My First Job

A banging on my door woke me up with a jump. I scrambled to get to the door and see who it was, opening it miss Gretchen was there.
I felt for my whiteboard to write a greeting but realized getting over to the door I hadn’t grabbed it. I waved a good morning instead.
“Sophia, we need you up and ready in thirty minutes, I hope you didn’t just wake up.” Miss Gretchen said, clearly seeing my bedhead and knowing I had just woken up. “Make yourself presentable and come downstairs to floor one. Understood?” I sleepily nodded my head. Miss Gretchen turned away and headed back for the elevator, I closed my door and crumbled back onto the edge of my bed.
I felt so tired, how many hours of sleep did I get? I should have bought an alarm clock, or some way to check the time at least. I pulled my nightgown over my head, then stepped out of my underwear and tossed them both onto the bed. I stumbled over to my closet, finding the lightswitch and picking out which blouse I was gonna wear today. Then I grabbed a black jumper skirt along with new underwear and a bra. I fidgeted with the bra adjusting it since it was still brand new, then put on the rest of my outfit.
I took a seat in front of my new vanity, brimming with excitement to use it. I really liked this vanity, such a large mirror I could make out each of my freckles individually. I pulled out a brush from one of the drawers, running it down my hair as I got my bedhead under control. I thought maybe this would be a good opportunity to use some ribbon and tie my hair in some cute way, but I only had thirty minutes, and I didn’t know if I had enough time anymore to experiment.
Once my hair was manageable I got up and grabbed my bag with my whiteboard. I was about to walk out of the room, but then remembered I needed to take my pill. I wonder if it would matter if I skipped a day? Nevermind, they asked me to take one every morning and I will. I undid the cap and dropped a single blue pill into my hand, I swallowed it and screwed the pill bottle’s cap back on. I grabbed my flats and stepped into them, fixing them on my feet.
I closed my door behind me and took off towards the elevator. I hit the button to activate it, then remembered Miss Gretchen had said yesterday only staff could work the elevator, so I became worried. But then the doors did open, so perhaps I misunderstood her. I pressed the “1” button as I stepped in, the doors closing behind me. I stood and waited as the elevator rattled downward towards the first floor, I wondered what it was we were going to be doing today. Were we going to be thrust into a mission already? I suppose Spawn won’t wait for me to be fully trained up. Do I get training, or is this a learn on the job kind of thing?
I felt myself becoming more nervous, was I the weak link? How did everyone else know to be awake so early? Why does it feel like I’m the only one out of the loop? Is it just because I’m new? Yeah, that’s gotta be it.
I feel a hand take mine, I almost jump as I turn to see who it is. Knight is standing beside me holding my hand silently. I turn back to face the doors, we stand in silence as I grip his hand. Everything is going to be okay, Knight won’t let anything bad happen to me. It’s nice having a forever buddy, even if he’s not real and just a hallucination caused by my power.
The doors finally open and I take my first steps on to the first floor. The hallway I walk into looks no different than the last dozen hallways I’ve seen at MGI facilities. I suppose there just isn’t much you can do for a corporate hallway to make it that unique.
I keep walking forward down the hall, I end up at a door, so I decide to just try and open it. It isn’t locked so I peek inside, it's a large open room with not much in it. What is in it is a circle of chairs, and three people sitting in them. I recognize Tikki so I walk over.
I give a two handed wave. Tikki notices me and stands up, motioning me over. She’s dressed in a t-shirt again, wearing some cargo pants which allow her bandages to be visible along her arms and legs. As I get to an open chair I notice Clarice is here too! Surprisingly she isn’t in a hoodie or cloak, but is in some loose overalls, King is of course still on her hand. I notice she has a slight tan, I sort of expected her skin to be white and untouched by light. With those two out of the way that must mean this third person has to be Marcia!
“Morning sleeping beauty!” Tikki smiles. “About time you got down here, we were getting worried.”
King the hand puppet launches near my face, “Have no fear Sophia, my Clarice was an hour late her first day, you are right on time in my book.” Clarice looks down muttering, “You didn’t have to say that…”
I turn to the new person here, quickly pulling out my board and writing a greeting. “GOOD MORNING, IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU, I AM SOPHIA. AND YOU MUST BE MARCIA, YES?”
The new girl is wearing a tank top covered by a windbreaker, she looks athletic enough to fit the description I was given of Marcia. As she leaps to her feet her short hair wobbles. She launches from her seat and next thing I know I’m suddenly in a tight hug. “So this is the talk of the town mute! The others had great stuff to say about you Soph so I’m looking forward to seeing lots of you!”
I can’t write any messages on my board in such a tight lock, Marcia realizes this and backs off, hopping on one foot as she apologies. “My bad, I’m a bit touchy! Hahaha! You’ll get used to it, don't worry!”
“I LOOK FORWARD TO OUR FRIENDSHIP!” I write.
Marcia leaps at me again trying to grab me, this time I dodge which makes her laugh excitedly. “We’re gonna have lots of fun I can tell!”
