“I kind of wish I'd had this guy back at Garden, you know?” As she said that, Trouble was watching her cyberform snake, Herbie, coil his way around a piece of driftwood far out on the beach a good two hundred yards from the entrance to the Crossroads school grounds. There was a line of metal nuts along the wood where she had placed them so the snake could gradually eat each, one at a time. “The whole apple and snake thing would have been pretty spot-on. Though, ahh, do you think they would have called me Eve if I had that going on?”

Her assembled teammates and mentor looked at one another before Paul Calburn shook his head. His sandy hair had grown out just enough that it waved slightly with the motion. “You know, I don't like to judge people too quick, but so far I'm pretty sure they would’ve stuck with Trouble. Kinda seems like it’s your brand. No offense.”

“Hey, when you’re right, you’re right.” Exhaling, she turned away from her study of the metal serpent to focus on the six people staring at her, hand idly brushing along the side of the log. Her mouth opened before she paused. “See, I was about to ask what was up with you guys, but I get the feeling you might just throw stuff at me.”

“Trust your instincts,” Cameron, the team mentor, flatly retorted. The dark-skinned girl wore her best serious expression, while her pet (flesh and blood) blue-tongued skink, Tad Cooper, perched on her shoulder. The lizard wore his own best serious expression as well, though it was slightly ineffective thanks to repeated flicks of its namesake blue tongue “Look, you asked us not to say anything about that guy who showed up at the end of the hunt. Which seems stupid, but you said you'd explain, and he didn’t really do too much damage. Aside from hitting me from behind, but I’m pretty sure I’ll have the chance to get him back for that soon enough. Anyway, you asked to keep it quiet, so we did. But we gave you the time you wanted, so now you need to answer some questions. Or one big one, mostly.”

“Yeah,” Sands piped up. “What the hell was all that about? What’s going on? Who--” She stopped as Scout leaned over to whisper something to her, then nodded. “Yeah, I know, that’s more than one question. But it’s all the same--it’s just built off--I mean--” She focused on Trouble, squinting. “Ahem, one question. What… the… fuck?”

Standing just a little bit apart from the others, given she still wasn't sure exactly how she fit in with all this, Hannah Daniels couldn’t help but nod slightly with the question while speaking up tentatively. “Yeah, I--uh, I’m pretty sure that sums it up.” As the others glanced to her, she flushed before adding a weak, “Of course, that's basically the question I've been having since I got here, so I’m not exactly sure how out of proportion this specific thing is compared to every other weird thing that’s been happening since I woke up on the bus in the middle of that field. I--” She coughed, folding her arms across her stomach with a helpless shrug. “I've been confused and kind of lost this whole time. But seeing you guys all confused and lost too, that’s kinda scary.”

“Hey, I promised I’d explain and I meant it.” Trouble’s voice was as reassuring as she could make it as she focused first on Hannah, then the others. “I just had to make sure we had privacy.”

“Dude, we’re in the middle of nowhere already,” Sands pointed out while gesturing around them. “Everyone else is at lunch. Which we’re gonna miss if we don’t get in there, and you do not want to see me try to do math on an empty stomach. So, what's the deal? What--”

“Look.” That was Gordon, pointing to the spot where Trouble had been not actually idly brushing her hand over the log. Instead, she had been using a small, concealed field-engraver to scrawl a spell there.

“Like I said,” she informed them as everyone focused on the runes, “we have to make sure we’ve got privacy.” With that, she activated the spell, and a glowing orangish dome, just large enough for all of them to stand in, appeared around the group.

Cameron spun to face the dome, putting her hand against it. Or rather, through it. She leaned out, the top of her body becoming distorted as she turned to look back at the dome from the other side. Then she pulled her head back in. “Some sort of illusion spell. From outside, you can’t see the dome, and it looks and sounds like we’re just talking about how cool the hunt was.”

That made everyone stare at the former Garden student anew, before Paul was finally the first to find his voice after a few long, silent seconds. “Okay, how the hell do you know how to do a spell like that? Last time I checked, Eden’s Garden doesn't teach magic any earlier than we do. Our bodies can't handle it. And that’s gotta be a pretty big spell.”

Snorting, Trouble murmured, “You have no idea.” Offering him a tiny smile then, she added, “And you're right, I didn't learn it from the teachers at Garden. Not exactly. I didn't even cast it. She did.”

