Derek thought he was ready on Monday to ask Mr. Anderson about his lab. He gave himself a pep talk, and then found himself in his second hour, quietly sweating about how he didn’t do it. He tried to muster his courage on Tuesday morning, but it was gone so quickly. Derek didn’t know why this was so hard for him until he realized Mr. Anderson always seemed annoyed at theater kids. To be fair, he seemed annoyed at most kids, but Derek wasn’t excited to talk to someone, knowing that it would probably be an uphill battle to get them to like him. And then to ask to use the lab? For a character who came out of Choice, Chance, and Consequence? This was going to end with him being carted away by a special branch of government that would eventually use alien technology to wipe everyone’s memories of Derek ever existing.

It was Wednesday morning when Derek had the bright idea of bringing Milo with him to school. It was the oddest feeling, stepping into the hall with his character behind him. The mana fusor tried dodging all the students, but they plowed past him, not even acknowledging him. They seemed to go out of their way to not touch him, even if they didn’t know what they were doing. When the hall got too full, shoulders simply moved through his body, which Milo wasn’t a fan of. He stayed scrunched up behind Derek as he glanced through the door to see Mr. Anderson there, sipping his coffee and going through notes. His room was completely empty, to no one’s surprise.

Derek checked his phone as Milo pressed himself against the wall. Ten more minutes until the first bell rang. He would have to do this now, considering he didn’t know how long it would take to convince Mr. Anderson that Derek hadn’t lost his mind.

He motioned Milo forward as they slipped into the room. Derek half hoped that Mr. Anderson would notice the mana fusor straight off and that everything would fall into place, but somehow he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

Mr. Anderson glanced at a note before setting it down. Derek approached the table he was working at, waiting. Mr. Anderson took another sip of coffee before looking up, meeting Derek’s gaze. There was a full two seconds of silence as Derek almost willed Milo into existence.

“This is indeed my second cup of coffee, Derek. You may ask me a question,” Mr. Anderson said.

Derek cleared his throat. If the side quest hadn’t popped up in his vision, he would have never done this. “Hey, Mr. Anderson. This may seem like a strange question, but it has a purpose to it, I swear. Have you ever played the tabletop role playing game Choice, Chance, and Consequence?”

Mr. Anderson gave a tiny laugh before returning to his notes. “Yes, Derek. I have. If Molly sent you to recruit me into being the second adult in the CCNC after-school club, tell her I’m still not interested.” Derek was confused until he remembered Molly was Señora Florez’ first name. Sometimes it was odd hearing teachers’ first names. Mr. Anderson took another sip of coffee. “Besides, my CCNC days are done. Left on a high note. You’ll just have to believe me you haven’t really played CCNC until you’re sneaking out of your overly religious mother’s basement in the mid-eighties to play a session with your jr. high buddies.”

It wasn’t much, but Derek clung to it. “Yeah, yeah! Sneaking around. Trying not to get caught!”

Mr. Anderson looked up from his coffee mug, confused. “Um, just to be clear—”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Anderson. I know you’re not trying to suggest I sneak around authority figures. I… I’m actually…” Derek placed a hand on Milo’s shoulder, and he didn’t know what Mr. Anderson saw. But it clearly wasn’t Milo, so he dropped his hand. “I need your advice.”

Mr. Anderson gave him a blank stare. “With CCNC?”

“I’m in a pickle.”

“Molly’s the better person to ask,” Mr. Anderson said, returning to his notes.

“This is by far more your area of expertise. Have you heard of the mana fusor class?” Derek said.

Mr. Anderson was now fully back into his notes. “Sure, sure. The alchemists, in a way.”

“The ones that always need a lab?” Derek said.

“Mmm.” Mr. Anderson took another sip of his coffee.

Derek let out an exasperated sigh. “So… you really can’t see him?”

Mr. Anderson glanced up from his notes again, frowning. “Derek, what are you trying to get at?”

Derek sighed and took out his phone to check the time. “Sir, all I ask is two minutes. And if you don’t see him in two minutes, I will gladly walk out of the room and both of us can pretend I never stepped foot in here this morning.”

Mr. Anderson’s face was a combination of him clearly hearing weirder things, but there was no way his teacher had seen anything weirder than this. Mr. Anderson grabbed his mug and leaned back in his chair. “I like a man with a plan. Two minutes. Show me.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Derek and Milo exchanged glances. “Uh, so I have a mana fusor character named Milo…”

Milo waved at Mr. Anderson. “Hello, sir. An honor to meet you.”

Mr. Anderson kept his eyes on Derek, with no sign he even heard Milo. “Okay…”

“And he’s…” Derek gestured toward Milo, who was still waving. Mr. Anderson glanced at what to him was empty air before looking back at Derek. Derek sighed, then turned to look at Milo. “Isn’t there something you can do to look more like a mana fusor?”

Milo glanced down at his obviously nerdy get up before giving Derek an annoyed look. Then a light entered his eyes. “Right! I’ve got it!” Milo pulled a wrench and a beaker out of his inventory and placed them on the table before mussing up his hair to make it look like a crazed scientist.

