"She said she understands how weekends work," Megan says. Her 'Keep Calm and Nerd On' t-shirt, which is about the dorkiest thing I've ever seen look good on a person, jumps every time she does as we travel through the park, approaching the next-closest portal. There's a little bit of summer sunshine left in the canopies, and it's temperate enough that falling into the water wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Her reflection shines across the murk of the waters as she begins crossing the creek, stone by stone. The bridge is a few hundred feet up, but she won't take it. "I don't know how much more leeway we're getting than that. I understand this is more important than Naval Brigade meetings--"

"--no shit," I agree, following her. She waits insistently on the other bank, which would have taken us three minutes less to walk around to. I step off the last rock. "You know it's not a shortcut if it's not shorter, don't you?"

Megan halts on the bank, hands on her hips. "I can't believe someone like you ended up in this."

I guess we're not walking, now. "Care to clarify what 'someone like me' even means? You've said it several times, now."

"You're not fun," she says.

"What?"

"Forget about it. We're close." She starts walking again, twisting her hands around the sleeves of her t-shirt and pulling, boxing herself off. I walk right behind her.

"Come on. What does 'not fun' mean?"

"It was a bad joke. Let me be," she says, crouching down by a sewer. It would fit us perfectly if we were about two years younger. There's a slight stench, not rank like garbage but vaguely dull, an emptiness where something used to be. "We're here. Think we'll be coming here often?"

"Course," Megan says. "I don't know how often, though. Like I said. Weekends? Explained. I don't think she'll understand why Sundays are tricky for me though."

"Are you religious?" I ask.

"Not terribly, but my family hangs out on Sunday afternoons. I have four siblings, three of whom still live with us, and we like to do things together. If I started missing them, my family would ask after me, and I'm glad I'm as close to them as I am." Megan smiles idly.

"No wonder you get along so well with my brother. Will asked me to watch cartoons this morning. That's usually how we spend our Saturdays," I explain.

"I'm sorry that you had to miss out on that," Megan says.

I want to explain that I'm not that sorry to, that it didn't take a heartbeat to decide against saying no to Anthem, but for some reason I care about her opinion, and she has the same expression my brother gets sometimes, a familiar, indeterminable sadness.

"We used to come down here," explains Megan, at last entering the tunnel. "The girls and I."

"Did you tag it?" I ask, then catch another scent on the air. "Smoke weed?"

"Adam, what kind of a person do you think I am?" asks Megan.

Good question. I think I know what kind of person she is. "Live action roleplay?"

I wish I could see her expression in the dim tunnel light, because I know it has to be priceless. She passes me into the Veins in silence, and when we arrive on the other side, we're back in uniform. I still have to blink a few times to line up the connection between her and Megan, but it's a lot faster this time. She says, "We're straight ahead."

There's a door in the Veins. The wood fits uncomfortably around the flesh of the veins, like an old prosthetic. It kind of looks like it's trying to hold whatever's behind the door back. In front of the door, on the inflamed flesh surrounding it, Evan stands with one foot up, leaning far backwards as possible. "Briggs."

"Drake."

"Both of you went to public school. Stop calling each other by your last names," I say. I want to push Evan off the doorframe, but I don't have Megan's tact for potentially excessive physical contact. "Can you get off the door, Evan?"

"Can you ask nicely?" asks Evan.

"Please," I say. "Stop being obstinate."

Evan moves aside, bowing. "Whatever you say, chief."

I pretend I didn't see him and open the door. Inside is a dusty library with no windows, whose curved shelves breach the ceiling like the bones of a massive ribcage. Chandeliers of intricate glass patterns lie between the rows, providing a pale yellow light. Several reclining chairs sit in a semi-circle in the part of the room closest us facing the right wall, which is inlaid with a stone fireplace crackling with a fuelless fire.

"It's her personal collection," explains Evan. "Yes, I know, they're late. Serena and Harper are even later. Megan, you did contact them, didn't you?"
"I can't get through to Serena, and Harper is preoccupied at the moment. I do not expect consistent attendance in the training phase, which will be as short as your efforts allow, so I advise you make your best effort."

"Whose books are these?" Megan asks, a book in one of her hand. She flips through the pages, of which there are many, and squints at the text, which is small. "This is almost unintelligible."

"Mine," Anthem says. "This, like my physical form and your outfits, are all a generation of my crystalline form. I would not advise you read the books. You would find them dry."

"Thank goodness I wasn't planning on coming down here to read," Evan says.

