You and Felicia need to have a talk

You started to storm over, finding yourself buzzing with this sudden rush of anger from all these revelations within moments of each other. Your eyes were dead set on Felicia's, and you could see her normally unflappable demeanor was showing some cracks. "You had a coin and you didn't _tell me?! _I tell you day one because I thought I could trust you!" Your yelling echoed through the halls, reverberations striking Archer like arrows from all sides, causing her to wince a bit. Alice and Emilia just stood in place, not wanting to get involved.

Felicia held out the coin she had in her own hand, offering it to you. "Could you at least swap first? I don't want to get yelled at by Jane."

"Well, deal with it!" Your voice was trembling from the outpouring of emotions, unable to hold back. "I woke up this morning thinking I might have just had my life ruined because I couldn't become myself anymore, I get assaulted at a bus stop and then you were there the whole time apparently so you could, what, play my guardian angel?"

"Jane, it was just a coincidence that--"

"How long have you had this coin?"

Archer looked down at the floor, anywhere but your eyes. You didn't want to see your friend shy away from you like this, that desire clashed powerfully with the need for some accountability. Archer hesitated for a moment, before she worked up the courage to look at you again. "Since the Sunday before your tryouts. Please, Jane, you have to understand, I didn't do it because I wanted to trick you or anything! I have my reasons, and I think they're good reasons."

"Emilia and I both agreed that she had a compelling case," Alice offered.

You took a deep breath, trying to push the frustration away, but everything was still swirling inside you like a hurricane. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I mean, I wanted to! I got the coin Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we were really just focused on you the whole time since the tryouts were a big deal to you and I wasn't going to steal your thunder there. I thought maybe the night after, with drinks and all that? I was really thinking about it, but the beers didn't help... today would've been, like, the perfect day for me to tell you. Then, uh, a little mix up..."

Your eyes were a little blurry, but you reached out and snatched the coin from Archer's hand, trading for the one that apparently belonged to her.

"Let's take a moment here, Jane," Alice said, deciding to impart her third-party view upon the situation. Emilia had already lost interest in the drama, returning to her work in the other room. "Felicia came to us on Sunday, and insisted that she needed to get a coin to give her a talent that could protect you. When I say insistent, I mean that Emilia told her no three times before Felicia convinced her otherwise. It was an all-day affair, but ultimately it came down to the fact that she wanted to be able to keep you safe, and that your safety benefits the project as a whole. So, Archer became the first person to ever ask for a coin, and is earning it with bodyguard duties, just as your favor will come due later on."

This time, it was your turn to look down, wiping your eyes on the sleeve of your shirt. This felt so stupid... you had a headache from the feelings welled up inside, but hearing the explanation eased the pain. A little. You wrapped your arms around Felicia, hugging close to her, which felt like a better way to accept the situation than what any other words could muster.

Felicia smiled, breathing a sigh of relief, patting your head as she rest her chin against your forehead.

You looked up at her, still frowning, but you had a better grip on your emotions. "No more hiding the truth from me? You can deceive anyone else in the world, I don't care, but I want to feel like we're totally honest with each other. We've always had each others' backs and it doesn't matter what's going on, I just want to always know the real you. I need that from you."

She nodded slowly. For the first time in a while, Felicia didn't have anything to say.

"Alright, are we done here?" Alice held up her keys. "We're kind of busy. You two can work things out at home, right? You don't need this open foyer for its acoustics?"

Alice was quick to shuffle you two into the car, and she drove off, toward your apartment once more. But, there was still some things she was curious about. "How did this whole mess today even happen?"

You weren't yet feeling very talkative, but Archer was back to her old habits in no time. "Well, I left Jane's place real early, probably around 2 or 3 AM. I checked my pocket for my coin, it slipped out at some point during the evening on the couch, in my groggy and hungover state I just grabbed the first coin I saw, just from the table. Forgot my phone, borrowed the car, headed back to my place, did a little bit of coursework before falling asleep... woke up as a guy, I'm guessing that was when Jane tried her first coin flip of the day. That posed a problem, I had to hide in my room until Don and Penny left for the day, and I kept trying to turn my coin over to the Venus side, no luck."

You frowned. "Why didn't you try turning it to the Mars side just to see what would have happened? That would've changed me and at least set me off that something was behaving weird, and not just broken."

"...didn't even think to do that. I thought it wouldn't matter if I was already a guy. Anyway, I was gonna drive over and confess, but then I thought hey, you might freak out if there was a strange guy driving your car and knocking on your door because you've been freaking out a lot lately, so I started to walk, thinking maybe I could at least get my phone back so I could call Emilia and Alice to see what I was doing wrong with my coin."

"So far that's the one sensible thing in this story," Alice said.

"Right? So, anyway." Felicia frowns a little. "That's when I saw you leaving your place, I shadowed because I was curious since you went out with some of your guy clothes, and I honestly would have not even gotten near you had those two thugs not tried to give you a hard time. I got to test out some of my newfound martial arts talents, but then I got this thought in my head that maybe I would stick with you a bit longer just in case something else happened, and I was like perfect, this bus goes to the King place anyway, you'd get off wherever you were gonna, I'd get off and have a chat, easy peasy. Then it turns out you had the same idea to just go all the way to the mansion, but without calling first, so I just kinda... like that wasn't the moment to tell you, right, while we were walking up here? It was already really weird and I felt like I had time until you could see me in this new form and then you SAW me in this new form and I just... augh, I dunno."

You put a hand on Felicia's shoulder, like you were going to comfort her with your next words. Instead, you said, "You just had to go and choose martial arts?"

Archer snort-laughs. "Well, yeah, I mean that's what I would've done anyway. Look, that, plus... wandering around outside as a guy is great. You know what people were saying to me as they looked at me when I wandered down Third Street on Sunday night? Nothing. Because people weren't looking at me. My hair wasn't so nicely groomed and I had a jacket on that hid my really killer physique, I guess, otherwise maybe someone would've been like 'whoa, nice abs', but y'know, whatever, it's fine. Better than fine. There's some junk, like literal junk, to get used to. But that's not been bad, definitely been a bonus for me."

You thought back to the two guys that Archer apparently used magical martial arts talents on, then even earlier... the way she effortlessly handled Josie, almost tossing her outside the apartment like it was a choreographed scene from a martial arts film. Things were starting to fall into place. Maybe Archer really was a sort of guardian angel.

"Alright, we're here, get out," Alice barked to break your train of thought.