Volume 6: Anaphase

Issue 2: It's Time to Duel

Jannette Adrian Churchwell

By Nova

“So,” Amber asked, “what the fuck are hit dice supposed to be?”

Linda looked up from her dragon miniature. “I…” she started, but suddenly looked confused. “You roll them for short rests, I think,” she finally said.

We all were sitting at one of the gaming tables at Aesop’s, tucked away from the booths. Around us were shelves full of board games, little models, boxes of dice, and loads of books. From where I sat I had a pretty good look at the rest of the store too, and kept glancing up from my character sheet to scan for Holly.

“But my health is determined from them?” Amber asked.

“I… Yes, or the type of die. Like, if you have a d8 hit die, you roll that every time you level up, then add your CON modifier.”

“Oh,” Amber said. “That’s stupid, like, why don’t they call them health dice or something?”

Linda sighed. “I… I don’t know, ask Gary Gygax.”

“Who?”

“The guy who made DnD,” Linda said.

“Sounds familiar,” Camilo said, although his attention seemed to be elsewhere—his eyes wandering over his character sheet. Interrupting, he added, “But another question: how many new spells can I learn now?”

“Just one,” Linda said. “Here, this is the Bard level up-chart-thing. You get a new first level spell and new class features, too.”

“Jack of All Trades…” Camilo muttered, reading from the chart Linda had pointed at.

I tried to tune their questions out and focus on my own level up, which wasn’t too hard to figure out honestly. Getting a Cleric to level two just meant choosing a Divine Domain, and I couldn’t figure out whether I wanted a Grave Cleric or a Life Cleric. I glanced up. Across the table, I saw Florian who—like usual—had been quiet this entire time. The kid stared at the player’s handbook, carefully tracing his finger along the class options for Rangers. He was… odd somehow, like he was constantly distracted by something I couldn’t see—but a nice guy overall. Out of the three teenagers I liked him the best, especially compared to…

“Hey, Florry-worry,” Amber suddenly said, “how many attacks can you do a round?” She sounded proud, like always, and used that strange nickname for Florian—it didn’t even rhyme?

Florian sighed. “Just one,” he said.

“Step it up, I have two now.” Amber smiled broadly. “Whatever that means.”

I didn’t like Amber. She reminded me of the type of girl who bullied me relentlessly in high school; arrogant and bitchy. She always wore the cutting edge of fashion, even just to play DnD, and her attention seemed split between her phone and nagging Camilo and Florian at every opportunity. The one thing I couldn’t figure out about her is why a girl like her was hanging out with them in the first place? She’d be more at home in the Starbucks across the street than at Aesop’s, so why was she here?

If she wasn’t a literal walking nightmare for me, I would have confronted her about it by now.

“Fighters have a lot of attacks, huh?” Camilo asked. He glanced over my way. “What about you, Jannette, can Clerics bring the pain?” He shot me a smile.

“U-uh…” I looked over my character sheet. “I guess so? I do a d8+3 with my warhammer…”

Camilo nodded vigorously. “Nice,” he said. I nodded back, not really sure how to respond. Of the three of them, Camilo was the only one to really talk to me outside of the game, though I wasn’t ever really sure how to talk back. While I rather appreciated the mutual silence in which me and Florian could sit together, it was honestly nice to chat with someone every now and again.

“Amber,” Linda said, “sorry to rain on your parade, but Action Surge can only be used once per short rest.”

Amber frowned. “Once per short rest… I thought you said this was the easiest class?”

“It is, but you don’t get extra attacks until fifth level.”

Amber slunk down into her chair. “Lame,” she muttered.

Linda’s phone buzzed on the table and, checking it, she frowned. “Sorry guys, I’ll have to cancel Friday’s session. Just got a message from work. They need me to balance accounts at the new office they’re opening up in Redding tomorrow.” She exchanged the slightest of glances with me, but I immediately understood what was actually happening.

“Is your entire office going to help?” I asked.

Linda shook her head. “Nope, just me. I’m the only one with the qualifications for a move like this.”