"Evan's a big fan of fantasy," Megan interjects, smiling at me.

"That's-- no I'm not," Evan says.

"I like dragons," Megan says, blankfaced.

"Stop that!" Evan snaps, blushing slightly. "That was sixth grade. I'll have you know I haven't read a book since."

"Oh, don't tell me that! That's awful!" Megan says.

Evan clicks his fingers together, generating a few sparks. He's leaning on a bookshelf. I'm not convinced his legs are functional, because I haven't seen him stand up for more than two minutes on end. "We're not going to be training in here, are we?"

"At least someone is listening," Anthem says. She walks past us through the shelves, coming up on an end to them that wasn't there before. As we follow her, the shelves press against each other, space folding into space until each shelf is a narrow bar. The door swings open of its own command, missing Anthem's tail by a hair. "This is the training room."

It looks a lot more like a stage than a training room, with the near half of the room being a set of descending wooden rafters and the further half a half-octagon bordered by mirrors. The floor, too, seems to be covered in mirrors, but this one seems to tremble like heated air does, so that the floor never seems entirely solid.

"Wonderful," Evan says. "This is super creepy."

Megan steps forwards, tenatively, and with her hand on one of the rails, lowers herself towards the mirror. "You're telling me. I can touch it, can't I?"

Anthem, who has seemingly materialized behind me, gives her a curt nod. Evan jumps over the rafters and onto the ground, which splashes beneath him, like water, waves of glass coming up in either direction. It coalesces into a small figure, practically a mirror of Evan. "Can't let you have all the fun," Evan says, with a snide look in Megan's direction.

Megan crosses her arms. "Whatever you say. Now I know where to set the bar for when I come down there and show you up."

Evan yells back, "What are you going to do, get it wet?" and the glass double punches him in the face. Evan slides surprisingly far, seeing as the floor has no friction. I wince a little as he brings a hand to his face, and I can almost feel the heat of the impact, but to my surprise he shakes himself off and stares right back at his double. With a surprising amount of tact, he begins running back, using the friction to his advantage, and knocks the double over with a swift kick. The double moves from being attached to the floor by its feet to being practically bonded to it by half its now floored body, and Evan puts his hands on his shoulder. "Hits like a little bitch. What were you even aiming for?"

I could swear the double glares at him. It rises back up, and Evan has it grounded again in heartbeats. A few glass chips fly through the air with the force of the second impact, which had an excessive amount of metal in it from the knuckles of his costume, and I'm glad Anthem found something for us to do besides fight each other. It rises again, and this time manages to duck. Each successive interval seems to be harder, and Anthem, in her own corner, watches with interest, her eyes blurred from gold to an off-gray.

Megan leans in. "He hasn't used his fire once," she says. "You'd think, given that we have powers, you'd want to lean on them..."

The next time the glass figure gets up, we get fire. Evan's fingers are alight as he goes clean through the glass, his gloves gone from black to a molten red. He pulls it back out, somewhat awkwardly, and is shoved back, almost hitting a wall before he's able to ground himself by running his other hand against the ground, for friction. He flicks his fingers free of the leftover glass residue, which shouldn't work, but it seems to melt of its own accord. "Sorry," he says. "That wouldn't happen in a real battle, but I can't get in a good hit without going through them or sliding into them. Is there a point to making us fight in an ice rink, or do you just have a sick sense of humor?"

Anthem reassures him, "No, no. I've seen everything that I need to see." The ground seems to settle, and Evan looks up at Anthem, waiting. "You can leave. Megan?"

Megan sucks in a breath. "Wish me luck," she says to me, giving me a quick pat on the back. It makes an odd metallic crunch I'm not entirely comfortable with.

"It's just practice," I say. "I don't think we can get hurt, or Evan would have been in agonizing pain when the glass shit started happening."

Megan purses her lips. "I guess that's not a bad hypothesis," she begins.

"It doesn't make you feel any better," I insinuate.

She shakes her head.

Evan scoots in beside me. "Not bad, huh," he boasts, as Megan takes her position. A wavering clone lifts itself up from the ground, but it seems less solid than what Evan was fighting. Instead, it seems to shift forms as she circles around it, barely holding it back with the water.

"You almost seemed like you knew what you were doing," I tell him.

"Almost?" Evan says.

