Back From The Front

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 36, Post Number 897

-Capital Crocus, The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, 8:00 A.M.-

It had been a few days since Victoria's return from successfully stopping the Viking raid on a village in Bellum and her family had been giving her grief about it for the past few days. Her uncle and older sister both hit the roof once they saw her appearance after her return from the fighting. Victoria had been shouted at about how reckless she had been and how foolish it wass to participate in a fight that was not hers, but she did not really care. She had done the right thing in going to fight for the Luminous Covenant and no amount of shouting or guilt-tripping by her family was going to keep her from fighting for the Luminous Covenant in the future.

Victoria got out of bed and put on a clean blue Steel Matron t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts along with her white tennis shoes. She then grabbed the holster belt containing Hellsinger and the key to her Centaur. She put the holster belt around her and put the Centaur key in her right cargo pocket. She was going to Sakuramori because her longtime client Ms. Ashford had sent a text message an hour ago asking Victoria to drop by her home for a job offer. Since the brunette could not go back to sleep and she had no reason to hang around here, she was up for a trip to Sakuramori.

Victoria also grabbed her backpack so that she could stuff Hellsinger inside of it if the job did not involve combat of any sort. Finally she grabbed her olive green iLac and jammed it in her right shorts pocket. After grabbing all the gear she wanted or needed Victoria exited her room to head for the garage.

-The Sheridan Estate, the living room-

Victoria had just descended the staircase and taken five steps towards the garage when her uncle spotted her and turned to face her.

"Going out for a job already?" Lawrence asked her calmly.

"Yeah. I'm going to Sakuramori." Victoria answered calmly. She was not looking for yet another argument with her uncle, so she chose to be civil with him.

"All right then. Be careful out there." He said to her before turning back to face the television. Deciding to let the matter drop, Victoria went on her way without any further discussion. It was a bit painful for Victoria to go through her uncle doing the bare minimum of communication with her, but she would not be dissuaded from her course. If the Luminous Covenant needed her to fight for them she would go fight for them regardless of what he or Amy thought.

-Inside the garage-

Victoria climbed on board the Centaur while Laura operated the garage door. Laura had not given her opinion on Victoria's participation in the conflict. The brunette did not know if Laura was with her or against her, but that was a question for another time. Laura opened the garage and waved at Victoria. Victoria waved back at the silver-haired maid and started up the Centaur, then pulled out of the garage... moments later the garage door was shut behind her and Victoria was on the way to Sakuramori.

-Sakuramori, outside Octavia Ashford's house, two hours later-

Victoria had taken a leisurely drive to Sakuramori that went without incident and was now outside the client's house. She parked the Centaur and turned it off, then pocketed the key and climbed off of the vehicle. She had just gotten off of the vehicle when the front door opened and out walked Ms. Ashford herself.

"Hello Ms. Sheridan. It's been awhile." The older brunette greeted Victoria. Victoria raised her right hand in greeting.

"Hi there Ms. Ashford. What can I do for you today?" Victoria asked the woman.

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"I'd like you to visit my niece Anna in Capital Crocus. She doesn't know how to get into contact with you herself, so she called me and asked me to get in contact with you." Ms. Ashford told Victoria. The Sabertooth mage was game for that sort of job.

"OK, Ms. Ashford. I'll head to Capital Crocus as soon as possible. Is there anything else I need to do for you while I'm here?" Victoria asked the older brunette. Ms. Ashford shook her head.

"You don't need to do anything for me, Miss Sheridan. Just go meet my niece and see what she wants." Ms. Ashford replied. That was a simple enough task. Victoria gave a thumbs-up with her right hand.

"All right then. I'll be on my way to Capital Crocus." Victoria said. She walked back over to the Centaur, climbed aboard, and cranked the vehicle up. Victoria gently put the Centaur into reverse and stopped it, then began to gently accerelerate past the client when the older brunette called out to her.

"Be careful on the road!" Ms. Ashford called out to the Sabertooth mage as the latter rolled by. Victoria waved with her right hand, then began to slowly and carefully make her way out of Sakuramori. Once she was outside of the town she increased acceleration and set out for Capital Crocus.

-Capital Crocus, 1837 Monarch's Lane, three hours and thirty minutes later-

After a two-hour trip from Sakuramori to Capital Crocus and then an hour-and-a-half wait in dense city traffic the brunette had arrived outside of Anna Ashford's home. She had just put the Centaur in park and was climbing off of it when the front door to the house opened and out stepped Anna Ashford herself. Anna was wearing a red dress like she had worn during their last meeting... maybe it was the same one.

