ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR: Poor Mice (Patreon)

[A/N:

1. The death of my backlog has finally caught up with me in all of its terrible glory. Having none means life's mishaps throw a big wrench into the schedule. On top of that, I expect the next chapter to be a harder one to write...I find the scenes in the gym very fun to imagine but figuring out (hopefully) clever power uses and interactions for all the characters takes a lot of time, especially since most of the powers other than Alden's haven't been described before.

I will be taking a day off from posting here on Sunday in hopes of not only meeting the deadline with the kind of chapter I like to release, but also getting at least half a chapter of backlog built up so that I can get my feet under me again. I'm very sorry for breaking my posting streak here, but I do think this chapter is an interesting one to do it on.

Patreon remains a bit farther ahead of Royal Road than promised, but I like to keep it that way if I can, so they will have a skipped day later. Probably after Manon meets the hourglass, since several of you suggested it was an opportune moment for a breather.

2. I think a teams guide is helpful here. I'm putting it at the beginning of the chapter instead of the end, because I don't want people who are scrolling to refer to it to risk spoilers. Feel free to skip over or use it as needed! Someone mentioned that they would appreciate this a couple of chapters ago,  and since the team competition is making for a LOT of people on the page, I think it's a great idea. Also mentioned here, you will find the final class S-ranks!

Two teams have eleven members, two teams have ten.

Team Cottontail (only the official name in Lute's head)
0 wins, 2 losses - 10 members

S - Maricel - Shaper of Ground
S - Lucille - Strength Brute  (doesn't want to kill people)
S - Jeffy - Aqua Brute
A- Reinhard - Meister of Bow
A - Lexi - Meister of the Mind Writher
A - Haoyu - Dura Brute
A - Astrid - Morph Brute
A - Njeri - Shaper of Water
A - Everly - Adjuster (ice spells)
B - Alden - The One and Only Rabbit

Team Finlay/Jupiter/Tuyet (sorry Kon)
2 wins, 0 losses - 10 members

S - Finlay - Speed Brute
S - Jupiter - Shaper of Life
S - Tuyet - Meister of Darts
S- Konstantin - Adjuster
+ 6 A's

Team Vandy/Marsha
0 wins, 2 losses - 11 members

S- Vandy - Shaper of Sky
S - Marsha - Meister of (see this chapter for description)
A - Mehdi - Agility Brute
A - Winston - Speed Brute
A - unnamed - Shaper of Object
B- Max - Adjuster (zones)
+ 5 A's

Team Febri/Shrike
2 wins, 0 losses - 11 members

S - Febri - Agility Brute
S - Ignacio (Shrike) - Meister of Knives
A - Olive - Adjuster (powers to be mentioned in future chapter)
A - Rebecca - Jumper Brute (made subclass name up herself, Alden has never heard of it)
A - Sanjay - class still unstated, rooted for Alden in the drinking game at the party
A - Søren - Shaper of Light
+5 A's

This adds up to the whole class! Unless I've left somebody off.

I hope you enjoy the chapter! 

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Chapter 124

“I don’t understand.” Jeffy was standing at the back of the study room, watching Reinhard pronounce a string of Artonan words for the tenth time. The wordchain was supposed to increase energy, and the archer said he wanted it for tomorrow. Lute listened to him from his perch on the edge of the conference table.

“You don’t go to class sometimes?” Jeffy asked Lute. “And the teachers don’t mind?”

“They’ll mind if you don’t go to class,” Lexi told him. “Get over here and discuss the water obstacle with Njeri. It’s important.”

“Being an Aqua Brute is so cool,” said Astrid. She’d been trying to hype Jeffy up about swimming ever since arriving from her special Morph training to join their team planning session.

She had given herself an aquiline nose and added long asymmetrical bangs to her hair. Her tongue was pierced again, and she assured them she was now confident in her ability to make her legs four and a half centimeters longer “without any loss of their leg functionalities!” for her running and hurdling convenience.

She did seem taller when she walked in, Alden thought, scraping the last of the tabbouleh out of a takeout container from Cafeteria North. He was sitting between Astrid and Lucille, watching footage of Team Vandy/Marsha.

Over the course of the evening, everyone had fallen into the habit of calling the other teams by the names of their most intimidating members. Naturally, that meant the S-ranks. Alden had been annoyed by it to start with, and now it sounded almost natural.

The rank fixation is pernicious.

He thought it was also keeping some of his teammates from giving the other players due respect.

“Does anyone know if Reinhard can actually shoot Mehdi? I know we said it would be an option, but just because he’s an A-rank it doesn’t mean—”

“Of course I can!”

