Shoulder Devil 3

Taylor’s full body cringe was unpleasant to experience secondhand, but she stood her ground. They did go over a few potential scenarios, but it appeared that Taylor was too nervous to properly execute. “Hello, Emma.” Taylor managed to say in a somewhat deadpan manner. “Goodbye, Emma.” She proceeded, only now finding going to another of the multiple double doors that constituted the entrance an acceptable action. 

Sophia, on the other hand, smoothly moved to block Taylor’s route. “Don’t you walk away from us.” She warned dangerously. “It’s rude.” She added, with a much less threatening tone. 

“It’s been so long, I wanted to catch up with one of my longest friends.” Emma said, bringing things back on script. “I was so worried that you’d be dead of an overdose.”

Taylor clearly took that harshly, but while the implication of heavy drug use may hurt Taylor’s feelings, Tanya was unbothered and ready to retaliate. Not her most preferred battlefield, but she knows a thing or two about mocking doublespeak from her time as a drill sergeant. “Say: It’s nice to see that you’ve broken your vow of silence for me.” Tanya said to Taylor. 

Taylor paused. “What?” Taylor asked in her mind. 

“Say it.” Tanya insisted. 

With an uncertain beginning, Taylor said: “It’s… nice, Emma, that you’ve broken your vow of silence for me.” 

That threw Emma. She was, however, a bit too composed to actually say ‘What?’. 

“Now say: Oh, is that not how you managed to avoid getting your face broken over the summer? My mistake.” Tanya said, chuckling at her own wit. 

With the momentum of the previous confusion, Taylor finished the bit: “Oh, my mistake.” She said with confidence. “I thought that was how you managed to avoid getting your face broken over the summer.”

That left Emma a route of attack. “Please, I’m not you, running around with druggies and gangsters.”

Taylor didn’t need Tanya to do more than feed her the line on this next one, saying the words just a heartbeat after Tanya finished it. “That’s right, you’re much too smart to open your mouth around anyone who can back up their words with strength of arm.” Taylor said. Emma didn’t have an immediate response, so she continued. “Well, unless they tell you to anyway.”

It took two heartbeats for the implication to fully sink in, and Emma’s eyes turned furious. “What did you say?” She whispered, infusing her words with as much threat as she was capable, that is, about the same amount as an angry toy poodle. 

Tanya registered something that Taylor didn’t, and shouted: “Watch out!” It was too late: Taylor opened her mouth to reply, buoyed with self-confidence, when Sophia sucker-punched her. Tanya attempted to seize control, and Taylor’s half-conscious brain failed to put up an iota of resistance. Really? Tanya had doubts about their blatancy, but this was beyond the pale! 

To the three girls, it probably looked like Taylor managed to catch herself before falling over, and stood back up calmly, with improved posture. “I’m done here.” Tanya said out of Taylor’s lips. “You are blocking a public thoroughfare, please move aside.”

“Taylor’s” calm ignoring of the punch seemed to have spooked Emma, who fled into the building at a slightly faster than polite pace. Sophia was already gone. Tanya scanned the crowd, looking for someone with a phone out. Spotting one, Tanya walked to them, inches too close so she could loom over her target. Taylor’s body was surprisingly suited to it, at least when dealing with other girls. She could loom over people by floating in the Empire, but it wasn’t the same as the kind of loom you got just by being bigger than someone. It was nice to do it again. “Did you get that on video?” She asked, her tone demanding a reply. 

“Y-yes.” Said the girl. 

“Send it to me.” Tanya demanded, before taking the phone and sending it to a dummy email address she had Taylor prepare just in case it was needed. “Thank you.” Tanya said politely as she returned the phone. “Remember, in the future, how fragile Emma’s hold over the narrative can really be.”

Tanya did manage to get a second angle of video by similarly interrogating other spectators, this time a freshman who wanted it to be passed on (a clear oversight by Emma), but after that no one else was still around. She moved calmly through the busy crowd, heading straight for the nurse’s office for medical documentation. 

She had never met the nurse, and as Taylor was still incommunicado while Tanya piloted her body, Tanya couldn’t tell if the middle-aged black woman who looked at Tanya with disappointment was the same one. “Taylor, the first day hasn’t even started yet…” She said, concern mixed with resignation. That would rather match her own sentiment, yes. 

Tanya touched her face, having ignored the ache until now. It wasn’t that bad, by her standards. She’s fought through much worse injuries than a bruised cheek. With the contact causing a flare up in the pain, Tanya sighed. “I would like to file a complaint.” She said, “Please document my injury.” The trick to properly getting bureaucracies to do what you want is to use the correct words while also conveying the emotions that incentivizes the people in charge of hearing those words to realize that complying would make their lives easier than the alternative. 

In this case, Tanya had to act like she was seconds away from punching someone in the face, and only the thought of official punishment for the target of her ire holds her back from committing violence on whoever was at hand. Taylor’s body was responding to her stoking of anger, her face flushing red and tears escaping her eyes. Perfect. 

