The Meeting

(Sunday, 12th of Dancing Fool Moon, 2021)

Jack was back at Sanctuary, standing in Herakles' office. He was lined up between Elizabeth and Nikola, with Maui and Sobek on either side of them along with some other teachers and the librarian. Jack was standing in front of Herakles, who was sitting at his desk, while Geppetto paced behind the man, biting his fingernails as anxiety overcame his own body. Cheng was leaning against the doorway behind Jack while Simo sat in a chair in the corner of the room. Lorelei was standing at the door next to Cheng. Mansa was sitting on a nearby table whilst reading a book and a sack rested beside him. Catherine and Juana were on the edges of the room, because they were also in on this all too, meaning they also knew Hero was not normal. However, Jack wasn't sure if they knew more than him, or if they were in the same boat as him.

"So...it appears Alice has started hearing the voices. And manifesting the forbidden power" Herakles informed them all about the situation. "She attacked several Hinoden Mercenaries, but given the circumstances, their government is hesitant to press charges in international court because they know the circumstances are not in their favor."

"Headmaster, do the symptoms mirror the 'cause' of 12/12/12?" Nikola asked with curiosity. "If so, we can try a surgery to cut off all her connections to magic."

"While her symptoms do mirror the 'cause', it's still too early to tell." Elizabeth answered in the Headmaster's stead. "Thankfully, Alice is cooperating with us unlike the 'cause' did back then. Alice explained to me that she started hearing the voices in her fight against Dorian when her friend was in danger. However, she thought she was just hearing things. This is the second time where she's heard these voices. Considering her friend Mifu was in danger, just like Jack was back then, maybe that's a trigger?"

"I think it's safe to assume triggers are different from person to person, because if that applied to the 'cause' back then there was no reason to suddenly hear voices." Herakles' expression was hard to tell, but Jack could notice one major thing behind his eyes.

Fear.

"Is there anything we could do to deal with the voices?" Jack questioned the headmaster. "Like a potion or anything like that?"

"I'm afraid I don't know." Herakles then looked towards the librarian. "Librarian, look for a way to deal with the voices. Elizabeth, keep monitoring Alice's condition until the next mission begins. Nikola, I need you to make devices capable of monitoring the voices and Alice's condition remotely, like an accessory. Cheng, have your agents keep an eye on her 24/7-"

"Except when she uses the bathroom, but when she's done, have someone check the bathroom for any irregularities." Geppetto stepped in before he began pacing. "Better yet, Cheng, can you do that?"

"Of course, I didn't master the ability to go without sleep forever to do nothing now did I?" Cheng smiled.

"Forgive me for interrupting, but I have already prepared something designed to monitor internal voices the day I heard about 'the cause'." Nikola pulled a black choker out of his pocket and Jack noticed a skull design on it. "This monitors neural activity, and it's connected to a computer that I have in my lab. The monitor can also identify whether it's conscious, unconscious, or an external source."

"Well done, Nikola, you aren't called a genius for nothing." Herakles was handed the choker by Nikola, who bowed simply in response. "By external source, what do you mean?"

"I have a theory that if this 'cause' was incredibly different before the voices and was changed by them, I'm assuming that an outside source was sending those voices directly to her head, like telepathy." Nikola guessed, and this man's intellect was making Jack feel dumb. "While the choker won't be able to identify the source of the voices if it is from the outside, it can monitor irregular thoughts while keeping conscious thoughts private."

"I know I made the right choice recruiting you." Herakles was in awe of the choker. "Alice's condition aside, is there any concerning news that needs to be brought up at the moment?" Jack raised his hand. "Yes Jack?"

"Well I think I'm possessed by a spirit that only I can see." Jack summoned the phantom and it hovered through the air above everyone. "I summoned Simo from another world called 'Earth' after he died so now he thinks this is the afterlife."

"'Sup." Simo held up two fingers while everyone looked at him.

"I absorbed three people from the Children of Destiny, Uriel, Ariel, and Cronos, using my History Maker ability after they supposedly got out of the barrier of Mythia." Jack continued talking. "I am supposedly also a Dreamer class, I found Lorelei in an island in the middle of the ocean and she claims to be from a noble family that can amplify people's magic, also, Mr.Librarian, I got all the ingredients you wanted to make the potion that restores my powers to their pre-accident state.

