Chapter Text
Tanya awoke with an overwhelming rage after regaining her memories at around three years old. After a muttered session of cursing Being X so as not to rouse her "older" sister from across the room in a lisping voice, Tanya calmed down enough to try to piece together her death. Unfortunately, her only memory was of a light so bright and piercing it was as if she had gone blind, the white bleaching all colour out of the world. Probably a nuclear death, then, Tanya guessed. Strangely, she didn't feel much emotion towards her death besides a faint regret for being this close to her retirement. The Empire had surrendered, she had been discharged, and she was literally just about to finally be rid of that cursed type-95 when the (probably) nuclear bomb dropped.
Maybe I'm not as detached as I thought, Tanya mused. Either way, she was once again reborn as a blond haired, blue eyed girl. Before she could think further of her situation, her vision grew black as exhaustion quickly overwhelmed her, and she fell into a land of stinking mud, cloudy skies booming with artillery, and the sense of belonging as she flew through the vast skies with her war maniacs behind her.
Over the next few years, Tanya came to learn about quite a few things. The first was that the supernatural exists in this world. The second was that werewolves also exist. The third was that magic, in a very weak and esoteric form, also exists. Her fourth revelation was one of disappointment, as she couldn't feel the presence of mana in this world, which meant she would no longer be able to take to the skies. Unless I became a pilot, Tanya sometimes considered it during her brief flights of fancy. The last revelation was that she was a werewolf. An actual, turns-into-a-wolf-or-bipedal-canine-thing-during-the-full-moon type. Like Twilight. Vampires even exist. Fortunately, after quickly asking her mother about their whereabouts, she was able to ascertain that they did not reside in anywhere called Forks, and after a confused glance, was told that, "No, vampires don't glitter in the sunlight. How did you even come up with that?" Her mother then yelled towards her father, "Murray! Are you telling the kids weird stories again? I told you not to!". They did, however, live in San Francisco.
On another note, Tanya supposed that she now belonged to a pack. Although she could see why a race of beings who transformed into wolf-like creatures would call themselves a pack, they functionally didn't act like an actual pack. While there were hierarchies in actual wolf packs, they were still very communal. This "San Francisco Pack" took all the worst stereotypes of wolf packs, amplified it, then slapped all of it into a series of unspoken rules. They even had a leader called an "alpha" and they lived in “pack territory”. While she wondered about how that even worked legally, she knew better than to ask before she turned the appropriate age. Maybe she’d be able to ask once she turned twelve? Twelve year olds would do that, wouldn’t they?
Either way, in this life, Tanya made sure to keep a low profile. While her goal for a successful career and retirement remained constant, she decided to change her tactics. The definition for insanity is trying the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, and she was anything but insane. A bundle of unsolved neuroses, yes, low empathy, sure, but she wasn’t insane by any measure.
Last life, she had aimed to achieve peaceful retirement through distinguishing herself as a genius and through rapid advancement. This life she aims to be as ordinary as possible, although she did allow herself some leeway, such as skipping a grade or two. “Learning” the alphabet and counting to one hundred was really too boring. She was willing to forgo any intellectually stimulating content such as economics or falling back into her hobby of learning about historic warfare in order to seem as ordinary as possible, so she decided she’d allow herself to skip a few grades, two max. That way, even if she was recognized as a “smart” person, she wouldn’t end up on the news or setting any records as a “child prodigy”. She knew she wasn’t actually a prodigy, merely someone who remembered their past selves, so even if she decided to go the child prodigy route, she’d be exposed as an average intellect soon.
That was how she found herself attending the first year at Nevermore Academy with her older sister. Fortunately, they had been placed in separate rooms. While she had grown up with her sister, they never did end up very close. Tanya just couldn’t be interested in Enid’s hobbies of k-pop and gossip, and Enid couldn’t understand Tanya’s love of reading or writing.
One of her backup plans Tanya had made, in case her primary plan of joining a company failed either through circumstances or “circumstances”, was to become an author. She figured she had lived quite a colourful life, so if being a corporate cog didn’t work out, she could always try to be an author by publishing what was essentially her biography as a fictional story.
She ended up placed in Ophelia hall with a witch for a roommate, and she began her blissful high school years.
-
“Hi Tanya!” Enid chirped as they passed each other in the cafeteria, her blond hair bouncing as she skipped next to Tanya.
“Good morning,” Tanya replied. “Skipping the line again?”
“No, no, you’re not supposed to say that out loud!” Enid chastised, before waving off to the side. “Hey, Yolks! I’m here!”
Soon, an asian vampire wearing dark sunglasses siddled up beside Enid.
“Hey, short stack,” the vampire greeted Tanya, her fangs glinting as she smirked at her.
“Yoko,” Tanya greeted shortly. Both fortunately and unfortunately, puberty had not hit her yet, leaving her with both a high pitched voice and a short stature. It wasn’t helped that she was also at least two years younger than everyone else at Nevermore. Somehow, like a shark sensing blood, the vampire had caught onto Tanya’s annoyance at her height, and promptly decided to tease her about it any chance she got. Unfortunately, Yoko is now Enid’s best friend, so she couldn’t resort to more…creative methods to get her to stop.
