Never Miss A Beat (Part Three)

Nothing made you feel like a boss quite like riding on the back of a big, weaponized metal wolf... not that many other people would ever get to experience such a thing. But if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

For some reason, it had struck me to ask Saberwolf if he would let me do it on this particular day. To my surprise, he agreed, and got down to let me on easily. I expected to get bucked off the moment we got in front of people, but that didn't happen. When my friends came along, we didn't even bring up how unusual it was.

Eventually, after we caught looks from a dozen students passing us by outside, Hisako just had to mention it, "Why are you letting him ride you?"

"It is no bother to me," Wolf replied, "Also, if he gets cut, it is his own fault."

She looked at some of the sharp edges on Wolf, and the blades he kept tucked away on his person. It made her feel better about me sitting upon his back, "Alright then. Carry on."

"I'm just glad you don't have any blades on your back, big guy," I said, patting my A.I. friend, before addressing my mutant friends, "Look at this and tell me it's not awesome!"

"It is awesome," Eddie agreed, "Can he, like, be on our squad?"

I didn't know quite how to respond. I didn't want to speak for Wolf, but it didn't seem like he was eager to do it for himself, "I've asked him. He's not down with it... unless he's changed his mind since the last time... yeah?" I tried to lead him, but he shook his head, "No? Well, that's okay."

As far as I was concerned, he was still a Paladin. He'd been in his fair share of the crap we'd been caught up in at school. He trained with me just as hard as anyone else. Yes, he was one of us.

We had time between final exams and had linked up in between leaving our last ones, so we spent the time shooting the shit before our next ones, "So, are you guys are ready for the dance?" Hisako asked.

Eddie and I both made faces at the prospect of going to that kind of school function, "Ugh," We both said in unison.

Hisako wasn't amused by our blasé attitudes, "Oh, come on," She said, "At least one of you has someone you can actually take to this thing, Bel," She aimed my way.

It didn't matter if I went with Megan or not. I would be miserable and pretending not to be the entire time, "I hate these things. They're always tense and weird and never any fun," Standing around in a school gym in dress clothes surrounded by people dancing to squeaky clean versions of Top 40 hits from six months ago? No thank you, "It'd be more fun if we threw our own party. Then I might actually get something out of it."

"Huh..." Eddie hummed as he looked out on the sprawling quad full of students enjoying the late spring day outside, "...You know, boss man, that's actually not a bad idea," He said.

Hisako recoiled at what we perceived as Eddie's face of reasoning, "What, throw a party? Are you kidding? There's no way we could pull that off."

It was then that I grabbed at my chin in thought. Sure, there were some obstacles-, okay, there were plenty of obstacles, but nothing that we couldn't handle or deal with the consequences of once we were found out, "Not by ourselves we couldn't. We'd have to bring in some help to make it all work."

"Help?"

"Yes, Hisako. Help."

She looked at me skeptically. It was known between the lot of us that we weren't necessarily the cool kids that everyone would jump at doing favors for, "Help from who?"

"You let me worry about that."

"I wonder why that doesn't fill me with any kind of comfort."

Doubt was poisonous, and I would have none of it. The more I tossed the idea of a party around in my head, the more I liked it, "No, I'm serious. Fast Eddie is right. We can do this."

Eddie hovered off of the ground next to Wolf and threw an arm around me, pointing my way, "We have on our side a man that has probably seen every copy-and-paste party movie released over the course of the 90s and 2000s," He said, getting hearty nods of agreement out of me, "I'm offended that you think we can't pull this off."

Hisako looked at us like we were two gigantic idiots, but ran out of energy to debate Eddie on the matter, "Why can't you be this ambitious about anything else? Anything. Almost literally anything, and you could probably get so much more done."

"Oh, we're gonna get something done, alright! Eddie!" Without needing to really be told, he sat down behind me on Wolf's back, "Away!"

I expected Wolf to take off running in the direction I pointed. Instead, Wolf took off flying into the air. He seemed just as alarmed as I was from the way his legs kicked. I looked back at Eddie who was grinning, clearly behind it all.

The son of a bitch was making us fly just like him from contact with him, "I didn't know you could do that!" I yelled, stoked at the new discovery of his powers.

He was very pleased with himself, and with good reason, "I just found out I could! It's awesome!"

Yes, Eddie. Yes it goddamn was.