“Do you have goggles, by any chance?” Derek asked Mr. Anderson.

His biology teacher shrugged, getting up and walking toward his lab. He slid his hand toward the wall and got some safety goggles before setting them on the table.

“Thanks,” Derek said, picking them up and handing them to Milo. Derek kept a careful eye on Mr. Anderson and saw the moment of confusion where the goggles disappeared from Derek’s hands and into Milo’s. The surprise turned into a deeper frown as he leaned over to see if they fell on the floor.

Milo slapped the goggles onto his head, finishing his mussed up look. He pulled out a vial of gold mana and poured it into a beaker. He shoved the empty vial into his inventory, then picked up the beaker and the wrench, smiling at Mr. Anderson like so many other pictures of mana fusors. Mr. Anderson was still trying to find the goggles on the ground.

“He’s still not seeing me,” Milo whispered out the side of his mouth as he kept his smile.

“Do something else. He noticed the goggles are missing,” Derek whispered back. Which caused Mr. Anderson to glance at him.

“Derek, what—”

Milo plinked his wrench against the beaker. The golden mana glowed. Mr. Anderson heard it, because his eyes again darted around before they froze right on the glowing mana in Milo’s hand. Derek’s heart quickened as his biology teacher stared at the mana, then his gaze spread out to take in Milo’s torso before settling on Milo’s face. The mana fusor kept his grin that was a bit more manic scientist. It was frozen on his face as Milo and Mr. Anderson stared at each other.

The two minutes were up. Derek didn’t actually know how much time they had left in the two minutes, but there was an endless stretch of silence as Mr. Anderson just stared at Milo. There wasn’t a single facial tick on his face. He was simply looking.

Milo broke his gaze from Mr. Anderson to shoot Derek a concerned look before looking back at the biology teacher.

It was getting close to the first bell, and Mr. Anderson was still frozen in place, staring at Milo with a mostly blank face. Mr. Anderson lifted a hand, then touched Milo’s forehead. Milo stared up at it, almost cross-eyed.

“So… my mana fusor needs a lab…” Derek said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.

That seemed to jolt Mr. Anderson back to reality. He dropped his hand and tore his gaze from Milo to Derek. He gave Derek all of two seconds of attention before draining the last of his second cup of coffee. He set it on his desk. “No.”

Derek frowned, then shared a hasty glance with Milo. “Wait… no?”

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Anderson said.

“Look, Mr. Anderson, I know this may be—”

“Whatever he is—” Mr. Anderson gestured toward Milo, “—I want no part of it. I don’t want to know how he came to be. I don’t even want to hear whatever sob story I’m assuming will accompany it.”

“Have you heard of this happening before?” Derek asked, sounding hopeful.

“Nope. And I don’t intend on staying to figure it out, either. As far as I’m concerned, you never came in here, and I never saw—” Mr. Anderson again looked straight at Milo, his speech stuttering to a stop. Milo was still glancing between Derek and Mr. Anderson. “No lab, Derek. None at all. I’m not interested in losing my job again.”

“But—”

“Nope.” Mr. Anderson gathered his notes. “This is illegal on so many levels, and I don’t even want to know what brought him here. I don’t want to know anything. I’m not interested.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll both take the two minutes before the bell to pretend this entire conversation never happened. See you in a few minutes.”

Mr. Anderson walked over to the corner of the room. There were two doors. One leading to the lab, one leading to a tiny office. Mr. Anderson opened the door to his office and slid inside. Derek sighed, covering his face. Milo glanced at Derek, then lightly tapped the mana. It stopped glowing, and he poured the mana back into the vial. “No sense wasting it.”

Derek glanced at the door again. “At least Mr. Anderson seems to be the person who will keep his word.” He headed for the door to the hallway. “Which means we’re at least not getting our minds wiped by government officials.”

“Does your government even have that power?” Milo asked.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Derek said, opening the door and gesturing for Milo to get out.

Milo took off the goggles and placed them on the table before following. “But if they can alter your memories, you won’t remember you saw it.”

Derek shook his head. “I’m only semi joking. I don’t think they actually have that power.”

“Oh, good.”

Derek’s smile was wry as they entered the hallway. He waited a bit by the door, since there was not that much time until class. He’d just have to do what Mr. Anderson requested. The quest was still there, so it hadn’t been completed yet. Perhaps he just needed time to adjust to the fact that people were walking around invisibly in town.

Yeah. Derek would need some time if that were the case, too.

Mr. Anderson did his best to ignore Milo once the bell rang. Milo was fascinated with AP Biology, though. Derek tore out a few pages from his notebook for Milo to take notes on. He was on his belly, his feet crossed in the aisle of the desks as he wrote notes from the lecture. Milo gave the occasional grunt or a “Fascinating!” while Mr. Anderson was talking about different elements on the periodic table.

The bell rang for the end of class, and Mr. Anderson excused them all, leaning against the table as he stared at Milo. Derek didn’t know what else to do but give an unenthusiastic wave as he walked out of the classroom. The look Mr. Anderson gave him was nearly emotionless. But if Mr. Anderson had even been a bit like Derek, there was no doubt a huge war going on in his head.