“By the way, ‘Nid, did you hear about Bianca and Xavier?” Yoko said eagerly as she turned towards Enid.
“What happened?” Enid quickly asked.
“So, I heard that...” As Yoko continued updating Enid on the latest gossip, Tanya tuned them out for the most part while keeping enough attention on them in case anything interesting came up. She picked up a tray, asked for the scrambled eggs paired with toast and very raw sausages, and waited for her sister and Yoko to finish choosing. Enid, as always, hemmed and hawed over the options while Yoko quickly grabbed one of the blood bags the school offered for vampires.
Together, the three walked to a table where Ajax, Divina, and Xavier were already sitting.
After the usual morning greetings were exchanged, Tanya dug in. Years of scarfing down “food” on the battlefield had hammered in the habit of eating fast so as not to taste the “food” she was consuming, as well as the constant threat of enemy action potentially cutting her meal times short. The orphanage where bread was treated like gold didn't help either. In this life, any food was good food in Tanya’s opinion, and so she tended to eat quickly, preferring to enjoy her food in silence. While coffee would be nice, the school didn’t serve coffee for students, which should be preposterous if you asked her.
“Did you guys finish Thornton’s English assignment?” Ajax slurred as he slowly picked at his sausages. Most days, Tanya really couldn’t tell whether he was hung over, high, or recently “stoned” by his own hair. Since it was a Wednesday morning, she sided with the last option more. It could also just be his personal quirk, but she was pretty sure if an adolescent spoke this slowly and slurred by nature, there must have been something wrong with his cognitive ability. While he wasn’t bright by any means, she wouldn’t go as far to say that he was mentally deficient.
“Nah,” Xavier replied. “My roommate was having some fit again last night, and I couldn’t concentrate over his muttering. Like, bro should really see a psychologist or something.”
“I did!” Enid said. Surprisingly, although she was a very stereotypical teenage girl, she was actually an A student.
“Awesomeee,” Ajax said. “Can I copy you?”
“No!” Enid quickly denied. “Last time I let you, you didn’t even bother changing some parts! You even left my name as the author in! I got in so much trouble with Mr. Thornton!”
“C’mon,” Ajax begged. “Please? Just this once?” He gazed imploringly into Enid’s eyes, his own widening into a puppy-like plea. She could see Enid softening already. Before she could say anything, Xavier intervened.
“Lay off her, dude. Just do your own homework,” Xavier said around a mouthful of fries. Why the school would serve fries this early in the morning, Tanya couldn’t fathom. Only teenage boy metabolism would be able to handle the oil this early in the morning, but even then, it was a close call.
“Yeah,” Yoko agreed, slurping noisily on her blood bag. “Like, it’s totally your fault if you didn’t do anything yet. Plus, it’s due tomorrow so you’ve got the whole evening to finish it anyways.”
“Tanya?” Ajax turned to her. “Please?”
“No,” She responded, her focus still mainly on her food. He slumped in disappointment.
“Dude, what’d you expect?” Yoko laughed. “You know how she is when she’s eating. I swear, it’s like food is her religion.”
“Yolks, don’t,” Enid hissed. “Don’t mention the ‘R’ word!”
“It’s okay, she’s eating. She’d probably eat through the end of the world if she had food in front of her,” Yoko said, finally sucking the bag dry. “Relax, I’ve learned my lesson after the first time. I’m not a masochist.”
Tanya decided to ignore her comments on account of her good mood that morning. She really was genuinely enjoying her food, and after years of scarcity in her past life, food really was almost sacred to her. That, plus shovels, coffee and artillery. Visha would’ve loved this, Tanya thought with a pang of grief. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but imagine her company living their teenage years like this. Even when eating K-brot, Visha still managed to make it seem as appetizing as eating a five course meal.
“Hey guys,” Divina spoke for the first time that morning. “I think we’re ignoring the elephant in the room.”
Enid and Yoko immediately began sporting matching grins. Xavier groaned as he futilely shoved more food into his mouth in an effort to stay out of the conversation.
“I heard that you got with Bianca,” Divina said slyly, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Oh yeah, how’d you manage that?” Ajax asked. “Everyone thought she’s the untouchable ice queen.”
“I just talked to her,” Xavier said vaguely.
“Talked? How’d you talk?” Yoko jumped in, waggling her eyebrows. “I bet it involved a lot of deep, personal talking.”
“Guys, stop,” Xavier groaned.
“No way,” Divina grinned. “It’s your first girlfriend.” She sing-songed.
“And you’re the first one to escape being a single pringle,” Enid added, biting into her own sausage, although it was actually cooked compared to Tanya’s.
As the group continued bickering, Tanya thought, Ah, this is the life. Living my days inefficiently, listening to useless drama. I can’t wait to enjoy this peace for the rest of my high school life! Seriously, what can even happen in high school? I’ve won this round, Being X!
Unfortunately, Tanya had underestimated his creativity.