“Ladies.” Miss Gretchen enters the chair circle from wherever she had been.
Marcia takes a seat quickly, attempting to look very obedient and calm. I took a seat as well, waiting to see what this was all about.
Once everyone was seated Miss Gretchen continued. “Good morning ladies, I hope we have all had a good night's rest, yes?” The circle nodded. “First order of business is officially welcoming our final member, Sophia. Please give her a warm welcome.” The others began to clap, giving me a round of applause before MIss Gretchen motioned for them to stop. “Sophia, from now on know that we have these daily house meetings at 8am, please have yourself presentable and here by that time, understood?” I nod enthusiastically.“The next order of business, does anyone need pill refills? Anyone running low?”Clarice raised her hand, Miss Gretchen jotted something down on a piece of paper. “Final order of business, today we will be having you girl’s perform community service in Marrowsville. We want you girl’s to build up favor with the locals in preparation for when any Spawn might appear. MGI feels this is the quickest way to gain you supporters, and let’s not forget supporters buy MGI licensed merchandise which help you girls out as well.”
I was confused by what she meant so I raised my hand. Miss Gretchen did not seem to care as she kept talking about travel arrangements. Tikki reached her hand over to my board, tapping it. I quickly wrote down, “HOW DOES IT HELP US?” and handed it to her. She quickly wrote down her response, “WHEN THEY BUY MERCH WE GET A PERCENT WHICH IS WHAT WE BUY OUR ROOM STUFF WITH.” A was shocked to find out we needed merch sales to get that stuff! What if I have zero fans and then a year goes by and I need new clothes!? Surely they wouldn’t just let me wear stuff that didn’t fit! And wait, did I already have merch!? I wanna see that…Is it too vain to wanna collect your own merch? I should hold off till I get a peek at the other girl’s rooms and see if they collect their own merch or not.
“What are you planning for us to do for the town today?” Asked Tikki, bringing my focus back on today’s task.
“We were thinking you girls might be put to good use this morning as crossing guards for the town’s elementary school. Then after that we should have enough time to put up some posters announcing yourselves as the town’s new guardians. Does everyone understand?”
I nodded in agreement, and the others did as well. This didn’t sound like too difficult of a task at all, sounds like the perfect first day as this town’s soon to be beloved Magical Girl!
Gretchen gets up and leads us off, leading us back into the hallway. Tikki has to grab me and turn me around when I try to turn the wrong way down a hallway. We take the elevator back upstairs and climb into the van from before. Tikki sits in shotgun next to Miss Gretchen in the front. Clarice, Marcia, and I sit across the back row seats, I guess King is there too, he stares outward out the window as we leave the parking garage.
I have my bag in my lap, I slid my white board out and wrote out a question showing it to Marcia and Clarice. “DO YOU GIRLS DO THIS SORT OF THING OFTEN?”
Marcia grinned at me, “I’ve picked up trash a bunch before, but never been on crossing guard duty.”
“Can’t say I have, King doesn’t especially like being within grabbing range of little kids.” Clarice sighs, King stays facing out the window not adding anything.
We drive the rest of the way there, eventually stopping in a mostly empty parking lot. We climb out of the van one by one, the air has a slight chill to it as it hits my lungs. Miss Gretchen goes around to the back, opening the van’s trunk and returning with a handful of bright yellow vests and some hand stop signs. “Throw these on.” She passed each of us a high-vis vest, I slipped mine over my blouse and fixed it properly.Clarice looks annoyed as she stares at her King on her right hand and her left hand having to hold the handheld stop sign. I can hear her mumbling to King asking him to be the one to hold the sign, but he doesn’t seem to be biting.
Miss Gretchen looked us all over and nodded approvingly, “Now you all look official.” She returned to the driver’s side door, retrieving a clipboard and walking back over again. “There are two main crosswalks for this school, so we’re gonna have you guys split up in pairs. Tikki and Clarice take the right side, and Sophia and Marcia take the left side. Understood?”There is a unison “Yes!” from the other three, and a nod from me.
Tikki and Clarice walk off, my eyes watching them as they go. A hand grabs mine and I’m pulled around by Marcia as she leads me towards our crosswalk. She’s jogging practically running so It’s difficult to keep up with her as she drags me along.
We reached our crosswalk, I was almost out of breath from matching Marcia’s pace. The road was a simple two way road, I felt like we could totally handle that. 
While we wait I scribble down a question on my board, “HEY MARCIA, IS IT WEIRD WE AREN’T DRESSED LIKE MAGICAL GIRLS?”
She looks at my sign and giggles, “What, you don’t think hi-vis is Magical Girl enough?”
I roll my eyes and she laughs, “No, I get what you mean. You’d rather people’s first impression of you was in a poofy frilly classic Magical Girl outfit. Unfortunately we don’t have those yet, surely we’ll get some soon, but right now the people of this town get to see some real plain Magical Girls.”
