Avilien

Red-skinned stalker

Distraught, stunned, and with a taste of acid in his throat, Luke backed away from the kitchen door. Never had he wanted his dad as much as he did right now. Grey wouldn't have stood for this. He'd have thrown Sharon out in an instant if he saw her doing this. Luke had no way to contact his dad, and never had. No work phone number or mobile number, no email address, and no GT facetime app. Standing in the centre of the kitchen as Sharon and Chris laughed like children, it dawned on him that he may not see his dad again.

From the island counter, Luke grabbed one of the red bottles and stormed off up the stairs. Rather than sneak, he wanted to be heard. He wanted the no-good adults to be aware of his presence, that he was home and had caught on to their act. The floorboards on the stairs creaked and echoed loudly with each stomp he made, yet the laughter below intensified.

Knowing he had the power to storm right into the living room and unleash Crackling Thunder and vanquish the bald man, and perhaps Sharon too, raced through Luke's mind as he entered his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Nebs leapt in the air as the door slammed and his tails went all bushy. Out of nowhere, he had found a screwdriver and had it in his right paw. In his left paw looked like a smouldering black electronic board. The monitor had indeed been fried.

"Everything okay, master? You don't normally try to rattle the dragon," said Nebs as he placed the screwdriver down on the desk.

"My evil stepmother is having an affair with a strange bald man. Not only is she doing it in plain sight of my brother, who practically lives in the living room, she is also getting drunk in front of him." Luke gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. Anger consumed him like a bubbling volcano and for a brief moment, he thought of re-slamming his door again.

"Are you going to tell your dad?" asked Nebs as he resumed tinkering with the monitor.

"I can't even reach him. Also, you were wrong; Grapemelon champagne from Avilien is what the smell is." Luke slammed the empty bottle of alcohol on his computer desk, prompting Nebs to inspect.

Nebs looked the bottle over, taking sniffs at the glass and the opened top. After reading the labels and admiring it, he looked across to Luke, who had his forehead pressed against the bedroom door.

"I can't tell you much more than what the bottle says without breaking code. This is definitely an Avilien item, and should not be able to exist in this world." Nebs took a lick at the bottle and his eyes grew wide.

"If you think about it, Crackling Thunder is an item and so are you, to a certain degree." Luke mumbled into the door, his words stunning Nebs. So much so that Nebs's ears dropped and his head slunk.

"An item? That is what you think of me?" asked Nebs.

"Didn't mean it like that. You're my slightly evil best friend. I just meant that when you're in my phone, you appear as an item."

"If you say so, master. This monitor will take me the better part of all night to get working again. Someone deliberately fried this, so I'll have to salvage parts. Guess staying up will allow me to keep an eye out for our mystery guest," said Nebs as he picked up the screwdriver and got back to work, trying not to think about being called an item.

"I'll boot up the old CrystalDrive TX0 and play some Magic Battlegrounds. I don't think enemy players are going to like me tonight," said Luke as he turned from the door and switched on his television, pumping up the volume.

Wanting to forget and drawn out the noise from below, Luke turned up the volume to near maximum, allowing himself to be absorbed by the game and into the mythical land of Beltuga, a giant island on the back of a turtle where players battled one another. Each game had five hundred random players, and rounds could last hours as players worked on ways to eliminate one another and gain control of battlements to create clones of themselves.