Return of the Hero 4 - Catching Up

Lucas sat on his hospital bed, staring at his hands in his lap as the twins situated themselves around the room, the hospital staff gone to give them some privacy. Elizabeth settled on the couch near the window, where Lucas had been earlier, while George leaned against the wall, arms crossed against his chest.

“Where to start,” George said, voice deeper and gruffer than Lucas remembered.

“I know where to start,” Lucas said softly, biting his lip and hesitating for just a moment. “Mom and Dad. I did a little bit of reading but I need to hear it from you two.” Elizabeth and George looked at each other, expressions shifting as they clearly considered what to say. Gone were the two carefree twins Lucas remembered, long gone. Now that the initial emotional outburst had passed, the two were much, much colder. Elizabeth’s face could have been made from stone, her eyes heavy with the burden of fighting and loss; George put on a tough exterior. Lucas would know. He’d seen those very expressions on his own face.

That was an unacceptable look for his annoying twin siblings. Absolutely unacceptable.

“It was a d-rank rift,” Elizabeth said after just a moment. “They were shopping for us. George and I were in Louisiana, called away on government orders because of some b-rank rifts spewing out monsters. Right at the beginning of all this, everyone was panicking. George and I were seventeen, but that didn’t matter. We had to go where we were needed, and mom and dad couldn’t protest.”  

“The rift opened right inside the mall mom and dad were in, hidden in the back, in a shop that had been closed for too long. No one noticed until it was too late; monsters came pouring out in the middle of the day. Hundreds died in a matter of minutes. It took three days for local heroes to close it. Liz and I didn’t find out until we closed the Louisiana gate.” George summarized. “Could barely even recognize their bodies,”

“George,” Elizabeth snapped warningly.

“What?” He asked, seeming genuinely confused as to why she snapped at him. Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, grabbing the emotions threatening to bubble up and locking them in a tight little box to be examined later. This wasn’t about him. Instead, he looked up to meet his siblings’ eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you two.” The admission froze both of them, their expressions shifting rapidly.

“It wasn’t your fault, Luke,” she told him. Except in some ways was. He didn’t regret staying in Heaven, but they shouldn’t have had to go through that without him. Lucas bit the inner part of his cheek to keep himself from talking, some part of him wanting to spit it all out despite knowing how crazy it would sound. Oh, right, I was just fighting a war in heaven for thousands of years! I know it’s only been five, nearly six, in the physical world, there was a time dilation thing and I stayed so long if I didn’t return now my soul may have crumbled from stress!

Totally believable. Totally an appropriate thing to say. Then again, nothing about the world now was believable.

“I still should have been there for you,” Lucas insisted, voice steady.

“You were too busy napping, I get it, it’s ok. We’ll forgive you.” George deadpanned. Elizabeth shot him a glare but Lucas chuckled. There was the George he knew. Inappropriate jokes that nonetheless made him laugh. Awkward silence descended for a bit, and Lucas found himself marveling at the strangeness of the situation. His baby brother and sister were superheroes now.

Superheroes. They’d awakened magic.

“Tell me about it,” he said, before he could think, wondering what their awakening was like, what their lives have been like.

“About what? Our parents deaths?” George asked, eyes narrowing and head cocking to the side.

“George,” Elizabeth chided again, exasperated.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“He just woke up. Quit being tactless; this isn’t one of your groupies that have to laugh at all your stupid jokes.”

“I am hilarious and you know it,”

“You like to think you’re hilarious,” Elizabeth snorted. Lucas smiled. Well, at least some things never changed. “But you can’t even get a date.”

“I can too! I just choose not to,”

“Speaking of dates,” Lucas interjected, eyes gleaming and mischief pouring itself through his veins. “Since you two are celebrities and superheroes now, I have a very serious question to ask you.” He paused for dramatic effect, keeping his expression totally serious and neutral, definitely not fighting a smile that threatened to worm its way onto his face. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, George leaned forward. “Do either of you have any hot superheroine friends you can hook me up with? It’s been a dream of mine since forever, well, more a fantasy, but now it can be reality!”

“Oh my god,” Elizabeth groaned, burying her face in her hands. George cracked a grin. “I did not need to hear you say that.”

“What?” He asked innocently. “It’s been years since I’ve been on a date, and longer since I’ve gotten laid,” in fact, Heracles himself had insisted that Lucas go out and find himself a girl. Or a guy, he didn’t judge, though the man in question knew Lucas’ preferences.

