Natasha had enjoyed going home on the first day of being a host and dropping the surprise right on her father's doorstep, along with her first paycheck that she had spent on protein powder & mass gainer. There was something that, though she wouldn't have admitted it, amused her about how he'd tempered his lecture towards her - but to hell if he still thought she was an immature brat. She no longer needed to worry about homework or tests - if she fought well, she would do well, even if she was a little scared.
By that March, she had moved close to Urasaria, and in August she arrived at Urasaria's gate. A crowd of students was gathered outside, as it hadn't opened yet. She thought it a little dangerous, but went off to the side and waited, annoyed that she had clearly dressed too formally. Yet again, there just always was -that- Natasha.
A woman came out of the crowd over to her. She was dressed less formally than Natasha (as stated earlier), red hair & a sundress.
"Hey, you're a new student, right?" she smiled and Natasha nodded. "Cool. I'm Olivia. They told us to just wait a minute, so."
"Oh, um - I'm Natasha. Um, you're a first-year too, right?"
"Yep! I just got here a few minutes ago and was looking around, and uh…" She leaned next to Natasha. "…doesn't look like there's many guys in our class, right?"
"I guess."
Natasha had no particular like nor dislike of men. Bizarrely, they were the ones who complimented her shoulders more than women, and she always found that it was the weaker ones that gave her the most trouble. Mostly she just avoided them.
"Kinda nice though, right?" said Olivia. "More uh, more lesbians and all that."
Olivia had already placed the faces of a few in her head, thinking she'd chat them up after. She doubted working at Urasaria would be much fun, and she'd go crazy if she couldn't relieve her stress one way or another. There were plenty of opportunities here, and like the ones back home, she was sure she would add one or a few more to her tally.
"…uh. But yeah, sorry." laughed Olivia. "Sorry, just - you know. Girls."
"Um, girls." nodded Natasha, utterly clueless.
"Yeaaah. So, do you like, do you work out?" chimed Olivia, hand aiming for Natasha's arm.
"Um, sometimes."
"Man, I can tell. I mean like - me, I can like - I can barely get off the couch on my own." She laughed. "Even uh, with the Revenant."
The gate opened, and Natasha nodded as she stepped inside with Olivia & down the hall.
"Maybe you can teach me sometime, huh?" said Olivia, and a bit of unease came up in Natasha; she wasn't used to attention from any women. She had seen her eyeing a few in the crowd earlier, too. Wasn't this supposed to be a military school?
"Um, maybe."
Olivia smiled, but could tell Natasha was nervous - she probably thought she was a little forward. "Maybe, uh, sounds good. What's your Revenant, anyway?"
"Um, it's called M-"
" - sick bicep vein, homie." said a muscular man as he passed by, nodding to Natasha, who laughed.
"Thanks."
For all of her taking up lifting to attract women, she heard a hell of a lot more from men - something lifting men knew as well.
"What's it called?" said Olivia as they came up to the arena's doors.
"Um, I'll - I'll tell you after. Just want to focus on this." nodded Natasha.
She cleared her throat quietly as they entered the arena, second-years already lined up ahead. Hirogane was standing between the lines with a woman neither year had seen before, small as a hummingbird and looking just as delicate. In bored order, he relayed his role as medic and their's as proteges, no interruption coming like the two years prior.
After, he nodded to the woman. "Go ahead."
"Thank you, Hirogane." She nodded. "My name is Emilia. I come here from Germany's academy, under the recommendation of, erm, President Swarm. If you need someone to act as a travelling medic for you, please come see me or Hirogane in the infirmary. I don't have much experience fighting, and my English is not very good, but - but I will learn quickly."
"Go ahead and show your Revenant."
"Yes." she nodded. "Flickendecke." A ball of yarn & two sewing needles appeared in her hands, and she started weaving a cloth. "When you enter the infirmary, I will make sure there's a full stock of zese patches for the day. Please come see me if dey are out. Wrap it around your wound, and it should heal after a minute."