<<Return to your lesson, unruly student,>> Lute commanded in Artonan, pelting Reinhard in the forehead with one of the paper clips he’d been bending into interesting shapes for the past hour. He’d taken a fistful from the supply room on the way into the library, and thanks to his fast hands, he’d gone through dozens of them already.

Reinhard rubbed his head, glared, then went back to practicing.

“Rein can probably hit him,” said Astrid. “Mehdi’s got his threat detection skill, but its radius is a little less than three meters right now.”

“That’s relevant if Reinhard’s shooting him from behind,” Alden said, “but we’re not going to get off many surprise attacks. The bell rings when one of us crosses the finish line. They all know something’s coming. Mehdi might be looking right at him when he draws the bow.”

Alden still didn’t have a good sense of how fast everyone and everything moved in the gym. Yesterday, when Reinhard had fired on Febri—the S-rank Agi Brute from the team they were now calling Febri/Shrike—he’d missed.

Febri had the same Instant Corners skill as Instructor Klein, and even though it was at the first level, he’d managed to use it to change the position of his body in a blink so that Reinhard’s shot had swept past his back instead of hitting him dead center in the chest.

Apparently, Alden wasn’t the only one remembering that moment, because Haoyu piped up from the corner where he, Everly, and Maricel were watching video of an Adjuster who had the same super-slick ice trap spell that Everly could use. “If we face Team Febri/Shrike again,” he said, “I think their Adjuster, Olive, would be a better choice of target than either of the S-ranks.”

Lexi pointed at Reinhard. “He means you were an idiot for targeting the one member of that team you definitely couldn’t hit last time.”

On the screen, Alden watched Winston Heelfeather emerge from the tube and hit the speed zone Max had laid down between it and the fire obstacle. There was another one inside the box with the flaming walls itself and yet another with the weights, alongside the zone that Alden thought of as the invisible swimming pool.

“They used him so fucking badly.” Irritation crept into his voice as Max arrived back at the fire himself only to have to cast the speed spell again.

“Who?” Njeri asked. “Winston?”

“No. Max.”

“He didn’t sleep in his room last night,” Jeffy said. “I called to ask where he was, and he was on the train to his mom’s place. He stayed there.”

Several people looked interested at the news.

Njeri walked over to stare at the screen. “I don’t really see how they misused him, Alden. The speed increases are helping them all get through that section of the course with a lot less movement restriction penalties from the burns, and the…float zone?…is making it so that some of them can move the weights when they wouldn’t usually be able to.”

“Those are fine areas to put his zones down. Practically the whole course is a good place for one of them,” Alden said. “But almost every member of their team who comes to one is using it, regardless of what the state of the rest of the group is. Max’s zones are cool, but they have capacity limitations. Someone with high stats blasting through them or someone standing inside of one using spells makes the effect end faster.”

The fire obstacle was a big slowdown if your team didn’t have a hard counter to it. And the Vandy/Marsha team didn’t have many.

“You think Winston should’ve dodged the zone and left it for someone behind him?” Njeri asked.

“Lucille can get through the fire with no help and a ten percent movement restriction. Winston should be able to do at least that well.”

In Alden’s opinion, there was no good reason for a Speed Brute to have his pace tripled when there were a bunch of slower people on his team and he couldn’t move through upcoming obstacles without them.

“He just doesn’t want to be slowed down for the rest of the course,” Astrid said.

“He’s trying to get exciting shots for his fans, too.” One of Everly’s silver buns was gradually coming loose as the night wore on, the pencil holding it in place sagging toward her ear. “When he posted his gym clips this morning, that moment when he ran through the flames was his opener. He mentioned that he’d benefited from a spell effect in the text description, but nobody reads those.”

“Is he allowed to post the official school gym footage?” Alden asked. “I thought there was a rule against putting it online?”

“You can if you’re the only person visible.” She lifted her eyebrows. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…when are you going to update your account? I tried to connect with everybody in the class, but you haven’t posted anything since October of last year.”

“He’s got thirty thousand comments on that post,” Njeri said. “He’s never going to be able to read them all.”

Lute spun around on the table. “I read a lot of them. They mostly say, ‘He died.’ Or ‘He’s not dead!’ Or, more recently, ‘He came back for the radishes.’”

Good to have a summary I guess.

Everly side-eyed Lute. She’d been doing that a lot, but she hadn’t said anything negative.

“Why are you all studying a picture I took of a bunch of pigeons over a year ago?”