The others were about to ask what she meant by ‘she,’ when a glowing humanoid figure abruptly emerged from inside of Trouble. The bright glowing form soon resolved into a pretty blonde, about the same age as the blonde she had just emerged from (yet clearly a different person), wearing white jeans, white boots, a light blue button-up shirt, and a pink watch. She stepped out of the other girl, cracked her neck, and focused on the others. “Well uh, hi.”

Of everyone standing there, staring in shock at the figure in front of them, it was actually Hannah who found her voice first, strained as it was. “Trouble, you--you have a conjoined spiritual twin? Is that a thing?” As the others turned their stares to her, she helplessly blurted, “I don’t know what’s a thing around here!”

“I’m not her twin,” the newly-revealed girl put in. “I'm not even related, not really. I’m actually--”

“Seosten.” That was Scout, speaking up audibly, her voice flat yet certain. “You’re a Seosten.”

“Wait,” Trouble blurted, “how do you know that wor--”

She was interrupted as another glowing figure, this one quite a bit smaller, emerged from Scout that time. She was a young, also blonde girl, wearing a red, skintight bodysuit that almost looked like pajamas on her tiny form. At a guess, she couldn’t have been older than eight or nine. Her attention was fixated on the other figure who had just revealed herself. “Umm… hello.”

“Okay, okay, hold on!” Cameron abruptly held up both hands, staring with wide eyes as her gaze snapped back and forth between the two newly-revealed figures. “Just wait a second here. Does--” She stopped short, taking in a deep breath before letting it out as she fought to find the right words. Finally, she settled on, “Does anybody else have a little blonde girl living inside them? Wait, scratch that. Does anyone else have anybody we don’t know about living inside them? Just to get it all out in the open. Paul? Hannah? Do you guys have anybody to share?”

Hannah shook her head quickly. “No, nope. It's just me here. No secret friends tagging along. Trust me, if I had someone else I could talk to about all this, I'd probably be a little less confused. Are you guys saying this whole thing isn't normal?”

“Random girls popping out of people?” Gordon clarified. “No. That is definitely not normal.”

“You guys really need to explain what the hell is going on,” Cameron informed them. “Because at this point, I'm really starting to think that I should have talked to one of the professors about this. Or even the headmistress.”

“No!” Sands blurted. “You can’t talk to any of them about it. You can’t talk to anyone else about it.” She stepped forward, partially in front of the smaller blonde girl who had emerged from Scout. “We don't know which of them can be trusted, or--”

“Sands.” Silencing her sister with that single word and a hand on her shoulder, Scout turned her focus to the girl who had emerged from Trouble. “Introductions.” That second single word was all she said. It was all she needed to say.

“Right,” the older blonde stranger managed a weak smile while starting hesitantly. “As fun as Trouble thinks it is to see you all confused… I can explain. I… mean I can explain myself.” She gave a quick glance to the much younger girl, who was peeking out from behind Sands’ leg at her. “I’m actually--”

“Seosten,” Sands interrupted impatiently. “You’re a Seosten, right? But you wouldn't have revealed yourself if you were on an official mission. So you must’ve run away or something. But--”

Trouble cut her off. “She’s not a Seosten. Not exactly. But your girl, if she’s a Seosten then--”

“Guys!” Cameron put in, throwing her hands up. “Someone, anyone, please just… What the hell is a Seosten?!”

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Turning slightly to find their team mentor, along with Gordon, Paul, and Hannah all staring at them in complete confusion, Trouble grimaced. “Sorry, guess we got a bit side-tracked there. Look, this is Vanessa. She’s not a Seosten. She’s half-Seosten.” Before they could blurt out questions, she quickly added, “Seosten are Strangers. Like, capital S. But not the evil kind. I mean they--it’s complicated.”

“Very complicated,” Vanessa agreed. “But she’s right, I’m not evil. Neither is my mother, she’s the real Seosten. Her name’s--”

“Sariel!” the much younger new figure blurted, eyes widening with realization through all that. “Her name’s Sariel, right?! She’s my mama too!” There was delight in her voice, as she abruptly darted out from behind Sands and flung herself that way to embrace Vanessa. “You’re my sister!”

“Ooookay,” Trouble finally managed after everyone had stared at that for a few long seconds. “Even I’m confused about that one.”

“She’s Sariel’s older daughter,” Sands gasped. “The one she got torn away from before. It’s really her. We’ve been looking for her for years and she just ends up right here? What--”

Voice sounding strained, Cameron spoke up with her hands raised as she pleaded with clear desperation. “Okay, just… would someone, anyone at this point, please just explain what a Seosten really is? And what’s going on here? Because I feel like I’m losing my mind right now.”

