ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 46: When Everyone Knows, But Cannot Say

Chapter 46

When Everyone Knows, But Cannot Say

Alexa awoke with a start; she had a dream about fighting off dungeons that spawned hundreds of invading elven warriors. Her body spasmed and awoke to a jerk. Then suddenly she was awake, in a room that she was not prepared for.

Alexa was still wearing her leather costume, which by this point given the amount of grime and sweat that had built up, made it feel like the costume was wearing her. She felt dirty, no more than that, she felt ragged. Even now she could feel that her energy reserves had only returned a little.

“Did you have a good dream?” Judy Thyme asked.

Alexa sat up, almost ready to respond to her mother, not the superhero she was now portraying. Fortunately, she caught herself at the last second. Then the gravity of Judy’s words hit her, as she remembered fighting. She had been fighting for her life, not just her life, but the whole of humanity’s as well. Yet, despite all her fighting, she had been enjoying every minute. Of course, before the battle were the flashing red zeroes that everyone saw, right before the dungeons opened and started sending warriors in waves to their planet.

At that Alexa remembered the countdown timer. The timer that she had gained from stealing Eyes of the Architect, from dragons.

Alexa sat up to look around to find that she was in a hospital room. Fortunately, she was still in her uniform, this meant that no wires or other tubes were there to hold her down in place.

“I dreamed sufficiently.” Alexa answered, as she looked around the room to see that her mother, her school principal Ms. Peacock, and quite a few other supers were all present.

Seeing her movement, several people at the far side of the room began to move. It was clear that the other people were there to attend to the room’s other attendant.

A quick glance showed that the other attendant was a female roughly Alexa’s own age.

Only after noticing the guards around the female did her true identity come to Alexa’s mind. This was of course the Prime Minister’s daughter Sarah Marie Stevens. Now that she was cleared of the corruption plaguing her body, she looked like a completely different person.

Her skin looked healthy, and she seemed to have a certain glow about her.

Seeing Alexa sit up seemed to cause a mini-butterfly effect of disproportionate movement within the room. The minute she moved, the supers and patient at the far end of the room also started to stir.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Stevens, grabbed his daughter’s hand and helped her down from the table. Then a wall of supers began moving in lock step forward from the back of the room.

Most of the six supers on guard duty seemed in good spirits. While one, the muscular one that Alexa threw out of the Necromantic range scowled at her.

Alexa for her part just scowled back, not letting a predator get close with evil intentions.

“Stop that.” Sarah admonished, after first seeing the unrelenting stare of Alexa, then following her gaze to her own guard who looked equally serious. Her words of course were directed towards her guard. Her guard who immediately upon hearing the admonishment broke eye contact first.

Alexa for her part lowered the intensity of her own stare but made sure to keep staring for the moment the guard looked back at her. Then once their eyes met again, the guard looked away. That was enough for Alexa who then turned her gaze to Sarah.

“I wanted to say thank you.” Sarah began speaking. She was one of those instantly charismatic people that could draw everyone to her with her smile. Not overly pretty, but pretty enough, with an internal spark for life that seemed to naturally draw in everyone’s attention.

Judge, who was in Alexa’s peripheral vision had a faint but sad smile crest her lips. Having known her mother long enough, she could tell it was a pained forced smile that she often wore. In another time she would have asked her about her fake smile, if only to learn more about the motivations of people. Yet, she knew she couldn’t ask such questions here, not while they were both wearing the uniform of a super.

Alexa for her part nodded her in head acknowledgment at Sarah.

“I too wanted to thank you, personally. Today, I can see why they call you the miracle healer. As you are the first person to have cured someone of Necromancy.”

At that, a spark went off in Alexa’s mind. With a panic, which in Alexa’s case was signified by the sudden intensity of her stare, she turned to Ms. Peacock.

“You got the Necromancer, right? He was in the crowd.” Alexa asked.

At that Ms. Peacock smiled reassuringly, while holding up a hand to forestall further questions. “Warder, Polyglot, and members of the TSI task force were on hand to take down the suspect not ten minutes ago.”

With that, Alexa let out a slow breath.

“Thank you.” Was all Alexa said, to show her relief of having her second major task taken care of.

“No, we are the ones who should be thanking you.” The Prime Minister said, bringing the attention back to himself and his daughter. “In fact, we have been discussing it,” Mr. Stevens said, gesturing between himself and his daughter. “And we would love to do a photo op with you, and the rest of your team of course.”

Alexa nodded.

