(None POV)

 

“OK, so if I'm reading this right, I just have to do these moves and this piece will go here.”

 

I was still working on the puzzle cube. Having figured out what the book was trying to say, I had worked out how to do the first layer, which was the first real step. Next was to build the middle layer, and now I am working on that.

 

“I wonder what they're talking about in there” I say looking up at the door. Everyone else was talking about something in there, and I was curious.

 

Looking up seemed to be a big mistake, because when I looked back down, I had messed up the cube.

 

“Dammit!!”

 

(3rd Person POV) - Over side of door

 

The room was quiet. Everyone was looking over at Uriel, wondering why she had asked None to leave the room.

 

They were also wondering why None was so ok with it. He just got up and left right when she asked.

 

What else could we get him to do? Will he ever say no? Amelia thought, thinking back on when she first got him to cross-dress.

 

For Uriel, she was looking at the door that None had just gone through. After a few seconds, she looked back at the group.

 

“Ok, so I have a good idea of what's going on, but I need to ask a few questions. Is that ok, miss sword saint?” Uriel said to Abby.

 

Abby, now visibly nervous about this situation, responds, “Sure, what's up?”.

 

“So I'm just going to go for it. Do you recognize None?”

 

Abby’s nervous look gets even more nervous and takes a few seconds to respond. “He looks like a friend I had back on earth.” She says while looking down at the ground.

 

Finding this very surprising, the rest of the group murmurs amongst themselves.

 

Uriel, however, seems to be stuck in thought. “How long did you know him?”

 

“That's a bit complicated. The thing is that he was Arthur's younger brother.”

 

This was a shock to the group. At this point that had all met Arthur and, in all honesty, he and None looked nothing alike. Where None was short and kind of small, all things that the three of them liked about him, Arthur was much taller. He had an athletic build and was what most people would call handsome. Their eye color, hair color, and personality almost seemed like the opposite of each other. Bright vs dark, blond vs black, and outgoing vs withdrawn. To call them related, much less brothers, seemed rude.

 

“If he was the hero’s brother, then why didn’t the hero say something when they met?” Tess asked.

 

The fact that they had met was actually news to the rest of the group, except for Uriel, who had stopped paying attention, instead thinking deeply about something. Abby, for one, seemed really concerned about it.

 

“He didn’t do anything to None right? Like was he mean to him or make fun of him? Or call him a failure?” She started asking Tess a barrage of questions.

 

“I’m, no I don’t think I could call it mean. Maybe a little condescending, but I think he was just trying to show off in front of me.” She replied to Abby. “He seemed to be hitting on me for part of it, trying to make himself look cool. Even the attack he did was to do that.”

 

This made Abby exhale, and then get an annoyed look on his face.

 

Then Chloe spoke up, “Excuse me, Abby. But what kind of person is Arthur? From what I see from him sometimes he is nice to everyone, but what you just asked about None seemed like that might not be true.” Chloe was also thinking about what she saw the previous night, with her sister and Olivia and the hero.

 

“That’s kind of complex. For the most part, Arthur was a very nice and outgoing person. He would tell people to back off when they were mean to others. He stood up for everyone. He was probably the exact person who would become a hero.” She said.

 

“But your leaving something off right?” Amelia asked this time. She could tell that Abby wasn’t finished, and she knew what came next was the most important part.

 

“He was all of those things. Except when it came to Riley, his own brother. Arthur and I are the same age. We also both have siblings the same age, those being Riley and Olivia. For most of my childhood Arthur and I were best friends. We did everything together. Because of this, I knew Riley most of his life. And I saw when everything started to change. Up until he was around 11 or so, Riley and Arthur got along great. But when None started middle school things changed.” Abby stayed to tell the group about Riley. She was really nervous about this because she never told anyone about what she had witnessed.

 

“Middle school goes from ages 11 to 14, and is the first real schooling that we did in our world. This is when things changed. Arthur and I were in high school at the time, that’s the last general education that kids do in our world. Arthur had been the best in our class since middle school. Riley was not as good. He wasn’t bad at anything but he was nowhere as good as Arthur. This is something that their parents loved to point out. For his entire life, their parents always favor Arthur. This really hurt Riley when he was young, but thanks to Arthur not being that way, he seemed to hold on a little. But when we were in high school, Arthur changed. He started to distance himself from Riley. When we would hang out he stopped bringing Riley with us. It seems weird to me but I didn’t really question it. That was until I overheard something. Arthur was talking to a group of his friends while I was doing something else. I heard him make fun of Riley for being a failure or something like that. This was the first time I heard Arthur talk like that about Riley. I talked to him in the past about what his parents were like to him and it was exactly the same. At first it didn’t really register with me, but over the next year, his jokes spread and eventually Riley was the punching bag for everyone. Over time he became less sneaky with it too. He started making the jokes in front of me and Olivia, which then led to Olivia making fun of him at their school. This was basically the end of any kindness that people had for Riley. But he never wavered. He never gave up and continued to go forward everyday. That’s when I made up my mind. If no one else would show him kindness then I would. His parents only ever acknowledged him to make fun of him. His brother would do the same thing. And his only friend abandoned him the second her crush did.”

