Pink Gold - Ch.51 - Walking Distance (Patreon)

"You have no idea how lucky you are you don't have to hide this stuff from your mom," Ellie grumped as soon as she came in the front door.

She was dressed in her usual style, with the boots and the cargo pants, and another t-shirt with a heavy metal logo on the front. She also had her backpack slung over her shoulder. As for me I was just in leggings and a long tunic-style top, with sneakers on my feet. I had my backpack ready though, with changes of clothes and everything else I'd need for a few days away from home.

I closed the door after her then asked, "Were your folks giving you a hard time about stuff?"

"So many questions," she sighed. "Mom thinks you gave me the new ring, she was making a big deal about it being all romantic. Meanwhile dad was asking about where we're going and what we're up to that we had to take more time off work."

That made me grimace, "I hope Harper's parents aren't doing the same to him."

My girlfriend asked, "Is he on his way here now?"

"No," I shook my head. "If he drove then his pickup would end up sitting here the whole time we're gone, right?"

Ellie frowned, "Oh yeah. So what's the plan?"

I shrugged, "I figured we'd magic up then go get him, on our way over to Wales."

"Ah," she nodded. Then she asked, "What do we do with our backpacks? Are we just going to carry them in our magical girl forms?"

I smiled, "No need. Just keep it over your shoulder when you transform. Anything you're carrying or wearing or holding will disappear, but it all reappears when you turn back to normal."

"Oh right," the cute tomboy grinned. "That's pretty cool. And convenient."

"So are you ready to go then?" she added a moment later.

I nodded, "I'll text Harper and let him know we're coming. And Violet too. Then we can magic up and go."

Ellie didn't wait, she twisted her ring then punched it skyward while I pulled out my phone. I texted Harper first and let him know we'd be there in a minute or so, then sent Fiona a message that we'd be there in about five minutes.

By the time I'd finished the second message I had a response from Harper, he asked us to meet him in the barn since his parents were both in the house. I let Onyx know about that as I tucked my phone back into my purse, then finally activated my own ring too.

"Bye mom, bye Amelia!" I called towards the kitchen. "I'll be back in a few days."

Like she promised Monday night, mom was actually talking with Amelia about magic stuff. I wasn't sure if my sister was going to be able to use magic herself after these lessons, or if that would come later. And for that matter I had no idea what kind of magic it was exactly.

I trusted mom though when she said it wasn't going to be the dark stuff Judith and the rest of her family had been into. She probably would have told me if I'd asked, but I didn't want my sister to think I was trying to get involved. I figured it was something private between her and mom, so I'd stay clear unless they actually invited me to join them.

Mom came to the kitchen door then paused for a moment to stare at Onyx, it was her first time seeing my girlfriend in her magical girl form. Then mom focused on me again and said, "Please be careful hon."

"I will," I promised her. "You and Amelia have fun."

Then the black magical girl spun her staff over our heads, and the two of us were engulfed in shadows. That faded just in time for us to see a flash of red light as Ruby transformed in the barn in front of us. From there Onyx took the three of us to Violet's little apartment in north Wales, where the purple magical girl was ready and waiting.

"Hello girls," she greeted us with a smile. That faltered after a moment as she looked at Ruby, "Or would you prefer not to be addressed as a girl? Sorry, I shouldn't have made any assumptions."

My boyfriend shrugged, "It's fine. We were all way too busy to talk about that sort of thing the other night."

"Anyways I'm ok with she her pronouns while I'm Ruby," she explained, "And being 'one of the girls' is fine in this form too. But my normal form is a guy, and my normal pronouns are he and him."

The Welsh magical girl nodded, "Got it."

"I trust you've found someplace private for our arrival?" she added as she looked to my girlfriend.

Onyx nodded, "I spent some time last night looking at street-view and satellite photos. I'll be taking us to a park in the city that has plenty of trees and bushes and stuff. Hopefully nobody will see us arrive. And we can make sure we're out of sight before we go back to normal."