She was not thrilled, but she knew this would be part of the price to be paid. The price to be able to wield your powers freely in public, even if using the anonymity of a mask. The alternate was to put yourself on a registry that marked you any time a crime was committed in your vicinity. A registry that all but declared you guilty of all unsolved crimes within a half mile radius of your residence, even if you were nowhere near the crime scene at the time.

With that Alexa began moving. There was a slight imbalance to her movement, but her mind was quickly able to compensate for her momentary lapse. Judge on reflex held out her hand, a hand that Alexa purposefully avoided. Not that she resented help, but because Alexa didn’t want to draw attention to their real-life bond. A bond that could cause problems for her in the future, should it ever be made public knowledge.

This was why Alexa made sure to ask Ms. Peacock specifically about the Necromancer. This also made sense to Alexa, as she was the person that Alexa used the safe word on.

With Alexa up, a few people made way to assemble everyone. Redline would be the first to leave, giving him five minutes to go out and round everyone up.

Then once the five-minute head start was over, Fuego III and the burly guard from the Prime Minister’s detail would go out first to secure the hallway. Then Sarah, followed closely by Alexa, then Judge and the Prime Minister, followed by the rest of his protection detail. Then Ms. Peacock and the others.

The idea was that they would show unity, and a united front on this joyous occasion.

Alexa for her part still felt drained but made her way on increasingly steady legs.

Sarah for her part absolutely beamed. “That was amazing,” she whispered in Alexa’s ear.

Alexa wanted to say a lot of things to her. She knew that she should apologize for the way her words likely sounded. Then she realized she would likely mess that up as well, as such she just nodded.

“Do I offend you?” Sarah asked, a slight weakness to her voice.

Alexa realizing the girl needed reassurance but couldn’t come up with the correct words to say. Went with her known fall back, physical contact. Reaching out a hand, she gently grabbed Sarah’s smaller more delicate hand in her own. Then answered, “no.”

Sarah for her part flinched. In fact, Alexa realized she likely broke some form of taboo, but touching the Prime Minister’s daughter, after the action. For not only did Sarah flinch, but Alexa felt the shock and reaction of not only the Prime Minister, but all the other supers behind him as well.

Alexa was about to pull her hand back, when she felt the small girl grip her hand tightly. Well, as tightly as her delicate fingers could afford her.

With that one gesture, Sarah seemed to stand up straighter, as years of being taught how to walk with perfect posture clearly clicked in her mind. The two made an odd pair, the tall healer, standing next to the 5’5 teenager.

Seeing Sarah’s reaction, no one seemed to comment on the contact. In fact, many felt that only by calling it out, would they draw more attention to the seemingly innocuous gesture.

Judge for her part could only watch on in horror at first, as she saw the gesture. It was the same gesture that Luke had often done for her when they were younger. Though when Luke did it, it was mostly a way that he could comfort himself as well. As Alexa would show no fear when going into unknown situations.

Judge turned to look at the Prime Minister, who at first looked concerned, then reluctance, and finally relief crossed his face. Being able to read gestures of people from a glance was one of the passive effects of her class. While she had always been good at reading people’s true motives and intentions, her class made it, so she was on a whole other level. At first, she made her name as a courtroom bailiff, one who was able to detect when people lied. Then going so far as to be able to break down when people would disassemble their words.

Of course, her true powers came into effect when she was allowed to protect others. At that point her Innocence Shield, could be activated. Even now, while not in use, her Protective Aura made it so that the Prime Minister and others around her were constantly in a state of ease. In their minds, they knew that Judge would be there to protect them, to keep them from harm.

Judy wondered if it was this aura she exhibited now, that helped keep the gesture of Alexa from spiraling out of control. On the one hand it was good that her Alexa was branching out and trying to be social. On the other hand, it was nerve wracking to see her potentially cause an international incident by doing such things.

Before she could get too far into her thoughts, Warder came and joined the group. He looked tense, as his muscles on the back of his neck were tightened. Looking at his state, it was clear that he had done something that he didn’t quite agree with. In the past, Judge would have found a quiet moment and asked him about the tension he now exuded. Though over time, she had learned that she often ended up using her powers in such a situation, which often only seemed to conflate the issue, rather than deescalate the situation. So, like most times now, she decided that she would let him decide when and how to discuss the topic. She figured it mostly circled around the apprehension of the Necromancer, something that everyone was happy to hear when it was spoken about on their personal chat channels that both sets of supers had joined for this operation.