"Almost." While Evan's clone grew stronger with his every attack, Megan seems to be rounding on hers with considerably more enthusiasm each time. It doesn't change the fact that she still can't do much more than drive it back, even with a well-timed blast of water. Still, I look at her, sense the energy practically emanating from her, and I can sense that she has to know how to do something. She's already so much more in control than before, the water tensing up around her in the air, and her eyes are fixed right ahead.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment or a threat?"

"Up for interpretation," I wager.

"I did a lot better than you're going to do," Evan argues. At the same time, Megan blasts right through the glass facsimile with a narrow stream of water. We both hear the noise and startle (Evan would never admit he flinched) but there's no debris anywhere-- just the hole, closing up again, and Megan, looking shocked.

"Okay, then that's both of you," I say.

"I don't get Megan," Evan says. "I mean, I do, but just look at her."

He doesn't have to remind me. Her dress moves with the water she's manipulating, so that every extension of her body seems fluid. "You look happy, too."

"She's such a natural," Evan says, with a tint of envy to his voice.

Megan proceeds to swing around, readying the largest burst of water I've seen yet, and then directs it into the smallest possible line, a stream of incredible velocity, and it launches her backwards, like she's connected to it. The glass figure acquires what looks like a bullet wound, Megan is thrust against the wall, and when she goes through it and comes out the other side, the water pressure drops, too. The clone, who has healed considerably (unlike a real person), knocks her to the ground with a scuffed kick.

"I think we can call that a definitive out," Megan says, which translates to I think that's enough for now.

Anthem nods from the back.

"Adam?" asks Megan, hopefully.

I stand up. Evan's still looking at me, too. I'm beginning to hate it when they both do that. I unsheathe the sword, which glistens in the light, and then I walk down. It's heavier at my side than before. I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to swing it around. Megan puts her hand out for a high-five, and I knock her hand with my shoulderpad, because both of my hands are occupied by the sword.

Finally, I descend onto the arena, where the ground shudders and reforms into a stranger, my height, my size, similar hair, different outfit. It's also wearing armor, almost a perfect mirror of mine, but it doesn't seem entirely solid, and it has a shield instead of a sword. There's an unnerving quality about its face, which I can now see up close is poorly textured. It didn't make sense for Anthem to be expending that much mental energy on the clones, but now I wish she'd put more effort into it.

"I don't get a perfect copy?" I ask.

"They didn't either," Anthem responds. "You weren't paying attention."

The clone does not hesitate. It attempts to hit me over the head with the shield like it's a frying pan, which is not valid strategy, and therefore, does not count as useful practice. I should be using the sword to stop it, so I swing it upwards, which causes a solid metal ringing. The clone and I both realize we are bad at fighting. This does not deter it. I move back into an active sports position, knees slightly bent, and hold it out in front of me.

"Your stance is bad," Megan explains. "Really, really bad. Have you ever held a sword before?"

"Yes," I yell back. "Yesterday."

The shield hits me in the face. My opponent isn't especially tactful either, since I'm fairly sure just pressing the blunt edge of the shield in my face doesn't count as strategy, but it's definitely cold and somewhat annoying. It's like he's trying not to hurt me, though, and with Megan and Evan watching me, that kind of pisses me off.

"And your footwork is bad, and by bad, I mean nonexistent," Megan adds.

"Are you going to say something helpful?" I ask, my face still cold as death where it hit me.

"Drop your stance a bit, and don't--" I'm immediately disarmed by the shield, which hits my hand, which sets my blade clattering across the floor and towards a wall. I take it my superpowers are, in fact, just 'sword', which means that I should retrieve it post-haste. The floor has more traction than I thought it did, but I'm still running away from an armed enemy. This is unlikely to go well if the Diosite wielder realizes that guns are a thing. Neither is a sword going to be helpful.

I pick it up anyways. It still feels inert in my arms. The clone rounds on me again, cornering me against the wall. It's not solid, right? So if I fell through, I would come out the other side. Anthem did tell us not to try it, but I can't think of anything that could happen back there that would be worse than back here. It's just practice. There's no reason for anyone to get hurt.

"Now--"

Let go.

The stranger kicks me back into the void. Beyond the room, surprisingly enough, is another room, and the area I came from is a wall. I happen to be surrounded by walls, all of them glass, with a glass ceiling and floor. It's so silent that I can hear the rush of my own heart, which is the only sound, and the walls seem to pulse back with it. These are Anthem's innards. No wonder she didn't want us fighting here.