"She can't heal amputations yet." said Hirogane. "Come find me for that."
"Yes." she nodded. "And, erm - thank you for allowing me to work here. I look forward to meeting all of you."
Natasha noticed she was staring a bit too long at her and threw her eyes away. She was always a visually-inclined woman. Being butch, she always felt a bit of attraction to feminine women - whether it was innate or just what was expected of her, she didn't know. Yet something always stopped her before her thoughts went too far - perhaps her last relationship.
Hirogane nodded to the line of second-years & stepped off with Emilia.
A black-haired woman wearing a blue & black uniform stepped up from the line. "Okay. My protege is… Natasha Flagg."
"T-That's me." nodded Natasha, hoping she was supposed to step up as she did. At least the two were matched in formality.
"Come with me." said the woman, smiling as they walked off. "I'm Naomi. Blank Slate."
She had changed her outfit to one more professional, being a mentor now, and secretly had modeled it after Kate's. If anyone projected the image of a true adult to Naomi, it was either Kate or Mia. She had seen the former laugh plenty over the summer, but she had a mind well-suited for investigation and often figured three steps ahead of even Julia. If she ever stopped using torture, Naomi might've grown to like her.
"Um, Natasha." nodded Natasha, relevantly. "Ma'am."
"Uh, you don't have to call me that." chimed Naomi. "So, new student and all, right? Did you get your house key already?"
"Um, n-not yet." said Natasha. "I-I didn't know when I was supposed to get it."
"It's cool. You can decide once you see your house, but I think we should live together as mentor and protege, right? I have a spare room, the one-star housing is pretty bad, so... yeah."
"Um, okay." nodded Natasha. She probably would've accepted any order from an older student. "Maybe - that sounds good, yeah."
"Cool. So, let's get started. What's your Revenant?"
"Um, right." nodded Natasha. "They - they said at the place I bought it that they had to do some stuff to it, so - I don't know if it's really weak or whatever, but -"
" - just show me." laughed Naomi.
"There's a-a lot of stuff it can do, I think. Um." Natasha held her hand out. "Meteorology."
Lava dripped out of her hand, and Naomi tried not to show her surprise. "Oh! Uh - so, what's it do?"
"C-Control over weather. There's only a few - I think there's only a few things I can do right now, but -"
" - that's cool." nodded Naomi. "I bet it's pretty strong, yeah! Don't worry. What else can you do?"
"This." Her lava turned to snow. "And, um, wind, kinda. Just gusts of wind right now, I think. Um, where's the bathroom?"
Naomi pointed back to the entrance. "Third door on the right."
"Okay." nodded Natasha and walked off. Naomi leaned against the wall, taking her phone out once Natasha left.
(Naomi) "I just got assigned my protege and you're not gonna believe what their Revenant is. :D"
She put her phone in her pocket, and was surprised when it vibrated.
(Julia) "what is it?"
(Naomi) "wait, aren't you supposed to be working?"
(Julia) "no, I got a new job last week after the first agency told me they were only looking for interns"
(Julia) "this entire state has a similar effect on me as gangstalking does on schizophrenics"
(Julia) "this is what I get for following my dream! should've been a criminal instead!"
Naomi laughed and relayed her weatherwoman protege.
Over the next week, Naomi had learned imitating Kate was a hell of a job & had brought back her usual pastel shirt & jeanshorts a few days in.
She had tried to lighten up around Natasha, but was finding her protege stubborn so far; she spoke fine & seemed relatively normal, but hadn't let up with calling her ma'am. Naomi had no desire to be one of those mentors who yelled orders at their protege and treated them more like someone under their command than a friend; it hadn't been how Serena had taught her, and she doubted she had the stoicism to pull it off.
Natasha had resolved to take better notes than in highschool, but still felt out of place again. She was beginning to accept her position as that Natasha, and figured that at the least, she could avoid making a fool of herself in her first month. It made little sense to her why her recruiter had suggested the uniform to her when no one else wore one, but it would've been embarrassing to undo it now. If she was one thing, it was square-headedly stubborn.
