School
My eyes were met with a girl. A beautiful blonde girl who for someone reason was straight up naked underneath the sheets.
Guess it wasn't a dream.
"Althea.." I groaned. "Jean told you to stop using sleeping without any clothes on."
"Armor restricts blood flow and delays response time during a nocturnal ambush, Adjutant," Althea stated matter-of-factly.
She sat up, the sheets pooling around her waist in a way that immediately forced my eyes to lock onto a highly uninteresting crack in the ceiling.
"We live on the fourth floor," I croaked, rubbing the lingering exhaustion from my face. "The only nocturnal ambush you're going to face is my uncle coming home drunk and tripping over the coffee table. Just… please. The hoodie. Put it on."
She offered a crisp, entirely too formal nod. "Understood. Initiating morning protocol."
I didn't even wait to see what her version of a morning protocol entailed. I blindly scrambled out of bed, grabbed my school uniform from the desk chair, and practically sprinted toward the bathroom. I paused at the door, glancing back at the mythical warrior who was currently inspecting my grey Dead by Daylight hoodie like it was a complex tactical puzzle.
"Look, I need to get ready for school. I have to go face Mr. Harrison and figure out how to explain my two-day absence without sounding like an absolute lunatic," I sighed, feeling the weight of the impending Monday—wait, Tuesday—crushing my soul. "Can you… do you know how to make breakfast?"
Althea paused, her head popping through the neck hole of the hoodie, leaving her golden hair delightfully static-fuzzed. "I am capable of preparing sustenance, yes. In my kingdom, I personally oversaw the rationing of the Vanguard before the Great Sieges."
"Great. Awesome. We're not the Vanguard, but eggs and maybe a tomato would be a lifesaver. The kitchen's on the right."
I locked the bathroom door behind me, stripped, and stepped into the shower. Cranking the dial to a blistering heat, I leaned against the tile and let the water pound against my back. I stared at my left hand, watching the water bead over the faintly glowing mark of the Reach.
A 500-year-old prophecy. An angry Mad God. A rewritten reality where my childhood friend Ria had been erased from existence. A floating blue Interface that treated my life like an action RPG.
And yet, despite being the designated savior or whatever, my most immediate, terrifying threat was eighth-grade gossip. Matthew had absolutely told everyone I had a secret girlfriend living in my apartment. My social life was going to be a smoking crater by third period.
Speaking of smoking craters.
I turned off the water, and the sudden silence of the bathroom was immediately pierced by a sharp, aggressive, and highly concerning hissing sound.
I grabbed my towel, frantically drying my hair as I shoved my uniform pants on and yanked the bathroom door open. A thick, ominous grey haze was rolling down the hallway, hovering near the ceiling like an incoming storm front.
I sniffed the air, and my nostrils were violently assaulted by the acrid, unmistakable stench of total culinary annihilation. It smelled like someone had taken a flamethrower to a chicken coop, tossed a salad onto the ashes, and then poured battery acid over the top.
"Althea!" I yelled, coughing into my elbow as I blindly buttoned my white school shirt and stumbled into the kitchen.
The stove was cranked to maximum heat. A frying pan was sitting on the burner, engulfed in a small, localized inferno of black smoke. And there stood the First Aeon of the Reach, Sovereign of a lost kingdom, holding my uncle's cheap plastic spatula with two hands like she was guarding a mountain pass.
"Adjutant," Althea announced, not taking her eyes off the burning pan, her stance wide and defensive. "The tomatoes have proven highly resistant to the heat, constantly spitting venomous oils. However, you will be pleased to know I have successfully eradicated the eggs."
"You weren't supposed to 'eradicate' them." I slammed my hand against my face. "Just….move. I'll handle breakfast."
I reached past her, slapping the stove dial to off and tossing the smoking pan into the sink. The hiss of cold water hitting the ruined Teflon sounded like a dying dragon.
"Go sit down. Consider your rationing duties relieved," I sighed, grabbing a fresh pan from the cupboard.
I quickly whisked up a new batch of eggs—on medium heat, like a civilized person—and sliced up some entirely non-venomous tomatoes. Within ten minutes, I slid a plate across the small kitchen table to her before sitting down with my own.
Althea stared at the scrambled eggs like they were a suspicious peace offering from a rival faction. She picked up a fork, inspected it as if it were a tiny trident, and took a cautious bite. After a moment of chewing, she gave a firm, singular nod.
"Acceptable. The texture is vastly superior to my eradicated batch."
"Yeah, well, the bar was literally in hell," I muttered, shoveling food into my mouth. I kept glancing at the wall clock. If I hurried, I could make it before the first bell and maybe ambush Mr. Harrison with a really good excuse. "Food poisoning" was sounding better and better by the second.
