ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 54: The Twin Connection

Chapter 54

The Twin Connection

Something was off. No matter how Luke went about his morning, he couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something. He checked his homework, which was done as well as could be expected. He did have a sister who just got back from being attacked by a Necromancer, that should count for something.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t attacked directly by the Necromancer, but she did have to stay in the hospital for a few hours while she recovered. Worse, he only got to see her for the last few minutes of yesterday’s classes before she left for extras.

He did manage to ask her how she was doing, with their own personal sign language they had created over the years. She said she was fine. Well technically she said, “I am satisfactory,” which for her meant she could take on a pack of werewolves.

“Yo, Luke. I have to ask, what is it like living the dream.” Frank, Luke’s overly talkative roommate asked.

“What?”

“You know, the dream. You are basically one step away from being the male lead in an amazing harem adventure.”

“Harem?”

“Yeah, have you seen your class? All the girls are smoking hot.”

Luke just shook his head, not quite knowing how to answer that. Until finally he said.

“You know that one step is my sister, which according to your classification here would effectively make me the plucky sidekick of this whole harem dream world you are living in.” Luke quipped.

“Right, like I said, one step away. But oh, so close.”

Luke just shook his head.

“Come on. You have to give me something. Have you made a move on any of them?”

Luke shook his head. “I did have a thing with one of them, but that was before they became a werewolf.”

“Oh yeah, Julie. Gina told me about her.”

At that, Luke cocked his head to the side as he looked at Frank in a whole new way. He knew that Gina was the Mind Reader, but was somehow unable to read Alexa’s mind.

“What did she say?”

At that Frank just smiled, as he knew he got Luke in a trap, “tell you what. I will tell you what I know under one condition.”

Luke just glared at him. This was a technique he learned from Alexa, and while he could never be as intimidating as Alexa was, he still got the job done.

Frank just tried to stare back for a moment, but ultimately caved. “Fine. I have been instructed to tell you by Gina that if you are to hear of this information, then you must act upon it. There, I said it. Now are you willing to listen, knowing that you will have to act?”

At that Luke paused.

He knew this was likely a trap, but he couldn’t quite understand why. Finally, after a long second, he took in a deep breath and answered.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Luke nodded.

With that Frank happily rubbed his hands together as he got to tell a secret. “Well, I was told to tell you to try to ask Julie out.”

At that Luke felt like he had been sucker punched in the gut.

“What?” Was all Luke got out, before the wind was forcefully ripped from his chest.

Frank just smiled, as he watched Luke’s face. His eyes drilling into Luke like a hawk eyeing a field mouse.

“Oh, that was good. I can see why Gina wanted me to watch you explicitly.” Frank said.

“Wait, are you just telling me all of this so you can mentally record it and what, play it back for Gina?”

At that Frank paused. “Wow, you really are smart, when you want to be.”

At that Luke felt like he had just been insulted again, though he couldn’t quite understand why.

“Relax, I am just joking with you. But seriously, you should at least ask Julie out.”

“Why Julie?” Luke found himself asking.

“Oh, it is a whole competition thing for Gina. With Julie out of the way, Gina thinks there will be less distractions for her to be with Alexa.”

“She told you this?”

“What? Gods no. No, that is what I gathered as her true motivations for pushing me to do this.”

“All right, so she gets you to push me to ask Julie out. Thus, removing Julie as a potential hurdle between her and Alexa. I think I get that. But what do you get from this?”

Frank just smiled widely. “I get to live the American dream vicariously through you.”

“The American dream?”

“Yeah, of being a harem protagonist.”

Luke just shook his head and left the room after that. He had all his stuff needed for class, and did not want to partake in this conversation any more. Still, he couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something. Still, he would have time to think about it on his trek across campus.

He was so lost in his own thoughts, that he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings.

Thud.

He ran into what had to be a brick wall.

“Hey, watch it.” A muscular upper classman female with a half-shaved head yelled out at him.

Dang it. Luke was already chastising himself, for while his sister could go around standing up to every bully. He knew he could not. Once again, he found himself wondering why he wanted to leave his life as one of the few rulers of the mundane high school, only to come here and be well, a Sophomore with the power to be invisible.

“Sorry.” Luke said, making sure not to let his fear show in his voice. During these moments, he found himself try to channel what he called his inner Alexa. This basically meant be cold and condescending without trying to be obnoxious.

The girl who looked like she was a biker gang leader looked first to his face, then at his sash.

Crap. Was all Luke thought at that, as this was the equivalent of sizing him up and finding out he was worthless in the power department.

“You’re a sophomore.” The girl stated as more fact than anything.

Luke nodded, not trusting his voice as he took in the two powers the girl before him had.

With that the girl just nodded to herself, before seeming to come up with a plan. Luke was prepared for almost anything. If it came to blows he was fairly certain he could take a few before going invisible, then finding his way to Alexa to be healed. He was mentally going through all the different escape plans available to him when she came out of left field.

“My pack is hosting a Halloween party tonight. You should attend.”