Mia having continued the first-week hero-name policy, Natasha chose her's as Natural Disaster, figuring herself one too.
She sat down in her class Friday, and Olivia came in a few minutes after, sitting next to her as she had since the first day. Her breath smelling like it'd drifted through a brewery, she said: "I got in my first fight last night." She grinned. "Me and my mentor went out to this - like, some guy was out setting a bunch of restaurants on fire or whatever, right? Did you hear about that?"
"Um, no."
"Dang." she laughed. "It was kinda weird though, since he like - like, he just -exploded- when I killed him or whatever, right? In to this huuuuge explosion of blood, it was super weird. I mean, my mentor just figured it was part of his Revenant or whatever." She nodded, and after Natasha didn't respond: "Uh, so what about you?"
"Um, I haven't gone out yet." winced Natasha.
She'd been starting to find Naomi's optimism annoying, repeatedly telling Natasha her Revenant was strong & she would do well fighting. Why would she need reassurance if it was true?
"Whaaat? You gotta - oh, you gotta do it soon, c'mon." laughed Olivia. "Like - sorry if I stink a bit, like - that's why, cause I was celebrating after. If you want, like - I bet I could go with you and your mentor too, right? Get a trio going?"
About the last thing Natasha wanted was Naomi & Olivia in the same room together. "Um, maybe."
Olivia laughed and Natasha smelled her breath again, noting she must've been celebrating this morning, too.
"Plus like, I dunno." said Olivia. "I bet your mentor's probably funner than mine, right? Is she the chick with those like - the pastel colors and stuff?"
"Naomi."
"Yeah. She looks cool." said Olivia, noting to herself that if Natasha failed, she might try to pick her next. "Uh, you don't have an extra room, do you?"
"I - huh?"
"Just kidding - but seriously, my mentor kinda sucks." she winced. "Like, I dunno, she's just - she just takes everything way too seriously. She didn't even want to let me go out to get beer or whatever, just total like - 'oh, don't be excited, you'll be doing this hundreds of times.'" She laughed. "Like, I just killed someone for the first time and that's what she says to me?"
"Um, I guess she's kinda right." shrugged Natasha and Olivia laughed.
"C'mon. I mean sure, I guess, but she doesn't have to be a party pooper about it. What's the point of doing this stuff if we can't have some fun?"
"…I guess. Um." mumbled Natasha. In her first week, she had gone from considered Urasaria a military school to a college that would go like her highschool years had gone - friendless, disconnected and with poor grades. She'd regret how undisciplined she had been back then, but was starting to think she made a worse choice. "I dunno. I just - I just kinda thought everything was going to be way more serious here, or that I'd kinda have more structure."
"Yeah. I mean, you've got a super broad Revenant too, right? The weather one?"
"Yeah." She had taken meticulous notes on her section of class, and admittedly found it more useful than Naomi.
Their professor (for all the learning they had, which was little) came in sighing, and Natasha realized one seat was empty. "I have an announcement to make."
++++++
Natasha went home that day to Naomi smiling at the door. "I have an announcement to make."
"What?" winced Natasha.
"So, you've been doing good with training, but I want to make sure you get experience early. Monday, first call I get, we'll deal with some criminals. Alright?"
Natasha's head and stomach started to reel with sickness. "Um - M-Monday?"
"Yeah. Don't worry -- I'll keep you safe."
Natasha took a deep breath. "Um, okay. I just - feeling a bit nervous because someone in my class and - yeah um sorry yeah."
Naomi had noticed this rapid-talk habit of Natasha's; she mostly pitied her for it. "It's okay. It'll be super easy, and I'll make sure to keep you safe, right?"
"…yeah. Um. Can we train a bit more, though?" winced Natasha. "I just - Meteorology's a really broad Revenant and - I just want to make sure I-I know what to do, right? S-So I can do good and all that."
"…alright. Are you asking me if we can train a bit more?"
"I-I think that would help."