143 - Well-Crafted Lies

Lexie and Veronica stared at each other for a few seconds, both seeming stunned and somewhat irritated by the other’s presence.

“What are you doing here?” Lexie asked, instantly moving to block Veronica's view.  

“Looking for Dewie,” she said in a snotty, I-don’t-have-to-answer-to-you, Veronica-like tone.

“He’s not here.”

“Then who were you talking to? It was a boy, wasn’t it?” She tried to peek into the other side of the room, where Jet was hidden by a wall and Lexie’s frame. Lexie stepped forward to block the view as her heart raced and questions flamed her brain.

What had she seen? How much had she heard?

“I was talking to Jett,” Lexie said, trying to sound normal. “But he’s occupied right now.”

“Right.” Veronica was still eyeing Lexie, eyes glowing with suspicion. “You were using demon tongue, weren’t you?”

Lexie’s breath caught. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. I’ve heard demon tongue before when I was Ronan Fae, and it sounded like you. I have no clue what you were talking about, but it didn’t sound normal.”

Lexie glanced back at the Jett-Albion, who was now suspiciously silent, though its eyes glinted with mischief. Lexie hadn't noticed, but now that she thought about it, she had been speaking in a different language, a slithering, hissing one. And Veronica had apparently heard her. Damn it.

“I wasn’t speaking demon tongue,” Lexie said. “Jett had a problem, and I thought I could help. I found a spell on the NET for it, and was just trying to see if it would work.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

Yes. Please. 

Lexie heard more harried footsteps approaching and said, “Believe what you want. But you’re gonna look stupid when you report this and it turns out that I'm telling the truth."

She injected enough wry confidence into her tone that doubt appeared in Veronica's expression.

Her face reddened, and she bit her lip. Dislike glowed from her as Xena and Lionel turned to the corner. 

“What’s she doing here?” Xena asked Lexie.

“She was just looking for Dewie. Right, Veronica?”

She waited with bated breath, scared that Veronica would blurt out that Lexie was using demon tongue in front of Xena and Eldritch. Lexie frantically wondered what explanation she could use to defend herself, even as she presented a calm affect. 

“Yeah,” Veronica said finally. “I was looking for Dewie.”

“He’s at the gym with Jace.”

Veronica nodded but kept staring at Lexie until she finally turned and walked away. 

“What’s up with her haircut?” Xena murmured, but Lexie barely heard her. She couldn’t take a full breath until Veronica had turned the corner and was safely out of earshot.

Now, she had a whole crisis to deal with.

Lionel stood staring at Lexie as though trying to look into her skull. “Now, are you going to explain to me what happened and why Xena had to drag me away from lunch for an emergency?”

Lexie pondered how to explain the situation as she thought back to Albion. He was still in possession of Jett's body. What if he told Lionel what she was? Not that he had any reason to, but he might do it just for the heck of it.

Darn. Maybe she should have signed a soul contract with him after all, and sworn him to secrecy.

A groan interrupted their conversation, and Lionel pushed past Lexie into the room. Jett was shaking his head, slowly as he roused from sleep, and he looked, well, like Jett again. Thank God.

“What happened?” he murmured, opening his eyes blearily. 

“That’s what I would like to know." Lionel knelt beside him and put his hand on his forehead. The hand began to glow, and he frowned. 

“What happened?” he said again.

Xena cut Lexie a look, and Lexie sighed. “I was trying something…to use a card to help him sleep better without all his...sleepwalking."

“What?” 

“Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but he was always waking up in the middle of the night and stealing stuff, so I thought maybe I could somehow use card magic to help.”

Lionel shook his head. “Well, that’s a noble but stupid thing to do. Card magic isn’t that powerful.”

“I know that now. It didn’t even work.”

“I can smell a recent Eldritch influence on his psyche,” Jett said. “Did the creature wake up?”

Ah, so he could smell Eldritch, but maybe only if it influenced the mind through dreams and possession. That made sense. “Yup. It knocked Jett out and tried to speak to me, but I didn’t understand what it was saying.”

“It was probably using demon tongue.” He inhaled. “Well, it could have been worse, and I hope this incident taught you guys a lesson. Let sleeping Eldritch lie.”

“Yes, Lionel,” they parroted, and Lexie noted that Jett was now completely awake. After Lionel checked to make sure he was no longer loopy, he told him to visit the infirmary for more check-ups.

“You know I’ll have to report this, right, to both your staff mentor and his?” he asked.

Lexie nodded. She could already hear Stein scolding her about this: "This is just the type of dangerous, foolhardy experimentation that I specifically asked you not to do!"  She also guessed he would probably report this on her record or something. Would this be enough to get her kicked out? Hopefully not. 

Lionely returned to finish his lunch, and a beat of silence persisted after he was gone. 

“It really didn’t work?” Jett asked, sounding sad. 

“Actually,” Lexie thought about it and glanced at Xena before she admitted, “I think it might have.”

“What?” The other two exclaimed, and she smiled.