“Right, well…” Exchanging a look with Vanessa, who was still being clung to by the younger girl, Trouble shrugged. “I guess we should take turns and start from the top.

“And uhh, you might wanna sit down for this.”

*******

It took the entire rest of the lunch break for both sides of the explanation to be fully detailed. Or at least detailed enough for the moment. There was still a fair bit that needed to be said, and the others had plenty more questions. But they at least had the basic gist of the situation.

Paul pointed to Vanessa. “So, she's the half-human daughter of one of these Seosten, who are body-possessing angel poser aliens that have enslaved practically the entire universe to fight against the Fomorians. Her mom basically went native and ran away with her dad, and they had Vanessa and her twin brother. Then when they were little kids, one of the Seosten tried to bring their mom back, and there was a magic accident that sent her mom, dad, and brother scattered through the universe. She was left behind, got put in foster care eventually, then she got suspicious and started snooping around and found out her foster parents were working for one of these Seosten people. There was a confrontation with the dad and Vanessa’s half-Seosten power to possess people kicked in so she possessed him and found out a lot more about the Seosten woman. She erased his memory, then went off to find out more and try to track down her family.”

Gordon took the next turn to speak, focused on Trouble. “Meanwhile, you were taken into Eden’s Garden as a child after your mother and father both disappeared. You started getting suspicious of your tribe leader, Akita, so you found a way to snoop through one of the offices she keeps in the Bystander world. Then it turned out that you had good reason to be suspicious of her, because she’s actually possessed by the Seosten Vanessa was trying to find.”

Paul nodded thoughtfully, regarding each of them in turn. “So you both ran into each other snooping around that place, fought for a while, then figured out you were on the same side. Vanessa’s been possessing Trouble over at Garden while you both looked for answers.”

“Exactly,” Trouble confirmed. “That’s been going on for a few years. Investigations are slow. Then one of the Seosten tried to possess me over this past summer. He couldn't do it because I already had Vanessa. I dunno if he could tell she was there or not, but I couldn’t let him run away and tell people. So we fought. I would’ve taken the fucker down, but he jumped into that Noble guy you saw over by the cabins. He’s one of Ikita’s descendants, so they treat him like he’s special. That's how I ended up getting in trouble--heh--and it would’ve been worse except my ancestor, Seller, is pretty important over there too. And he's an old friend of the headmistress here. He got her to take me in and legally adopt me so Garden is supposed to leave me alone. That’s how Vanessa and I ended up here.”

“Which is annoying,” Vanessa herself put in, “Because we know Cahethal, the Seosten who can help me find my family, is over there. We don’t know who the Seosten in charge here is.”

“And apparently they haven’t given up on figuring out what the deal with not being able to possess me is,” Trouble noted. “Given that fucker decided to show up and start causing problems.”

Cameron slowly nodded. She was scratching Tad Cooper under his throat while turning her attention to Sands, Scout, and the other newly revealed figure. Her eyes centered on that young blonde figure who was holding onto Scout’s leg. “Okay, meanwhile, you’re Tabbris. You’re the full Seosten daughter of Vanessa’s mother. When that banishment thing happened, she was imprisoned and they put her in some sort of… fucking… breeding facility. You were born, and she managed to magically send you to the woman she used to possess back here on Earth before she went rogue… Sands’ and Scout’s mom. Your mom introduced you both to the baby Tabbris and they umm… they put her inside Sands and had her magically sleep out of sight like that with some sort of mental automated tutoring until she was old enough to move around on her own. But before that happened, while she was still ‘asleep,’ Sariel projected herself… magically to visit. You all met her on the boat out there on the water. But a Fomorian showed up. Your mom managed to send Sands out here to the beach, to make sure she and Tabbris were safe. But Scout was still there. Sands went to get your dad, but by the time he got to the boat, your mom, Sariel, and the Fomorian were all gone. Scout didn’t know what happened, and you guys have been hiding Tabbris and taking care of her ever since. That about sum it up?”

Paul was shaking his head. “Man, what are the odds that Trouble, who happens to be hiding one of this Sariel lady’s kids inside her while knowing all about the Seosten, ends up here at Crossroads on the same team with Sands and Scout, who happen to be hiding another one of Sariel’s kids inside them while knowing all about the Seosten? That’s gotta be some sort of record coincidence, right?”

