Chapter 15

Trouble did not find Tiff instantly, though Amy remained suspicious of her sisters throughout dinner. But she was tired after a long day of hanging out with her friends, so most of her energy went toward stopping herself from faceplanting into the mashed potatoes, and she didn’t voice her complaints out loud.

Friday mornings at school were annoying for multiple reasons, not the least of which was that it was Friday, not Saturday, and thus the weekend was an entire day away. Tiff silently endured announcements in Homeroom as they advertised the upcoming football game with excessive energy, though she held slightly less disdain for it now that she was on friendly terms with Candice.

“Are you coming to the game tonight?” Candice asked, leaning over into the aisle.

“I’m not the cheerleader here, Candice,” Tiff chuckled.

“So?” Candice shrugged. “That’s not the only reason to come. Think of all the boys!” Tiff rolled her eyes.

“I’ve got better things to do with my time,” she scoffed. “Besides, is that really the point of going to a sporting event?”

“Yeah,” Candice answered seriously. “You think anybody actually cares about a high school game? Okay, fine, some people do, but football games are just as much about connecting as they are about playing. It’s all about being seen, Tiff.”

“Huh,” Tiff muttered. “Do scouts for professional teams come to high school games?”

“I’m talking about Ryan Romig, Tiff,” Candice flicked her hair aggressively over her shoulder. “I think he’s close to asking me on a date.”

“Hard pass,” Tiff shook her head. “I’ve got enough drama in my life.”

“More for me then,” Candice said airily. She began flickering her System screen in and out of existence in front of her. Like the rest of the class, she was perfectly capable of summoning her screen normally, but she seemed determined to personalize hers with extra flair. She could occasionally get a few veins of lightning to circuit through an already summoned screen, but she had yet to summon the screen entirely with electric discharge, and her current infusion was only about a 20 percent success rate. She didn’t seem bothered by the failures and dutifully practiced while ignoring the teacher droning on about an assembly. Tiff could admire the dedication.

Throughout the day, Tiff was just as distracted as yesterday. But instead of being anxious about a quest she didn’t want to complete ticking down a timer, Tiff was busy warding off System notifications. Granted, they were much more interesting than the previous quest, but they quickly got annoying as there wasn’t much, if anything, she could do about them.

Tiff hadn’t received any new quests for herself; all of her notifications had to do with her class. Bizarre things like [Trade Deal: Pending] or [Power Play: Success], she had no idea what to do with. The System wouldn’t give her any more information other than [Refer to TAS]. Tiff assumed [TAS] stood for her Territory Administration Suite, because the only other acronym she immediately thought of was a tool-assisted speedrun…and she wasn’t currently sitting in her room with Amy loudly watching hour-long documentaries about old video games on her computer.

At least half of the notifications required approval or review, and as they were all locked behind her Administration Suite, Tiff knew she needed to bump figuring it out up her priority list. Interestingly, not every notification was nebulous, but none of them did anything to bolster Tiff’s confidence. On two distinct occasions, she got ominously vague messages saying: [Notoriety Increased! +25].

Tiff let out a heavy sigh. Without even lifting a finger, she was apparently growing more evil.

Somehow, Tiff managed to make it all the way through school without going crazy (or going to jail for gaining almost 100 points in Villainy).

Surprisingly, Amy wasn’t hanging out with her friends today, and as luck would have it, she also decided to take the bus back home.

“You’re up to something,” Tiff said with narrowed eyes as her sister unexpectedly bounded onto the bus. Amy immediately spooked her and plopped down next to her on the seat.

“Can’t I ride home every once in a while?” Amy asked innocently.

“Your face is screaming I want something. What is it?”

“You and Tori have been acting totes sus,” Amy admitted shamelessly. “You’re hiding something and I’m gonna find out what it is. You should be grateful,” Amy added with a longsuffering sigh. “I’ve devoted my whole weekend to this!”

“Amy,” Tiff said flatly, “What the heck.”

“Seriously,” Amy continued to nod. “I could be doing something productive, like my homework, but no! I need to spend my precious time sniffing out what you’re hiding!”

“You should still do your homework,” Tiff scolded, but Amy stuck out her tongue. Amy then spent the rest of the bus ride trying to pester Tiff’s secrets out of her, but, in such a public place and aided by her passive skill, she said nothing.

