ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 12: Call it Brotherly Intuition

Chapter 12

Call it Brotherly Intuition

“Yo, this is serious.” Luke said in hushed tones once they were outside the gymnasium.

“Seems so.” Alexa added.

“Look, aren’t you frightened about what might happen?”

At that Alexa paused and just stared her brother in the face.

“Right, you wouldn’t know fear if it bit you on the ass and infected you with Lykanthropy.” Luke admitted.

Alexa just shook her head, before adding. “Lykanthropy isn’t all that bad.”

“What? Are you serious? It is the worst. Well next to vampyrism, but that is also a death sentence. At least socially, I mean who wants to date pale, cold, and clammy people?” Luke asked as he shook his head.

Then he paused. “You sure you don’t know who it could have been?”

“I didn’t see any victims leaving the scene with blood wounds, if that is what you are asking.” Alexa said, her dead pan tone perfect for delivering such lines. Only in this case Alexa was not lying. She did not see any victims, there were no mirrors or reflective surfaces that could have been used to show her, her own face.

Luke just stared at her for a second. “You know, I used to be so happy that you learned sarcasm as a way to blend in, but there are times when it is a bit much.” Luke mused, as a wistful expression crossed his face.

“Yes, if only we could turn back the clocks of time and make it so you were the annoyingly dull one, and I was the one vying to be the big man on campus.” Alexa said.

Luke hearing that, just shook his head. “No, that is not what I meant.”

Alexa just stared at him.

“Okay, fine. I did mean something like that, but I could have worded it better. It’s just hard to understand you sometimes.” Luke said.

“I understand.” This was as close as Alexa could get to expressing empathy, in this state. She could understand. She was smart enough to understand how certain people moved and operated, in particular she had gotten a good understanding of what factors drove her brother at any given time. They varied from situation to situation but could ultimately be boiled down to a few key points.

Luke Thyme’s Key Factors:

Competitive Spirit: 22%

Getting Scouted Favorably (By Awakened Teams): 21%

Protective Streak: 18%

Social Standing: 18%

Awakening: 16%

Self-Improvement: 5%

Academic Excellence: 2%

Those were the breakdown for decisions made by Luke, that Alexa had observed over their life. When it came to improving a girl, or protecting Alexa generally it would come down to the flip of a coin as to which side he would choose. Often, he would only side with Alexa, if he knew the female in question found that brotherly affection endearing. The other half of the time, she was second fiddle. The Competitive Spirit is what made Luke steal her shot at being the starting quarterback.

Luke did do a lot to improve himself academically, but most of that Alexa chalked up to his wanting to be scouted favorably by Awakened Teams.

This of course led to his biggest fear, one that Alexa herself had already surpassed. That fear of course was the ability to awaken. Alexa figured he was almost superstitious with the way he never spoke about it, or rather, never spoke about not awakening. To him, he had too many plans riding on his awakening.

Alexa knew that her brother would be beyond angry if he didn’t awaken, especially if he ever found out that she had a class slotted for a while. The only problem was, what could she tell him? Fight off a werewolf for a long time, get it so it is in a weakened state, then drop your guard for a second so it can scratch you. Then kill it mercilessly? Oh and then afterward you need to be prepared for the wolf spirit that will be hiding within your mind. Once you realize it is there, you will need to strangle it relentlessly. Then and only then can you get a slated class?

No, if just finding the dead werewolf caused this much panic in her brother, she knew he would be frightened by the idea of having to face off against the beast for over an hour.

There was of course the odd part that, despite having signs of the virus within her, her body was immune? Or not really immune, but she could fight it off. In fact her class seemed like it was designed for just such a purpose of fighting off werewolves and other supernatural entities.

“Hey, I’ll pick you up after class?” Luke asked.

Alexa thought, then shook her head. She would almost smile maliciously at him, if she had emotions. Instead, she just liked the idea that he dug his own grave by being greedy.

“You can’t, you have Football practice today.” Alexa said.

“Friggin!” Luke cursed, or what for him was a curse. Their parents were strict about not cursing. Or only doing so when it was important. Sadly, realizing that a leisurely afternoon was ruined by his own life choice was not a situation that warranted profanity, and he knew it.