“Are… are you sure it’s a coincidence?” Hannah, who had been quiet through most of that, tentatively put in. “I mean, it's like you said, what are the odds of that? It seems like it's more likely that someone in power here knows the truth about these two and put them together on purpose, doesn't it?”

“But who? And how? And why?” Trouble demanded. “How would someone here know both about my whole thing with Vanessa and about Scout and Sands having Tabbris? And if someone in authority did know about her, why wouldn't they have done anything about it before now?”

Sands was giving a quick nod. “Yeah, we’ve had Tabbris for years. No one ever said anything. She's invisible to all of the magical detection stuff in Crossroads, cuz all Seosten are.”

It was Gordon’s turn to speak then, his voice thoughtful. “It seems as though any who might have had negative intentions would have confronted them by now. And any who had altruistic intentions most likely would have helped more than simply pushing them together in this team and hoping something would happen.”

Hannah grimaced a little. “Sure, fair point. But it still seems like too much of a coincidence. Seriously, unless there's a lot more people with hidden Seosten in them, you guys just happening to end up on the same team is a bit of a stretch.”

Peeking out from behind Scout, Tabbris tentatively spoke up. “Uh, maybe… maybe it’s the magic?”

“Magic?” Vanessa echoed, before holding her arms out. “Hey, come here.” She waited until Tabbris had darted to her, then wrapped her arms around the girl in an embrace. “What do you mean by magic?”

Blushing under the intent, curious stares from everyone, the young Seosten girl squirmed before finding her voice. “Oh, um, I just mean, the umm… there’s this spell that the Crossroads headmistress--or headmaster is supposed to do. It's supposed to tell them what groups would be best together, or be the most effective team, or whatever. I’m not sure exactly how it works, Mama didn’t get that far. And the headmistress can make her own decisions too. She’s not beholden to what the spell says. It's just supposed to give her a place to start from. Maybe she used it and the spell told her that Trouble would work well with Sands and Scout. But it was actually saying that because of…” She hesitated, then looked up to her sister and embraced her a bit more tightly. “Because of us.”

“Never heard of that spell,” Cameron muttered before shrugging. “But I guess that might explain it. Or maybe Hannah’s right and someone around here does know something. They could have some reason not to reveal themselves yet. This is a pretty big secret.”

“Speaking of secret,” Sands announced as she turned to face their mentor directly, “You're gonna keep it, right? You can't tell anybody about Tabbris. Or Vanessa.” That was added with a belated look toward the girl in question before she turned back that way. “You can't tell people about them. They won’t understand.”

Coughing, Cameron grimaced. “You mean they won’t understand that our entire Heretic Society was supposedly created by these Seosten in order to train us to be their biological warsuits to fight the Fomorians, and that it’s not that Strangers are all evil, they just want us to think that so we get plenty of fight training in and don’t have any allies to actually tell us the truth about this whole situation?” She let that hang in the air for a few seconds before dryly adding, “Yeah, I guess I can see how that would be a bit hard for them to believe.”

“But if it’s the truth,” Hannah carefully and hesitantly pointed out, “then telling anyone would be really bad.”

“Epically fucking bad,” Trouble agreed firmly, her gaze locked on Cameron. “The sort of bad we wouldn't recover from.”

Holding up her hand for the others to be quiet for a moment, Cameron looked away while thinking intently. She considered all of their options, exchanging a look with Gordon and Paul for a moment as she thought about their own reactions. “Guys, what do you think?” she finally asked.

The two boys exchanged glances, before Gordon spoke first. “We can keep it secret. I’d like to find out more. And we can’t do that, to verify or disprove any of this, if the adults find out.”

“Ehh, what he said,” Paul agreed. “If this is all real, then telling people would be stupid beyond belief. But I do want to find out more. And the only way to do that is by keeping quiet about it and investigating on our own.”

“Hannah?” Cameron prompted with a look that way.

The dark-haired girl offered a weak shrug. “Everything about this world is new to me. If these guys say it was built by those Seosten people, then… maybe it was. I do know that I want to find out more for sure before I go around killing a bunch of possibly-innocent living beings.”

“Okay.” Cameron spoke that single word, then repeated it. “Okay. You guys are right, we'll keep this whole thing a secret. But we're going to investigate by ourselves. We’re gonna find out the truth, whatever it is. We’ll find out who we can trust and who we can’t, okay?

“For now, this whole thing stays just between us, nobody else. And together, we’re gonna find some fucking answers.”