyway just to do something besides sit in front of the television and watch anime all day... again.

-In Victoria's room-

With the bottle of water clutched in her right hand, Victoria walked across her room and over to her bed, where her olive green iLac rested. She picked it up with her left hand and tapped the screen, then checked for new calls or text messages. She had not received any yet, so she took it that Abigail was OK and that she would still be coming to the Sheridan Estate for a visit.

Victoria pocketed the iLac and began to walk out of the room when she remembered something.

She had forgotten to tell Laura that Abigail was coming to pay a visit!

Victoria walked towards the doorway and was about six steps from it when Laura walked up to the door out of nowhere, causing Victoria to shriek and nearly throw the bottle of water into the air. Victoria had gotten some water on her shirt and the carpet, but thankfully it was water and not something that would cause stains like soda. Water would eventually dry up on its own and no one would ever know that there had been a spill.

"Oh dear. I'm sorry about that, Miss Sheridan." Laura apologized for startling Victoria and causing the brunette to get water on herself and the carpet.

"It's no problem, Laura. I should expect that kind of thing by now, but I still get startled whenever you show up out of nowhere." Victoria said. The two looked at each other for a few moments before the brunette managed to remember what she was going to say to the maid.

"Anyway, I was going to tell you that my friend Abigail will be here in a few hours." Victoria informed Laura.

"Very well then, Miss Sheridan. Will she want or need anything to eat?" Laura asked Victoria. Victoria shrugged her shoulders.

"Not that I'm aware of, Laura. All she told me was that she was coming here and that she'd be here in a few hours. That's all I know." Victoria answered the best she could. Laura kept smiling.

"Very well then, Miss Sheridan. We'll find out when she gets here." Laura calmly said.

"Thanks, Laura." Victoria replied in gratitude for Laura's committment to helping keep the Sheridan Estate clean and running.

"It's no problem, Miss Sheridan." Laura assured Victoria before disappearing to prepare for Abigail's arrival. Victoria made her way to the living room to find something to watch to pass the time. She had a few hours to burn and could not think of anything else to do, so it was time to sit in front of the television and hope that the anime channel had something good on.

-In the living room, 2:15 P.M.-

Victoria sat down on the couch and turned on the television, taking her iLac out of her pocket so that it would be within easy reach if Abigail called. She had left the television on the anime channel and at the moment it was on a commercial break. Victoria watched commercials for Cram School Soda Break and Fortunate Meteor before the show came back on. To Victoria's delight it was Fortunate Meteor and it was the middle of the fifth episode. The brunette happily watched as the episode resumed and showed Kaede walking into the school with a wide smile that nothing could remove from her face.

Momo, who was busy reading a Chemistry textbook, saw Kaede approach and greeted her.

"Hey Kaede! You look happier than usual!" Momo commented. Kaede nodded.

"That's because I AM happier than usual!" Kaede replied in a cheerful tone. The curious pink-haired girl closed her textbook and spoke to the blue-haired girl.

"Well, what happened? What led to you being so happy?" Momo asked her friend.

"I saw the meteor shower last night." Kaede said to Momo. The bespectacled girl nodded.

"I saw it too. What about it?" Momo inquired.

"I think it worked a miracle." Kaede replied. Momo blinked in disbelief and Kaede smiled.

"Do you wanna know what happened?" Kaede asked Momo.

"Sure, Kaede. What happened last night when you saw the meteor shower?" Momo asked her friend just before the show cut to a strange sequence where a meteor shower filled the nighttime sky while a chibi Kaede danced under it. Victoria was eager to learn why Kaede was so happy and watched the show with her undivided attention. Maybe she would find out after the strange sequence finished and the scene with Kaede and Momo resumed.

[Post Word Count: 1,058]
[Total Word Count: 10,074/11,000]

-4:00 P.M.-

Victoria had watched the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth episodes of Fortunate Meteor and now knew the reason for Kaede being so happy. The brunette learned why after the scene where Kaede was telling Momo about the meteor shower resumed.

Kaede had just finished her homework when the meteor shower started. She moved aside her room's curtains to watch it through the window and wished that her parents would stop verbally abusing her for not doing well in school. Moments after she made the wish her parents entered her room and Kaede braced herself for another tongue-lashing after having barely passed a Chemistry quiz with a 70. Instead her parents apologized to her for being so harsh on her over the years and promised to never verbally abuse her or force her to study to excess again.

A flashback of Kaede as a little girl played. In this one Kaede's mother was unhappy with a spelling test on which her daughter had misspelled simple words like "house" and "truck" and screamed in the latter's face about it. Kaede's mother then made her study a spelling textbook until the early hours of the morning and screamed in Kaede's ear every time she began to doze off.