“Don’t worry, I need to practice Cross Country and other classes.” Alexa said.

“You sure you want to go into the woods with the possible werewolves around?” Luke asked.

“Wolves, as in plural?” Alexa asked.

“Yeah, they go in a pack. Plus, there also had to have been an older werewolf, the one to turn the young werewolf found in the forest.” Luke said.

At this, Alexa’s eyes widened. “You know, sometimes I think there might be hope for you yet.”

“What does that mean?”

Alexa just shook her head at the question. “I take it back; I take it all back.”

“What?” Luke said, but Alexa had already entered class for her final period of the day.

As she entered, she was surprised to see that John Mitchel guy sitting there in the back of the classroom. A mental map showed that the seat he was in was the normal seat, but something was off. Suddenly Alexa realized that a number of the sporty females had congregated by Johnny’s desk. They even went so far as to force the other students away from their normal seats.

At that Alexa, noted the change in social dynamics with a quick scan. Then sat in her assigned seat, like she was supposed to. Then proceeded to sit through a nearly identical lecture to the last one that was given for math. Now rather than multiplying by square roots, they were dividing. The entire thing was a waste of time. Especially since most were just the reverses or near reverses from the problems covered last Friday.

“You want to go out into the woods after class? I know the perfect spot where no one will find us.” Veronica Stone giggled flirtatiously.

She of course likely meant the grove that was at the exact center of the cross-country course. Looking back on it, this type of activity would be expected. Veronica had done the same exact thing to the five other people that had scored a 4.0 or higher on Alexa’s dating chart. Of course, John had the highest rating she had ever given at 4.5, but that was mainly bonus points for agreeing to meet at her choice of dating locations.

“Um, sure, I’d love to…” John Mitchel stammered out.

Snap.

The pencil in Alexa’s hand broke in half due to sudden pressure. Looking down, she realized it was a mechanical pencil at that. Hands moving quickly, she swapped out the broken pencil for another identical mechanical pencil. This one had a blue clip, rather than a red.

Hopefully blue will be better, Alexa thought as she looked down at the new pencil before writing down her work.

While she didn’t fail to observe the way the entire class, including the teacher stopped to stare at her. She ignored it the way anyone without social graces would.

Fortunately, the blue mechanical pencil was her lucky one as both Veronica and John avoided making any more annoying cooing sounds, from the back of the room.

Once class was over, she packed up her things, went to her locker then prepared for her various sports teams.

Alexa was on so many teams that her coaches took to just leaving out lists of drills to accomplish for her, and she would accomplish them during her afternoon. This was a very much, on your honor, type of training. But Alexa had proven that she would often go above and beyond the notes listed for each sport she was in.

Basketball wanted her to do shuttle drills, dead lifts, back squats, more shuttle drills, one hundred free throw baskets with each arm, the make 100 three-pointers, and so on.

Baseball wanted her to run, lift, hit in the batting cage, go easy on the equipment it is old. Then go back and do throwing drills with the nets, be easy with the nets, because they are also old. You know what just use the back of the supply shed for your throwing drills, it is old and concrete, and if you break it too much, the school might get us a new one.

Cross Country wanted her to run the track and do a personal best. Alexa, you need to use the ankle weights and flack vests to practice. Then everyone does leg lifts.

Track, well there was no track and field now the teacher was out.

That was it. Alexa looked at her lists, memorized them. Then signed her name to each one, letting her coaches know she acknowledged them.

Then she went off to practice.

She started with her basketball requirements first. They were the most weight intensive and right now Alexa thought she could use some weight training. This was pointedly not an excuse to avoid the cross-country track where Veronica and John would be meeting for a make out session, in that one clearing that is visible from the baseball supply shed in fall, as more leaves begin to fall to the ground.

Nope, Alexa figured twenty-five to thirty minutes for Basketball, including stretches was enough. She remembered the boy’s endurance from their dungeon runs together. She figured with stamina like that, either Veronica would have to do all the work, or it would last five minutes tops. More than enough time.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

Screech! Screech! Screech!