The stranger is rounding on me from all sides. I can hear the footsteps on the walls as his reflections encroach from all directions. It's intimidating, but I feel fear settle out of me. In a blinding blur of action, it suddenly comes from every mirror, and I feel my sword parry. It's right in front, holding the shield against it like a third arm, and the empty-faced stranger just stands there. All the other illusions drop.

The next shield blow is met by a parry, and he slams me through the wall, which throws me back to what can currently loosely be defined as 'reality'. I parry again, which frustrates my opponent (good), and then I take a step of my own. With a quick swipe, I have him dodging.

"That's better!" cheers Megan. "What did you do?"

"I stopped listening to you," I tell her.

Evan cracks up.

"Thanks," calls Megan from the sidelines. "Then I'll stop talking."

The two of them are watching and I don't care anymore. Seized by a sudden adrenaline, I bring my sword through the shield, straight through, and it heats magnificently, beginning to burn like a young sun. The figure drops into an ungainly position, trying to hold me off desperately with the shield, and another hit puts an end to that. Is this what they want out of me? Is this what they're waiting on? Is that what it feels like? No longer being control of your own body? I swing again, and the form is gone, I know it's gone, because I am swinging the broadsword like a bat and the clone is a pinata. It is the most childlike form of combat I've ever partaken in, and the sword cleaves it like butter. I cut it into bits in a flurry of successive, solid hits, until all I can hear is the thunk. Thunk. Thunk of the sword hitting true.

I drop it. The smell of burnt hair is on the hair, like Evan, but more acrid. My clone does not reform.

Anthem pauses. "I think that will be enough for the day. You know the way out."

I think I might have acquired tinnitus. I stand there for a while, numbly picking up the sword again, and when I have it in my hands, it has become, miraculously, even heavier. I manage to get it back in its sheath, which still takes almost a solid minute due to the inconvenient location, and then I walk up to Megan and Evan. I don't know what my expression is, or what I expect from either of them when I get there. I feel like a different person, and the two of them look respectful on the surface, but behind the masks, there's shock in their eyes.

"What was that?" asks Megan.

I'm not looking back at it, so I have to profess I'm not entirely certain either. I shrug.

"How did you do it?" asks Evan.

"It just gives you what you want," I say. "It's about how much you want it."

Evan, who has been smirking like an idiot this whole time, shows, for what might be the first time in his life, some kind of genuine concern. "What do you want out of this?"

I don't want to think about it again, that's what I want. Looking at them both, the desperate eagerness in their eyes, which is somehow aggravating in its cloying insistence, I say, "What do either of you want out of me?"

"I don't want anything, Adam," Megan says, which is demonstrably false.

"I'd kind of like to know why you're here," Evan says. "You just seem like a generic... man. Are you in the anime closet or something? Secret weird interests you don't tell anyone about? Do you need catharsis from some terrible illness or secret that plagues your waking life?"

"I'm not in any closets, no, and especially no. Look, I don't know what you two think this is, but it's not a game, it's something we've been called to do. I don't know why I got chosen. If you want someone else in here, I can find my own way out," I say.

"Adam," pleads Megan, and the way her name seizes around my voice makes me tremble a bit, even under the armor. "No one said or meant that. It's just that you seem upset, and we-- at least I-- want to help."

"I want to help," Evan objects. "Wait, do you guys have anything to do later? Maybe we could just hang out. Talk about strategy? Megan, you took fencing. What if you showed us how to swordfight?"
Megan sucks in a breath. "I'm sorry, but I can't, really. Naval Brigade."

I think it over. Staying here, with Anthem, shaking, reads as a poor option. I have no idea what that Evan's deal is, either, but it has to involve watching one too many dramatic movies. "I've got to snag a ride with Megan, and then I really should be getting home. My family will want me there."

Sure.

"I mean, I guess. I'll see you around?" Evan's face twists, and we approach the door together. It's much larger than it has any right to be, and Megan pushes it open like it's nothing with one hand, grabbing mine with her other. She's got a mean hold.

"Of course," Megan says, raising her fist to the pair of us. "Great job, team."

We knock fists together, and then Evan turns one way, and we turn the other. Leaving drops the air from my lungs, and when we emerge in the light of day, I feel older, and the dryness of the air feels strange.

Megan's still standing there. The wind frames her here, too. It has to be following her, like the sun is, so that she always looks like she's posing for something. She would make an incredible model for a backpacking company. Just put her out in the woods, the backpack screwing her perfect outline, and have her smile for a bit. Hearts would melt around the world.

"You're alright," she states.

"I don't know what happened!" I exclaim. "Can you get off my case?"

