Ace was sure he was possibly on drugs.

He hoped he was because the more he learned about this strange world the more off-putting it became.

Aurora took him around campus and he met her mother. Ace was very nervous when he met the female version of his father, Asteria. Asteria thought it was charming that she found someone that looked exactly like her. Next, he met all of Team 75 and all their respective members. They were having their weekly meeting at the campus lawn mall, with picnic blankets and baskets, eating chips, and drinking soda and water.

Aurora explained to Vanessa how he had been coerced by Chad and all of a sudden Vanessa and Aurora fawned over him like he was a child. All the women in the group were now telling him that men were wolves and that I have a cousin you might like, he’s just like you. They all told him to never give it up too early, make him work for it.

They were adamant that he had to find someone who would take care of him since he was 'the woman in the relationship', and had a lot of strange heteronormative ideas about gay couples. Ace was upset that whenever people learned he liked men they assumed it was only men, but was too emotionally worn out to correct them.

Ace was still easily manipulated though, and he took all of their well-meaning, horrible advice to heart, and was convinced that the problem was not Chad’s behavior, but because he was interested in another man.

Ace slowly worked out who was who, but still, most of them were so vastly different than the ones on his team, that he started to think that they were entirely different people. The first one he was easily able to figure out was Gabriel's mirror image Eve.

Eve, just like Gabriel, was very religious. She looked similar to him as well, with her sandy hair and brown eyes. There was of course one glaring difference. Eve possibly had the largest breasts Ace had ever seen in his life and made an effort to stare at her nose and not her chest.

When they met Eve took the chance to speak to him about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Ace was too nervous and afraid of looking like a pervert, so he simply nodded yes or no and made very short sentences when she spoke to him. Eve was very concerned when Ace said he was not a Christian.

“I too was lost before I found Christ,” Eve explained. “I was sleeping with every man and woman in town.”

Ace choked on the water he was drinking and tried to change the subject.

"Tell me more about yourself," Ace gestured to the person to his right. "What was your name again?" Before he could answer, Miley, interrupted him. "His name's Discordia.”

“I said to call me Eric,” he screeched.

“There’s nothing wrong with your name,” Ace said calmly. “ Relax .”

“It’s a girl’s name! Who gives their son a girl’s name?"

Eric's disdain for his name was what fueled his teenage angst, and he complained about it daily to anyone who accidentally brought it up. Miley knew this and loved to rile him up.

“Why don’t you just change your name like I did,” Eve explained. “Before I went to Christ my name was Destiny. Very unbecoming.”

Eric now did not know what to complain about, now that he could simply change his name and be done with the problem he blew out of proportion.

Eric huffed and left, screaming at them all, now that he had nothing else to blame his imaginary problems on.

“I hate you all! I can’t wait until we die!”

Ace was shocked by his comment and was even more confused by everyone ignoring him.

“Is he alright,” Ace asked Aurora.

“Yeah he’s fine,” Aurora groaned. “Apparently his power is stronger the more people hate him, but he’s too nice. Instead, he just hates himself."

"Something's wrong with the guy if he has enough hate for himself to be stronger than most of us," Vanessa sighed.

Everyone nodded and said a few sympathies for Eric's psyche and they quickly went back to talking about things that had nothing to do with the meeting. They were absorbed in meeting Ace, Aurora's fraternal twin. He told him that he came from a place where everyone was the same but it was flipped.

They didn't believe him until Ace said a lot of things about them that were still true in this strange mirror world. There were some differences between them, but overall most of them had similar personalities.

“Then who am I,” Miley declared. “You’re Ryle, Kylie is Kyle,” Ace replied.

“How do you know,” she asked.

“You and Ryle are always loud.”

Everyone laughed and Miley was now quiet, her brown face tinged red.

Ace went around pointing to all of them, describing who was who in his own home, and how they were different.

"The only person who seems to be the same is Eve," Ace laughed.

"It's so nice to know that the other me walks with Christ," Eve sighed in relief.

“Please stop. It’s Saturday. You can talk about that on Sunday,” Santos complained.

Ace was completely confused as to why Santos looked the same and talked the same. It was so strange, he decided that he shouldn't mention it.

"Wait," Chloe shouted. "Does that mean there's a male Cassandra Slater!?"

“Who, who is that,” Ace asked.

“My mom,” Vanessa groaned. “She’s… a character…”

“I am so sorry,” Ace whispered. “We have Maximillian. I hoped that over here he would be nice. ”

They all shook their heads and they all went around in a circle detailing how Cassandra Slater had ruined their lives.

“Mrs. Slater found out that I was coming to the Academy and made it harder for me to get in,” Aurora grumbled.

“I put on the daily spending sheet that I liked to buy chips once a week, and they said I couldn’t spend my scholarship money on it,” Jenny added. “I wrote her a letter to appeal it but she told me I needed to lose weight. ”

Ace noticed that Jenny had the same eyes as Fenton.

“Are you Chinese,” he asked.

“Yes,” she exclaimed.

“Are you gay?”

“Yes,” Jenny replied nervously. “How do you know all this?”

“Because you are all the same! But half of you think I’m joking!”

“Why should we believe you,” Santos sneered. “You could be another one of those shifty, good-for-nothing shapeshifters! They’re nothing but thieves and rapists!”

Everyone nodded in agreement, and soon the racist epithets came pouring out like a broken sewage line.

“Thank goodness all of them are almost gone,” Vanessa shouted. “This side of town is for people like us! Segregation isn’t enough!”