“A party?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, it should be a real kicker. Name’s Angel by the way. We are at only female party house on campus.” The girl, Angel said, pointing to a house at the southwestern part of campus.

“Oh, hey. My name is Luke.” Luke said, trying not to trip over his own words. Only mildly failing.

“Oh, we all know who you are. Mr. Off Limits.” Angel said.

Giggle.

With that a few other muscular girls around Angel all began to laugh at that. Luke had been so caught up by the beautiful but scary girl before him, that he had missed the gaggle of strong women who surrounded Angel.

“Mr. Off Limits?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, that’s your nickname, on account of you being off limits and all.” Angel said, as she gently touched Luke on the chin. It was a fairly intimate gesture, and one that Luke thought he should hate, but strangely found the move enticing.

Luke just paused.

“Oh, yeah. Invite your whole class for us. This will be an outreach party. One where we try to take our impressionable sophomores under our wing and offer our protections.” Angel said, then handed out a flier for the party. Sure, enough it listed as a Halloween party, right there on campus.

With that, a few more awkward words were exchanged. Then before he knew it, Luke was going to class.

He of course arrived late.

His only saving grace was that the teacher Ms. Tutlidge was also late.

Luke looked around to see that he was not the only student who was late. As he looked to see an empty seat right up front, a seat that was surrounded by a dozen women that all but reeked of teenage stress and pheromones.

Looking at that gaggle of women, he realized this pack was far more intimidating than the pack of girls that Angel had with her.

He thought about telling them all about the party, even going so far as to hold up the paper, but suddenly found his false bravado failing and in turn just sat in his bridge seat. Or at least that was what he had started thinking of the seat. See his seat bridged the gaggle of werewolves to Julie.

Sitting down, he meant to tell Julie about the party, but was instantly cut off by the girl to his left, Krista? Kira? Something like that.

“Where is Alexa?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Luke just shrugged, then answered. “We haven’t slept in the same room since we were five. And besides that, I don’t know where she would be normally.”

There was a look of disgust that crossed the pretty girl’s face but was ultimately dropped.

With that moment of distraction over, Luke found himself trying to focus. There was something important that he was to do.

Crumple.

He felt the piece of paper in his hand, then remembered the flier.

He also, remembered the words of Frank from this morning and thought that this might be what his body was trying to tell him about. That feeling that something was off.

“Hey.” Luke said, eloquently to get Julie’s attention.

Julie for her part just stopped her writing and looked up at Luke. Luke looking at the writing couldn’t help but be impressed at how flowery all her letters looked. Even from here they were legible, but that only caused an issue when Julie noticed him staring at something that was likely personal.

Alexa,

I don’t know how to say this, but…

Yep, definitely personal. Luke made to turn his head but was cut off when Julie just covered the parchment with her books.

With the distraction over, Luke turned back to see an annoyed Julie staring at him.

He almost wanted to call the whole thing off there, but then stopped himself.

“Hey, there is a party on campus tonight. I got invited and was told to invite the whole class.” Luke began, as he held up the flier that was printed on red parchment with black text. Taking a moment to actually look at the page, he found it was surprisingly well done.

Julie just looked at him, with an unreadable expression. Still Luke pressed on.

“Would you like to come?”

Julie paused, as she looked first at him, then to the parchment in his hands. She looked like she was about to say something then.

Snatch.

Julie took the piece of parchment from Luke’s hands before he could even react.

Julie just read the parchment, which really just said the date, tonight, or Halloween night, the time, and the location.

Reading it, Julie just nodded to herself.

“It’s a costume party. Do you have a costume?” Julie asked dryly.

“Why of course I do. I will go as the Dread Pirate Roberts.” Luke said, as if that was his superhero title.

Julie just scoffed at that.

“So?”

“So what?” Julie asked.

“Will you be my Buttercup?” Luke asked.

Gag.

Julie just gagged.

“Did you think that line would work?”

“It works on Alexa.”

“Wait, is Alexa going?” Julie asked, a note of excitement in her voice.

“I don’t see why not. She was also invited. Just like the rest of us.” Luke said.

At that Luke felt the set of nineteen teenage werewolf eyes all shift to him. With an unconscious glance he turned to see that everyone in the class was staring directly at him.

“You are all invited too. Angel told me to tell you.” Luke said, holding up the red parchment.

Bang.

Fortunately, Luke was saved from any further embarrassment by the sudden arrival of Ms. Tutlidge.

“Sorry class. I was in the process of getting our guest lecturer today, when I lost track of time.” Ms. Tutlidge said, in a fast pace.

Taking a few deep breaths and letting the older woman enter. It was clear that this other woman had magical powers. At least that was what their visitor’s sash detailed. They had a pin denoting nature, and a Roman numeral ‘V’ next to it.

“Good morning class. Today I will be your guest lecturer on Magic. The tiers of magic, and what to expect from someone who has multiple tiers of a particular school of magic.” The woman said, as she scanned the room. Then looked particularly vexed at not seeing someone they were looking for.

