thegingernut

  The elders were loudly arguing as I approached. Not debating as they presumably did all day but childishly screaming "Is too!" - "Is not". Elders Laurent and Sampson were on the "is too" side, whilst elders Ange and Nichos were on the "is not" side. Elder Maggie seemed happy enough to fence sit. I announced my presence with a cough. That failed to rouse them from their argument. I loudly cpped my hands together. This earned me a gnce from Maggie but the others continued to shout. I closed my eyes and recalled the time my father had fired a gun right next to my ear. All of them shut up abruptly.

  "My presence was requested?" I said icily. "Vanessa! Indeed. I wish you to…" replied elder Laurent. He was cut off by elder Ange. "NO! YOUR PRESENCE IS NOT REQUIRED, GO BACK TO SCHOOL!" she shouted. "I must insist…" elder Laurent replied with an icy calm, but was again interrupted by Ange. "SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND SHIT, YOU WEREN'T BORN HERE!" she yelled. "And hence not so steeped in the…" - "SHUT THE FUCK MPH!" - I disabled her voice. Her mouth opened and closed and no sound emerged.

  "Elder Laurent" I said tartly. The man cleared his throat. "When I was out with Vanessa purchasing propane the other week, she brought to my attention that our preconceived notion that beastshifters do not feel pain as we do might be… fwed. What's more, she demonstrated a way to empirically test whether such a pain resistance exists, or whether they're just so used to pain as to have stopped noticing it, in the form of her own power, which she used to show me a pain she cims to feel every moment of every day. I wish for you Vanessa, to show this pain to all of us elders together, and we shall see once and for all whether beastshifters have some special pain resistance" he expined.

  I turned to elder Ange. "I'm going to give your voice back, but if you keep shouting I'm disabling it again" I said. She gred at me hatefully. "You can speak but not shout. Nod if you consent" I said. She continued to stare. "I would have thought a town elder would be able to control her temper" I mused. She tried, and failed to curse me out in protest. "Oh, you're never too old for a good moan" ughed elder Maggie. I stared her down until she silently screamed herself to exhaustion. "Are you ready to rejoin the conversation as an adult?" I asked. She gred and then sighed and nodded. I let her voice come back.

  "You protest your fellow elder's suggestion?" I asked. "OF COURSE!" she cried. "Don't make me take your voice again!" I threatened. Her teeth clenched. "It would be a waste of time" she hissed at a more reasonable volume. "I've been begging you assholes to stop making everything so much more violent than necessary for beastshifters longer than I've been an elder. You've always dismissed me with that nebulous and untestable line about beastshifters not feeling pain the same way. Now we have a way to test it. I want to see that test" said elder Sampson.

  "It would be pointless, we all know how it would go!" snapped Ange. "How many pnets are there?" I asked. "What?" cried Ange. "How many pnets are there in our local sor system?" I asked. "What does that have to do with anything?" she snapped. "Just answer the question" I replied evenly. "Nine! Obviously" she cried in exasperation. "Wrong!" I said. "What?" she snapped. "There are eight celestial bodies which by our current definition qualify as pnets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is cssified as a dwarf pnet as it is not the only celestial body at its approximate distance from the sun. In fact there's hundreds of thousands of fragments of pnets on the kuiper belt and at least three other lumps of rock we'd have to call pnets if we were to call pluto so"

  "So we stopped cssifying it as a pnet in the year 2006. Because we don't know everything about the universe. And if we didn't keep questioning our assumptions, we'd still be believing that an ingot of gold falls faster than an ingot of cotton and that blood is produced in the liver. An obscene amount of “common sense” is just pin wrong. So either do the experiment and prove yourself right or wrong once and for all, or shut up and stop pretending ziness is wisdom" I snapped.

  Elder Maggie smiled. "Well then. I think she raises an excellent point. I volunteer for Laurent's experiment" she said with a twinkle in her eye. "That's three to two you hateful old bat" spat elder Sampson. "You're being ridiculous" she snapped. "I consent also" said elder Nichos. She turned on him like he'd stabbed her in the back. "Its going to happen anyway Ange. Lets just get it over with. We've wasted enough time. Lets put it to bed once and forever" he said.