They exchanged looks.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Reinhard, dropping his hands from their casting position. “Because I don’t know you. But if I were you I’d post something soon. Take advantage of all the interest you’ve gotten recently. Leverage it. You should try to do something cool during the run tomorrow and put it up. And talk about the video with that girl who was…uh…”

He frowned at Lute.

“How dare you think unkind thoughts about my cousin,” said Lute, curving a paper clip into a spiral.

“You could do a ‘How I Became an Avowed’ post!” Everly said. “Those are always soooo much better for globies than for us. It’s exciting because it’s a surprise for all of you! Maricel’s started posting, but she hasn’t done one of those either.”

She nudged Maricel with her shoulder.

“Vandy has suggested it a few times,” Maricel said in a neutral voice.

When Alden didn’t answer right away, Haoyu cleared his throat. “Guys, he might not want to curate a media presence as a first year.”

“I don’t.”

“My profiles are all private,” Haoyu added. “Some of you are really rushing superhero persona creation.”

“I don’t do social media,” said Lexi.

“Never would’ve guessed,” Reinhard muttered.

“Can we get task-focused?” Alden asked, gesturing toward the video. “I’ve never wanted to be an internet-famous person. I only posted the pigeons because they were walking along the sidewalk in a perfectly straight line. Now, about Winston—”

“No wonder he’s got a problem with you,” Reinhard said. “He wants to be an internet-famous person so bad. And you’re getting there without trying.”

Fine. Let’s not be task-focused.

It was eleven o’clock at night, and they’d all been at this off and on throughout the day. Expecting everyone to stay on topic one hundred percent of the time was probably too much.

“We were discussing famousness in the locker room before the gokoratch video!” Astrid announced. “Winston got really mad at the party when people started giving Finlay advice about this kind of thing.”

Alden sighed. “Is he seriously mad that Finlay is more popular than him online? That’s it? That’s his whole issue?”

“I think so,” said Astrid.

“Getting more popular,” Njeri corrected. “Winston’s actually still slightly ahead on the follower count. But that’s just because he started months ago. Finlay’s going to pass him and then keep passing him…”

“I do feel a tad sorry for him,” said Everly. “I think his family put a lot of money into advertising him before he even left home. There was some kind of a tour of the US? He was doing interviews and making so many videos. He’s more friendly on camera than in person, and it must have been a lot of work. It’s probably part of what made him appealing to the admissions committee.”

Wow. It really is some kind of celebrity-wannabe drama.

Apparently Winston was going for that sports drink branding deal he’d mentioned the first time Alden and Maricel had met him.

“Can we talk about Marsha?” he suggested hopefully before they could get farther away from business. He paused the video on a curvy girl with blue eyes and shoulder-length dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She’d spoken to him exactly once, during the class meet-and-greet on acceptance day. She’d been fairly condescending about B-ranks, and they’d basically never had reason to speak to each other since then.

On the screen, Marsha was carrying a polearm with a haft that looked like it was made of engraved bone. She could change the shape of the blade. It currently resembled a glaive, and she was bringing it down in a sweeping motion toward Finlay, who’d shoved Jupiter out of the way of the strike.

He would’ve managed to dodge it if Marsha was wielding a normal weapon, but the polearm could deliver a near-instant magical follow-up slice equal to the force of the original swing. Two deadly strokes for the price of one. Marsha could choose to some degree what direction that invisible slash of force traveled in, so if she missed someone with a swipe of the physical blade, the magical strike coming in from a surprise angle might get them.

Which was exactly what happened to Finlay.

“Marsha’s got a unique personality,” Everly said in a diplomatic tone.

“Marsha’s got a lot of pent-up feelings,” said Njeri. “Or something.”

“Marsha just sliced that fast guy in half, and she looked happy about it. Avoid her.”

They all turned to Lute.

“What? I’m not allowed to comment? I’m the team trainer.”

Alden grinned at him. “She probably looked happy because that was the only time anybody in our class has ever beaten Finlay. What I was going to say was that it seems like Marsha might be able to run the whole course by herself. Is that right? The way she uses the magic strikes to toss some of the weights is really cumbersome and slow, but other than that…”

The girls exchanged looks.

“I think it depends on if it’s her first run or her second,” Maricel said.

Lucille was nodding.

“She doesn’t like to hold back,” Maricel explained. “Our advisors for The Superlatives club even mentioned it. She’ll use her talents for everything even if she doesn’t need to. So by the end of class, if she’s the last one left on her team, she might not have enough magic to run the whole course.”

“Marsha has run herself dry attacking Instructor Klein twice already. Vandy tried to give her advice about it the second time…” Njeri shook her head. “That didn’t go well.”