A second flashback was one of Kaede's father standing in her room and screaming in Kaede's face after seeing a Geography test she had barely passed. He shoved her school textbook into her hands and told her that she was going to study it until she saw maps in her sleep. He then made her study the textbook and stood over her shoulder the entire time from early evening until it was time for Kaede to go to bed.

A third flashback showed Kaede as a middle school student. She was being forced to study Geometry by her mother, who stood over her daughter's shoulder from early evening to sunset, when her father took over the duty of making sure Kaede studied to their satisfaction. From time to time he would scream at her that she was an idiot for not knowing concepts of Geometry that most students already knew, especially when she made a mistake while solving problems he made up for her.

The scene returned to the present and showed Kaede in a panic after her parents left the room after making their promise. Unlike Momo's panic over forgetting to study for the Algebra test in the first episode, Kaede's panic was depicted in a completely serious light. The blue-haired girl was genuinely afraid that her parents would exploit a loophole in their promise to never "verbally abuse" her again by using other means to punish her whenever she did not perform well in school.

Thankfully the fifth and sixth episodes showed Kaede's parents keeping their promise when she came home with a 74 on a Geography quiz. Instead of doling out verbal abuse they encouraged her to study harder without any explicit or implied threat of punishment and did not stand over her shoulder to "encourage" her to study. In the seventh and eighth episodes Kaede studied her hardest and even stayed up late to study of her own volition but still earned 78s on Algebra and Geography quizzes. Her parents did not berate her for her scores but instead praised her for studying hard enough to bring her grades up, even if they had only went up by a few points.

Victoria was watching a commercial for Cram School Soda Break when she heard knocking on the door. She stood up to get it when Laura briskly walked to the door and opened it before Victoria could walk out from around the couch.

"Hello Miss Windstrider. Miss Sheridan told me that you would be coming here. Please, come in." Laura greeted Abigail. Abigail waved at Laura and wiped her feet off at the door, then stepped inside.

"Hey Victoria! It's nice to see you again!" Abigail greeted the brunette. Abigail was wearing a sky blue t-shirt and blue jean shorts with boots plus a backpack.

"Hey Abigail!" Victoria warmly greeted her friend.

"How's it going, Vic?" Abigail used the shortened form of the brunette's name that only a few people were allowed to use.

"It's going all right, Abby. I was just watching the anime channel until you got here." Victoria replied. Abigail was amused by that.

"You, watching anime? I never thought I'd see that day!" The blonde commented in amusement. Victoria frowned.

"Why not?" Victoria asked with her hands on her hips.

"You don't watch very much television because you're always on the go, but when you do watch television you strike me as the type to sit around and watch macho stuff like action movies and war movies, not anime." Abigail replied. Victoria could not easily rebut either part of that statement. She usually stayed on the move and when she did watch television it was something macho, but after discovering Cram School Soda Break and Fortunate Meteor that was no longer the case. Abigail looked at the television and saw that Cram School Soda Break was on.

"Oh, hey, is that Cram School Soda Break?" Abigail asked Victoria while pointing towards the television. Victoria turned around and saw that the show on the television was indeed Cram School Soda Break.

"Yeah, Abby. I just started watching it yesterday. Have you seen it before?" Victoria asked Abigail. The blonde nodded.

"Yeah, I've watched all of the first season, but don't worry 'cause I won't spoil anything for you. So far there's three seasons, but I haven't watched any episodes in the other two seasons because I haven't been keeping up with it lately. I've been sorta busy with work lately." Abigail informed Victoria. Victoria did not know that Cram School Soda Break had two more seasons, but then again, she had only started watching the show yesterday. There was no way Victoria could have known about the other two seasons without Abigail mentioning that fact or the brunette looking them up on the Lacrimanet.

"Well, do you want to watch the episode that's on before we head to the mall?" Victoria offered. Abigail nodded.

"Sure Vic, I'm down for that." Abigail replied in the affirmative. Together the blonde and the brunette walked around the couch, sat down, and began to watch the episode of Cram School Soda Break. As soon as it was over they would go to the mall for awhile. Yesterday Victoria had gotten hooked on Cram School Soda Break and Fortunate Meteor and had wasted an entire day doing nothing but staring at the television. Maybe after this episode she would get up and do something productive, even if she only went to the mall with a friend for a few hours before the mall closed for the day.

[Post Word Count: 1,136]
[Total Word Count: 11,210/11,000]