“Check your inventory. See if there’s a card in there.” 

Jace’s eyebrows raised as he did just that, and then his eyes glowed in excitement. “There is!”

“Nice. I guess it worked. Your passing out was some kind of defense mechanism triggered by Albion, but luckily it didn’t end up destroying the card, and he's now bound to it.”

“So he’s not there anymore?”

“No, he’s there. Like I said, it’s not gonna get rid of him entirely. But whenever you’re going to sleep, just hold the card like I told you, and the effect should automatically activate. Sweet dreams and no sleepwalking for you.”

“Oh my God. Thanks, Lexie!”

“No problem. You can't tell anyone about this, though, or I might get in trouble."

"Sure thing!"

Lexie smiled at the boy who was beaming with happiness. He glanced at Xena a tad shyly and said, “Thank you, too.”

Xena winked. “That’s what [Heroes] do.”

“Ew. Don’t tell me that’s your new slogan.” Lexie remembered that Xena had used the same phrase on Conrad and seemed to hate herself for it.

But now she seemed totally unembarassed to be saying it.

“Who knows?" she shrugged. "It’s growing on me.”

***

Jett came to their table the next morning, so happy that he essentially skipped over to Lexie's and Co's table. He pulled up a seat beside Jace, bumping into the other boy so hard that his cereal splashed on the table.

“Dude,” Jace said. “Take it down a notch. I’m still sore from yesterday.” 

“Sorry.” He beamed around the table. “Morning, everyone!” 

“You’re chipper,” Xena commented wryly. 

“It was the first time I’ve slept without being scared,” Jett said. “I didn’t have any nightmares or anything. Didn’t feel like I was in control of my body. It's amazing."

“That’s nice.” Lexie smiled with a tinge of jealousy. She was happy that he was somewhat free of his Eldritch burden, but her happiness was dulled by the knowledge that her Eldritch essence grew each day. She could almost feel it now without concentrating, sensing that thick chaotic energy within her. Jeez.

Hopefully, her research would find a way to stop it before it overcame her.

Lexie spoke to her father about everything that happened (except being caught by Veronica) when she called him in their lab later that day. Before she could voice her Eldritch fear to him, though, he also told her what he’d been up to, with his investigation and dropping a bomb that had her jaw dropping.

“What?”

He sighed and repeated himself. “The man you saw outside the weapon store–we’re calling him the Pirate, by the way–I have a hunch he has some kind of foresight that allows him to draw up models and alter the future based on his knowledge.”

“Oh.” Lexie was so severely gobsmacked by the news that she didn’t even have a word for it. The shock rendered her brain still for the first time in a long time. “I don’t know what to say. People have powers like that?”

“Not usuallly. Not anymore anyway.”

“But before?”

“Yes. I’ve been researching, and reportedly, when the guardians were still active, there were reports of people having reality-altering powers such as that. Of course, it was all varied, and a lot of those accounts should be taken with a grain of salt. But even in their stories, only the most powerful champions would have a power like this, and they had to pay a high price for it.”

“Oh God.” Lexie’s hand went over her mouth. “So basically, he can see everything that’s going to happen? And he can change things to get the result he wants?”

“Yes, but within limits. The way I think his power works is that he has a certain end goal or scenario in mind, and then he uses models or simulations to work toward that end goal. Every time something goes wrong, he starts a new one and fixes that problem, and when a new problem arises, he fixes that one, and so on until he gets the perfect run-through. Now, what this means is that his power isn’t passive, and he’s not looking into the future at every single moment. He also, at any given time, can only see things about whatever plan he has. Also, given that he has to get everything perfectly and correct for a bunch of errors, he probably has anywhere from a hundred to a thousand simulations running at the same time, and he has to remember key information from all of them. That’s a huge strain on his memory, even if he were a S-Rank genius, so I’m sure certain things slip his mind.”

“Okay, but barring his forgetfulness or whatever, if he wanted to work toward the goal of my death, for example, he could simply run enough simulations until he finds a way to kill me with no problems?”

Her father was quiet for a second but then said, “Yes. It might take time and require him to wait for years until it happens, but his powers seem scarily accurate.”

“Oh my God.” Lexie got up and paced. “I think he wants me dead, Dad.”

“I know. And I won’t let him touch you. Over my dead body.”

She swallowed, feeling somewhat soothed by her father’s vehemence and heat.

"He's seen your face," Lexie said. "He might want you dead, too."

"He almost certainly does, but I'm still alive, so either I'm too central to his long-term goals, or he hasn't found a scenario whereby he can kill me with no problems. I'm not sure how often he runs the models or how many he can run at a time, but I bet I'm a pretty hard person to kill."

"Because of the final oath that happens if you die?"

Aiden paused like he hadn't considered that. "Maybe," he said slowly.

“Are you guys looking for him?”

“Yes, but he’s good at hiding. Right now, we’re still keeping our knowledge of his identity and powers a secret because we’re pretty certain he’s killing people who know about him to preserve his anonymity.”