It wasn’t until they finally reached their stop that Tiff began to get nervous. Amy slowed her pace to walk with Tiff all the way back home, but she knew the moment they set foot inside their door, Amy was going to be relentless. She didn’t have much time!

​

“Tori, help!” Tiff hissed the moment she opened the front door of their house and Amy flew past her. Victoria was sitting in an armchair in the living room and barely spared a glance at the living whirlwind. She heard Tiff’s frantic tone and came bounding over.

“Tiff, what-” Victoria started to ask, but she was cut off. Amy’s voice floated down the hall…from Tiff’s room.

“Holy crap, your room’s a mess!”

“Amy’s patience ran out,” Tiff groaned. “She wants to know my Class and said she won’t stop until she finds out!”

“So?” Victoria let out a sigh of relief.

“What do you mean, so?” Tiff asked. “She’s going to find out!”

“Well, yeah,” Victoria chuckled. “You weren’t going to be able to keep it from her forever.”

“But-”

“Hey,” Amy’s voice dawned with realization. “Isn’t all of this from your closet? Why’s it in the middle of the floor?”

“Come on!” Tiff hurried toward her room.

“You didn’t clean up after we reorganized?” Victoria asked.

“I pushed it to the side!” Tiff said hotly.

As soon as they reached her room, she came face to face with Amy digging through all her old junk. On one hand, she didn’t really care- it was junk for a reason-, but on the other hand, she valued her privacy!

“Amy!” She yelled. “What are you doing?! Don’t go through my stuff!”

Amy picked up a box, saw several old book reports and frowned. She tossed the box lazily to the side and moved to the next part of the pile.

“Amy! Get out of my room!”

“Make me!” Amy shot back confidently, moving into Tiff’s closet. That was precisely where she didn’t want her sister to be! But before she could order Victoria to remove the intruder, Amy gasped, tossed aside a familiar sweatshirt…and let her shoulders slump. Tiff felt herself get nudged into her own room, just in time for all 3 sisters to stare at a glowing, hovering crystal.

“This is what you’ve been trying to hide for over a week?” Amy asked in disbelief.

She sounded so sad and deflated that Tiff almost felt like she needed to apologize. And then she remembered her little sister was being a busybody and she got indignant.

“Hey, if you don’t like it, maybe you shouldn’t have snooped around so much!” Tiff said hotly. “Then you wouldn’t feel let down and I’d still have my privacy!”

“Yeah, but Tiff,” Amy grumped, pointing at the floating diamond. “What does it even do? I mean…wait. Wait! I know exactly what this is!”

Amy’s face quickly brightened, her momentarily offended attitude completely forgotten. She trotted in place excitedly, pointing behind her at the core floating in the closet as she exclaimed.

“This is a Plumbob! I’m so right, aren’t I?!”

“A…what?” Tiff asked, dumbfounded. She looked at Victoria, who was clearly bemused, but equally confused.

“A Plumbob! You know, from the Sims!”

Tiff slowly turned to face the floating rock in her closet…and felt overwhelmed by apathy. The core was green, it was floating, and it was an octahedron…and now that she had seen it, Tiff could not unsee it. She sat on her bed, shoulders slumped, and felt the will to fight drain from her.

“Oooh, it even floats!” Amy cheered enthusiastically, running her hand beneath the core several times to check for hidden wires or an invisible stand. “Can you stick it above people’s heads? OH! Can you then control them?! Are you some kind of [Puppeteer]?!”

Amy was in the process of trying to lift the core up and stick it above her own head, but strangely, it wouldn’t budge. Tiff finally recovered enough of her wits to yell at her little sister.

“What is wrong with you?!” Tiff shouted as she threw her hands in the air, jumping back up. “No, I can’t control people! What kind of messed up person does that?!”

“A Villain,” Amy shrugged easily before once again trying to relocate the core in the closet. Tiff froze, her mind whirring a mile a minute. How did Amy know? Who told her? Where was the leak? Besides Victoria, Tiff didn’t tell anybody. She turned furiously toward her big sister, expecting to see betrayal written all over her face and maybe hear a monologue about double-crossing…but Victoria had her hand slapped over her eyes and was laughing silently.

“How…?” Tiff barely managed to ask.