"Dude...it's been like four months weeks since you woke up." Maui looked at Jack in disbelief. "How the fuck is this happening?"

"I'm amazed Simo is from another world." Sobek pointed at Simo, who looked confused as hell.

"It's not that hard to believe." Nikola was checking his pocket watch.

"I'm sorry, I've been telling all of you I'm from FINLAND!" Simo shouted. "Is there another place named Finland on this continent?!"

"Okay, that one's on us." Cheng shrugged before moving on. "So this spirit?"

"I just call it Phantom, and to prove to everyone I'm not just losing my shit." Jack ordered, and the phantom picked up the coffee mug on Herakles' desk and gave it to Jack. "They can't talk."

"Okay, so the Lorelei issue, you claim her noble family's ability is amplification?" Mansa looked at the blue haired girl, who was dozing off. "Odd, I don't recall a noble family's ability being the power to amplify. Does she also have a noble weapon and noble talent?"

"I don't think so..." Jack looked back at Lorelei. "Hey Lorelei, do you have anything you're exceptional at and a magic weapon?"

"Yes I do!" Lorelei smiled and summoned a wand from her hair, not the magical kind, but the kind one would see from a conductor. "My skills are also Musical. Meaning anything musical I can do."

"So basically, you're the bard who focuses on buffing allies?" Juana asked, and Lorelei nodded.

"I'll look through the library for anything involving this." The librarian signed with his hands, and thankfully, everyone except for Maui understood him.

"The you being half dreamer part is possibly the least surprising thing there is here, since your mother was a dreamer class too." Herakles then moved onto the next issue. "So...Uriel, Ariel, and Cronos are currently residing inside you?"

"Yeah I think I absorbed their phantom souls or whatever." Jack noticed that the librarian is now looking closely at Jack's eyes.

"I speculate that they were only to teleport themselves back to their respective countries." Cheng stepped up. "This also meant that they couldn't go anywhere outside their borders. They formed a pact with Jack here to unify their powers, and also move from place to place."

"Geppetto, didn't your barrier also restrict teleportation of any variety?" Herakles turned his chair to face the pacing man behind him, who was too distracted with his own thoughts to hear Herakles. "GEPPETTO!"

"Eh? Oh? What?" Geppetto's usual smile was missing, he was concerned for Alice, because she was the only family he had left. "Sorry, I was trying to think."

"I get your concern for your granddaughter, but please, we need you to focus." Herakles was surprisingly understanding. "Geppetto, I was asking that the barrier should deny any teleportation abilities. Yet at least three of the Children of Destiny managed to teleport back to their home countries."

"It appears that the barrier is getting weaker, not enough to let 'them' out, but I fear it may get there as I age and my magic gets weaker." Geppetto speculated. "We need this 'Golden Age' to get stronger as soon as possible. At least to our level when we graduated. Same goes for recent additions, such as Simo, Catherine, Juana, Milunka, and Adrian."

"Now onto the last thing, Librarian, you think you can make a potion that will restore Jack's power to the point before the accident?" Mansa looked at the librarian, who nodded. "Do you know how long that will take?"

"Five weeks at the latest." The librarian answered in sign language like he always does. "Calling it a restoration is somewhat inaccurate. With the loss of memories, all the magic and skills are still inside someone, but they're somewhat locked away because of a lack of memories. This potion undoes that lock without the need of memories. So if Jack happens to regain all of his abilities without the potion, they will be added to his strength."

"Is that everything?" Herakles asked, and everyone was quiet. "Alright, now onto the final issue of this meeting...the dance. Is everyone ready?"

"Oh darn, I almost forgot about that." Catherine sighed. "I still need to help the others pick dresses and get the right makeup. I'm afraid I won't have time with all the classes and such..."

"Okay, class is canceled for the entire week until after the dance." Herakles didn't miss a beat. "No further questions."

"Don't you think you're favoring your niece a bit?" Jack noticed a crimson colored menacing aura radiating off his body. "Okay, I'll shut up now."

