TWO HUNDRED FIFTY: Rain on Anesidora

CHAPTER 250

Rain on Anesidora

[…so I’m going to wait for the rain to stop before I fly to Matadero. Let me know if that’s a problem for scheduling the teleport. I’ll see you soon.]

Alden finished his message to Stuart. MPE was over, the building’s entryway was full of Alden’s classmates, and Haoyu and Heloísa had just unpackaged a lightweight tarp Alden had been keeping in the duffel bag of random objects he always brought to gym. The two of them were standing on either end of the tarp, flapping it up and down to fill it with air.

“Again!” Haoyu said. “We can get it more umbrella-shaped!”

“Puffier!” Heloísa agreed.

“I think Alden will need a handle, won’t he?” Njeri asked. “Shouldn’t you attach one to the center before you even try to make the top part of the umbrella?”

Jupiter was lying on the floor by a trophy case, folding a bag that had once held shrimp chips into a fan. “I can make a handle. There’s a vine I’ve been wanting to borrow.”

“Alden’s got a lot of duct tape,” Vandy informed everyone. She was going through the duffel bag. Still. He’d given them permission to search it for supplies, but she seemed to be spending more time with her head stuck in the bag than necessary for that task. “Alden, I’m tying these tape rolls together so that they aren’t scattered everywhere.”

“Don’t organize for me, Vandy. It’s meant to be a grab-bag of junk.”

The group of helpers was growing as others changed out of their unitards and joined them here. A short while ago, in the locker room, ‘Remember how Alden got into the program with an umbrella shield?’ had somehow turned into, ‘Alden, wouldn’t your skill work for just a few minutes if you recovered for a while?’ which had turned into ‘We all have to walk back to the dorms under a single giant umbrella for the class montage!’”

“An Object Shaper might be able to help make a better umbrella shape,” Alden said. The others seemed not to have noticed the Shaper in question had been trying to hint that he wanted to be asked for help ever since the creation of an oversized object was mentioned.

“I can!” he said as soon as the words were out of Alden’s mouth. He launched himself toward Haoyu and Heloísa with his hands raised.

“Didn’t you tell Klein you’d worn your shaping out with Fragment, though?” Haoyu asked.

“I can do enough for this.”

Alden was glad Fragment had had time to teach today. She’d recreated a section of a collapsed structure she’d helped with after the floods, and she’d gone through the process of removing it piece by piece, letting each of them accomplish bits of it in their own way while she gave advice.

Everyone had been more serious about it than the last rescue practice they’d had, and it had cooled the hotheads off more than anything else they’d done all week. Even though the S-ranks had been jabbing sore feelings by continually mentioning the info sessions and open tryouts Li Jean was having for the Elites program this weekend. Febri and Marsha had just left after talking each other into going straight back to the dorm to take sleep aids. They thought an early bedtime would give them an edge when they headed to the other school tomorrow to do whatever they were doing to try to prove their worth.

Those two were swimming in so much adrenaline that Alden was sure any sleep aid they could get wasn’t going to penetrate. And they were missing this class bonding experience. Even Winston was here. He was trying to tell Kon it wasn’t necessary for Kon to make a montage of his own without sounding like he was doing that. But there was no chance he wouldn’t be standing in whatever the premium spot for an umbrella group walk was and smiling for the cameras.

Thunder rumbled through the building.

Everly had her snowball drone out as she leaned against the wall between Alden and Tuyet. “Jeffy really does post everything that crosses his mind when he’s online. I’m looking at his account right now. ‘My mohawk always gets messed up in gym. Our whole class is going to walk under Alden’s giant umbrella together because there’s a storm. Alden works at the hospital now. I just finished using the hand dryer. The hand dryers in this school aren’t any stronger than hand dryers in regular bathrooms.’”

“Why would they be?” Tuyet asked.

Alden snorted.

“Alden works at a hospital?” Vandy asked.

“I volunteered at Central Crescent today.”

“Are you going to post about it?” Winston turned away from Kon to stare at him.

“I was planning on it, but it turns out they don’t treat birds, so I changed my mind.”

Winston gave him a blank look.

“That was a joke about my Trime account…”

Everly had the decency to giggle.

“One of Jeffy’s followers is suggesting we all pretend to fight the storm,” she said. “I don’t know how that would work. Maybe we could do something like a few people looking nervous under the umbrella, and then as more and more of us join the group we start to look braver?”

“Class unity!” Haoyu cheered. “Let’s do it!”

Alden had been about to protest that he didn’t want to turn this into a play, but if Haoyu was into it, he wouldn’t dampen it.

“I don’t want to look nervous unless the storm actually looks dangerous,” said Mehdi.

“I can be out there holding onto a lamppost!” Astrid said. “Acting like I’m about to blow away. And you can all pull me under the umbrella.”

“You’ll get wet,” said Everly.

“That makes it better, doesn’t it? Lexi can take off his uniform jacket and give it to me.”