I downed the last of my juice, grabbed my backpack from the floor, and slung it over one shoulder. "Alright. I'm heading out. You stay here. Don't touch the stove, don't answer the door, and for the love of everything holy, don't try to farm the toaster."
Althea stood up immediately, abandoning her plate and brushing invisible crumbs from my oversized hoodie. "Negative, Adjutant. My place is by your side. If this 'school' is where you are deploying, I am deploying with you."
"No, no, no," I waved my free hand frantically. "School is a strictly no-Aeon zone. You don't even have a uniform. You're wearing my clothes. People will talk. Specifically, my entire grade will talk."
"I can remain in stealth," she countered, her face deadpan.
"You literally glow!"
Before she could argue further, three sharp, frantic knocks rattled the front door.
"Reach! Open up, man!" a painfully familiar, squeaky voice called out.
I froze. Matthew.
I crept to the door and pulled it open just a fraction, but Matthew immediately wedged his scuffed school shoe into the gap. He was grinning like an absolute maniac, practically vibrating with nervous energy.
"Hey, man," he said, his eyes immediately darting past my shoulder to scan the apartment. "Just wanted to make sure you were actually coming to school today. And, uh… is your, y'know, 'floor lamp' coming with us? Because if we don't leave right now, we're all gonna miss homeroom."
I stared at him. He wasn't even trying to hide his curiosity. There was no walking this back.
I looked over my shoulder at Althea. She was standing at strict attention in my baggy Dead by Daylight hoodie and half-zipped jeans, looking completely out of place but absolutely ready to go to war with eighth-grade mathematics. Then I looked toward the kitchen, where the lingering smell of burnt plastic and smoke reminded me exactly of what happened when I left her unsupervised for five minutes.
I let out a long, defeated groan, feeling my remaining shreds of sanity pack their bags and leave. My social life was already dead. What was a little more dirt on the coffin?
"Fine," I said, opening the door all the way and rubbing my temples. "You can come. But no swords, Althea. I mean it. Not even a dull one."
"Ah…" she squeaked, sword already manifesting in hand.
"How did you even… Nevermind just….de-spawn it," I hissed, my eyes darting between the shimmering blade and Matthew's increasingly wide grin.
Althea gave a small, disgruntled huff, but with a faint ripple of golden light, the sword vanished back into the digital ether. "A tactical error, Adjutant. Being unarmed in a den of learning seems… unwise."
"It's high school, Althea, not a dungeon crawl," I groaned, finally stepping out and locking the door behind us.
The walk to school was a special kind of torture. I walked in the middle, feeling like a high-stakes prisoner being escorted by a frantic goblin and a displaced Valkyrie. Matthew couldn't stop vibrating. He was darting around us like a moth on a sugar high, taking in every detail of Althea's appearance—from my oversized hoodie to her piercing, sun-bright eyes.
"So, Reach," Matthew started, nudge-nudging me with his elbow. "You really kept her under wraps, huh? I mean, I know you were always a bit of a hermit, but having an Angel like this and not bragging? That's high-level discipline, man."
I stopped dead in my tracks. The pavement felt like it was shifting under my feet. "What did you just call her?"
Matthew blinked, looking at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. "Uh, your Angel? What else would I call her? I know she's not wearing the standard issue Iaponia sector uniform, but the vibe is pretty obvious. Is she a Combat-Type? She looks like a Combat-Type."
I looked at Althea. She was staring at a passing city bus with the intensity of someone waiting for a dragon to emerge from its exhaust pipe.
"My… Angel," I whispered.
The confirmation hit me harder than the Boggart's sweep. In my head, 'Angel' was the title Ria held. Ria, my uncle's protector. The girl I'd grown up with. But to Matthew—to the world—there was no Ria. There was only the 'Reach' family, and their Angel, Althea. The Interface hadn't just changed the present; it had edited the memory of everyone I knew.
The role was the same, the slot in the world was the same, but the person had been swapped out like a corrupted save file.
"Yeah," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "She's… my Angel."
"Thought so!" Matthew chirped, completely oblivious to my existential crisis. "Anyway, we better hurry. If we're late for homeroom, the 'Angel' excuse won't save you from Mr. Harrison. He's a Demon in a cheap suit, I swear."
As we approached the school gates, the familiar sights of red-brick buildings and shouting teenagers came into view. Everything was identical—the gum-stained sidewalk, the rusted bike racks, the smell of damp grass. Everything was the same, except for the golden-haired warrior walking half a step behind me, and the heavy, burning weight of the Reach on the back of my hand.
I took a deep breath and stepped onto the campus.
"Welcome to the battlefield, Althea," I muttered.
"The terrain is… underwhelming," she replied softly, her hand reflexively twitching toward where her sword used to be. "But I shall hold the perimeter."