"Meeting Adjourned." Herakles slammed his fist on his desk like a gavel, but the force of his hand accidentally shattered the desk in half, causing it to collapse. "...Nobody saw that."

"Yo, Jack." Mansa handed Jack the sack. "I found some new artifacts for ya. Pinocchio, Arachne, Four Horsemen, Three Tips, Sky Daughter, and London Bridge."

"Holy crap Mansa, thanks." Jack looked inside the bag and saw a puppet, an urumi sword, a scythe with three orbs, a rapier, a shotgun, and a set of gloves. "I owe you big time."

"Not really, the original owners were waging a civil war is Dhahabu, so I stole their weapons and decided to give them to you." Mansa shrugged. "No biggie."

"Thanks again, I'll train more later, but right now I'm going to go visit Alice." Jack sent the sack to his dorm using your glove. "Catherine, Juana, you guys wanna come with?"

"Yeah, we'll go with you since Alice is a friend of ours too." Juana answered.

Jack, Juana, Catherine, Simo, Nikola, and Elizabeth exit the room while Maui, Mansa, Herakles, and Geppetto were left to deal with the broken desk situation. Elizabeth was the doctor, so her coming with the group was to be expected, but Nikola wasn't a doctor. At least not the medical kind. Jack then noticed the choker in his clasp, and Jack remembered about the choker's existence. After some walking, they all reached the infirmary where Alice was staying to see that the door was wide open. Jack peered inside to see all of their classmates were inside. Alice was sitting up on the bed, talking to Mifu, who was sitting beside her. Rico and Nico were putting Whoopie cushions in the empty beds while Damini and Caroline were pouring the pure alcohol in cups. Eve and Othelia were keeping their eyes on Alice's monitors as Zane stood against the wall. Valerie, Thor, and Matt pushed Galahad towards Zane, and Galahad was forced to pull a kabedon on the hacker. Molly was drooling while looking at Leia, who was talking with Hel about Alice's condition. Robin was fast asleep on one of the empty beds, and Ned tried drawing on his face with a marker he got from Iris, but Rasputin was stopping him. On the other hand, Luna was drawing on Robin's face without any issues while hiding behind Bruce and Medea, who stood beside Robin. Goliath was in the corner of the room, trying not to take up much space. Saorise placed a white seal plushie on Alice's bed. Hassan was leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the room of Alice while TJ placed a tray of food in front of Alice. Adrian and Milunka were talking to Angelo and Matt about something, and the two former seemed to disapprove. Hero was there too, on the cieling.

"Why is there a party happening here?" Nikola asked, and Jack's group wasn't sure how to respond.

"The dumbass squad knows no bounds." Simo answered flatly. "I spent enough time with these idiots to know."

"Alice, how are you, are you still hearing the voices?" Catherine walked up the goth girl, who wasn't wearing any makeup, so her lips were their natural color.

"No, they kind of went silent since I left Hinode, but thanks for asking." Alice answered with a smile. "Ah, Doctor Elizabeth, can I go soon? I want to get ready for the dance."

"Of course, Nikola just needs to give you something first before you go." Elizabeth answered as Nikola stepped up and handed Alice the choker.

"Please put this on so we may monitor the voices when they appear." Nikola placed the choker in Alice's hand. "You may remove it when you feel the need to, but please report hearing any voices during those periods you do not wear the choker. You must also report what those voices say, word for word. Letter for letter."

"How can she know how certain words are spelled?" Luna questioned. "For all we know, these voices could spell words with C's that sound like S's like 'cell' and we wouldn't know."

"It was a figure speech, Luna." Nikola groaned in annoyance while Alice put on the choker. "What I mean is that Alice has to be extremely precise about what the voices say."

"I understand, thank you for looking out for me." Alice thanked Nikola she put on the choker.

"Just a heads up everyone, Herakles canceled all our classes until the dance passes." Juana announced to the room, and everyone was silent for a moment before cheering.

"Good, that means I can finally spend my time helping these uncultured swines get outfits." Hassan smirked.

"What's wrong with my priest's outfit?" Rasputin held up his phone and showed Hassan a picture of priests' robes.