Alden looked back at the video of the S-rank. After dispatching Finlay and returning to her team’s half of the course, she chanted a spell over the weapon and flung it at the magic wall like a spear. It embedded itself deeply near the top.

Rather than taking a weapon recall talent like many Meisters did, Marsha had done the opposite and taken an ability that pulled her body toward the polearm. Alden couldn’t imagine what it looked like if she used it to move along the ground, but ground-to-air looked uncomfortable. Like she was being yanked forcefully upward by unseen puppet strings.

It works great though.

Her hands clamped onto the haft, and she swung herself up onto the top of the wall, pulling her weapon free as she went.

“I want to do that,” Jeffy said longingly.

Astrid spun her chair around to face him. “Sure! But just imagine how much more awesome it would be to do something like that underwater.”

******

They worked until midnight and might’ve kept going if not for Lexi threatening to read them research on how lack of sleep made you too klutzy to run obstacle courses.

“Does that specific research really exist?” Haoyu yawned as they passed below a lamppost on their way back across campus toward Garden Hall. They were lagging a couple of minutes behind the rest of the group, since Lute had wanted to explore the library’s free office supply offerings some more. “Some scientist made a bunch of people go without sleep, and then ran them through an obstacle course?”

“It was a maze. And it was mice. But it still applies.”

“Poor mice.”

“Are you guys going to win?” Lute asked. “I’ll be depressed if you lose now that I’ve contributed.”

“Three wordchains,” said Lexi.

“Hours of tutoring,” Lute countered. “Reinhard won’t be a fatigued maze mouse even if he stays up all night. Njeri will be very slightly stronger. And Astrid will feel more peaceful when everything’s going wrong. Assuming they all remember what I told them. I have my doubts.”

“Thank you for doing it,” said Alden.

Lexi sighed. “It was nice.”

“It was great of you!” Haoyu agreed.

Lute leaped ahead of them on the sidewalk and gave them a dramatic bow. “I am great. But seriously…are you going to win? The other teams look scarier than you guys.”

“They all have an S-rank weapon Meister except for us. Tuyet, Marsha, and Shrike are pure offense,” said Lexi.

“Are we seriously supposed to call Knife Guy ‘Shrike?’” Alden asked. “Even if he’s picked a favorite hero name, are we sure he doesn’t want us to use his real name in casual conversation?”

“You’re calling him Knife Guy,” Lexi pointed out. “And I can’t believe you didn’t know the name of one of the class S-ranks.”

“I’ve barely interacted with him. Maricel didn’t remember either!”

The Knife Meister wasn’t much of a talker, as it turned out, because of a language gap. He was just learning English, and he often kept translations turned off for the immersion experience.

“Ignacio wants to use both names, so either should be fine,” said Haoyu. “I think we could win. Our team is interesting, too. Lots of versatility. Strategy is up in the air still since we decided to let everyone have at least one of their personal goals. But even with that, we’ll work together so much better this time around.”

As they approached the dorm, Lexi said, “You never mentioned if there was anything you wanted to try.”

“Me?” Alden asked.

Lexi nodded.

“That’s true!” said Haoyu. “You were the one who said we should be open about it if we wanted to test something out or show something off while we have access to the course. Didn’t you want to try anything?”

Alden looked up toward his own bedroom window as they passed below it. The neighboring girls’ dorm had gotten an upgrade yesterday in the form of twinkle lights in their ivy. He assumed the boys’ building would soon follow.

“I just want to hang out in the background and find ways to use my power to support everyone else,” he said finally.

“Is that all?” Haoyu leaned around Lexi to see him better. “You’re sure?”

“I’m going to use my new wordchain, too. And I’ve got a few ideas that could be fun if the appropriate situations arise. It’s enough. I’ll be getting plenty of practice whatever I do…as long as nobody knocks me out.”

They entered the sliding doors, paused for a moment in the common area so Lexi could throw a bunch of trash someone had left on one of the tables into the recycling bins, then headed up the stairs.

“I call the tub,” Lute announced as their feet pounded up the steps. “It’s my right as team trainer.”

Haoyu nodded. “Sounds fair.”

“I call—” said Lexi.

“First shower is mine!” Haoyu said in a rush. “Ha! I win. You can—”

A scream interrupted him.

Alden jumped. His hand clenched against the soft fabric of his bag. All four of them looked at the ceiling.

“It wasn’t that loud,” said Lexi. “It must have come from inside a room.”

“Should we—?” Haoyu gestured upwards.

“Someone’s on fire.” Lute tilted his head.