"And from there?" Violet asked. "Do we know where we're going after we arrive?"

I replied, "I've got all the addresses. I figure our first stop should be the hotel? It's the same place that Leslie's supposed to be staying. Hopefully we can get some rooms there, since it looks like a good location. It's practically downtown, and really close to the university campus."

The purple magical girl smiled, "Then let's go."

Our girlfriend raised her staff up and spun it over our heads, and once again the world faded into darkness. When the light returned a moment later the four of us were standing together somewhere outdoors, surrounded by trees but with obvious city noises not too far away.

We stayed quiet as we all carefully looked around, both to get our bearings and to make sure there wasn't anyone nearby who might have seen us.

"We're in one of the city's parks," Onyx whispered. She gestured, "There's a big river over there, that way's more or less west. Or north-west? There should be a bridge about a quarter kilometre north of here. The university campus will be on this side of the river, a little ways past the bridge. Across the bridge should be the hotel and the downtown area."

Ruby added just as quietly, "I don't see anyone around. I think we're safe to change back here."

"Yeah I don't see anyone either," I agreed. "This is a good spot Onyx, good job finding it."

Violet nodded, "Alright girls. Let's shift back and start walking."

She gave her ring a twist, and a moment later Fiona was there looking a lot like she did the first time I met her. Tall and attractive, with short messy fiery red hair and bright green eyes, she was dressed in black jeans, a white tee, and a black leather jacket. She had black leather boots on her feet, and a dark nylon backpack slung over one shoulder.

The rest of us followed her lead, Ellie Harper and I all returned to normal. Our boyfriend was dressed in his typical style, with sneakers and well-worn blue jeans, and a simple tee on top. And of course he had his backpack with him as well.

Before we set out I glanced at the tall redhead and asked, "Actually are you going to be ok doing all this walking? I don't see your cane, does that mean you don't need it?"

"I'll be fine Blake," she replied with an embarrassed smile. "I may limp a bit, but as long as we're not running sprints or marathons I'll manage. And no, I haven't needed the cane for over a week now."

With that out of the way we set off through the woods, and it only took a minute or so to come across a path. From there it was just a couple more minutes until we emerged from the park and found some city streets and that bridge Ellie mentioned. The cute tomboy also pointed out the university campus, which was north-east from where the bridge crossed over the river.

There was a fair bit of traffic on the streets around us, which made sense since it was Thursday morning and I figured this was the tail end of the morning rush hour.

"So pretty much everything we need's in walking distance?" Fiona asked as we all set off across the bridge.

I shook my head, "Not everything. Judith's house is too far away to reach on foot. It's in a posh 'estates' neighbourhood south of the city. We'll probably have to use ride shares to get there and back."

The tall redhead frowned, "Relying on ride shares for official business sounds like a bad idea. I think we'll do better with our own set of wheels."

I couldn't help worrying she was thinking about stealing another motorcycle or something, although with four of us a bike wasn't exactly the most practical solution.

It was only another few minutes before we reached the hotel, which looked like a nice place. It was right on the edge of the city's downtown, and had a good view of the river as well as the park where we'd arrived. The upper floors would probably have a clear view of the university campus too.

We all headed into the lobby and marched up to the front desk, where we ran into a few minor setbacks.

"Oh right," Ellie frowned. "Time zones."

It was after nine in the morning back home but there was a two hour difference, which meant it was only quarter after seven in Saskatoon. So not only had the hotel's front desk just opened for the day, but check-in time wouldn't be for another seven hours, at two in the afternoon. And finally, it turned out none of us bothered to check the prices before hand, and the rooms were a lot more expensive than my friends and I were expecting.

Luckily Fiona was much better prepared, and had more experience when it came to dealing with hotels and stuff like that. She spoke with the manager, then pulled out a credit card and booked us an executive river-side suite for the next couple nights. It sounded really nice, with a couple queen-size beds and a little living-room area and everything. We still couldn't actually check in until this afternoon, but at least we didn't have to worry about finding another place to stay.