"Literally everything." Hassan glared at the image with his arms crossed. "While Catherine helps all of the girls get dresses, I shall help the guys get suits!"

"So where does Gaia fit?" Bruce help up Gaia's potted form. "They're not a girl or boy."

"Also, I like wearing dresses more, so I'm going with Catherine." Valerie informed the noble.

"Well that's fine, and don't worry about the price, I'm a noble!" Hassan seemed confident as he held up three credit cards in one hand. "Money is no object."

"All hail Hassan, he can buy us as many porno comics as we want." Ned was bowing before Hassan.

"Thor wants a punching bag that won't break from Thor's strikes." Thor almost punched through the cieling.

"Hey, I only said we're getting suits and stuff for you idiots!" Hassan shouted at Thor and Ned.

"I'm good, I still have a military uniform for formal events." Simo informed the man. "Also, I think Jack got a suit from someone."

"Yeah, the Emperor of Hinode is sending me some kind of suit as a 'thank you' for rescuing his daughter from his brother." Jack noticed Mifu flinched when he mentioned the Emperor, and Jack made a note not to mention it to her. "…On second thought, I'll go shopping."

"Well if it doesn't show up in time, I'll lend you one of my uniforms." Simo suggested.

"Aren't I bigger than you?"

"You shut your trap."

After confirming Alice was okay, everyone went off to do their own thing. Hassan led the men to go get suits at a tailor in Oneiro, while Catherine led the women to get dresses. There were exceptions, like Valerie was a guy and went to go get a dress. Gaia didn't really need clothes, so they were carried by Saorise back to their room. Simo went to iron his old military uniform, Nikola went back to his lab, and Elizabeth stayed in the clinic just in case someone else showed up. Alice and Jack were the only two people who remained at the clinic for a short while until Elizabeth cleared Alice to go back to her dorm. Jack decided to escort her out of concern. The two were walking through the halls of Sanctuary, alone together. It was quiet until Jack broke the silence.

"So…is the choker comfortable?" Jack dashed, and Alice took a minute to respond.

"Yeah, it's not too bad, it actually feels more comfortable than most other chokers I've worn." Alice remarked before looking at her companion with her amethyst eyes. "You know, you don't have to escort me. I'm perfectly fine."

"I know, I just got really scared when Nico called me and told me you collapsed." Jack sighed before noticing Alice was now staring at him. "What is it?"

"You were concerned about meeee~!" Alice was now teasingly poking Jack's cheek, much to the man's annoyance. "How cute, don't worry, I won't die any time soon!"

"Alice, I'm serious, when I heard you collapsed I panicked and came here as soon as I could." Jack admitted. "Geppetto told me to keep an eye on you, and I feel like I'm doing a crappy job at it."

"Hey, Jack, look me in the eyes." Alice dropped the teasing act for a genuine expression, then she stepped in front of Jack and looked into his amber eyes, and she held out her hand. Her hand was closed, but the pinky was sticking out. "I pinky promise not to die before you do, okay?"

"In that case, I promise not to die before you do." Jack interlocked his pinky with Alice's.

"Heh, then I guess we'll become immortal." Alice chuckled as she gently swayed both Jack and her hands. "We're both too stubborn to back down from a promise."

"Yeah." Jack took a minute to adore Alice's smiling expression, and it wasn't a fake smile, but a genuine one.

"Also, I'm setting up the Hinoden Tradition with these kinds of pinky promises, and that tradition is that whoever breaks their promise has to get their pinky cut off." Alice casually killed the mood.

"And we had such a good vibe going on." Jack remarked, and Alice let out a light chuckle as she pulled her hand back. "Why'd you have to go and ruin it?"

"Because I can~!" Alice began walking off. "I'm going to head to the town to meet up with Catherine, I'll see you around, Jack!"

As he watched Alice skip off, Jack waited until Alice turned the corner of the hall before walking elsewhere. Meanwhile, in his lab, Nikola was booting up the monitoring program on his computer. Geppetto was in the room with him as Nikola examined the program.

"Wow, that is a lot of oxytocin and dopamine." Nikola commented after reading the results.

"Huh, I wonder what my granddaughter is doing." Geppetto asked himself outloud.