“What?” Lexi had been waiting impatiently by the doors. He wasn’t such a spoilsport that he wouldn’t do a thing the whole class was doing together, but he did seem to want them to get a move on. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re the only person still wearing your uniform this late in the day. It’ll be like a sign of the class’s warmth welcoming me in from the cold. And having a job with a prop will make it so that you don’t have to really act.”

“Why do you think I can’t act?”

“Uh…” Astrid glanced away from him.

Kon jumped in. “He’s a good actor, Astrid. I’m better. But he’s decent. He just doesn’t bother to smile unless you specifically tell him it’s an acting job.”

“I should leave you all,” Lexi said. “And you’re not better than me.”

“Yes I am.”

“You’re not.”

“Believe what makes you happy. We can let Jeffy rip his shirt off for Astrid. I’ve already gotten him to reenact his literal shirt rip for the montage once, but that’s fine.”

“I could do it,” Winston said.

“I’ll do it,” said Haoyu. “I could make it just like ‘Jeffy got in.’ Like it’s spreading through the class.”

“I’ll rip mine off, too,” said Heloísa, laughing. “I’ll make that noise some of the guys do on Brutal Ring and act like it’s actually hard for me to tear the fabric. Raaaaaaahahaha! Lucille can do it with me. Strength Brutes together. Come on, Lucille! Raaaaaaahahaha!”

Lucille shook her head so hard her hair clip flew across the entryway.

“I think I can probably act well,” Mehdi mused. “I would be willing to take the lead role.“

“I’ll do it,” said Lexi. “The rest of you try to be sane. I’m willing to be involved in ‘Astrid gets helped by her classmates.’ That was an okay idea. But I’m not taking part in some kind of ‘Jeffy has infected us with shirtlessness’ video.”

Several people booed him.

When Alden left the building a while later, he and an umbrella made out of a tarp were the central figures in the opening scene of a short film about a bunch of teenagers finding shelter and friends in the middle of a rainstorm. It was more than he’d agreed to when the idea was first presented, but walking in the middle of a crowd who were having fun and coming up with the most ridiculous things to say in order to have their moments in the spotlight was all right.

By the time they were halfway back to the dorms, Stuart had received Alden’s message and called to check on him. The Artonan was heading across the siblinghold grounds toward the cottage. “You should not fly at night in a storm without your skill,” he said. “What if you were killed by lightning? What if you became disoriented in the dark…what…are you doing?”

[My gym class wanted to make a video together. This is the last day before exam week, so they’re in a good mood. I’m protecting us from rain.] Alden lifted the tarp higher by its curved vine handle to show it off. [I don’t think my skill would save me anyway if lightning hit something I was using it on. Not that I’ve tested it.]

“Raise our protection even higher!” cried Mehdi, who’d apparently noticed Alden’s arm motion. “Defy the storm!”

People clapped and shouted their own peculiar ideas of good lines.

[They’ve all gotten stranger since we started,] Alden explained.

Stuart had stopped walking. His tucked chin and raised brows turned into a curious expression after he’d analyzed the situation Alden was in.

“I see Kon,” he said. “Kon’s brother looks like Kon.”

[They do look alike.]

“I will let you enjoy your time of camaraderie.”

He said that, but he didn’t hang up.

[You can watch if you want to. Half of these people are posting pictures on the internet while we do this. It’s not a private class moment. Here comes Haoyu. My roommate. Do you remember him?]

Haoyu was up ahead, shivering dramatically by a puddle he’d found in the grass. They called out to him, and he ran through it with the most excessive splash he could manage.

“I thought I would freeze to death,” he said, when he made it into the huddle of sympathetic faces and back pats. He was looking straight at Everly’s drone.

“Isn’t Haoyu someone who has focused his magic on the durability of his body?” Stuart asked. “Should he be cold?”

[He’s not really freezing.]

Haoyu met Alden’s eyes with a soulful gaze. “Do you walk through every storm in search of lost travelers?”

“I do,” said Alden. “This campus is a dangerous place. Someone has to do it.”

Stuart went to sit on a tree root. He was already invested in the show. As they approached the finale over the next few minutes, his comments were making it impossible for Alden to keep a straight face. When Astrid was saved from the rain, the wind, and the extra wind Everly had talked Vandy into providing, she was given a warm, dry jacket by a kind gentleman with a soft voice and a melting smile that Lexi must usually have kept stored down in his toes.

“Is that girl the only person he likes in your class?” Stuart asked.

[No. It’s just part of the story.]

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Is she the only person he likes in the story?”

[In the story, we all like each other equally. It’s a story about our unity as students.]

“I don’t think he does like the rest of you,” Stuart said. “Most of the people there are wet, and he didn’t give them his coat.”

“Alden, stop laughing. This is the serious ending,” Everly hissed.

Alden bit his lip.

“If it’s meant to be a serious ending, you should do it over again,” said Stuart. “I think it’s very funny like this. Haoyu even said he was freezing, and the rest of you forgot about his pain immediately.”

Everly elbowed Alden.

“And that girl should take off the wet shirt before she puts on the dry coat. Tell her to do that.”

“Thank you,” Astrid said to Lexi and the camera, her eyes glistening. “Thank you so much.”