I just nodded. If I understood correctly, the FBI might have figured out a possible location for the First Way’s base… or at least one of them. It must be somewhere up near Redding, unless Linda made that up, and probably deep in the woods. Someone like me would be useless in a dense forest unless we were attacking. But, if they were just doing recon, someone like Ripple could help survey the area without risking the lives of any expensive helicopters.

“Booo,” Amber said. “We have to postpone again?” She sounded more disappointed than I thought she would.

“Afraid so, sorry guys,” Linda said. “I’ll help you guys finish the level up tonight though.”

“Thanks,” Camilo said, “this spell stuff is kinda confusing…”

I heard the door chime behind me. Turning around, I saw Holly entering through the front door. She gave me a little wave when she saw me, and headed to one of the booths to set up her deck. I waved back and turned to Linda. “I gotta go, Lin, but thanks for the help with the level up.”

Linda raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. “Have fun, Jan, I’ll be in touch about your Cleric later.”

I didn’t like the way she said “fun,” but smiled back. “Of course,” I said, and I headed over to Holly’s booth.

“Hey, Jan!” Holly said as I crossed the room over to her. She was already unpacking her deck and shuffling it as I sat down. She wore a cute black tank top today, which I knew meant she didn’t have time to put on her usual leathers and chains. She must be tired, something that was reflected in her eyes, despite the smiles.

“Hey,” I greeted. “How are you doing? Did the thing you texted me about…”

“Oh, well, today was fine other than… well, that.”

“That?”

Holly sighed. “I don’t know, it was really… weird…” She suddenly looked tired as she shuffled her deck.

“You wanna play a game first?” I asked. Maybe a round of Icons would cheer her up.

Holly smiled, and nodded. “Yeah, flip a coin or…”

I chuckled. “You choose.”

“Alright.” She placed her deck on the table and drew the opening five cards. “I’ll go first.”

Icons, I had come to learn, was Holly’s way of chilling out. Mine too now, I supposed, but even as I had gotten better over the past few weeks it still felt like her game. This wasn’t a bad thing. Though I found myself wishing I could beat her best decks fair-and-square, our games still offered a strangely intimate peek into what interested her. While she interned at the Chapel High School Library, Holly’s main passion was Cold War history and the rise of superpowers. She was a graduate student at UCSF studying the topic, and she built decks based off of different time periods in the history of superheroics.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She was better than me at the game, although, in my defense, she also had a lot more cards than I did to build her decks. But I was getting better, relearning a game which, thankfully, hadn’t changed too much since I played it last. Icons itself was pretty simple. It was played on a nine-by-nine “tile” grid—the “battlefield”—with an extra card at either end to serve as your “base.” The goal of the game was to bring the health of your opponent’s base down to zero. You could play one card from your hand a turn, unless you played a card that let you do more of course. There were two types of cards: characters and supports, whereas the former stayed on the battlefield while the latter had instant effects. Additionally, every turn you could activate a single character card on the battlefield to move them, or make them use their ability… And, of course, you could only play character cards onto a tile adjacent to one you “controlled,” which was defined by whether or not you had a character card there… And then there was the standby zone, the discard pile…

Well, maybe Icons wasn’t all that simple… but you could do worse. I still liked it better than Yu-Gi-Oh…

Our match opened pretty typically. I played Champion II—a holographic variant I was lucky enough to pull with Holly that first day we met—as my opener in front of my base. Holly didn’t seem worried and idly played Cosmonaut. Instantly, I knew she wasn’t going easy on me; Cosmonaut was in her Soviet-Heroes themed deck, her personal favorite… I shifted into a defensive position, playing the support card 911, popping an EMT token into existence next to Champion II. “If this card is in play, all your adjacent characters cannot be defeated,” I read aloud.

Holly shrugged. “It’s a one health, can’t move token.” She played Red Guard next to Cosmonaut. “I’m not worried.”