“What?” Lexi demanded.

“What do you me—?”

“Someone’s really…FUCK!” Lute shouted, bolting up the last few steps and then racing for the third floor. “ET!! ET yourself!!”

They were all three right behind him. Alden’s laptop-laden bag smashed into his hip as they rounded the corner. He took the stairs up to the next floor two at a time behind Haoyu.

No time for thoughts other than the most obvious.

Fire? Who is it? My skill…

Voices were shouting. Lute was banging on the door of Suite 313, cursing a lot, and yelling for whoever the injured person was to emergency teleport to the hospital.

The door flew open, and Sanjay from their class pelted out.

“Sanjay!” Lexi said. “Who’s hurt?”

Sanjay leaped through the air, heading down the stairs Alden and the others had just come up without actually using them. He hit the landing in a roll that smashed him into a wall, then he was up and leaping down the next flight, nothing but a broken flip-flop left behind.

“Holy shit,” said Alden.

They pushed into the apartment. Every surface was covered in food, bags, and tech; and people were shouting in the hall. They ran in to find themselves at the back of a group of their classmates who were crowding the doorway of one of the bedrooms.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Rebecca was saying. “He needs the hospital.”

“It’s out! The fire’s out! Stay calm!” someone shrieked wildly. “Everyone stay calm!”

<<Is he okay!?>>

“Shut up! I can’t hear!”

“Søren? Søren, why didn’t you ET?”

The air smelled like smoke. Without pausing to figure out exactly what had gone down, Alden tried to squeeze his way between Rebecca and another one of the class’s Brutes to get through the door into the bedroom.

Someone was apologizing almost hysterically.

“Rebecca,” said Alden, “Rebecca, if someone’s hurt, move.”

“Hey!” a voice rang out sharply. “Fucking move, all of you!”

It was Lexi.

“Alden’s skill is good for injured people!” Haoyu shouted right after him. “Let him through!”

Rebecca leaped out of the way and across the room so fast she almost went through the window. Alden hurried inside, taking it all in as fast as he could. A slightly charred desk, a broken lamp, water everywhere, and a metal bucket on its side by the loft bed’s ladder. Søren was lying on the floor, breathing hard. His lips trembled and he clumsily waved away an anxious Reinhard—who must have arrived back here at his apartment just in time to witness the accident—with one arm. Febri and Ignacio, the S-ranks from Søren’s team, squatted beside him.

Both of them looked freaked out.

Febri had struck Alden as an exuberant guy when he’d first seen him at Konstantin’s party, racing around dressed in caution tape, and though they hadn’t said much to each other at all since then he didn’t think the impression was wrong. Now, though, the Agility Brute was chewing nervously on a fingernail. And Ignacio’s hands were hovering over Søren’s right side, like they were anxious to do something but unable to find the correct action.

Søren’s shirt sleeve had obviously caught on fire. The exposed skin on his arm and shoulder looked awful.

“Some…some of the fabric is…I think it’s stuck to your skin,” Febri said. “And it’s all blistered. You have to go to a healer.”

<<You do. Why won’t you go?>> Ignacio asked.

“I’m f-fine,” Søren said. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I can still run tomorrow. I can run.”

<<You need a heal—>>

“This is your fault!” Rebecca interrupted, pointing at the two S-ranks. “You told him there was no reason for him to be in the team meeting!”

<<We didn’t mean it that way.>> Ignacio said. <<I only said it would be better for him to spend the time practicing since…I didn’t know he was going to practice so hard that this happened!>>

How do you attack? thought Alden. Instructor Klein’s bark from their first day of class came back to him so clearly the man might have been in the room. And Søren’s embarrassed reply…

He can make places hot. Focus light to make heat. Just not with much control yet…clearly.

He crouched beside Reinhard and targeted the injured boy. “That looks super painful. You want me to pick you up? I’m even more instant than Artonan drugs.”

The Light Shaper shook his head. He wiped at his watering eyes with his unburned arm. “I’m fine. I just want a moment. Leave me alone,” he babbled. “I’m sorry. I—”

“You’re not fine!” Reinhard said. “Your arm looks like it’s been grilled. You’re running on adrenaline or something. Are you crazy? ET. Now.”

A commotion by the door announced the arrival of yet more classmates. The apartment had been crowded already with what was obviously a Team Febri/Shrike meeting. Now, a few members of Team Vandy/Marsha were out in the hall, and a pajama-clad Kon was stepping into the room, his curious expression fading and his eyes widening.

“We heard shouting…what happened!? Why didn’t you send him to the—?”

