F.H. 53, Autumn in Winona

I eyed the mirror. I was tall and skinny. Painfully skinny. My shoulders weren’t broad, at all. My hair, bound in a ponytail, held a striking red predominant color, and the rest was rainbow. I don’t mean like stationery, either. I mean my hair flowed through all the different colors in the rainbow, and it did it bright enough to light a room up. Do you know how hard it was to look tough when you’re a rainbow nightlight? It’s hard. At one hundred and forty-nine centimeters I was the tallest boy in my class, but I wasn’t the imposing type.

At thirteen years old, I was level seventeen. Many of my classmates were stuck in the same range as me, between fifteen and eighteen. Lilith was also level seventeen. Dungeons were unpredictable in their appearance, and the hunting areas around Winona were kept sparsely populated for the safety of the town. Grinding out levels in other ways might work, but then it’d interfere with my attribute gains, or even worse, I could end up with a bunch of useless traits.

Lilith and Momma picked out my clothes while I’d bathed. They normally didn’t do that, but it must have been related to the whole big day surprise thing. They’d picked black pants, a simple black shirt with black stitching in strange geometric patterns, my dark red boots, and a note to wear my Spectrum Gloves.

Momma had made Lilith a Heavenshadow Staff. It was dark and holy, pristine and terrible, and I drooled and complained that Lilith got a weapon and I didn’t for days. My complaints had been needless, since Momma delivered these gloves to me less than a week later. The gloves were fingerless, black, and made of a delicate, breathing material. The bit between my knuckle and the proximal joint was stylized lace. In a deep crimson, a dragonfly tail started at my knuckle and went down to my wrist on the back of my hand. A series of smaller dragonflies bound around the lace around my wrist at the bottom of the glove.

They were stylish, at least I thought so, but more than that, they were powerful.

Spectrum Gloves: Made by Telos & Kallos Metanoia and is filled with their love for you.

Effect: Unbreakable Hands: Your hands (and gloves) are indestructible.

Effect: Wicked Affliction: Status afflictions caused by you can critically hit.

Not only did the gloves count as magical weapons, since I have an unarmed class, but they made my hands unbreakable. I could stick my hands in fire, lava, saws, and nothing would hurt them. The effect went from the tips of my fingers to five centimeters past my wrist, where the glove ended. As amazing as that was, it also allowed me to punch at full force without hurting myself, and the critical hits on status debuffs weren’t something I’d ever seen on equipment before. I hadn’t had it happen yet, but I was excited for when it did. I topped the outfit off with a thin crushed velvety that looked crinkley but wasn’t, with black embroidered dragonflies over the chest of the tailed coat. It was very thing, a little loose around the sleeves, and with two aggressive pointed tails that always flowed around me in a dramatic way.

Momma had made it for me, but it wasn’t a magic item, or even enchanted. At least, it wasn’t enchanted yet. A knock at my bedroom door revealed itself to be Lilith, who let herself in after I said enter.

“Let me tie that for you,” she said as she swept into the room and took my black lace cravat and tied it for me.

“You look handsome today. Did you put eyeliner on?”

“I did. Are you wearing makeup?” Lilith almost never wore makeup. She wore a dress today, who’s primary color was a lilac like her hair, and then black lace accents. Even the sleeves were almost transparent, and then billowy and lacey at her wrists, while the dress went to her ankles. The gentle folds of the fabric enhanced the alternating black and lilac colors, and a large amethyst hung from a black lace collar around her neck.

“I am, do you think it will pay off?” Lilith rarely asked for my opinion, but I had to admit to something problematic first.

“I hope so, sis, but… I still don’t understand why we’re all dressed up. What’s going on?”

“The last batch of transmigrators that came in from the East brought new customs with them. Or was it one of the refugees from the North? Derrick’s mom predicted a Starfall tonight, so there’s an impromptu Starfall Serenade happening. It’s a dance.”

“What? Why? Who cares? I only learned how to dance so you’d learn to let someone else lead, and I don’t like anyone.” I muttered darkly. “Who are you going to go with?”

“I asked Aisha yesterday, she’s my date.” Lilith smiled happily, and I wondered when that had happened. Aisha and Lilith had always gotten along, but sometimes they didn’t, and now they were going on a date?