Warder of course instantly brightened when he saw Alexa. Some of that tension in his neck and shoulders slipping away instantly, as a light smile crossed his face.

Seeing his sudden change in demeanor almost proved it right then and there, that his tension was related to the apprehension of the necromancer. This was based on several cues, but the most telling of cues was the way that he always seemed to be able to justify any action, so long as it led to the safety of his family. In particular, he felt the most vindicated when he protected his Alexa.

A smile crossed his face as he fell in beside Judge and then asked in a low whisper. “Well?”

“Stop that. This is to show unity after a disaster, and nothing more.” Judge answered. Then turning to her right to the Prime Minister, she followed up with a “right?”

Prime Minister Stevens for his part looked momentarily stumped by the question, but then gave a halfhearted chuckle. “Well, this might be for the best. As she of course is now subject to your mandatory quarantine procedures.” Mr. Stevens said, trying to find the silver lining in all of this.

Judge nodded in understanding. As she realized the Prime Minister was speaking about the mandatory quarantine status that was imposed on anyone who had been directly targeted by a Necromancer. While it seemed likely that Sarah would be allowed the class I status, being able to move around in a small geographic region. She would not be able to go back with the Prime Minister, to their home in England.

These were laws to protect residents of both locations. Even if there were no signs, even if the necromancer who imposed the curse was killed, the risk of secondary infection by dormant necromancy was just too great. Several villages all over the world had to be burnt to the ground, before countries learned their lessons. Worse, not every country could be trusted to conduct a proper medical inspection, which was why the 90-day ban was imposed. 90 days was deemed as the maximum amount of time that necromantic powers could remain dormant within one’s system.

Hearing the Prime Minister’s words, Ms. Peacock made her way forward through the protection detail, until she was walking right next to the Prime Minister.

“Well, if you are worried about her safety, I think I might know of a place where she could go.” Ms. Peacock began.

Judge just watched in silence as she watched how Ms. Peacock spun the situation before her into more funding for Dawning Light. Best of all, the resources she was trying to gain would come from the British Parliament, meaning this wouldn’t cost her local community a cent. While also increasing the revenue brought into the local community. All of this happened in the background, while Alexa and Sarah had their pictures taken, first by just themselves, then slowly more and more supers went in.

By the time it was time for the Prime Minister and Ms. Peacock, the deal was all but sealed. As Dawning Light would serve as the quarantine shelter for Sarah Marie Stevens, as she waited for her travel ban to be lifted.

Once, near the end Ms. Peacock turned to see that Judge had been watching her. At that time Judge just gave her a congratulatory nod. Ms. Peacock for her part just smiled a tired smile and nodded back.

After that, everyone decided that they would leave the hospital and meet back up at the school to continue to discuss matters.

When trying to figure out travel arrangements, Judge could only smile lightly as Sarah demanded to ride with Alexa. This caused a bit of shuffling, as Warder ended up being the driver, while Judy took up back seat duties, while Sarah’s personal guard sat in the front passenger seat.

“I can’t wait to see what your school is like.” Sarah said, absolutely beaming at Alexa.

Alexa just nodded.

With that Judge only shook her head, realizing that her daughter still had a long way to go. Fortunately, she was doing better.

Then a sudden look of concern came over Sarah’s face, as she asked. “Will you try to meet me, when I am on campus? How will I find you?”

At that Judge just snorted.

“What? I am serious.” Sarah said, almost begging Alexa to take off her hero mask right then and there.

“I know, that’s what makes this so funny.” Judge said, her gentle smile coming in.

Sarah looked flustered, but fortunately her own guard came to the rescue.

“This will be a small campus. Everyone will know the true identities of others, in fact if you can’t find he 6’2 healer on your first day, then I’d say you weren’t trying.”

At that Sarah relaxed slightly, as she then turned to see Alexa.

Alexa just nodded once their eyes locked.

“Okay.”

That was it, that one word was all that was needed to alleviate the sudden tension that had been building up in Sarah.

Judge for her part was happy that her little girl would have the chance to make more friends.

SPOILER:

Name: Judy (Judge) Thyme

Class: Judge (Epic)

Primary Attribute(s): Willpower, Perception

Secondary Attribute(s): Intelligence, Endurance

Level: 87

Physical Attributes:

Strength: 338

Agility: 474

Endurance: 822

Mental Attributes:

Perception: 1661

Intelligence: 912

Willpower: 1725

Passive Abilities: Emotion Reader, Lie Detection, Protective Aura

Active Abilities: Innocence Shield, Judgment, Guilt