  "I'm going to need all of you to verbally consent" I said. One by one each elder aside from Ange said "I consent". I locked her in my gaze. "I'm not going to let you hurt me" she said. I nodded. "Fair enough. That's your choice. But know that you will not be able to go against your fellow elders choices on the matter if you do not participate" I said. "You can't decre that. You're just some outsider child, you have no standing on this council" she snapped. "The elders accept your condition on her behalf" said elder Maggie. "Overruled" cried Ange. "Overrule overruled" ughed elder Sampson. She gnced about her fellow elders looking for an ally. Nichos refused to make eye contact and Laurent just stared judgmentally.

  "So be it" she acquiesced. I gnced about the other elders. "Ready?" I asked. "At your leisure girl" smiled Maggie. I let it fly.

  Nichos and Laurent both doubled over clutching their sides. Sampson and Maggie watched on in mild amusement. "Well that's annoying" said Sampson. "Indeed" said Maggie. "Uncle, UNCLE!" yelled Nichos. I released him from the spell and he took a few gasping breaths. "Bugger that hurts" he snapped. "This is not so sore as the day in the car" noted Laurent. I shrugged. "Road vibrations make it hurt worse" I said with calm resignation. "Wait, what you were describing was WORSE than this?" cried Nichos. "Yes. Enough Vanessa!" gasped Laurent, and he next was freed.

  I gnced at Maggie. She chuckled. "Ah, these old bones ache far worse when I dance dearie. This is nothing" she said. I turned to Sampson. "Yeah, this is about what recovering from a bullet wound feels like" he said with a tone of disappointment. As if he had been expecting more. "Well that's a pretty solid conclusion then" I said. "How you figure?" asked Maggie. "Those of us who've felt serious pain before: myself, Sampson and Maggie, tolerate it perfectly fine. Meanwhile, pain lightweights Laurent and Nichos couldn't even stand up. I think that conclusively proves beastshifters have no innate pain resistance. I'm sure you have a lot to discuss" I said.

  "Indeed" smiled Maggie. "We have a second thing to discuss while you're here" said Ange. She looked like she was sulking. "Sure, what's up?" I asked. "We found a pce that can help Charlotte. We need your help getting her into the program" she expined. "That's great news!" I excimed. "Indeed" she said. And then I was given the pamphlet. I read it over, my face shifting from delight, to confusion to disamusement to outright hostility. "This pce can't help her" I said bnkly.

  "Our decision is final" said Ange. "Your decision is stupid" I replied bluntly. "Nothing you can say can change the council's decision" she decred. I swept my eye over each in turn. They simply nodded their assent.

  "This isn't a psychological professional. Its a glorified dog trainer, of the sort you'd find advertised on craigslist, and who probably has a warrant out for their arrest for animal abuse" I noted. "Our decision is final" repeated Ange. "The first phase involves kidnapping the patient out of their home. Are you pnning on telling them where to find the town? Are you pnning on camping her out in an outsider's house? Have you thought through the risks associated with that pn?" I asked. "Our decision is final" said Ange.

  "She'll be in outsider hands for three weeks. Do you trust her to keep a handle on her powers while experiencing quote: “Stern discipline from world css disciplinarians”?" I demanded. "Our decision is final" repeated Ange. "I'm not a psychology expert but if you were to ask one they'd almost certainly tell you you're making a mistake" I said. "Our decision is final!" snapped elder Ange. I sighed.

  "Then I'm going with her" I said. "That will not be an option" said elder Ange. "The chances of exposure are too great. If I don't go either the pce is getting blown off the map by a freak bombnado or all five of you are getting eaten alive by killer wasps before arrangements can be made. Or did you forget the magic tree that protects the town and doesn't give a fuck about individual lives?" I noted. There was silence. "I'll make arrangements, and I'll try not to interfere in her “treatment”, but this is going to end in disaster and I won't let anyone forget this was your collective decision" I said. "Well spoken young Vanessa. But the council has decided. We don't make choices on a whim. Please trust in our wisdom" said elder Maggie.

  "I shall once again trust in your wisdom when you resume showing it" I replied.

  Charlotte's eyes shot open. Something was wrong. She gnced about. This wasn't her room. It had all her things sure. But the yout was subtly different. That poster slightly to the right of where it ought to be. That vanity a little bit higher than expected. The light fitting was all wrong. This was home and yet not home.