“Oh, was I right?” Amy chirped brightly. Tiff felt faint and needed to sit down. She didn’t expect to get a workout in her own bedroom today. Amy continued, oblivious to Tiff’s inner turmoil. “I knew it had to be something like that. I mean, did you think you were being sneaky? You’re about as un-stealthy as they get, Tiff. You only started clamming up a week ago once you got your Class, which, to be fair, you did say you didn’t like and didn’t want to talk about, but you practically start sweating any time anybody brings up Affinity these days. Didn’t we used to love playing Heroes and Villains? You never used to get skittish around the V-word.”

Amy turned around, ignored how Tiff seemed to be melting into a pile of misery, and pointed at Victoria.

“Help me move this thing. It won’t budge.”

“I don’t think I can,” Victoria finally let out the laugh she’d been trying to hold in all this time, but she moved next to her youngest sister anyway. The sound was enough to drag Tiff back to her senses.

“Tori,” Tiff commanded. Both sisters turned to look at her expectantly. Tiff pointed at Amy before holding her hand out and slashing it through the air like a knife. “Put her in the rack.”

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Victoria, still grinning, glanced down at Amy, who was starting to pale, and shrugged.

“Wait,” Amy hastily backed up. “The rack? As in, a tort- Tori! No!”

There was no possible way for Amy, an un-Awakened 15-year-old, to escape a close combat specialist within grappling range. Before she realized it, Victoria had grabbed her, turned her entire world upside down into a jumbled mess, and had her stretched out across her shoulders.

“Choo got it, boss,” Victoria grinned…and proceeded to dunk on Amy by dropping her from the top rope, otherwise known as Tiff’s bed.

​

“You girls good in there?” Tiff’s dad asked, peeking his head into the bedroom. Tiff had moved to her chair and looked like she aged a decade, while Victoria was sitting on Amy, who was calling out various wrestling moves like some overly surprised ringside announcer. “You know the rules about roughhousing.”

Tiff sighed and closed her eyes, while all three of the girls repeated the number one rule everybody in the house needed to obey.

“““Get it out of your system before Mom gets home,””” they all chorused in unison. Rick nodded in satisfaction. “Good. How do you feel about lasagna? I can pop one in the oven and it’ll be ready in an hour. Sound good?”

“Great, Dad,” Victoria nodded.

“Sounds good,” Amy shot a thumbs-up from her place face-down on the floor.

Rick waited, but he didn’t hear a third agreement.

“Tiff?” He asked.

“Oh,” Tiff shook her head. “Lasagna is fine. Thanks, Dad.”

“An hour, girls,” he shook his head. “Get it all out.”

Rick closed Tiff’s door behind him and she listened to his footsteps slowly thump down the hall. She turned to her sisters, who had given up on the wrestling match and were just lazing on the floor. She wasn’t sure why Amy allowed Victoria to continue sitting on her, but it wasn’t her problem. She nodded nervously toward the door their dad had just disappeared through.

“You don’t think he knows…do you?” She asked. Amy tried to shrug, which was impossible from underneath her sister, who finally had mercy and let her up.

“Beats me,” Amy said. “Does it really matter if he does?”

“Yes!” Tiff hissed.

“Why?” Amy shot right back.

Tiff blinked, taken aback.

“Because I’m a Supervillain?”

“Oooh,” Amy perked up. “Not just a standard Villain, but Super? How awesome is that?”

“It’s not!” Tiff hissed. “He works for Heroes! He could tell somebody!! They could find out!!!”

“Oh honey,” Amy sidled up to Tiff and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Dad brags about us all the time. They already know your name is Theophania. Your wardrobe has more black than a funeral parlor. They already think you’re evil-coded.”

“Evil…?” Tiff trailed off as she stared at Amy’s growing smirk. “Amy,” she said calmly. “Do you want to go back in the rack?”

Victoria raised a thumb from where she lay on the floor and Amy shuddered.

“Hail to our new overlord! Do, ah, we have to use a new title for you?”

“The System gave her one,” Victoria’s muffled voice floated up from the carpet.

“Oh ho?” Amy grinned, but Tiff shook her head rapidly.

“Amy, stop. Please. I know this seems like a joke to you, but can you be serious for just a moment?”

“Ehhh,” Amy looked like she wanted to ignore Tiff’s request, but seeing her sister’s uncharacteristically somber face, she relented. “Sorry.”