Alexa went through her routine, at a hyper focused pace. She crushed the shuttle drills, doing a round backwards just to work out a different muscle set. Then she did her dead lifts, back squats, and even threw in a bench press, setting a personal best for repetitions in each. She had long ago maxed out the weight that each bar could reasonably hold and had instead gone to more conditioning and maintaining drills.

That was why she was certain that her work out would take at least twenty-five minutes.

The rest of the team just stared at her, mouth agape.

Alexa noticed this a lot, but mostly chalked it up to the fact that guys are pervs, and will always stare at a girl’s butt, rather than work out.

She even caught her brother checking out her butt more than once. There had been one time when her pants ripped, but she didn’t notice, but apparently all the boys on the team did. None said anything, even after her brother told her, she didn’t care. She still had on her spandex underwear as well, but that only went to further the embarrassment and rage her brother felt.

From that point, she made sure to carry a change of gym clothes and let her brother stare at the other men who might be trying to stare at her butt.

From there, her shots were fluid and graceful. She would shoot, run catch the basket, then run back and repeat. This was another form of shuttle sprints that the coach liked to see.

Of course, few could keep up this frenetic pace for the whole practice. Most had to eventually slow to a light jog to retrieve their baskets.

Before she knew it her required number of baskets had passed.

Again, most of the boys by this point had managed to take off the weights from the bars she bars she had been using. Then the others who helped remove the weights, they all just stared at Alexa. Lousy spotters, Alexa thought to herself as she was now done with her basketball portion of her day and went to the supply shed to get her weights for her cross country run.

She imagined the level of gear what a medieval knight would wear if they had cankles and wrapped extra-large socks around their ankles to hold up their weights.

Thump. Thump.

The weights bounced up and down for a few steps, until Alexa learned to run with the weights. Once she did, their sliding seemed to stop, as she was just able to keep focusing on her movements.

Alexa was running the course backwards. Not actually backwards like she had done with her shuttle sprint but running it backwards in terms of direction to take the course. The course normally went clockwise, but today she decided to run the course counterclockwise. This way should John and Veronica still be in the grove, she wouldn’t have to see them, until she made her way to the entry point.

The only problem was, there was a faint musky scent in the air.

Sniff, sniff.

She remembered that smell, well a similar smell from earlier. Her mind tried to place the place where she remembered the smell, until she remembered the card. Instinctively she reached for her back pocket, but it wasn’t there. These were her training shorts, the card from that werewolf master was still in her pocket.

Sniff.

Still, she knew that smell. Her nose analyzed the odd musky scent that smelt of pine trees and wet dog. Now that she knew what the smell was, she didn’t think her mind could forget the smell.

This was why, she began to panic.

She followed the trail of the scent. Her new perception ability, Identify Energy Types, was fresh in her mind. Using the new power, she followed the trail of the stalker upwind. Until she saw, or rather heard where it was going.

“AHH! Oh my god, what is that!” Veronica screamed.

“Oh, come on, it doesn’t look that disgusting, does it?”

“No, not that you moron, look behind you…”

Alexa reached for a burst of speed she never found before.

Once again, she was met with the system message.

Absorber Class Material Found. Would you like to absorb aspect of the werewolf?

“Yes.” Was the one word reply that Alexa gave, before she felt a surge of energy course through her. She felt her mind become alive, as she was once again able to feel and experience the world.

Then her eyes caught sight of the apex predator of the forests. The werewolf that was stalking slowly towards Veronica and John, both of whom had most of their clothes strewn about the clearing.

The beast stalked forward, John tried to get up, but ended up tripping over his pants that were down to his ankles. Fortunately he either had the wherewithal to pull up his boxers with Garfield on them. Veronica for her part grabbed a few of her garments, but then did the classic survival move, she pushed John down to the ground.

Alexa couldn’t fault such a blatant power play for survival. The intent was clear, in case of being chased by werewolves, she was not going to be the female in distressed who trips. Instead, she was going to be the female that survived by tripping someone slightly slower.

Fortunately for John, Alexa was here.

“AHH!” Alexa screamed as she ran past both love birds and charged straight for the werewolf. Her ankle and wrist weights be damned.