“Poor Derrick,” I laughed. He used to have such a crush on Aisha.

“Uhm, you’re behind times, brother. Derrick has been dating Aisha’s older sister for almost five months now. If he’s not careful Idris will make him his son-in-law before he graduates.”

“Oh,” I said. How had I missed that? Derrick and I were like, best friends? Sort of. I talked to him more than anyone who wasn’t family, anyway. Maybe I should spend more time talking about the boring things like this, instead of how we could try to angle our power development or what item enchantments could really push us to be more formidable. I was plotting my rise to power, and he was… dating.

My mood had taken a turn for the worse. Something close to panic welled up inside my stomach, a sour taste filled my mouth, and I couldn’t help grimace. Was there something wrong with me that I just didn’t care? Other people were dumb, slow, weak, and usually freaked out about the stupidest things like my hair, or that I had two moms, or that my class was wickedly overpowered even compared to transmigrators, who usually had the strongest classes around, or at least the most powerful traits.

“What’s wrong?” Lilith didn’t seem to follow my emotional rollercoaster in this rare instance.

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“I don’t know. I mean, when did everyone get all date-y?”

“You’ll get there eventually. Maybe you just haven’t met the right person? There’s five people joining our class from the new immigrants. Try your luck with one of them.” Lilith suggested, then brushed a hand along my cravat to make me look nice again.

I opened my mouth to say I didn’t want to but stopped. Lilith didn’t like whining, and I didn’t want to ruin her excitement over the whole stupid Starfall Serenade party.

“Or you can just stay home. Lessons are optional today and have been replaced with dancing lessons for those who don’t know how to dance.” Lilith smirked at me, knowing I wouldn’t just hide at home.

“Uncle Ark agreed to cancel school? What’d they bribe him with?”

“They asked Bobbi to cater, and she prevailed upon mommy to pull out some of the high quality, high level, delicacies.”

“Momma is pulling out the high-level delicacies?” The wheels in my mind turned. I could get a stat-buff that lasted for up to a week off Aunt Bobbi’s cooking. If I got lucky and it had the right sets of buffs, I might be able to hit level eighteen without even finding a dungeon.

I rubbed my hands together excitedly. Lilith mistook my excitement for the food buff with excitement for the dance, but it didn’t matter. How hard could it be to find a date?

Ω

“Yeah, no thanks.” Gwendolyn answered immediately with a small cringe.

“Why not?” I asked in confusion.

“Look, Alexander, you are nice and all, but you’re so fast and graceful that anyone who dances with you is going to look like a dumb drunk bear in comparison. I don’t want to look like a dumb, drunk, bear. Sorry!”

Gwen answered cheerfully, then sauntered off to return to her friends. I didn’t roll my eyes after her. It seemed obvious she didn’t like me but fluffing my ego to soften the no seemed weird to me. Why were they afraid to just be blunt with me?

Most of the students had shown up at the Academy even with classes cancelled. I eyed the next cluster of girls at a table. The dark-haired girl, Akari, was a transmigrator. She was a little off, but she talked to me at least once a week. I wandered over to her table, and her friends scattered before I got there.

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” Akari asked me with a grin.

“Yeah?” I didn’t lie.

“You look great, but no. I like my men to have full, thick beards.”

“You’re thirteen, no one your age has full thick beards.”

“A dwarf would,” Akari gave me a terrifying grin, and I backed away, then rushed across the room, away from Akari. I remembered the reason why I only talked to her once a week.

“Alexander, just the strapping young lad I was looking for, since I can’t find your sister.” A heavy, dark hand fell on my shoulder as Arkaziel’s deep voice echoed across the empty-ish cafeteria. When I turned around to look, I noticed a clump of five kids my own age behind Arkaziel.

“Could you give the newcomers a tour? It’s their first day, and even if it’s impromptu become a feast tonight, someone still needs to show them the classes, locker rooms, and facilities. Thanks, buddy.” Uncle Arkaziel clapped me on the back, and just like that he abandoned me with five other kids my age. Arkaziel disappeared mid-stride. More accurately, he melted into his own shadow over the span of two seconds. After that there was no more uncle anywhere that I could see.

