After a nice pizza picnic at the beach, the trio went back to school. Martin lost the girls when he went to use the bathroom. His way back to the classroom was partially barricaded by a chatty group of students.

As he circled the group he noticed a tall, red haired girl standing there. As Martin glanced at her he realized that she looked awfully familiar and yet different. He tried to look past the inexplicably youthful features, past the darker hair and darker eyes and found himself face to face with his worst fear - his sister.

"Ember?" He uttered.

"Ehm?" The girl turned, blinking and speaking with a fake accent. "My name is Dixie. You must be mistaken."

[This is definitely your sister,] Spiderbro confirmed Martin's suspicion. [Why is she here? Is she not too old for this educational experience?]

A barely perceptible refraction of Ember squinted angrily at Martin. He could only see the angry, ghostly resonance of his sister because his skinwalker eyes were far sharper than those of a human. It was definitely Ember!

"Why are you here, Ember?" Martin asked sternly.

The girl turned back to the crowd, resuming her chatter, throwing in a few jokes about dumb boys who can’t tell people apart.

"Shut it, pipsqueak. I'm on a mission!" A barely visible ghost of Ember appeared in front of Martin's face, turning him around towards the row of lockers. The refraction directed his hand as if he was the one opening the locker.

"What mission? What the shit?" Martin hissed back. "You're nineteen! You can't just pretend to be in 8th grade."

“I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my clueless brother and the rest of this town from supervillains. There seems to be a lot of bullshit going on here, far too much for my liking,” Ember's ghost replied.

“I don’t need your protection. Ow! Stop that!” Martin protested as the ghostly ripple pulled him into the locker.

The refraction of Ember became far more visible, flickering with a menacing glow made up from offset colors, a green and blue ghost in the darkness of the locker, holding Martin down.

“This is hero business, Martin. Do you understand? Don’t be going around calling me Ember. It’ll be an inconvenience to organize another fake identity!”

Martin groaned. He expected to face an alien monster piloting a teacher in school or perhaps some stranger-type super looking into Alexa’s shenanigans, not his irritating sister.

Just when things were looking up somebody had to inject herself into the picture and ruin everything!

“Why do you have to be in OUR class of all the places?” He whispered at her angrily, feeling that anyone looking his way will likely assume that he’s talking to himself in the depths of a locker, like some kind of a crazy person.

“Have to keep an eye out for my little, defenseless bro. There’s something very sketchy going on in this school and I’m getting to the bottom of it as the local SCA Agent. I’m actually quite impressed that you recognized me. Guess all those times I interacted with you via my avatars is finally paying off.”

Martin said nothing about his brain spider giving him the necessary tips to recognize her. He chose to focus on Ember’s looks instead.

“You look weird. Not just the hair. You look like you're four years younger! What did you do to yourself?”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Had my friends from the Academy magnify, shift and add to my power to erase a few of years from my body. T'was painful, but I’ll live. I'll wind myself back to nineteen once the mission’s done.”

Martin stared at the glowing refraction of de-aged Ember. His sister was mental. There was no other description for it.

"You're watching... Alexa?" He guessed.

"Yes, I am," Ember nodded.

"Officially? You've got the full paperwork for this mission this fast?" Martin demanded. "Who in their right mind would approve you pretending to be a fourteen year old student?! What's Alexa even guilty of?"

"Nothing yet. She is talking a lot about taking down the Superstate according to the Titanomachy observer analytics," Ember replied.

"Talking isn't a crime!" Martin declared. "There's no way a fourteen year old girl can take down Titanomachy!"

"Obviously she can't take down Titanomachy. This is... an unofficial mission," Ember shrugged. "At best she'll take down your reputation. I filed my presence in this area under general inquiry..."

"You... you can't do that!" Martin accused.

"Can and will," Ember replied. "I'm pretty high up the SCA ladder. It pays to have friends in high places. Someday you'll understand. Someday... after you get your power and graduate from the Academy, I'll make you into the greatest hero of all."

Martin squinted at his sister, barely believing her words.

“You’re messing with people, mentally,” he accused her. “Why not transfer in like a normal student or even come in as a Hero officer? Why do you have to shove yourself in as a memory of someone who’s always been there?”

“What? This is perfectly standard procedure for a covert op. Superstate agents constantly inject themselves into human organizations. When you graduate from the Hero Academy you too will become a Superstate employee - a predictor or an agent. Our family leans towards mind control and information gathering pretty heavily, you know.”

Martin knew. He knew that now far too well now. Except all of his mind control power was now permanently focused on a single skinwalker spider residing in his head, thanks to Alexa. He would not be a prognosticator like his mom, or an agent like his dad and his sister.

“Anyways. I’m gonna head to class. Don’t blow my cover. I’m Dixie.” The avatar of Ember smirked at Martin, fading away.

“Was that aurora borealis, localized to a single locker?” Alexa’s voice resounded from beside Martin, making him twitch and bump his head against the metal shelf. Too preoccupied with being annoyed at his sister, he failed to notice Alexa's arrival in front of the locker.

“Ow. Damn it.” Martin emerged out of the locker while rubbing his head. “No. It’s much worse than a locker-based weather phenomenon. It’s my sister.”

“Ah yes. She’s probably planning to murder me.” Alexa nodded, looking far too cheerful for such a dark conversational note.

“What?!”

“Don’t look so concerned. I’m a tough cookie. Also I got Cottie now. I ain’t scared of no wardens.”

“Wardens?”

“That’s the slang for SCA agents, yo. We’re all prisoners of the gods up from above, don’t you know? It ain’t about protecting people. It’s all about keeping the sheep in line with the doctrine of the all-seeing eye in the sky.”

Martin chose not to argue with all of the wrongness in her statement. “Look, just be careful around her, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Big whoop. Getting hurt is part of the game, Mittens!” She stated. “Accept the pain as a lesson, in order to avoid it next time. Accept the fear head on and learn to defeat it. You won’t cook that perfect pancake number one thousand without getting a little burned in the process. I had to get skewered only about 3024 times before I made all of my lovely anti-skinwalker devices.”

“Give me the fucking raygun.” Martin growled.

“Eh?”

“If my sister is going to be a big headache, I’ll give her one too.”

“Alright, don’t break it. Don't shoot Mr. Canard please,” Alexa unclipped the hairdryer raygun from her belt and chucked it at Martin. He caught it, nearly fumbling and dropping it.

"Why not?" Martin asked.

"Because I already told the SCA about him," she explained. "He'll be dealt with soon enough, don't worry."

[Was that Alexa's plan for preventing the future apocalypse? If the SCA learned about skinwalkers, they could figure out a way to stop them!] Martin thought.

[An interesting strategy,] Spiderbro commented. [Considering how you're now technically a skinwalker.]

[Oh,] Martin shuddered.

Maybe the SCA could figure out how to fix him, after they fixed Mr. Canard?

“Um. Does this thing run out of charge or something? I’m planning to use it quite a bit.” He waved the gun at Alexa.

“Nah, be my guest. There’s a uranium battery on it. That’s about two thousand years worth of zappery,” she replied with a wink.

“Good.” Martin nodded, heading towards the classroom.

[Steady my hand. We’re hunting Embers,] Martin thought to his little brain spider.

[You got it, boss,] Spiderbro replied.