 

The story had pulled even Uriel out from her deep thoughts.

 

“So, you wanted to protect Riley from all of this. But if that’s true then why were you still friends with Arthur?” Amelia asked.

 

“The only way I had access to Riley was through him. Riley never really left his house after everything started to go wrong. Due to both Olivia and Arthur’s popularity, he basically became a pariah in our town. So if I wanted to be there for him I needed to stay in contact with Arthur, until he left his home anyway. My original plan was to wait until Riley moved out of their home, find out where he moved to, and move there as well. Then I would become friends with him there. I would also cut contact with both Olivia and Arthur” Abby said, getting really excited about the plan she had constructed.

 

“Isn’t that kind of creepy?” Amelia asked, to no response from Abby. Instead she kept mumbling to herself, saying things about the life she envisioned with Riley.

 

“So, Olivia had a crush on Arthur even back in your world. Do you know if anything ever came of that crush?” Chloe asked.

 

“Oh, I don’t think so. Arthur was always surrounded by girls all the way through college. I don’t think he ever had a girlfriend, or even if he liked anyone. And I know that Olivia had several boyfriends through high school and when she started college, but she never gave up on dating Arthur.” Abby answered.

 

The questions about the story continued for a little. The group learned about the abuse that Riley was given by his parents. They also asked about different things about earth. Abby even told them about her plan to make it back to earth by using the boon she might get from god for helping the hero.

 

“But if None is Riley, then…” Tess said, realizing the whole scenario going on for them. If None is Riley then Abby has no reason to continue with her quest. “I think you might need to tell us about the hero summoning.”

 

Abby then went on to explain that to them. How Arthur had told Riley to leave the room when they had come in. How he did without even questioning why. And how it seemed like he was inside the circle, but wasn’t on the other side with them.

 

“So it is possible that they aren’t the same person and they just look alike.” Amelia said, trying to think through the new problem.

 

“But if they are, then the church has some questions to answer about their hero summoning ritual.” Chloe said. “We had worn them so many times that we had no clue of the consequences of using them. They already failed how many times and now they might have brought a person along who got lost on the way.”

 

This peaked Abby’s attention. “They didn’t tell us they had any failures. What happened?” The girl that had so happily told them about her plan to stalk someone, now was completely serious.

 

“Of course they didn’t. Well there are a few tries that I know about. One of them was a big looking man with muscles that didn’t have a hero title, so they kicked him out of the country. The other I know about was a normal looking women, who met the same fate.” Chloe told Abby.

 

“Oh, so if Arthur wasn’t the hero, they would have kicked us out of the country. So they lied to us that first day.”

 

“That’s not the end. Other than those two times they summoned a living person, I have heard of many times that they instead managed to summon a dead body.”

 

This made Abby very mad. “They could have killed us.” She was very angry about this. She wasn’t big fans of her sister and Arthur but she never wanted them dead. That plus the fact that they might have pulled Riley into this mess.

 

“I think I might be able to help with this” Uriel suddenly spoke up. She hadn’t been participating in the conversation since the story ended, but now she spoke up. “You saw the summoning circle correct. If you let me, I could look into your memory to see what could have happened”

 

“If you can look at my memory then couldn’t you just look at Nones to see if he is Riley. I know that he doesn't remember but I also couldn’t tell you about the circle even if I tried” Abby asked.

 

“I can’t tell you the reason but None is a little more complicated, and I don’t think it’s ok to tell others about that unless he is ok with it.”

 

Now even more curious about None, Abby decided to agree to let Uriel look at her memory’s. She didn’t know how it would work or how Uriel could even do it. All Uriel did was place their faces really close to each other, almost like they were about to kiss.

 

“Ok, thank you for letting me do that.” Uriel said while backing away from Abby. “I have something that might be good news or bad news.” She said. Then suddenly there came a knock on the door.

 

“Hey guys, if we don’t leave soon, we’re going to miss the second round of the tournament.” It was None, coming to tell them that they were about to be late.