“Such mastery of the Umbral arts,” a girl who was obviously a transmigrator said. So far every transmigrator who showed up at Winona had an exotic appearance at least, if not an abnormal for the region race. In this case, the girl who spoke had long golden hair in multiple braids, and had slightly longer and pointed ears, marking her as an elf. The elf wore a crescent moon pendant, so I suspected she probably had a build based around the moon or light.

“Yeah, that’s the Headmaster for you. Alright, I’m Alexander, welcome to Winona.”

“I am Sophia the Lightwhisperer,” the elf proclaimed haughtily, then her cheeks flushed red. “Do people have titles like that? Oh, man this is so embarrassing, I just got a title called dramatic cosplayer, but my status screen updated my name.”

I nodded as if she wasn’t speaking gibberish. It’s a trick I excelled at, after spending time around my moms, Arkaziel, Bobbi, and Lilith. They all said ridiculous things on the regular, but Arkaziel and his assertions he’d eat a planet in one gulp yet weren’t even the worst of the inane things I had to put up with.

“Hi, I’m Tyler. I like to punch things.” Tyler was short and stocky, as befit a dwarf. He had bushy brown eyebrows and beard. I’d never seen a dwarf who wasn’t a transmigrator yet. Did they even exist?

“Cool, cool. I’m a pugilist class myself, we’ll have to practice together sometime.” I offered seriously.

“How about now?” Tyler didn’t beat around the bush.

“Sorry, but I’m not allowed to practice with other students outside of direct supervision.” I cringed at how awful that sounded. I totally sounded like some pitiful jerk making excuses about why I couldn’t do things. And the reason didn’t help. “My class has a lot of extremely dangerous auto-proc abilities, you see. So unless you’ve got a Full Ribbon quality accessory, even practices are out.”

“Sure, dude.” Tyler rolled his eyes at me. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly intimidating in my current attire, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it, did he?

“I’m Kara of Clan Flameheart. We fled the tides of blood Argarg waters the soil with in the North. May he never cross into the southlands.” Kara had red hair, freckled pale skin, and a chip on her shoulder. Unlike the dwarf and elf, she was probably like me, a reincarnation without awakened memories of their past life. We made up the majority. Transmigrators were rare-ish, but reincarnations who retained identity were seemingly ultra-rare.

Argarg the Barbarian seemed to grow more menacing with each new report out of the north. One more town sacked, one more village raised. Argarg seemed to war against civilization itself, and he pressed ever southward. Eventually he’d hit Winona someday, and the impassable walls that were Uncle Arkaziel and Aunt Bobbi.

My eyes flipped to the last member of the party, who hadn’t spoken yet. I was confused, but in a way that was nice. Nice, but awkward. Okay, I don’t really know how to describe it, my brain made a sound, and I stared at the last person. Their System information only told me three things about them.

Name: Morgan

Class: Enchanter of Whispering Shadows

Race: Esper

I had no idea if they were a man or woman. Their skin had a paleness that made the freckled red heads skin look deeply tanned, the blacks of their eyes were white, and the whites of their eyes were black, and their irises were churning darkness imbued with a purple essence that differentiated itself from all the inky colors. It was the same shadows my black Kinesis gave me control over. They had shoulder length black hair, which also had a hue of dark purpleness.

At first I assumed they must be a transmigrator, but I saw the confusion in their eyes. It vanished quickly, but I’d seen it. For all that this person seemed aloof, or different, they were also actually their age, not coasting on previous life’s knowledge. Morgan didn’t know what they were any more than I knew what I was.

Morgan wore all black. They favored the black high laced boots like Momma did, and otherwise their clothes weren’t that unique, other than the black leather jacket that looked like dungeon loot. It went down to their mid-thighs, had a high neck, and lots of little strappy elements that looked cool. Under the jacket they wore a mesh shirt, and a second lace shirt under it. I couldn’t tell from their chest if Morgan was male or female, everywhere I shifted my eyes to gauge, I couldn’t quite tell. Morgan’s face had sharp, hard features, that combined with the pallid skin and black makeup, made them look quite deathly, and very exotic. Exotic for Winona, anyway. Never mind that Winona had a three-eyed woman who sometimes had a blackhole for an eye, and that she was my mom.

Morgan’s eyes were hard to look away from.

“Want to be my date tonight?” I asked. I’d already forgotten about the other four despite each of them pointedly staring at me.