Meap Me in St. Louis

Chapter 16: Recuperating

SKYLAR (524)

It takes a little while, but we eventually get everything sorted out. Once we establish who everyone is and where they're all from, we head back to our clubhouse. The people from our universe fly there on Sam's hovercraft, and the 252 and 525 people get there by ways unknown. According to the 525 people, they do know of the other members of our group in their universe, but besides Sean and Shanna, none of them are "Powerful Kids", nor do they interact with them.

The ensemble is largely spread out throughout the place. Phineas, Ferb, and Candace (from 252) are off in a corner, having a moment of grieving for their friend. Baljeet and Buford are admiring Sam's hovercraft. I'm standing against a wall with Avalon and Brielle not too far from me, and everyone else is seated at the table that we used to use for meals. Thankfully, it's easy to distinguish between ourselves and the 525 variants of us since we're wearing different outfits.

My 525 self joins me. I'm having trouble just looking at her. I'm sure the others are having a hard time processing this, but I'm freakin' standing next to an alternate version of myself from another universe. She looks exactly like me, walks exactly like me, and talks exactly like me. Literally the only difference might be that she has a superpower and I don't, though we haven't established what her power is yet. We already know Elle's is reading and changing feelings, Heath's is agility, and Luke probably has similar powers to our Luke. I don't even want to think about what it would be like if our Luke was here, too.

"You thirsty?" my alternate self asks me.

I force myself to look back at her. "That's... kind of a weird question."

"Just trying to be helpful."

I shrug. "I guess I could go for something to drink."

Instead of going to the sink and pouring me a glass of something, 525 me gets out a cup from the cabinet and pours water into it–from her hand. I just watch as she does it, having lost all ability to be surprised anymore.

"Don't worry, it's all pure water," she says as she hands it to me. "I've got plenty of it to spare."

I take a few sips of it. Sure enough, it tastes just like regular water. "You've got water powers?" I ask once I've gulped it down.

"Actually, I can control water, fire, earth, and wind."

"So you're the Avatar."

525 me sighs. "Yeah, pretty much."

At the table, Avery keeps switching between looking at our Sam and 525 Sam. Our Sam notices this and asks her, "What?"

"Nothing. Just... two of you," she replies, snickering.

Sam chuckles. "Yeah, I'm having trouble with this myself."

"Why don't we get down to business?" 525 Sam calls out, getting everyone's attention. The 252 characters join us at the table.

"We couldn't stop him," our Elle says somberly.

"Neither could we," 525 Elle replies, just as somberly.

"So, what kind of doom and gloom should we expect from this?" Eghosa asks.

"Well, with the cuteness extractor, Mitch will be able to remove Isabella's cuteness from her and inject it into himself," Baljeet answers. "At that point, he will reach Gamma level cuteness and will be able to enslave our entire universe. And now that he has your friend Shanna, he might be able to go even further beyond that, and could potentially take over a second universe as well."

"You think he'd pick ours?" Jack asks.

"I dunno," 525 Luke snorts. "I think he kinda hates our guts now."