[Good, good. By default mine works fast enough that I think it'll handle even very sudden injuries - like, I dunno, guillotine wounds, or getting hit directly in the head with a van. Also mine doesn't hurt like yours does, actually comes with a little anesthetic, but that's probably just - personal taste.]

Bella rolls her eyes. She walked into that. [Designing powers is fun and complicated and just the right amount of challenging. I don't think college'll let me major in that, though.]

[And you're awesome at it,] he says, not bothering to verbalize his opinion of college. (Total indifference, for the record.)

[The point of college, at this point, is not to learn things, anyway. Pentagons can learn me things. The point of college now is networking for assistance in taking over various portions of the world, which means I have to aim for Ivy League or similar,] Bella says.

[It might actually take some doing to get into the Ivy League. I have lots of A's and some extracurriculars and I used to volunteer at a food pantry because Renée was doing it, but the Ivy Leagues care about sports and I don't have a chance to accumulate more than a little sports experience even if I get a doctor here to prescribe me an inner ear med and then have it 'miraculously cure' my balance issues and then I pentagon myself Olympic skill at whatever games are even played here.] Pause. [Although that could make a good, inspiring personal essay. And they care about legacy candidates - Charlie didn't go to college at all, Renée got her associate's degree by correspondence and hasn't done any school since.]

[What in the fuck is a legacy candidate?] he asks, while idly cooking up semi-legitimate medical explanations for a sudden cessation of balance problems.

[Someone whose parents went to the school. If you can get a few generations of a family to go to your school, they tend to feel affiliated with it and give the school money.] She opens up his thoughts about balance issues, looking for something she could tell a doctor with an actual medical degree to have the miracle cure properly on-record.

Alice obligingly speculates in greater depth! The fact that there is no need to figure out what's actually wrong with her opens up the possibilities a little.

[I do have to be able to convince a doctor to diagnose me with something and prescribe me with something for it to look right.]

[Yeah, but you have magic acting skills and can lie about your symptoms,] he says cheerfully.

[Enh - I can lie about my symptoms if they don't want to talk to my parents, such as because they don't believe that I can remember how I was presenting at age three,] Bella says. [Which I honestly couldn't have done till recently.]

[Okay, yeah,] he acknowledges. [Still. Fake cures are easier to find than real ones, y'know?]

[Right. Hmm. Some of these vestibular disorders can be caused by head trauma. I wonder if I could sell 'oh, the van knocked my ears back how they're supposed to be, and apparently I hit my head on something when I was really little'? And not have to go to a doctor at all.]

[And I'll have to resist the temptation to fly,] Bella adds. [Yeah, that works. And then I have admissions-office bait that lets me tell them I want to be a medical researcher to learn more about how such amazing things could occur so that we can harness these principles for the benefit of everyone, and also how much I value Sport Of Choice and by the way look how talented I proved to be at it once I could finally play.]

[That is some quality bullshit you are spinning there,] he says fondly.

[I'm going to have very stiff bullshit competition. I'm trying to think of another in - something unusual, everyone has test scores and grades and the requisite handful of clubs and a personal essay. But for now I might as well wish myself some grace.] This takes a pentagon. She gets up and dances, experimentally.

[How's it going?] he asks after a short pause, because he is so not the person to talk to about unique getting-into-school assets.

[Unfortunately, the kinds of things I can think of are mostly the kinds of things that would get me attention I don't want, or they involve brainwashing. I'm pretty sure they don't interview everyone who applies. I'm going to see what the Internet has to say, for inspiration.]

[The internet,] Bella says, [thinks I should definitely pick up a sport, and possibly also do something volunteerish outside of the country. Maybe graduating early isn't a good plan after all; I need time to fit all this in before applications are due! Man, if only I had known I was going to obtain magic powers back when I was fourteen. I suppose I could leave high school early, go to a decent state school and be impressive, and then transfer.]

[Not my area of expertise,] Alice understates.

[I'm just thinking, um, out loud. So to speak.] Bella decides to go for a flight; if she's invisible, she can go out the open kitchen window, and the curtains will just look like they're being disturbed by a breeze. [Hm, avenues of impressiveness beyond just getting good grades in everything... Academic contests, being ridiculously good at sport-of-choice but not so much that I get irksome attention and that's probably not the best angle to concentrate on anyway since no one cares about women's sports, getting into the arts in some capacity, clubs, activism, starting a small business... can you think of anything?]