“I will not help you with that. You’re on your own there, brother. The superheroines I know would break you in two,” George admitted with a wry grin. Elizabeth was still shaking her head, but even she had a smile on her face now. Despite another joke being right there, Lucas laughed and shrugged, settling back down into a more comfortable position; the awkwardness cleared. A good joke could do that.

“I wanted to ask you to tell me about your lives.” He admitted after a moment of staring at his fingers again, somberness returning. “What you’ve seen. What you’ve experienced. I want to know who my little brother and baby sister have become.” The two shrugged almost at the exact same time. George looked down at his feet, then at the wall, then at Lucas; Elizabeth looked down at her hands, intertwining her fingers.

“It’s been nearly six whole years of fighting, Lucas,” Elizabeth said coldly, not out of anger, but simply out of lack of emotion. When she looked back up at him, gone was the careful hope that had been building up within her, replaced by whatever weapon she imagined herself to be. “George and I were among the first to have our powers emerge. We called it magic, they called us superheroes, but at the end of the day, when rifts and gates open in cities, we are the ones who respond. No matter where we are or what we’re doing.”

“She’s making it sound worse than it is. We’re treated like heroes, celebrities, at home, even if we’re soldiers in the field,” George reasoned.

“They fear you,” Lucas pointed out quietly, and both of them stiffened. Neither confirmed nor denied the statement. There was no need to. Six years was not long enough for people to get accustomed to such a change, and he could see it plain as day. The superhero work, the political outreaches; it was all to soothe the population at large to the arrival of magic. Magic wasn’t something the world could just ignore, after all, especially when their greatest lines of defenses against the supernatural were the superpowered. But people resisted change, fought against it. Six years was not enough time to adjust, especially to something so big. “What was this about cults I read, forming around s-class – “

“Do not bring that up,” Elizabeth hissed, face turning beet red, frozen expression falling away entirely. Lucas grinned fiercely, sensing blood in the water, while George smiled.

“What do they call you, Liz? The Glacial Queen, goddess of – “

“Lalala! I can’t hear you!” she plugged her ears with her fingers. Lucas cackled, turning his attention to George.

“You don’t have the same kind of following, but wow, the stories and ships people write about you,” he said, voice dripping with malicious glee. George met his eyes shamelessly, puffing out his chest.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he said with a shrug.

“Except for the one about Brian – “ Liz began, only for George to lunge at her, covering her mouth with his hand.

“Do not mention that!” he hissed.

“Who is this Brian, Liz? I simply must know!” Lucas egged them on, getting them both laughing again, and again, as he poked and prodded in the way only a big brother knew how. He got them to share stories, of times they had raided gates, what that was like, how they closed it. It was nothing so crass as slaying a boss monster; they found the wrinkle in space that had made the rift in the first place, and poured magic into it until it snapped shut and they were shunted back to Earth from the forced closure. A brutal, inelegant technique they didn’t understand why it worked, but nonetheless did.

 He made them share the good times, such as the time Liz had frozen George’s hair by accident, and danced around the bad times just close enough he got an image of what they had been through. Those first years had been hell. No one knew what was happening, monsters and demons poured out to slaughter thousands, and no one could figure out why the portals centered so firmly upon cities.

Cases where rifts opened outside of dense urban centers, such as the wilds or in the depths of the ocean, could be counted on two hands.

Lucas figured he would know the answer to that problem when he gave it a proper look over, but he’d have to dedicate more mental effort to the puzzle than he was willing to, right now. He had siblings to tend to.

They shared so many little things, just talking, chatting, catching Lucas up and so clearly glad to see him awake and aware it was painful to look at. As if his waking up had been the first good thing to happen to them since the start of their bloody new lives; lives where each day meant friends or innocents could die if they did not act. They thought Lucas didn’t understand it, even if they never admitted the weight of duty on their shoulders, or told him as such. He knew it more than they could possibly understand.

The irony of that thought was not lost on him.

Most importantly, he reconnected with his family; there was a gap between them now, insurmountable in many ways, but…he had forgotten how much he had missed this. How much he had needed this. Family.

***

“D-class holy magic, that’s not bad. They should have waited to test you until we were here, but nothing we can do about it now,” George mused, staring at a tablet as Lucas walked down the hospital hallway, using a walker for support. His legs were getting stronger day-by-day, especially now that he could get up and move about, but there was still going to be a ways to go. His soul was so much bigger now that his body was having trouble adapting to all the power.

“He’ll be able to get a job as a curse cleaner or something. It’s safe, respectable work,” Elizabeth mused, looking over George’s shoulder at the data. Lucas huffed, completing his circuit to raise an eyebrow at the twins.