<<He won’t go! We tried to send him ourselves, but he rejected the teleportation offer!>>

“Sanjay went to get a Healer,” someone whispered. “His sister’s girlfriend is one. She’s in the uni dorms.”

“Did he forget he has the System now? Why didn’t he just call her?”

Lexi’s voice rose again from out in the hallway. “Injured people need the healing hospital, not a random student Sanjay knows.”

“I think he wants some space,” Alden said evenly. Søren was covering his eyes with his arm again. “He’s not dying. There’s no reason for everyone to stand around staring and discussing things.”

Everyone ignored him.

Does he have friends here? Alden looked around. He didn’t know who the Light Shaper hung out with. Or if he spent much time with anybody at all. He had only been vaguely aware that Søren and Reinhard were roommates.

Everybody was chattering back and forth, some of them sharing would-be-helpful ideas, others just spreading gossip and blame around. Reading between the lines, it sounded like Søren’s teammates hadn’t done much to hide the fact that they were unenthused about his presence on the team. A Shaper who couldn’t shape yet, who was afraid of heights, who had to be carried over and through most of the course…

“I don’t want a Healer,” Søren was saying in that same shaky voice, arm still covering his face. “Nobody can know. They’ll keep me from class tomorrow. I can’t let everybody down again.”

He’s not making sense, thought Alden.

There was no way to keep this secret, and there was no good reason to. He wouldn’t even want to once the initial rush of emotion faded. The room smelled acrid. It wasn’t like Søren could even wear a gym suit at the moment. He needed a doctor, or someone with an appropriate and gentle spell, to peel his shirt off him without hurting him.

Alden was opening his mouth to try some logic on the guy, when a girl’s voice spoke up.

“Your team will run better without you on it. So just go to the hospital and get some meds. Take a break. Nobody here needs you, and all this drama is probably bad for you.”

Alden looked around to see people moving out of Marsha’s way. Winston was right behind her, standing on his tiptoes to see into the room better. Vandy wasn’t with them.

Guess it’s too late for her to be with her team even if some of them did finally gather. Maricel had mentioned Vandy had a strict personal schedule. She believed in all-nighters even less than Lexi did.

<<We ran well enough with him to beat your team!>> Ignacio said.

Marsha shrugged.

Søren’s lower lip was trembling worse. Alden looked around helplessly for a safe exit for the guy…before someone said something even more awful. He found the next best thing in the form of Konstantin, who was standing a few feet away, examining the broken lamp.

[Kon, can’t you get rid of them all?] he texted. [They’re not helping anything.]

Kon blinked, then lifted his head in surprise. “Ah!” he said after only a second’s thought. He set the lamp aside then spun around with a beaming smile on his face. “Okay, okay. This isn’t that serious, you lot. You’re all acting like something crazy just happened.”

“That’s because it did,” said Rebecca.

“We’re Avowed now!” Kon said brightly. “Sometimes power practice goes wrong. Søren doesn’t need help from twenty people. And I need to concentrate on fixing his lamp.”

“His lamp?” a boy asked.

“Maybe I’ll try his desk, too.” Kon was making gestures with his arms as if to sweep them all away. “Good practice. But you’re all making too much noise, and my spell won’t work if you distract me for too long, so…”

He managed to chivvy most of the onlookers away from the door and down the hall, then he shut it behind them and locked it for good measure. They didn’t stop talking and arguing, but at least it was muffled.

Inside the room, the loudest sound was Søren’s heavy breathing.

Rebecca, who had remained standing over by the window, suddenly said, “Søren, if you teleport to the hospital, I’ll go meet you there. I don’t think I can sleep tonight anyway.”

“That’s a good idea!” Febri sounded relieved. “You won’t be alone for long. You go ahead. Some of us will head over right away.”

“No,” Søren said. “No, I’ll…I’ll wait. If Sanjay’s friend can help…then tomorrow…”

As if he had something to prove, he lowered his good arm from his face and used it to push himself slowly up into a seated position, his face contorting as he did so.

He took several more deep breaths. “I’ll be all right. I’m a part of the team. I’m a part of this program, too. I deserve to be here, too. I won’t be slow on the wall again. I’ll climb as fast as everyone else. As long as nobody tells the instructors, I can run, and—”

Alden made a decision. “Sounds like a plan.”

Febri and Ignacio stared at him. Rebecca made a sound of protest. Kon raised an eyebrow

“Maybe with a little help from the Healer Sanjay knows, and if you skip your early classes tomorrow and get some sleep, you’ll be better in time for gym,” said Alden. “It’s worth a try. You should probably let me pick you up, though. So that you don’t make anything worse before the Healer gets here.”

