Wrong Reflection

A Surprising Call

It was around one in the afternoon when Arthur got a call from Alfred. It was odd because Alfred rarely called Arthur unless it was an emergency. But Arthur had heard nothing about anything bad happening in America recently, so the phone call was odd, to say the least.

"America? Are you okay?" Arthur asked as he answered the phone. There was silence for a moment, and Arthur almost hung up the phone, believing that it was a prank call or a butt dial, before Alfred began talking.

"Something...happened. I don't know how, but I think your magic BS has something to do with it or can help fix it. I don't know how, and I've tried everything else that doesn't involve your probably made-up magic stuff." Alfred explained, nervous. The phone call had only become weirder.

Alfred had never asked him for help, especially not for magic stuff. Alfred claimed that his magic was all made up and that Arthur was crazy for believing in it.

Whatever was happening had to be serious in order to prompt this kind of change from Alfred.

"What did you do?" Arthur asked, trying not to let Alfred know how nervous he was.

"Why do you assume it was me? I certainly didn't want to meet a grumpy alternate version of me—shut up. You are grumpy." Alfred said, his voice sounding like he was talking to someone else on the other end of the line. But Arthur wasn't focused on that. He was more focused on the other piece of information.

"An alter—alternate version—like parallel universes?" Arthur asked.

"Yeah. Now you know why I need help." Alfred said, "Well, we need help, I guess. We can't figure out how he got here, and we can't figure out how to get him back."

Arthur groaned. He couldn't believe this. Alfred finally admitted that magic is real, only to claim that he had met a version of himself from another universe and that he needed magic help to get back to his own dimension. It seemed too strange to be true.

"This isn't a prank, is it?" Arthur asked.

"Iggy, I would never prank you like this," Alfred protested. Arthur didn't respond, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. "Okay, I totally would, but I promise I'm being serious this time."

"How did this even happen?" Arthur asked.

"You think we know? That's why we're asking you for help!" Alfred said, his voice both serious and slightly panicked.

Alfred's tone said it all. No matter how impossible the story sounded, Alfred was being completely serious about this.

"How did you even run into a counterpart of yourself?" Arthur asked.

"Sort of knew when he arrived. It's hard to explain. But even though he doesn't look like me—"

"What do you mean he doesn't look like you? Then how do you even know he's a counterpart of you and not just some random crazy human from off the street?" Arthur asked, pinching his nose.

Alfred was going to be the death of him. He knew it.

"I just...I just know, Iggy. It's hard to explain, but I...I know that he's my counterpart. Plus, he's given me proof that he's a personification. I know he's one, and I know he needs help getting back to his dimension. I can't science my way through it because, as far as he and I are aware, science isn't what brought him here. So... I ne–need help from your magic bullshit." Alfred said, sounding like he was in pain as he said the last sentence.

"Fine. I'll help." Arthur eventually said. Alfred let out a sigh of relief.

"Great. How soon can you get him back home?" Alfred asked. Arthur sighed.

"I have no idea. I've never heard of any kind of magic that can transport someone to another dimension. I can look through my books and maybe ask my brothers for help, but I don't have a time frame because I don't know how to fix this problem." Arthur said. Alfred groaned.

"So you don't even know if you'll be able to help?" Alfred asked, sounding annoyed.

"Well, it's clear you haven't been able to do much to help him, so I might as well try." Arthur snapped as he and Alfred began to fall into the familiar rhythm of an argument.

"Listen, I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping well 'cause I've been looking for solutions, so I called in the hopes that I could get my problem fixed, but if you can't fix it, just tell me you can't instead of telling me you can fix it and then immediately saying you can't." Alfred said.

"Alfred, I told you I could help, not that I had a solution." Arthur clarified, "Look, maybe if you and your counterpart came over to my place, I could figure out how to do something more, but right now, all I can promise is that I'll look through my books and see if I can find anything."

"You're inviting me over to your house?" Alfred asked, his voice skeptical.

"I'll probably be able to do more if I can actually meet your counterpart. If you both think that magic is what brought him here, then it might have left traces, or at the very least, a description can give me an idea of what to look for. How long has he been here?" Arthur asked.

"Two weeks."

"TWO WEEKS? You've had an alternate version of yourself living with you for two weeks, and you didn't tell anyone?" Arthur asked, annoyed. Why didn't Alfred tell anyone this happened? Why did the idiot decide to keep it a secret?

"He—we were both hoping to find a way to get him back home first," Alfred said. There was a noise, and then Alfred started speaking again, his voice soft, "Iggy, when I first found him, he was having a panic attack. He hasn't admitted it, but being here is freaking him out big time. I was hoping if I got him home first, then we could talk about him. He's already panicked enough. I didn't want the rest of you to interrogate him."

"Okay, that makes sense. But you can't hide this from everyone else forever." Arthur pointed out.

"I know, I know. If we can't find a way to get him home by the next world meeting, I'll tell everyone else. I just need to know I exhausted every possible thing that could get him home first." Alfred explained.

"You're the one in charge of explaining this to everyone else," Arthur said before hanging up and putting his head in his hands.

What a mess.