"Hello Victoria! Aunt Octavia told me that you were on your way!" Anna greeted Victoria. Victoria waved at the blonde with her right hand.

"Your aunt told me that you wanted to talk to me about something." Victoria said to Anna. Anna smiled.

"Yes, that's right. I'd like to go to Capital Crocus Mall. You're the only real friend I have, so I'd like you to go with me." Anna requested. Victoria gave a thumbs-up with her right hand.

"OK, Anna. Just tell me when you're ready to go and we'll go to the mall." Victoria told the blonde. Anna turned around and faced the brunette.

"I've got to go back inside and get my pocketbook and a few other things. Then I'll be ready." Anna said to Victoria. The blonde then went back into her house and shut the door while Victoria waited outside next to the Centaur.

-Capital Crocus Mall, one hour and forty-five minutes later-

The traffic had been thick and it had been a struggle to find a decent parking space, but Victoria and Anna had made it to the mall without incident. Now they were standing in the food court waiting in line for a chance to get a slice of pizza at the small pizzeria. Anna had wanted pizza and so did Victoria.

Anna was fifteenth in line and Victoria was sixteenth in line respectively. Ahead of them the line was moving at a pace best described as "slower than molasses" thanks to some blonde chick loudly arguing with the poor employee behind the counter about something trivial... it had something to do with the napkins the restaurant gave to customers. The more Victoria listened to the blonde the more she began to recognize the voice. Then it dawned on her.

She was listening to Francesca Corlone.

Victoria frowned.

Why was that awful person here today?

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Victoria listened to Francesca complain and complain for another ten minutes. People in the line were starting to grow dissatisfied with the situation but no one was willing to step up and do something about it. Victoria was willing to, but she was reluctant to because she really did not want to get Anna involved with Francesca if she could help it. The entitled Francesca would do everything she could to make Anna's life miserable because the red-clad blonde was acquaintances with the Sabertooth mage and Francesca did not know how to focus her grudge only on the target of her wrath.

Eventually Francesca stormed off from the counter without her napkins and somehow missed spotting Victoria, which was a blessing. Victoria breathed an audible sigh of relief. That must have set Francesca off because the blonde stopped in place, turned around, and spotted Victoria. The brunette frowned as the blonde strode towards her with a look that could kill. Clad in a white tube top that could barely contain her cleavage along with black leather jacket and dangerously short black skirt and black leather boots, Francesca thought she was dressing to be attractive to men, but in Victoria's opinion the blonde looked as trashy as ever.

"YOU!" Francesca screamed. Victoria made eye contact with Anna and spoke to her.

"Anna, get back. You don't want to get involved in this." Victoria warned Anna. The red-clad blonde obliged just as Francesca walked up to Victoria and grabbed the latter by her shirt collar.

"YOU'VE GOT A BIG MOUTH, YOU BROWN-HAIRED BITCH! DON'T THINK I DIDN'T HEAR YOU JUST NOW!" Francesca screamed at Victoria and did an exaggerated sigh right into the brunette's face in an attempt at mockery. Victoria took the blonde's theatrics in stride.

"It's nice to see you too." Victoria sarcastically remarked.

"I'VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOU, BITCH!" Francesca shouted. Victoria did her best to remain calm. The Sabertooth mage was in public and if she punched the obnoxious blonde she would be arrested for assault.

"What do you want from me?" Victoria calmly asked the angry blonde.

"I WANT YOU TO LEARN SOME RESPECT FOR ME!" Francesca loudly retorted. Victoria remained silent. Like that was ever going to happen.

"OK." Victoria said calmly. A crowd was beginning to gather around them, so Victoria did not do or say anything that could provoke her old enemy any further. Seeing that a crowd was gathering around them, Francesca made eye contact with Victoria.

"I'LL TALK TO YOU LATER, BITCH!" Francesca said in an attempt to be menacing. She then released the collar of Victoria's shirt and shoved Victoria back with such force that the brunette landed on her back and hit the back of her head on the tile floor. Francesca then turned around and stomped off towards the mall entrance. Anna hurried over to Victoria and stopped on the brunette's right.

"Miss Sheridan, are you OK?" Anna asked Victoria. Victoria slowly sat up and faced the red-clad blonde.

"I'm OK, Anna. Are you OK?" Victoria asked the blonde. Victoria was feeling a lot of pain in the back of her head from the impact. Maybe she should seek medical attention.

"I'm not feeling so hot, Anna." Victoria confessed. Anna offered her hand to Victoria and the brunette accepted it. The Sabertooth mage was brought to her feet and Anna pointed her towards the mall exit.