Her lips purse. "I wasn't on your case."

I roll my eyes. That's beyond demonstrably false.

"Come on," she says.

The woods are lighter, since the sun's been coming up, but the sun is ripping the branches apart to get to us. I can still feel the weight of the armor on me as she skips across her old haunts, retracing her steps, and she keeps her head down, like I can't see all the concern reflecting back up at us every time she passes over the water. Her mother's car is waiting at the edge of the woods, but said mother assures us we aren't late.

I believe her.

She holds one window, I hold the other, and by the time we've returned to my house, we've come up with half a story about just talking in the woods, which was fine, really, it was nice to be outside, thanks, how was your day? Megan does most of the talking. She's more enthused about the woods than I could ever pretend to be.

I wave goodbye, and the car is already off. I can imagine that's Megan telling her mom to hit the gas. She's got the Naval Brigade meeting. Of course.

I hold the doorknob to my house for longer than I should, feeling how the tepid metal contrasts to the hot-and-cold burn of swordflesh. It's unlocked. I walk inside, my parents give me a cautious 'hello' from the family room, and I explain that hanging out was great, really. How was your day? Alright. Going upstairs now.

I grip the bannister. It feels like going in for the attack, like descending into the arena, but when I press open my door, which was already cracked, there's just Will, who has stopped humming the theme for the RPG he's playing. He moves the volume down, his light eyes startled, and then cuts me a fake smile.

"How was hanging out?" Will says, shutting the 3DS. When I don't really answer him, he says, "You know. With her? M-word? The girl?"

"Her name is Megan," I say. "You can use it. Stop being a womanizer."

"I don't know. The Naval Brigade girls are cagey about it," he says, throwing his hands up. After a pause, in which I don't really answer, because I'm still staring at him, remembering purple, cut-up body and the rising scent of smoke and sulfur, he says, "Also, I'm not a womanizer."

I fold my hands. "Whatever you say, man."

Will mutters, reopening his DS, "You're the worst."

"I know." I stand against the wall. It feels like it might cave on me any minute. I still don't know how often the portals can bubble into existence or fade back out, but it feels like a hypothesis I don't want to test. I reiterate: driving, hallways, the rare chance it appears on my bed. One way or another, this will go south unless I can get a handle on it like Anthem seems to believe we're able to. I imagine how well the sword handle fits between my hands, the way the blade shines, and then look out at the scorchingly bright day, diluted into cool blue by the room. It's hard to say which vision seems less real. "Do you... okay, this is crazy, but I don't know, watch some of your cartoons or something?"

"Wait, really?" Will says. He shakes his head from the bannister. "Dude, this is a great time for to you to have a change of heart, but I've got something to do today."

"You?" I ask.

Will narrows his eyes. "Well, gee, no need to seem so incredulous."

"I wasn't trying to," I promise, but Will already has the fussy face on, like I've gravely offended him. "I'm serious. If it's that Naval Brigade meeting, you're already late, because that's where Megan was going. Better hop to it."

"No one says 'hop to it', Grandma, but yes it is," Will hops to it, slinging a small sack around his back, which he places his 3DS and his phone into. "You just going to sit around?"

"Nah," I say. "I'll find something to do."

Will flashes me a thumbs up. "Sunday's free, though. I actually think I might have found an anime you'll like, too! We're talking tense medieval drama, swords--"

"Maybe not," I say. "Do you have anything less violent?"

Will pauses. "Earth to Adam Rosenbloom? Is that you?"

"Swordfights in your stuff are always unrealistic," I say. "I'm a substance over style kind of man."

"Right. Sorry for polluting your tastes with my low art and swordguns," Will says. "I'll see what I can find." With that, he's down the stairs, the receding of his footsteps as he practically gallops down the steps falling with my heartrate. He used to fall down the stairs all the time. We were eight when our parents took the guardrail off, because I kept complaining when people came over to my house and asked where the baby was. I'd usually tell them the truth, that it was for my brother, but I don't remember putting it very kindly. I still know a lot of those kids. They laughed then, but it was never as funny as when Will and I were just joking with each other, and eventually it wasn't funny at all, it just made my heart seize up like I'd been hit.

I call up the guys.

Things are great, but they're not the same.

(A/N: My boyfriend actually knows shit about longswords, but since he refuses to read my writing, I have nothing to go on but my own research, which is somewhat lacking, by my own admission. If you're reading this, far in the future, you know who you are; please help me.)