I just want people to have the best image of me. Can’t have merch of me working as a crossing guard, at least I don’t think you can. Maybe I’m thinking too far ahead.
As the sun rose higher in the sky we began to see our first kids walking down the sidewalk on their way to school. When it was time for a kid to cross we would stand near back to back on either side of the crosswalk, holding up our stop signs in either direction. Some kids greeted us, some just stared at us confused.
While we stood, allowing a group of kids to pass, Marcia chirped up, “Are you getting used to everything Sophia?” She then made a shocked sound, “Right, you can’t talk like this. Well I can talk enough for the both of us!” She laughed.
She russled her hair with her free hand, “Man, but what should I talk about! I don’t wanna bore you too badly!” She then snapped her fingers making quite the loud snap sound. “I got it! So you’re pretty new to being one of us, and it seems to me you didn’t even hang around the Lab too long before getting sent here! But me, I was around the lab for a while~” She laughed. “Guess I was waiting for you to be born huh Soph? Now there were enough girls for this team or something. Anyway, it was super boring there as you might have noticed during your time there, well maybe actually you’d say it was scary since in the beginning everything is confusing. When it’s all so new to you, and you're practically locked in your room taking pills just to stabilize, it’s pretty scary.” She turns her head back to look at me, I nod agreeing it was scary in the beginning. “So anyway, I ended up really scared there and decided to try and escape! Afterward I heard I’m one of the few girls who actually ended up escaping successfully! But yeah, thanks to my power I was able to escape through a stairwell and off the roof, pretty action movie level stunts I tell you! I ran and ran, trying to remember the roads and the landmarks that remind me of home, and eventually after some time of running I found it. I found the home I could see in my mind, the one from my old life, and I went inside. It felt like home, I know it did, but inside the person there didn’t seem welcoming. They screamed and called MGI.”Marcia sighs, “Know what they reported? A missing Magical Girl in their living room? No, a Spawn attack. I was new to my power so- Oh yeah, I should mention my power, it's a transformation of sorts. I become furry and gain animal traits and stuff, can’t entirely blame that person for thinking I was some sort of soft Spawn…”
I reached back with my free hand and gripped Marcia’s hand. She looked back, “I’m sorry Soph, not trying to tell you some sob story, there’s a reason I’m getting to I swear.” I still rub her hand with my thumb.
“So MGI came and got me, and they took me back to the lab of course, but while driving a lab coat said something to me. They said, “Who did you even think that was?” and it threw me through a loop. I don’t know who that was in that house. I don’t even know if they were part of my old family. I felt the place was familiar, but even back then I couldn’t remember exactly what my family looked like. I know I had a mother, a father, a younger brother, but I can’t picture them, only the hole in my mind that they filled. I don’t know when I forgot them, in the cocoon or was it after that?”She coughs clearing her throat, “The moral of my story is that if there is any part of you that still thinks you should try to return to your old life I strongly advise you to kill it. We have no past anymore, whatever it is that took that past from us aside, there is nothing good that comes from trying to reclaim it. You understand what I mean Soph?”
I nod slowly, and reach for her hand. She opens her hand and I trace a short message slowly across her palm. S.O.R.R.Y.
She chuckles at my trick and smiles at me. “Thanks Soph, sorry if I bummed you out on your first official day. I just want us all to have the most super time ever together and I wouldn’t want any escape attempts to ruin it!”
I nod. We return to our crossing guard duties, Marcia begins singing random things as we work, I enjoy listening to her random song choices. She has a pretty decent voice, surprising to me against her tomboy appearance.
Eventually the flow of foot traffic dries up and Marcia announced we should be good to head back to the others. I follow her lead back down the street and see the others already standing there with Miss Gretchen. She sees us and greets us, “Wonderful, now that we’re all back we can go to lunch!”I almost jump with excitement at the mention of lunch, I mean are we gonna be able to get fast food again!?
“Afterward we were going to put up posters announcing you girls as the area’s new Magical Guardians, but we can’t very well do that until you girls have selected a unit name. So we’ll get lunch and discuss.”
A hadn’t thought about needing a name! I sort of just figured we would be given one by MGI, so the fact we get to have input is really a shock to me! Miss Gretchen opens the van door and motions for us to climb in.Tikki takes the passenger seat again, I’m climbing in behind Clarice hearing King chatting to her. “There won’t need to be much discussion. King’s Girls or King’s Castle should be good enough names.” As we take our seats across the back seat she flicks him, “There’s no K,I,N,or G in TEAM. That means you’re not in it.” King pantomimes some crying covering his little snail eyes, it doesn’t seem to get King any Sympathy points from Clarice.
Marcia climbs in after me, so I’m in the middle this time. “Where are you taking us for some grub Gretch?”
She looks up at us in the rearview mirror, “It’s Gret- Whatever. We’re going to Mendys, any objections?”
No one objects, and so we are on our way! While we drive I try to think of some good names to suggest. I wanna really impress the others.