"Thanks for taking care of that Fiona," I grimaced.

She shrugged, "Don't worry about it. I'm just gonna hit up Cel for the money after we're done, since this is official business."

"We've got loads of time to kill before we can get into the hotel room, so why don't we try and find a car rental place?" she added as the four of us headed back outside again. "Then once we've got some wheels we can take a proper tour around the city."

Harper pointed out, "We might have trouble finding a rental place that's open this early."

"So let's find a cafe or something first," Ellie suggested. "Then we can relax and start searching up car rentals online, and maybe figure out a plan of action for the rest of the day?"

We all agreed with that, and happily there was a coffee place just a couple blocks away up the street. It was busy, being a weekday morning, but most folks were getting their morning caffein fix to go so we were able to grab a little table and some chairs.

Once we all had our drinks the four of us ended up with our phones out as we shared information and discussed our plans.

"That's where Judith's house is," I said as I pointed to the map app on my phone. "Her place is there, sort of diagonal between the golf course and the river."

Fiona frowned, "Lots of big houses on big private lots, that's definitely a rich folks zone. It's not gonna be easy poking around there. Not without attracting a lot of attention. They might even have private security guarding the neighbourhood."

Harper glanced at Ellie and asked quietly, "You can sense the darkness stuff, right? Wasn't that the plan?"

"Yeah but I need my staff to do that," our girlfriend replied just as softly. "So that's an Onyx thing. And I don't know what kind of range it has. I'm hoping the hotel is near enough to the campus that I'll be able to pick up any traces at the university."

After a sip of her drink she added, "Leslie was supposed to be in the same hotel, so if nothing else I should be able to sense any darkness going on in the building."

"Sounds good," Fiona nodded. Then she suggested, "Maybe we can take that show on the road, once we get a vehicle. You could ride out of sight in the back with your staff, right? We could take a tour through that posh area and see if anything comes up."

Ellie shrugged, "Maybe? I've never tried that before. Considering it hasn't even been a week since I got the ring, there's probably lots of stuff I don't know about yet."

"Same," Harper agreed.

Our Welsh friend gave them both a sympathetic look, "For what it's worth you two did great the other day. Don't let Anahera or Valerie tell you otherwise."

"Thanks Fiona," my boyfriend replied, while our girlfriend just nodded slowly.

That led to a bit of an awkward pause in the conversation, and we all ended up focusing on our phones and our drinks for the next few minutes. I spent a bit more time in the maps app, checking out the area around the university to try and get a feel for the layout. I had a pin marking the location of Judith's office, which I assumed was in the physics building. I also found an interactive online map of the campus, which helped me get a better feel for the different departments and halls.

After a couple more minutes Fiona looked up from her phone and announced, "Alright I've booked us a vehicle. They're open now so we can go pick it up whenever we're ready. Looks like about a fifteen minute walk from here."

"Sounds good," Harper responded. "How about we finish our drinks then get moving?"

Ellie and I both nodded in agreement, but we ended up taking another five or ten minutes before we were ready to go. The walk was fine, although it was a little further than the tall redhead thought. There was some paperwork and stuff waiting for Fiona when we got there, and she had to use her credit card again but I had a feeling that was going to be added to whatever sort of expense report she eventually sent to Cel.

It was almost nine in the morning by the time everything was ready to go, then the four of us climbed into the large dark-grey SUV. It was a fairly new high-end vehicle, with all the latest goodies including tinted windows and big comfy seats. Fiona got behind the wheel and Harper took the passenger side, while Ellie and I were in the back. And all our packs got loaded into the cargo area behind us.

"So where's our first stop?" our boyfriend asked as he started poking at the navigation system in the dash.

I suggested, "Why don't we drive around the university campus first? It's not far, and we can get a look at the layout and where the different buildings are. I can point out where Judith's office is."

"University it is," Fiona stated as pulled out onto the road.