Søren blinked at him.

“You don’t want to move around with an injury, right? It’ll just make it harder for the Healer to fix you.”

“Just until the Healer comes?” Søren asked, staring into his eyes with his own puffy ones.

He really looked awful. His hair was half wet and dripping down the side of his neck, where the skin was bright red. He’d been burned there too, just not bad enough to instantly blister.

Alden nodded. “Put the arm that’s not hurt around my neck. I’ll pick you up.” He smiled. “You’ll get to join the very exclusive time traveller club with Instructor Plim.”

Søren nodded slowly.

A minute later, Alden stood up with one frozen Shaper in his arms.

“So,” he said, repositioning his hands now that he wasn’t scared to hurt his classmate by touching the burns, “I’m going to ET out of here with him. I hope. Otherwise, I’m just going to have to sit around holding him until a faculty member gets here to make him see reason.”

That seemed more convenient for Alden, since it wouldn’t mean a late-night trip across the island, but crueler to Søren than a swift arrival at the hospital and a dose of painkillers. The third option was hauling a burned, preserved body around by car service or public transportation, and that didn’t seem like the most desirable idea.

<<You were lying to him?>> Ignacio asked.

“Good,” said Rebecca in a relieved voice. “I’ll go tell the team I’m going there!”

“He’ll be mad at you,” said Febri.

“Maybe,” said Alden. “But I think he knew. He just needed someone to take the choice off his plate.”

So that he wouldn’t feel like he’d given up.

“Can you teleport him with your skill even though he just directly rejected a teleport to that location?” Kon asked. “That’s surprising for some reason.”

“Never tried. We’re about to find out. System, I need an emergency teleport to the healing hospital.”

The response was immediate.

[Usage of Anesidora’s teleport allotment has been authorized. Please cancel your request if your need is not urgent. ]

[Teleporting in 4 s…]

“It says to cancel my request if my need isn’t urgent.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Kon. “This is urgent enough. They just don’t want people using ET for scrapes and bruises.”

“My uncle got in so much trouble for abusing the ET allotment when he was our age,” said Febri. “He was a daredevil and he relied on it to get him out of whatever disaster was about to happen. Now he’s on the restricted passengers list. He accidentally cut off his finger a few years ago, and he had to take the train—”

Alden had a brief sensation that he could only describe as a kind of existential blink. Like he’d been cut off from the physical world for the briefest of moments, so that he was aware of himself and the person he protected and nothing more, and then he was suddenly standing somewhere else.

Weird. It’s like a mini version of the longer teleports now. But no nausea.

He always used to get that with local teleports. This was his first one since coming back home.

Looking around, he found himself in a larger than standard teleport bay. It was about a third the size of his bedroom, and there was a screen on the wall in front of him. A dark-skinned woman in jade green scrubs was examining him through it.

“What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“He burned himself,” said Alden.

“Is he…unconscious?”

“Oh!” This probably did look confusing. And if she had the same kind of vitals monitors on this teleportation bay that they had at the TC, it might have looked like Alden was holding nothing. Or a dead person. “It’s my skill. He’s sheltered by a layer of magic that protects him and keeps him in exactly the same state he was in when I picked him up. He’s not aware of anything. Basically, he’s on hold.”

She blinked at him. “That’s a good skill.”

They liked it in the last emergency department I visited, too.

The woman quickly went through a series of questions that Alden was positive nobody would have asked at a medical facility anywhere else. Søren being an A-rank triggered an additional few questions about his state of mind when Alden had picked him up, making Alden wonder if there was some kind of high-rank subduer on staff who protected people from violent patients.

A couple of minutes after he arrived, the door in the wall to his left slid open and a man and a woman in the same jade green scrubs appeared with a gurney and a supply caddy. They looked Søren over curiously, then looked at Alden just as curiously, then finally they let him set the Light Shaper down.

He blinked around in confusion for just a second.

“We’re at the healing hospital in F,” said Alden, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry.”

They asked him some of the same questions they’d asked Alden, got permission to give him medicine, and started pressing injectors to his arms right there in the bay. His face relaxed a lot.

“You lied to me,” Søren said. He didn’t sound surprised.

“I’m sorry,” Alden said again. Despite the necessity of it, he did feel guilty.

“Everyone thinks I’m useless. This makes me look even worse.”

“Get better and use your ultra-rare subclass to defeat them all. It’s the only way.”