“And what if I want to enter gates?” he didn’t actually, but that was beside the point. Before he went to Heaven he’d been planning to become a teacher of history; that plan was well and truly shot, by his best estimate, though maybe he could still pursue it.

“Absolutely not,” both of them deadpanned at the exact same time.

“D-class is great because you’re not too powerful to be a war asset, but not so weak you might as well be a regular human. As a holy magic user you could technically find a team above your weight class, because of how rare and useful it is, but danger increases exponentially the higher up in the rankings you go,” George explained.

“We won’t just sit here and watch you throw yourself into danger because it looks cool. That’s stupid. Besides, you’ll make more money as a curse cleaner than anything else; lots of items and stuff need to be cleansed of corruption before they can be used properly. Especially from things like demonic gates, or poison swamps.” Elizabeth explained, arms folded across her chest.

“D-class gates are also where things start to get more dangerous; the rewards and materials you can get from there can be very lucrative, but monsters and the like are just that much more deadly because of it. Holy magic isn’t what I’d call offensive, either, so you’d need a good team of people, and we both know you’re people-averse. Don’t be dumb,” George continued.

“I feel attacked,” Lucas whined, slumping over his walker and pouting. “Who said I was going to do anything dumb?” Both of them stared at him blankly, and he chuckled, straightening up. Fair point.

“The real problem will be dealing with the churches,” Elizabeth said, expression darkening. Lucas pushed his walker to the side, taking a few shaky steps toward them without said crutch, until George glared and nudged the thing back his way with his foot.

“The churches will be knocking down your door if this gets out,” George agreed as Lucas grabbed the walker again, so he could lean on it. This whole ‘being physically weak’ thing sucked. He hated being mortal. “They’re trying awful hard to get a monopoly on holy magic users; about eighty percent of all holy-aligned heroes are in some way connected to the churches. Add into the fact that you’re our brother? That makes you a prize. They’ll see you, and figure they’ll get our support as a bonus.”

“Makes sense in some ways, but what about witch hunting? Figure the major religions have elements that oppose magic,” Lucas mused, squatting and feeling his thighs burn a little from the simple movement. Loathe as he was to go back into his stupid hospital room, it was probably about time. George and Elizabeth shared a look.

“Of course there’s some of that,” George allowed, “but everyone’s had to adapt fast or face extinction. The Vatican was nearly destroyed before the Italian Supers managed to close the gate that opened there; the same was true of Mecca, and a thousand other holy sites.”

“No,” Lucas gasped, well and truly aghast. “Mecca? The Vatican? How much art was lost?”

“A lot,” Elizabeth said.

That is an absolute tragedy. Lucas shook his head sadly. He’d always wanted to walk in the Vatican, even if he hadn’t been particularly religious before, well. Actually, am I even considered religious now? Considering I’ve met gods and legends and devils, but don’t technically worship them…

“There’s also new religious groups popping up. Solarianism is one such religion, gaining a fair amount traction. Arcanism, who worship magic and are more a subsect of Scientology, and a few others. Hard to keep track of it all,” Elizabeth said.

“I’m guessing my original plan of being a teacher is out the window,” Lucas hazarded, though even as he said it, the idea felt wrong in his soul. He’d dreamt of one day being a professor at a university. Those dreams felt so distant now, in a way that had nothing to do with how much relative time had passed, and everything to do with how much he had grown. Was teaching all he could do? Would that be a worthy vacation?

“To be blunt, yes,” George said. Elizabeth elbowed him, and he shot her a look that clearly asked “what did I do?”

“Teachers will always have a place, but the world is still getting settled, Luke. Holy magic is rare enough that, even if you were a teacher, you’d still get called to go deal with magical corruption, curse identification, healing, and so on. It really depends on how your magic talents manifest. We’ll have to see what you’ll be best at, but you’re almost guaranteed to be forced into the superhero sector. If not as an actual hero, then as part of the support class.” Elizabeth reasoned.

“We have some pull amongst the community, so getting you a comfy job will be fairly easy, but that’s in the future. Focus on getting back to your full strength, and y’know, reintegrating into society,” George said softly.

“And try not to be worshipped because I have holy magic, and take holy shits,” Lucas only half joked. Being worshipped was a serious concern of his. Maybe a silly one, but a serious one all the same. The corners of Elizabeth’s mouth quirked up into something of a smirk.

“You’re not strong enough for that, don’t worry. Worst you’ll be seen as is a priest,” she said. Lucas chuckled as he pushed along in his walker, weaving around nurses and other patients taking walks, his hospital robe swishing about his feet.

If only they knew.