“But you’re telling me! Won’t that make him want to kill me faster?”

“No. We…Vacek thinks that you and Lucy Frank might be his weakness.”

Lexie paused. “What do you mean?”

“Lucy Frank’s missing, and we’re pretty sure it has something to do with him. Additionally, he’s tried to kill you several times and failed. We think that his powers glitch when it comes to you for whatever reason.”

“Oh.” Lexie paused. “Is it because of…the one thing?” The fact that part of her soul was from another world. 

“Could be,” Aiden said. “Or it could be the other thing…” The fact that she was partially Eldritch.

“In any case, you'll be protected on the Island, but you can't tell anyone what I told you, alright, or they'll be in danger."

"Alright, I won't," Lexie said.

"There's another thing I want to tell you. During the winter break, I want you to stay with the Firebringers. You’ll be better protected there.”

“No.” Lexie shook her head and knew that she sounded like she was whining when she said, “I like Stella and all, but I don't want to spend my whole break there. I’d much rather stay with you.” 

“I know, honeybee. I’m sad too, but I’ll be busy. Between school and the investigation, you won’t even see me most of the time. More importantly, I won’t have time to protect you.”

Lexie sighed, feeling glum at the turn of events. It wasn’t just her father she missed. She missed Hovelton and Emma, and everyone there. She missed her home.

“Alright,” she said. “But you’ll have time to come to the Ashwick dinner, won’t you? Torin and Stella extended an invitation.”

“Of course, I’ll be happy too. And I’ll visit a lot more often since I can teleport to Capital City. At least once a week.

“Oh. If you can do that, then why did we have to take a six-hour sky train?”

“Well, I couldn’t do it then. But I can do it now," he said. “I’m getting stronger, Lexie. Strong enough to protect you.”

Lexie sighed. "I know. I love you, Dad."

"I love you, too."

Later, Lexie got a message from Stein, Madswick (who was Jett's mentor) and Journeyman, alerting her that she needed to meet with them about the incident with Jett hat she needed to meet them about the incident with Jett. She sighed, already knowing she was in a lot of trouble, but hopefully she could smooth it over with some well-crafted lies.

The major issue was Veronica. She'd heard her speaking Eldritch, and that would be difficult to get out of, considering Veronica apparently knew what Eldritch sounded like.

People were already suspicious of her, and this was one more thing to add to the list. Eventually, they would be suspicious enough to start digging and finally figure out the truth about her. She couldn't have that. She needed to fix this.

She went to the Undernet to see if there was a spell or something that could erase memory without messing up key components of their brain. She got mixed responses, and she didn't have time to check the veracity of all of them, so she decided to take a short nap and ask Naem instead.

“Can you teach me more dream magic?" she asked the second he appeared. “Like maybe, how to enter someone’s dream and erase a core memory without messing up their mind completely?"

He glanced at her. Before responding, he blinked once, in surprise, and a second time in contemplation. "Hm. I wonder if you could."

***

Tate felt like his entire body was on fire. It started with his headache during the night, which he'd taken potions for already. The headaches had been getting worse over the weeks, and his potion dosage was increasing to dangerous levels.

Even now, he'd drank nearly the entire bottle, and it helped a little, enough for him to fall asleep, but the headache had spiked in the middle of the night, so much that he moaned and groaned in his sleep. And then it had lowered down his spine, spreading out to his fingertips.

The burning sensation intensified until his eyes popped open and he gasped for air.

He was dying. He knew he was dying, but he didn't know how or why.

He had a suspicion, though, that it had something to do with the Alchemist. That somehow the other man had screwed him over.

Damn it.

He knew this might happen, but not this soon. He assumed he was still useful enough to the alchemist for him not to try to double-cross him. But no. Fate had decided to throw him one more curveball.

Why couldn't anything just work out for him? He tried so damn hard.

Rage boiled within. He was angry at everyone and everything.

"Ael!" he screamed, voice echoing in the small, hollow room. "Ael, help me!"

But the creature was silent. He was always silent when Tate needed him the most, because he felt Tate had to continuously prove himself. He was currently the weakest of the players, and Ael only supported him because of the greed and ruthlessness he'd shown, but he wasn't willing to put all his eggs in Tate's basket, and the second he sniffed out any weakness, Ael would abandon him and pick another player.

I've done so much, and he still sees me as weak, Tate thought. I've done so much and I'm still not worthy.

"Ael!" Tate screamed again, his voice cracking as tears streamed down his cheeks. He hated crying. It was useless. But he couldn't help it now. The pain forced the tears out of his eyes as he rolled off the bed and hit the floor, landing hard enough that he nearly blacked out from it.

He crawled to the potions on his table in his small apartment and drank desperately.

As the pain subsided, he noted that he was almost out of his dosage.

Worse, he hadn't gone delving, and without the AFC, he was running out of money.

He needed to do something. He wasn't sure what yet, but he refused to go out like this.