******

Alden left the hospital more than an hour later. He was tired, and he couldn’t help feeling like this was a sour note for an otherwise productive day to end on. He fell asleep in the private car on the way back to campus and dragged himself through the door of the apartment at nearly three AM. The others were all asleep.

He showered, then headed to his room. My plans for the night have all fallen apart.

He’d wanted to cast the clumsy half of the self-awareness wordchain by himself for the first time, so that he could use the other half tomorrow for gym. It just felt better to do it that way, even if Hazel Velra wasn’t a threat at the moment. Now he didn’t have enough hours to let the chain run its course before science class.

It’s fine. Doing it like that would be nice, but it’s not necessary.

He was about to climb up into his bed when a System notice appeared. He opened it, and then read it through more than once to be sure he understood what it was.

The message had come from the Artonan embassy. Unlike the consulate in Chicago, there was an actual ambassadorial presence here on Anesidora. One of the current ambassador’s assistants wanted to know how he would like his mail to be delivered.

My mail?

The assistant had given him far too many options, including recommendations for his or her favorite walking routes to various destinations where the mail could be presented to Alden. That takes thorough to a brand new level.

The mail itself was left conspicuously undescribed, considering the fact that a map to a specific tea shop had been provided in case he needed a warm human beverage with his mail.

Maybe it was something else from LeafSong. Another package of turtlenecks and joggers. Though they’d used a human courier service for that.

Is it rude to ask for them just to teleport it to me?

The option was there, so surely it wasn’t. He tried to turn on his brain and draft a nice reply. Kibby should have given me lessons on letter writing instead of table manners.

Klee-pak had written a letter to a relative once and had included a strand of hair. Fortunately that wasn’t possible through the System, so Alden didn’t have to ask himself if it was necessary.

He sent the message, then waited.

A couple of minutes later, a package arrived. A largish sack made of what looked like heavy brown silk appeared on the rug right beside him. The corners of the fabric were tied at the top in a knot looped through with a single strand of matching ribbon. Very curious, Alden bent down and pried at the knot. Eventually he realized that wasn’t the way to go, and he pulled on the end of the ribbon experimentally.

It slid free easily, and the knotted silk came undone with it.

Alden realized what the gift was as soon as he saw the corner of it peeking out from under the cloth. Deep brown leather, the logogram for the word that meant “earnestly seeking” stitched into the top in gold thread that glimmered with just a little bit of magic in addition to the metallic sheen. He knelt there staring at the corner for a while, blindsided by emotions he couldn’t quite place.

Stu-art’h sent me a learning cushion.

His hand went to the auriad around his neck.

That was thoughtful of him.

On one hand, it was just a really nice pillow. On the other…

Learning cushions like this one were for wizards. It was why Kibby had treasured the two from Joe so much even though there were other cushions at the lab. Most humans didn’t realize there were different types unless they were Artonan geeks; Earth associated the leather cushions with Artonans in general, producing knock-offs accordingly. But the learning cushion a non-wizard used in a classroom would be made of other materials.

Leather had significance because it had come from life.

I’m reading too much into it. He knew what kind of cushions we played around with here on Earth because he saw them. He probably assumed it was natural to give me the wizard one because it was what I preferred, and there are no official cushion material rules for Avowed.

Knowing all of that didn’t dim his feelings much.

He unwrapped the cushion slowly. And he discovered that it was fucking gorgeous.

A cushion could be gorgeous, it turned out. It had more embroidery than Kibby’s had. Six lines of gold and silver logograms made a band around the edges. It was heavy, and it was ever so slightly larger and thicker than standard if Alden wasn’t mistaken.

It’s more me-sized. Stuart rocks.

Completely perfect. That was what it was.

He was delighted to find it even had the discrete narrow side pocket where a student could keep a spare promise stick…or store their unbonded auriad until they decided to give it to the human as a reward for coming back alive with the car.

If I can’t find a promise stick on Earth, I’ll make one.

He almost didn’t want to set the cushion down on the floor, even though that was what it was intended for, but he finally did. Then he reached down to pick up the note that had been placed below it in the cloth wrap.

Stuart had written it, so he was sure it would be a meticulously well-crafted letter. Probably with a lesson on proper cushion use included.

When he unfolded it, he found that it was just as well-crafted as he’d expected, though not in the way he’d expected it to be.

Stuart had written the note in excellent English. It was brief, and his handwriting was neat but quite round, as if he wanted the letters to be more circular than they were supposed to be.

Dear Alden,

This was made by the Craftswoman Enyl-tirg, who also made my cushion. Please protect it from your schoolmates.

May you gain knowledge all the days of your life, and may your days be many.



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