The lecturer just turned to Ms. Tutlidge.

“Oh, it appears that Alexa is not here today.” Ms. Tutlidge said, looking at the clearly empty desk, then she scanned the room until she locked eyes with Luke.

“Luke, do you know where your sister is?”

Luke just shook his head.

“Hmph.” The guest lecturer let out an annoyed huff, as they continued with their lesson. “Regardless, this lesson is probably better for the regular students, rather than the one with the actual school of magic unlocked.”

Luke wanted to correct the old woman, to say that it was schools, as in plural, but stopped himself. Instead he chose to bunker down and listen to the lecture. He himself was curious about magic.

“I am a fifth tier Nature Mage. This means that I am on average five times more powerful than your typical Tier one mage. Each tier can effectively be seen as a multiplier of one’s base Attributes. The primary Attributes for magic are: Intelligence to form the intent of what you wish to create. Willpower to force your thought to life, and finally Perception to see minor changes that might need to be made to a particular spell…”

The first part of the lecture then went further into how important it was for a Magician to get all three mental Attributes as high as possible.

“The next thing to know is that there seem to be restrictions in place for using magic. Restrictions that gradually get eroded away as you progress through the tiers.” The guest instructor said, before waving their hand and causing a small sapling to sprout on the table.

Everyone looked at the display but didn’t seem that impressed.

To be fair, Alexa had just squared off against a Necromancer and won.

“Hmph.” The guest lecturer huffed again. She was about to go on further with the lesson, when bang.

The door to the room slammed open. Everyone jumped in alarm, all to turn around and see Mr. Mackie there, holding the door open, a look of mild panic filling his otherwise calm features.

“Mr. Thyme. I need you to come with me at once.” Mr. Mackie said.

Badump.

Luke’s heart began to beat quickly as he tried to go through everything he did wrong.

He went to grab his stuff.

“Leave your stuff. No one will touch it, while you are gone. But come now, quickly.” Mr. Mackie said.

With that, Luke left his stuff on his desk and followed Mr. Mackie.

As soon as they were out of the room, Luke found himself having to keep a light jog to keep up with the unusual movements of Mr. Mackie. For his small height, Mr. Mackie looked like he was just walking, but somehow managed to take strides that were longer and longer. This of course forced Luke to be in a near full on sprit by the time he finished chasing Mr. Mackie across the entire campus to the nurse’s office.

“What happened?” Luke asked, his chest wheezing from the effort.

“It is your sister. She has apparently gone too far this time. She is clearly injured, but we cannot do anything to get her to awaken.” Mr. Mackie said.

“If it is that bad, then why isn’t she at the hospital.”

“We were hoping that we could avoid that. A six foot two-inch-tall woman with long dark hair coming from campus might be suspicious.” Mr. Mackie said.

At that, Luke nodded in agreement. She had just been there, and while other supers had been there to protect her last time, they weren’t exactly there to help out now.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Talk to her. See if you can get or to awaken and heal herself.”

Okay, that did make sense to Luke. He was also glad they accounted for his sister’s anonymity.

“Okay.” Luke said, as he gestured to enter the room.

“Now I must warn you that what you are about to see is quite intense.” Mr. Mackie said.

With that, the pit that had been rolling around in Luke’s stomach all day suddenly flared to life. As he knew what he would see next would be bad.

When he entered the room it was far worse than he had expected. Within seconds he was running forward, grabbing hold of Alexa.

The nurse who had been tending to Alexa with gloved hands almost screamed at the boy. But was cut off by a gesture from Mr. Mackie. Luke of course didn’t notice any of this. Instead he called out to her the only way he knew how.

“Come tis merely a flesh wound. Surely you could do better.” Luke said, as he grabbed and squeezed his sister’s hand.

“If you keep this up, I’m going to take pictures. I’ll send them to mom and dad, then you know what will happen next. They will be here in a moment, tending to their baby girl.”

Slight stirring of eyelids.

Seeing that, Luke hoped that he was close. “Yep, they will come here and walk you to and from every place on campus. Watching you like a hawk. Spoon feeding you chicken noodle soup, until you vomit it out your nose. It will be bad. And all for what, some minor flesh wounds? If you wanted attention, you could have just texted.”

“You mock my pain?” Alexa said, her voice dry and horse, but she did manage to get out the line.

With that, Luke smiled and let out a slow breath. Before he replied, “life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Then just like that, Alexa smiled a bloody toothed smile that made Luke grimace. Fortunately, before he could do or say anything, he watched as the healing waves of Green energy washed over her.

“She was already mostly healed, due to her Regeneration, but we would have had to take her to the hospital, if she didn’t awaken within an hour.” The nurse said, as she wiped the sweat away from her forehead.

“An hour?” Luke found himself asking.

With that both Mr. Mackie and the Nurse nodded in agreement.

Alexa sat up, wobbled for a half second, before her mind came to focus and she was back to herself. Before Luke even had the chance to think about what he was doing or saying, he asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“What the heck happened to you?”