Interosculate

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Interosculate

William Howe

I was convinced Agent Rain was trying to kill us. The amount of times she forced me to shift was astronomical, far beyond my capability. That's not even mentioning the incantations she made us practice. The ones that we were able to do together were pretty well a piece of cake. We have three Lusters, so really, it was a walk in the park for us boys. But the ones we had to do individually were another story. It was entirely unfair to give the same spells to each of us. And way too draining. There's no doubt in my mind that Eddie was twice as strong as myself and took just as many breaks as I did.

I couldn't be sure if her method here was to get us to the point of quitting, to see if we could really handle this. Or if she was trying to make us realize that just because we were the best, it didn't mean we were perfect. Hell, I could barely handle a conjuring after she made me shift so many times.

There was an art to her method of teaching, and she was an oddly good teacher given the circumstances.

Once Rose finally showed up and was chewed out by Agent Rain, she came back with more intel than we had anticipated. Apparently, Agent Rain was a conix, and not only that, but she was Adamas Steele's granddaughter, who had been pretty well excommunicated from the family until just a few years ago. Rose was a sneaky bitch for reading her mind like that, and even worse for leading her on to reveal more. This new information made Agent Rain appear in a different light. A descendant of Adamas Steele? It was practically unbelievable. Though almost all of us knew his grandson, Harry, who had taught at the North American Academy for Power Control, where Rose, Logan, and myself were all graduates, as well as Eddie who was an assistant teacher.

Talking after our first training day, Eddie reveals that Harry mentioned he had two sister. "He said that he couldn't even remember his oldest sister. He was always told she was kidnapped and never returned. His other sister ran away when he was still very young. Harry practically grew up as an only child... So I wonder which one Hayden is?"

"The one who was taken or the one who left..." Brooklyn ponders, shifting slightly into Eddie on the loveseat. Hope and Rose sit opposite them on the couch, myself sitting on the floor between the two. Logan sits in the recliner adjacent to Rose, computer on his lap.

"How did we not even realize that they have the same last name? I mean, it's been right in front of us this whole time," I say.

"Because they don't look alike at all," Logan puts in.

"There's no denying that," Rose says. "And they act completely different too. She's a total bitch; you can't deny it."

"It sounds like one of them actually grew up in a home though," Hope adds, a little harshly. "Give her a break, we don't know what she had to go through to be where she is now."

This pretty well shuts all of us up.

"At the end of the day," Hope starts again, probably trying to ease the tension she created. "She's the best thing for us. Do you see how fearless she is barking at us the way she does? Every single one of us could probably kill her with the flick of wrist..."

"Oh, she's crazy amazing. Don't get me wrong," Rose begins, "she's just a bitch too, but yeah that's her job. I met with her once when she was still at the AFO. I was still really young and this was the one time that DEFENSE couldn't intercept them when I let a storm loose. Like I said, I was young. She had to have been in charge of that whole organization."

"Not quite," Agent Rain's voice from the doorway startles us. "I actually was never interested in being Chief... Not enough killing, all too much paperwork. And I was wondering why your name continued to ring a bell to me. You were the little girl who pretended to be deaf."

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