Online Friends

Chapter 4

XxXxX

"Hey there, good looking. Wanna hang out with us?"

Hearing such a line for the fifth time since she boarded the Beacon Academy ferry, Cinder was seriously considering the positives of torching everyone on board.

Sure, there were a lot of 'innocent' bystanders but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.

Looking with open disgust at the tall, ginger haired man in full body armor, she deliberately held eye contact for a few seconds too long to make him sufficiently uncomfortable.

Then, she smiled sweetly to him, internally chuckling at the way his face immediately switched between awkwardness, confusion and then pride/cockiness/smugness, somewhere between the three.

"Thank you for your invitation but… " She started demurely with a seductive tone of voice, shifting her weight from one foot to the other while maintaining her smile and eye contact. The way the boy before her gulped audibly while his eyes clearly dropped much lower than her own made it all the sweeter. "Could you just jump off the ship for me? It would be preferable to spending time with neanderthals like you and your friends~."

Turning around she strutted away, making sure to sway her hips in an enticing manner. She could practically feel the whiplash the fool experienced, making her smile the slightest bit more genuine.

She never really thought about becoming a Huntress, for various reasons.

Most of them coalesced into the simple fact that she didn't really care for the people she didn't know.

A man dying from starvation? She would sit down with a pack of popcorn and watch the show.

Someone mugged in an alley? Should have thought about that and not waltz into that alley to begin with.

A wild Beowulf appeared and is tearing apart villagers? The only real reason she would do something about it would be if it interfered in her own plans, otherwise? Good riddance.

She was a bad girl like that.

Walking to a large window she rested her arms on a banister and looked for a few moments at the view. The slowly moving expanse of greenery looked like a sea of trees, small and large clearings dotted here and there like islands.

A nearby conversation of an overly energetic blonde girl in a skimpy outfit and a rather young looking girl in a black and red outfit gained her attention after a while. Mainly because the blonde one was gushing over the other one who judging from the topic was her sister.

Now that she looked a bit closer at the shorter of the girls she looked somewhat familiar. Cinder could see her only from the back right now but the outfit did ring some bells…

Suddenly, a rather scraggly looking blonde teen rushed between the two and her to a nearby trash can, inevitably gaining the half-maiden's attention.

He was rather tall, probably half a head taller than her. His face looked slightly sunken and pale as a sheet of paper.

With how desperately he was trying to get to the trash can and his unsteady gait Cinder connected to dots immediately unlike the two oblivious girls that were still in their own small bubble.

Sadly, for the blonde guy, he didn't make it entirely, the unpleasant noise of retching starting before he managed to reach his destination.

"What the heck!? MY SHOES!!!" The shrill, banshee-like screech of the blonde girl was probably loud enough to be heard in Vacuo.

That… that did bring a small smile to her face.

Focusing back at the scenery outside she could already see the Academy not so far away, still probably around fifteen minutes until they arrive.