The nurse seemed particularly concerned about her actions, Taylor didn’t mention the nurse as one of her allies in the school administration, but as Tanya had expected, there was always a way to make even the laziest malingerers to take their jobs seriously for a moment. “You just let me handle this.” The nurse said placatingly. She took out a notepad of pink documents, and started writing a note to excuse Taylor’s lateness. She then took out a second, yellow pad of paper and filled out another standardized form. “Okay, now, what happened?” The nurse asked, ready to write things down. 

“Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess obstructed my path and engaged in conversation.” Tanya said clinically, breathing deeply to dissipate the anger she brought to the surface. She didn’t make one move to wipe the tears. “I tried to leave, but was obstructed further. Insults were exchanged, veiled in concern, and someone, I presume Sophia, struck me in the side of the head. No faculty were present, despite it being one of the primary entrances of the building at a time of high traffic, but I secured footage from two different eyewitnesses who recorded the exchange.” Speak only in facts, pre-empt weaknesses in testimony, make clear the chain of events. No different than reporting back to command after she took action that may result in legal inquiry. 

“I got it honey.” The nurse said, finishing her incident report. “Now, let me check you for a concussion.” Uh oh. 

“I’d like to use the restroom first, if that’s alright.” Tanya said, “I feel fine.” Subtly, she added a bit of sway, as if she was feeling a dizzy spell that she was hiding. 

“With a bruise like that?” The nurse asked incredulously. “Alright, but don’t blame me if you end up falling off the throne in thirty seconds.”

The nurse’s office had its own restroom, of course, and once inside Tanya withdrew back into the type 95. “Taylor, how are you feeling?” Tanya asked immediately. 

“What the?” Taylor muttered, but quickly switched to mental communication. “Tanya? What happened?”

“Sophia knocked you out.” That was technically a lie, Tanya took over before she was fully knocked out, but she would defend the decision as prudent. “I took over and got us to the nurse’s office. Do you feel dizzy at all?” Tanya asked, concerned. 

“Yeah… a little…” Taylor said mentally, before suffering a spike of nausea and quickly bending over the toilet to vomit. 

“That isn’t good.” Tanya said, “I suspected that I wasn’t feeling the full effects of the head injury, I supposed that confirms that…”

Still, Taylor managed to focus on what was important. “What am I going to see outside this room?”

“The nurse.” Tanya said, “I made an incident report. I targeted the new students who recorded the incident, Sophia was sloppy. She didn’t have time to intimidate the freshmen yet, so I was able to persuade two to send the video to your email. The nurse also has an incident report. I can go over your exact words later, but this will be difficult for the administration to ignore. We have evidence, both of damages and of culpability. Now, walk outside and inform the nurse that your head’s started aching now. We want to give her the impression that the adrenaline’s finally worn off.” Tanya wasn’t quite used to this level of deception, but she did know plenty about injuries and anger management, so it was relatively simple to figure out how Taylor should be acting as an angry, stressed teenager who had just been punched in the head. 

Aborting a nod, Taylor stood up and walked unsteadily outside the bathroom. “Mrs. Washington?” Taylor said out loud, “I think I’d like to lie down.”

“Yep, you’re feeling it now.” The nurse said, nodding to herself. “Adrenaline’s a hell of a drug, honey. Come on, let me take a look at it.”

Taylor meekly submitted to the nurse’s medical check of her head wound, and was given some over the counter medicine for it before being allowed to nap until she felt better. 

------------------------

After the second period bell rang, Taylor woke up from the noise and, feeling significantly better now that the painkillers had taken effect, was allowed to leave the nurse’s office with both of the documents. As Taylor was instructed to take the yellow incident form to the administration, that was where she went first. 

The Principal’s secretary immediately recognized Taylor and absolutely did not like this fact. “Miss Hebert, another complaint?” She asked, “Starting early, I see.”

Taylor presented the yellow incident report, signed by the school nurse. “Try ignoring this.” She said confidently, taking well to Tanya’s whispered tips on body language. “I have video.” She added. 

Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Blackwell’s not going to like this’, with the name being the least audible, the secretary paged the Principal. “Ms. Blackwell? Second fight of the school year, she’s got a yellow note.”

Tanya could feel Taylor’s frustration at her lack of surprise. Of course there was another fight on campus while Taylor was napping. Still, Blackwell apparently wasn’t busy enough to ignore this. “Alright, send her in.”

Ms. Blackwell was an unpleasant person both in appearance and reputation, and she seemed to have an equally poor opinion of Taylor. Until she noticed the ugly bruising on Taylor’s face. Then her face twisted to a more general ‘pissed off’ expression. “Miss Hebert.” Blackwell said drolly, holding her hand out. “Let me see the note.”

Taylor handed over the note, still not really believing what was going on. “Tanya, what did you do?” She asked. 

“We put them off guard.” Tanya explained, “In their heads, they understood that the beginning of the school year is a point where their grip on power is more delicate than normal. A solid quarter of the school’s population have not yet learned to fear them.” Tanya chuckled. It was almost too easy…  “But when you fought back, on Emma’s own battlefield, before she could gain much steam, they defaulted to their normal methods of escalation, at the absolute worst time.”