"C'mon, Victoria. We'll come back either later today or tomorrow. Let's get you checked out at the hospital." Anna said. Victoria did not offer any resistance to the suggestion. Together the pair walked towards the exit of the mall and began the long trip on foot to get medical attention. Victoria did not want to drive her Centaur and risk losing consciousness or some other sort of impairment that could cause her to have an accident, so she was going to make the trip on foot so that if something did happen the worst outcome was that she fell on the concrete and held up foot traffic for a few moments. The hit to the back of her head was probably nothing, but Victoria was going to get a medical professional to look at it anyway.

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-Eight hours later, outside Crocus General Hospital-

"I wonder if the tile floor at the mall's doing OK." Victoria joked to Anna after the pair had finally gotten out of Crocus General Hospital. It had taken quite some time for Victoria to be seen by a medical professional for her injury, but once all the paperwork had been filled out and the money had been paid she had been scanned and checked for brain damage. It was determined that the brunette had not suffered any brain damage from the fall when her old enemy Francesca Corlone had shoved her to the mall floor after a brief confrontation in the food court. The worst thing Victoria had gotten out of the incident was a major headache.

"I think it's gonna be OK, Miss Sheridan. I'm more worried about whether you're gonna be OK. You took a bit of a fall." Anna said to her. The joke had sailed completely over Anna's head, but the blonde's concern was genuine.

"It was a joke, Anna. I was joking about how hard my head was." Victoria gently explained the joke to her companion. The brunette was not known as the smartest mage in either Sabertooth or Fiore. She did not catch onto some things very quickly and sometimes she employed brute force when subtlety would have been a better approach. She could also be hard to work with when it came to dealing with slavers... Itori could testify to that.

"Oh, right! I get it now! It was self-deprecation!" Anna said once she finally caught on to what the brunette was trying to say. Victoria and Anna laughed together at the joke.

"Hey, do you think your Centaur's still in the mall parking lot?" Anna asked Victoria. The brunette made eye contact with Anna.

"Man, I hope so." Victoria said to her companion.

"Let's hurry to the mall, Miss Sheridan. It's too late to get a good shopping day out of this, but we'll try again tomorrow. Let's get your Centaur and take it to my place for the night." Anna suggested. Victoria nodded.

"Yeah, good idea. We'll try again tomorrow." Victoria agreed to the idea. She was going to drive it to Anna's house, then leave it there for the night. She did not want to risk losing focus while suffering from a headache and having an accident that could hurt her, Anna, or someone else. It was probably a dumb idea to even drive it to Anna's house considering her headache, but the blonde assured her that her house was a short distance from here.

-Outside Anna's house, two hours later-

Victoria had driven the Centaur to Anna's house without incident. She had driven at the speed limit to avoid going at a speed where a crash could do serious harm and now she was standing outside the garage. Anna had taken the Centaur into her recently built garage and had closed the garage door. It was now safe from would-be thieves and vandals.

"I'm sorry that our day got ruined by that young woman, Miss Sheridan." Anna apologized to Victoria and made a reference to Francesca. Victoria waved off the apology with her right hand.

"It wasn't your fault, Anna. That person's a very unpleasant individual who likes to throw their weight around." Victoria assured the red-clad blonde that the incident at the mall was not her fault. Francesca was the one who had chosen to make something out of nothing, not Anna.

"We'll try again tomorrow, Miss Sheridan. Hopefully we won't run into that unpleasant young woman again." Anna expressed her hope that tomorrow's visit to the mall would not be ruined like today's visit had. Victoria gave a small smile.

"I hope not either, but that person has an unfortunate habit of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time." Victoria commented about Francesca's tendency to turn up when she was least wanted.

"Well, it doesn't matter if she shows up again or not. We'll go to the mall anyway. We'll do some shopping and we'll have some fun." Anna replied. Victoria could tell that Anna was being sincere, so the Sabertooth mage let the matter drop.

"All right then, Anna. See you tomorrow!" Victoria said. She turned and began to walk out of the driveway to start the long trip to the Sheridan Estate. It was going to be a long walk, so she had better get going.

-The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, four hours later-

After making the long walk home Victoria had finally reached the Sheridan Estate. Laura must have seen her through a window because the silver-haired maid had let her in through the garage and shut the door behind Victoria. Victoria had managed to sneak past a sleeping Lawrence to get upstairs, but she was worried about her older sister Amy catching her. Fortunately for the Sabertooth mage Amy was busy watching some sappy romance movie because the television was so loud that it drowned out her movement, so she was unaware of Victoria's return.

Now the Sabertooth mage was in her room. Victoria could relax and try to think of a good explanation as to why she had returned home without her Centaur. She would deal with any questions in the morning. Right now she really needed to sleep off her pounding headache.

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