CORRUPTED FILE [Lumina Chronicles Past Drafts]

Level Seventeen

[ELLE'S PoV]

"What is this sparkling powder?" Marc asked. He was helping me load cosplay supplies and other boxes into the back of Petunia.

Winter break was coming fast, and SnowCon was this weekend. I had already moved most of my stuff out of the dorm. After we got back from the con, there was only one week left of classes. I probably would have failed out if not for the clause that I couldn't score below a C on anything because my roommate vanished. Like, I guess that's the only good thing to come out of Mags' disappearance.

"Glitter," I answered.

Marc shook the vial. "And you want me to put this on my feathers?"

"If you want them to actually be noticeable when you're in costume, then yes. On their own your feathers sort of blend into your hair."

Marc dropped the vial back into the box and closed the back hatch. He moved around to the passenger seat with a pout. "That is quite rude."

I shrugged as I got behind the wheel. "Hey, black feathers on black hair."

I pulled out of the campus parking garage and got onto the highway, taking a different route than normal. "This is going to be a longer drive than the one to my house, so I hope you charged the DS."

"Charge?" Marc frowned.

"Did you or did you not plug it into the 'special cord' last night?" I sighed.

"I did not. Usually you inform me when I need to do that, and you didn't say anything so I assumed everything was okay."

"Maaaarc," I whined. "What's the battery at?"

"The little light is a lovely shade of red."

"Dude, you are going to be sooo bored soon." Which meant he would talk my ear off. Joy of joys. If it came down to it I could set him up with one of the games on my phone, but most of them were logic puzzles so... yeah, maybe not.

"We are traveling to the Large Apple, correct? I read a bit about it on the Google last night." Marc said.

I snorted. "Big Apple if you feel the need to use that cheesy terminology. But like, don't. It makes you sound like a 1930's mobster. Just call it New York City."

"Mobster," Marc echoed quietly, "mobster, mobster... lobster? Monster."

I raised an eyebrow. "You good?"

"What is a mobster?"

I punched Abby's address into the GPS, then glanced over at Marc. "Uhhh, like... hell, I don't know how to explain this in a way you'll understand. A member of an elite crime ring who dresses nice and talks weird."

"Oh!" Marc perked up. "I am already a mobster then!"

My eyebrows shot up further. "You're a member of an elite crime ring?"

"The Abandoned Order has committed many crimes against Lumina. And I have done a murder." Marc said cheerfully.

I nearly slammed the breaks, but managed to catch myself. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa, you what?"

"During the war," Marc said with a nod, clearly not picking up on how Major a revelation this was. "I was too young to actually fight, but I helped fly supplies out the the front lines, where my brother and his friends were fighting. Someone hurt Seraphim, almost killed him, so I picked up Seraphim's sword and killed the enemy soldier."

I gaped, but kept my gaze straight ahead on the road. "Wow. Okay."

We rode in silence for a while as I tried to rectify my mental image of sweet, moronic Marc with this new information. Marc started Fire Emblem, but the DS died shortly after.