“So you think Miss Hess was the one to hit you?” Blackwell asked after reading the note. 

Taylor jolted at having to refocus her attention to the other conversation. Tanya started whispering in her ear and Taylor repeated it out loud: “The punch came from her direction, what little I saw supports that presumption.” Taylor said, which seemed to be relieving to Blackwell. That seemed odd… “But I’ll need to review the footage to be sure.” Taylor finished, which knocked out whatever comforting support the uncertainty gave Blackwell out from under her. 

“You have footage?” Blackwell asked carefully. 

The hints of fear in Blackwell’s expression buoyed Taylor’s emotions, speaking before Tanya could feed her lines. “Something blocks an entrance and looks like it might turn into a fight?” Taylor asked rhetorically. “Lots of people had footage. I had two of them send me a copy.”

“That’s right Taylor, the key to victory in legal battles is consistency and honesty.” Tanya said, pleased. “As long as your actions remain what you should do, and what any reasonable person will do, it’s legally bulletproof. Keep to the story that makes you sound like the only reasonable person in the room.” This was the kind of advice that she’d give to someone who was worried about a malicious actor trying to use the HR process against them. “Any bureaucratic authority is no different in this.”

Blackwell hummed. “So you’re using a school email?”

“No.” Taylor said, “I had it sent to my private email.”

Blackwell’s eyes tightened. “Well, I don’t suppose you could identify these eyewitnesses?”

“I didn’t recognize them.” Taylor said, “I assumed they were freshmen. The footage and my bruise should be enough proof.” Good, good…

Practically scowling, Blackwell sighed. “I have some calls to make.” She tapped the report in front of her. “Go back to class, your schedule here says you have a computer class with Ms. Knott now, so you have my permission to access your private email so you can send that video to me. Once everything is in order, there will be a meeting to resolve this.” Blackwell took Taylor’s nurse’s slip, added a bit to it, initialed it, and then handed it back. 

After leaving, Taylor smiled widely. “We did it!” She thought. 

“Something this open and shut would be nigh impossible to ignore. No matter how much favor Sophia has as an athlete, they cannot simply do nothing.” Tanya said, smiling just as widely. It was nice to be able to use her HR experience to help instead of her military experience. 

------------------------

The computer class was, to be blunt, the most basic one Tanya had ever seen. It was as if the lesson plan assumed that the students had never used a computer in their life. According to the lesson plan that Tanya peeped at while Taylor was working, it did go to more advanced topics later in the curriculum, but as someone who dabbled in computer programming back in Japan, she was not expecting much even then. 

The fact that the Principal “gave permission” for Taylor to use the computer in a technically forbidden manner didn’t actually matter, but fortunately, Ms. Knott was too busy giving extra attention to a few of the students who apparently have genuinely never used a computer before, or at least without any understanding of what they were doing, so Taylor was able to send the videos to Blackwell’s public email address. They watched them, too: One of them was unfortunately at a bad angle to 100% conclusively identify Sophia as the puncher, but the other one was unambiguous. Perfect. 

After that class, there was lunch, which was spent hiding away in an obscure bathroom, eating the bento that Tanya had walked Taylor through creating that morning. Tanya stood guard outside, and was able to see some girls that might have been working for Emma do a scan of the hall, but she was able to warn Taylor in enough time to hide, so the cursory inspection of the bathroom led nowhere. 

The rest of the day had a few more petty inconveniences, from knocking Taylor’s things off her desk, dropping pencil shavings on the aforementioned desk, and Tanya considered it quite fortunate that Taylor missed gym class, her first class of the day, as there were many potential avenues of deniable attack in such an environment. 

At the final period, Taylor was relieved from class, instructed to go to the Principal’s office. With her head held high, despite the fact that she had admitted to Tanya that the painkiller had worn off and her face was now aching again, she walked into the administration section of the school and was met by Emma, Sophia, Emma’s father Alan Barnes, and a woman who was probably not Sophia’s mother: She was blond and blue eyed, had a heart shaped face and wore a light green blouse with khakis. As Madison was not named in the initial complaint, she was appropriately absent, despite the numerous petty attacks afterwards. 

Daniel Hebert was also not available. “Where’s my dad?” Taylor asked on her own initiative. 

“Danny’s on his way.” Alan said, his face concerned, but he distinctly did not comment on the state of Taylor’s injury. He was quite large all around, only slightly taller than Taylor but definitely weighed at least double. 

“Do not let conversation begin until he’s here.” Tanya advised. 

Blackwell took a deep breath. “Well-”

“We’ll wait for my dad.” Taylor said, interrupting her. 

Admittedly, the staring contest that began between Taylor and Blackwell did not put things on the right foot, but Tanya wasn’t about to suggest that Taylor show weakness in this circumstance. 

Daniel Hebert was taller than his daughter, the tallest in the room, in fact. His eyes zeroed in on Taylor’s bruise, and the temper that Taylor alluded to in their conversations over the last two weeks immediately ignited. 

“What. Happened.”