“Well… maybe you should be?” I could start advancing toward Holly by playing off of EMT or Champion II… but decided to play a Mr. F to fill out my backline. “I end my turn,” I said, leaning back. Mr. F and Champion II made a tough barrier to crack. Together with EMT, which Holly would have to focus on to kill Champion II, I should have enough time to draw something good…

But—before I could even plan my next move—Holly played a Meteora card at the center of the battlefield, smirked, then read out the card’s ability that I had heard a hundred times before. “On Play: Inflict 6 damage to all cards in the row in front of Meteora.” I could do nothing but sigh as my entire backline, including my holographic Champion II, vanished into my standby zone—my base left wide open.

“I end my turn,” she said, “though I am a little worried.” She grinned.

I drew a card; nothing good. “Long day?” I asked as I played a Deaddrop in a desperate defensive gambit in front of my base. “You mentioned something weird at work? I end my turn.”

“Mhm.” She moved her Red Guard card next to Deaddrop. “Take six damage,” she said.

I didn’t bother to note it. “Deaddrop has 20 health, restores to full at the end of each round. Plus, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, just…” She looked like she was thinking for a moment. “It’s weird, you know?”

“Weirder than a monster and that powerfight on the football field?” I asked, trying my best to sound like those things were, at all, weird to me.

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t see anything either of those times… I end my turn, by the way.”

I nodded. “So this was… different?” I moved Deaddrop diagonally forward, then played the support card APB Dispatch. Three police tokens filled my back line. “I end my turn. What did you see?”

Holly didn’t look at her hand, and stared off into space, as if lost in thought.

“You alright?” I asked, a little worried. “You sounded more… excited in the text.”

“I’m fine. It’s just… I was so sure of what I saw then but now… I don’t know…”

“What’d you see?”

Holly looked me dead in the eyes. “A ghost,” she said, plainly.

I almost giggled, but the serious look in Holly’s eyes caught it in my throat. “Y-you’re serious?”

Holly leaned back in her seat. “Maybe? I mean, it wasn’t so much that I saw something, but I’ve been hearing these weird… noises in the library when I’m there after school putting away books. I didn’t really think anything of it before, but today…”

I leaned in. “Yeah?” I asked.

“Well, I was putting away a few nonfiction books when I heard footsteps on the other side of the shelf. It was… weird, especially since all the students had gone home by now, or should have at least. So I called out, asking if they needed help, and… no answer.”

“Not too weird for a kid who should’ve gone home, right? Trying to be sneaky?”

“Maybe… And I guess that’s what I figured. So I go to put away the last few books on my cart, and as I move… the footsteps followed me.”

“Followed you?”

“Like… imitated me. Like the person on the other side of the shelf was following me. I couldn’t see anything through the gaps, except maybe a flash of movement? It was… creepy.” She looked genuinely troubled; her brows knit in an uncharacteristic sign of worry.

“Definitely creepy…” I agreed.

“So by the time I’d put away the last book, I’d had enough. I charged around the corner and…”

“And?”

“Nothing, there was no one there…” she said. “I mean, I heard movement as I turned the corner, but for someone to move so fast…”

“Hmmm…” I thought for a moment. “And you think this is a… ghost?”

Holly sighed. “I mean… I thought it was just a stalker at first, but when I saw that empty aisle…” She groaned. “But now I’m not sure… and if it wasn’t for all the weird shit going on at Chapel…”

“The school does seem a little cursed.” I awkwardly chuckled.

“Tell me about it,” she muttered. She turned her attention back to the game. “I play Operation Rolling Thunder,” she said, playing a support card. “Deaddrop’s dead.” She smiled.

I groaned, moving the card to standby. “Alright, alright, anything else?”

“I move Cosmonaut up, and deal one damage to all adjacent cards… Should be enough to kill both those cop tokens?”

“Yep…” Things were looking grim. My base was open and the only card I had was a single cop token, which couldn’t attack and only had one health… “You finished?”

Holly did an exaggerated stretch. “Yep, your turn.”

I cleared my throat and cast my eyes down at my deck. “Alright…” Everything depended on this last draw… It had to be good. With a surge of expectation, I carefully drew a card and brought it to my hand.