It’s time to go home. This place is fucking bananas.

“So, I’m totally against racism, just want to make that clear,” Ace declared. “Nothing personal but I’m going home.”

“What racism,” Aurora asked. “We are not prejudiced.”

“You, you aren’t,” Ace asked skeptically.

“Of course not,” Adam declared. “We just know what’s best for them, as normal, non-shape-shifting people.”

Priscilla nodded along with him. Just like Amy and Mark, they were always together, agreeing with whatever the other said and did, never apart.

“They just don’t know any better,” she said. “It’s our job to teach them what to do. It’s the natural order. ”

“No one will ever believe me about this,” Ace shouted. “What is wrong with you people!?”

“Don’t leave,” Aurora pleaded. “We know you aren’t a shapeshifter!”

“Y-you do,” Ace asked nervously. “How?”

“Well you haven’t tried to steal any of our women and you didn’t pee outside, so those are the most obvious clues,” Adam said.

They all agreed and asked him to stay.

“No….I have a thing. At a place. Right now, ” Ace lied.

They waved goodbye and Ace lied when he said he would visit again. He planned on never visiting ever again and hoped that this was just a very bad dream. He wandered around campus until he finally found the storage complex. He couldn’t find the storage 7A, as it was strangely missing.

He remembered everything was flipped and instead tried to find unit A7. He found it quickly, Levi waiting for him inside.

Ace was so happy to see him. He had never been so happy to see him in his life. He gave Levi a giant bear hug and he was baffled by his sudden change of heart.

“I hate it here,” Ace shouted. “Everyone here is racist!”

“ What,” Levi asked. “No one’s said anything to me! We’re both white!”

“I’m not white, I’m a Ionadian, ” Ace clarified. “My skin has color. I don’t understand why everyone keeps calling me white!”

Levi rolled his eyes and he agreed so they could go home.

They approached the mirror and Lush returned.

“Why did you send us to some racist backwater place like 2025,” Ace shouted. “They still have segregation here!”

“First of all,” Lush scoffed. “I sent both of you to the same year. I am not a time traveler.”

Levi rolled his eyes and tapped his foot, impatient for their argument to end.

“Second of all, everyone at your home is racist too,” Lush screamed.

“Not like this,” Ace said.

Lush gave him a look

. “Earth got rid of all the people with freckles,” Lush reminded them. “There’s only ten thousand of them left!”

"Yes, as it should be," Levi said. "They're servants of the Devil."

“Those strange freckled freaks think they’re people,” Ace whispered. “Disgusting.”

“You know, I tried teaching both of you two lessons today. One out of two is enough for me,” Lush sighed. “This is a lost cause.”

“Let’s go home where everything makes sense,” Levi pleaded.

“Yeah,” Ace said. “They have freckled things just walking around here like it's normal. ”

“I know,” Levi exclaimed. “This place is going downhill soon! The property value as well!”

“Gods above and below help us all.” 

“It’s true,” Levi exclaimed. “We all know what they’re like! Ruining the area and having too many children!”

“Don’t say anything else before I change my mind about taking you back,” Lush pleaded.

“Are you one of those filthy freckle fuckers,” Ace asked.

“Racism is an active choice,” Lush shouted. “Don’t you understand that!?!”

“I bet he is,” Levi said. “You never know these days. I bet he has half-freckled offspring too. ”

“ Nasty,” Ace whispered.

Lush said nothing and just disappeared.

“He didn’t deny it! That’s the same as saying yes! ”

“Let’s just come back later,” Levi sighed. “He’s one of those strange equal rights people or whatever.”

“Everyone knows equal rights is just a code word for more rights!”

They turned to leave and noticed the boxes were green again. All the boxes were back, neatly packed as they should be. Ace checked his phone and it said 6:57 PM, Tuesday.

"We're back," he whispered. "Thank goodness."

“You know, I think I’ll keep my promise,” Levi announced. “He brought us back. I’ll bring him back to my apartment. Anywhere is better than being stuck inside here.”

Lush prayed silently that he would leave him there, but sadly Levi was a man of his word. He gently picked up the mirror and they left. Little beads of water dripped out of the mirror, and Lush cried that now he would be stuck with the racist son of the man that had left him in there to rot for almost forty years.

Levi mistook the tears for tears of joy.

“What are you going to do now,” Ace asked.

“I’m going to try and forget that ever happened.”

“Me too,” Ace sighed. “I thought if I was with a different kind of Candice, that everything would be better, but it's not.”

“Because he was a man, ” Levi explained.

“That makes sense,” Ace nodded. “All the girls I met said the same thing.”

Lush then realized that neither of them had learned their lesson, and were probably even more racist and sexually repressed than before they left.

Like a jumbo jetliner, the point of the lesson sailed right over their head, thousands of miles above. They were not even close to trying to comprehend what Lush was trying to teach them, and instead, they were even more resolute in their backward beliefs.

 

Levi never understood why the freckled freaks didn't just take the government-issued medication that would rid them of their freckles forever, and Ace wondered why the freckled freaks didn't just leave already, as no one wanted them anyway. Levi and Ace hoped that someone would believe them about the world where everyone was the opposite gender, but it was simply too outlandish to tell anyone now.

Everyone knows that having freckles is a choice, and for those people to lie and tell everyone that they were simply born that way was horrid. It was even worse as those who had championed equal rights for so long were marred by the freckled freaks.

There is no universe of course, where freckled people were considered equal.

What a horrible way anyone would choose to live their lives.