The Academy of S.I.D.E.

No. 13: A Little Background Info

In the couple of weeks that followed, Virgil settled into life at the Academy. He'd managed to get bumped up to the eighth-grade classes for the most part, though he was still with seventh graders in most of the language classes, plus coding and the majority of the Field Skills classes. Somehow, he wound up getting stellar grades in Etiquette, mostly because Madame Maeve kept on prattling about his sense of style and how he'd made some of his clothes himself. Roman found that deeply unfair.

Virgil was also getting used to his roommate. While Roman could be kind of chill at times---he apparently liked the same books as he did, and didn't mind binge-watching shows with him during the weekends---he was also the most snobbish, self-absorbed, and over-dramatic person he'd ever met. Even Janus didn't measure up to the levels of extra Roman possessed.

Also, he still had no clue why Janus and Roman kept butting heads (literally, on one particularly memorable occasion). He'd asked Patton, but all he knew was that they'd started fighting a month or so after Janus had brought him in. Remus wasn't any help, either---he claimed it was because Roman was "a total prissy-pants with the world's biggest stick up his ass." And, of course, neither Roman nor Janus would give any details.

That left Virgil with Logan, who seemed sorta nice, but was also pretty intimidating. Plus, he kept writing stuff down about Virgil in that notebook of his---like Janus had done when they first met, only it felt like less of a basic inquiry and more like a scientist observing a lab rat.

But he needed his input if he wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Virgil took a deep breath and walked up to the tall boy reading on the bench. "Hey, Logan, are you busy?"

"Well, unless you call immersing yourself in the fascinating world of astronomy, time, and physics 'busy,' then no," Logan answered, closing a worn copy of We Have No Idea. "Is there something that you wanted to ask me?"

"Yeah. Um, you're best friends with Roman, right?"

He nodded. "I've known him since he was ten months old and I was a year and five months old, give or take a few days. I've also had the unfortunate luck of knowing Remus for that long, but our parents caught on pretty quickly that we clash, so they made sure that he was occupied during our... playdates is the term we used back then."

Virgil frowned slightly. "So... are your parents Anomalies, too?"

"My father belongs to a very prominent Anomaly legacy in Russia," Logan explained. "My mother was born from non-Anomaly parents, but she's powerful enough that my dad's family claim that they don't care about that. They just focus on the fact that she's Inuit and use that as a way to leave me and my siblings out of the Jacobi family tree--not that that's any less bigoted, of course."

"No offense, but your dad's family sucks."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." He raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Why exactly are you asking me about Roman? Is it because he triggers the chemical formula for love in your brain?"

"What? No!" Virgil yelped. "I don't---I don't like him in that way!"

"Well, that's to be seen, isn't it?"

"Look, I---I wanted to ask you what Roman and Janus's deal is," Virgil said, face burning. "They can't go two seconds without arguing, and they always rant about each other whenever I bring them up, but they won't tell me why they hate each other so much."

Logan seemed to consider this. "You asked Remus?"

"Yeah. No help."

"Not very surprising. He considers Roman to be in the wrong, too."