  She heard movement elsewhere in the house. Clear as day with her enhanced senses. One of those things all beastshifters had to some extent. Wolves had enhanced senses of smell, goats enhanced senses of bance and rabbits like her enhanced hearing. (In general. Any beastshifter probably had better nightvision than an average person, even an average witch for instance)

  She climbed out of bed. This might not be her home but it was being invaded and it was her duty to protect her fellow Americans. She opened the door soundlessly and slipped out. She padded through the empty house without so much as a creak. She listened for the sounds of breathing. She thought she heard it in some of the bedrooms but something compelled her not to investigate.

  She encountered the invaders in the hallway. There were a dozen of them, dressed in bck, face concealing garments. She saw her targets and she let out a primal screech and charged. Her opponent was easily twice her size, with muscles to boot. She jumped toward him and struck him on the chest with both feet sending him flying backwards into his companions. Some dodged. Some nded in a tangle of limbs.

  "FOR AMERICA!" She screamed. Those who hadn't yet fallen charged her. She swung a punch to the kidney. But then some instinct restrained her and the impact was insufficient to colpse the man. He tackled her to the floor and held her down with his knees. She could easily have thrown him off. He weighed nothing to her. And yet something on the edge of consciousness told her not to resist. So she y still as she was cuffed and yanked roughly to her feet.

  "Think you're tough shit do you" sneered one of the invaders. "You won't think you're so tough after where you're going" jeered another. No it couldn't be. CANADIANS! "DO YOUR WORST YOU FILTHY MAPLE SYRUP MUPPETS!" she cried. The invaders began gncing about each other, as if this were a py and one of the extras had just improvised a line that was funnier than anything its writer could ever come up with. Then they decided the logical thing to do was go back on script and pretend that hadn't happened.

  "You're going to a deep dark hole you are. You're going to St. Adam's reform school for wayward teens!" spat an invader. "And you're going back to the third circle of Saskatchewan" cried Charlotte. "I'm… not Canadian?" protested the invader. "Tell it to the great Sasquatch you moose marryer!" she jeered. "I'm NOT CANADIAN! WHY WOULD YOU THINK I'M CANADIAN? I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN NORTH OF NASHVILLE!" cried the invader. "Let it go George. Its not important" said one of his friends. "But WHY CANADA!" yelled George. "Why not Canada? Just be gd this one didn't try to exorcise us with a jar of piss"

  Charlotte was loaded into the back of an unmarked bck van, struggling but not truly struggling when you remember she could bend sheet metal if she had a mind to. George and the man Charlotte had kicked were loaded into the other van. This one was probably going to the hospital.

  Charlotte was brought before two dozen children, lined up in single file outside some sort of complex. Her old friends at the facility would have been proud of the discipline on dispy. Each of them jeered at her on the way by. Some even spat at her. "Don't worry!" she excimed, "I shall liberate you from the clutches of these vile maple maggots!". The back of her head was struck and she stumbled. But she recovered quickly. "You may break my bones, but you will never break my American spirit!" she cried. She was pushed to the ground. She got up, with a furious smile pstered on her lips. She was pushed again and yet again she rose.

  She was pushed once more and this time held in pce with a boot. She could have easily shrugged it off, but something told her she shouldn't. "Give me… liberty… or give me… DEATH!" she decred instead. She was kicked. "You cannot… stop… America!" she excimed.

  "Well that's a new one" came a sonorous voice. The boot was removed and Charlotte quickly cmbered to her feet again. Before her was a man big enough to be a beastshifter himself, though her nose informed her he had no hidden form. Beastshifters tended to smell a little bit like their beast form, if you had a nose sensitive enough to notice.

  "What is your name soldier?" the tall man demanded. "Charlotte Justice Sir!" she replied sharply. He tilted his head slightly, in a gesture of confusion. "Do you know what you're in for soldier?" he asked. "I am here to bring freedom and liberty to this ludicrous nd SIR!" she excimed. "Not even close. You assaulted an educator" he noted from a clipboard he had pulled from somewhere. Presumably it had been clipped onto his belt till that very moment.

  "He said America is beneath my concern SIR!" said Charlotte. "Well that's commie talk but he has a right to his free speech. We don't break several of someone's ribs just for talking soldier" he excimed. "Yes SIR!" excimed Charlotte. The tall man smiled. "My name is Henry Adams and I run this ship. Come on in, I'll give you the grand tour" he smiled.