I almost laughed. It was too perfect. My ace card: me.

Or, more officially, the Stitch ghost-rare Icons card. It was a holographic, silvery-white image of myself striking a pose that I would never be cool enough to do in reality. The one condition I gave the Icons company when they approached me about using my likeness was that they give me the rarest printing of the card as a gift. There were probably only a handful of these in existence, and I had to admit that it was exciting to actually use it in a real game.

“I play Stitch,” I confidently announced. I read, “On Play: Return one card from your standby to an adjacent space on the battlefield.” I placed Deaddrop back in front of my base. I glanced up at Holly. “I end my turn.”

Holly leaned in to get a better look at the card. “Damn, is that a ghost-rare Stitch?” she asked. Her eyes darted up at me and narrowed, suspiciously, as she looked closely at my gray hair. My heart suddenly started racing. “You… You a big Stitch fan?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “Y-yep! Ever since med school! She’s kinda an inspiration I guess?” I squeaked.

She looked at me for a few more seconds, then shrugged and looked back at the card. “That thing’s seriously rare, I can’t believe you never showed me it before!”

“Haha, yeah… Well, I got lucky in a booster one day…”

“Yeah, pulling a ghost-rare Stitch would turn me into a fangirl, too.” Holly laughed. “Alright, my turn?”

I nodded.

“Good. Well, sorry, but I’ve gotta shut this whole thing down. I play Time Vortex,” she said, placing down a familiar support card.

“Oh God…”

“That’s right! Deaddrop is removed until the end of my turn… and I move Meteora one space up…”

“Here it comes…” I said, resigning myself to my fate.

“On move, Meteora does ten damage to the space in front of her… and it looks like the only card there is?”

“My base… You got me.” I muttered, dropping my base’s ten health to zero and sliding back into my chair.

“Good game,” Holly said, beaming at me. “When you pulled Stitch out, I really had no idea if I could take both her and Deaddrop. Got lucky with that final draw.”

“Yeah, yeah…” I said, packing my cards back into my deck. “Stitch was a lucky draw, too.”

“Well, it was still a good game,” Holly said. “Wish I had time for another one… but it’s getting late. Got class in the morning, then work after that.” Her expression darkened.

“Did you… tell anyone about what you saw in the library?” I asked.

“No, I’m still wondering if it was my imagination, or a stalker, or… Well, something worse.” Holly sighed. “And it… might be nothing. I’m just here on an internship, I don’t want to make too many waves…”

“But with all that’s happened…”

“Plus there’s a few new superheroes running around, and rumor has it that they’re students! I don’t think Chapel’s ever been safer,” she added, her voice oozing sarcasm.

“I’ve heard about them…” I said, “They’re just kids, right?”

“That’s what they say,” Holly said. “A trio, apparently.”

“‘The Chapel Trio,’ huh?” I muttered. Despite Holly’s jokes, I could tell she was genuinely nervous about… whatever she saw. It was probably nothing, or probably just some creepy teenager stalking her…

I could feel some kind of protective hero instinct starting to kick in. “You know… I have a day off tomorrow,” I said, truthfully since I was currently without a costume. “Why don’t I tag along for your library shift? I could help put books away, help organize…” or keep an extra eye out for anything weird…

Holly’s eyes went wide. “O-oh, Jan, you don’t have to! I mean, It’s pretty boring work…” She laughed awkwardly. “But if you want to keep me company, I wouldn’t say no…”

“It’s no big deal. I wasn’t planning on doing anything tomorrow night, anyways.” I laughed awkwardly too, but my heart started racing when I realized what I just suggested. “W-when should I be there?”

“Four, by then most of the kids should have gone home,” Holly said. “T-thanks, Jan.”

I blushed, but managed a smile. It probably was nothing, but I was a superhero. I was pretty sure I could take whatever was making those weird noises, assuming there was anything more than a lost raccoon or a breeze from an open window or whatever. And it’d be less boring than most other stakeouts I’d done. At least, this time, I could talk to Holly while we waited…

What could possibly go wrong?