Thursday, 20th March, 2104


"Y'see Tom, the way you're doing it, they'll give me a bad mark for this type of working out."

"Well damn them, Laurie! Math is math, why the bloody hell are they trying to change it?!"

"You two are lucky Em's out for groceries today," I lean on my sister's bedroom door frame, "She'd give you a mouthful if she were here."

"Oh, Cora!" Laur begs, "Can you help us? This homework is a nightmare to finish off!"

"And I'm supposed to be helping her since the Commie got too involved with the code somewhere else in the house!"

I can almost hear the Norweigan yelling.

"Okay, okay," I relent, crashing into a beanbag Laurie's recently added (honestly, how does she get them here?), "Let's take a look at these notebooks… Wait a min, is this the advanced quadratic formula?"

"I don't know anymore at this point," Laur pouts in defeat.

"Good god, I'd forgotten how insane the high school curriculum is these days. You two should have a break, come back to it later, that sort of thing."

Laur and Tom heave a deep, exhausted sigh, slumping on another beanbag and the floor respectively. Poor Laurie is pretty much on the verge of passing out for a million years, whereas Tom's face tells me he's gone straight to grumpy with an extra dash of 'dead inside' in his… Eyes?

Are they eyes? Is this sort of thing even possible? How are they just… Black? Are they actual eyes at all, or is it just a result of a glitch in the holo-tech's mysterious source?

Gah, I don't know. It's almost as mind-boggling as Laurie's homework.

"Honestly Laurie," Tom groans, peeved a little more than usual, "Looking at the code you and Tord work on together, it's a lot more easier than this bull. I could go living my life without looking at this personal hell. Well… Whatever the hell my life is right now."

"Yeah," Laurie sighs, "Tord and I are working on it. We're trying to reverse-search where the connection's coming from. And you've been there to see when we've gotten external help."

"Of course, but don't go thinking you can do this on your own at some point. I've seen it happen too much with the commie and it's not always pretty. I don't wanna see you fall down that path."

"How could I, Tom? I've got some of the coolest tech in centuries-"

"Which you've lobotomised, as you call it!"

"For safety alongside installing some high-up VPNs! So that nobody else can get in! Plus, my older siblings keep sending me stuff to learn and improve! I'll be fine! I don't need help, I just like it there!"

"At least you admit you like it." He sighs, "But sometimes you just need help, Laur. Even if you don't want or like it. With coding, hacking, homework…"

"Those questions were disgusting… I know you'd impale them with the harpoon if you could…"

"Damn right."

"Wait, wait, wait," I hold up a hand, "the what?"

"Oh! I found it in the antique room a few days ago!" She stands, stretches, and skips to where a silvery-blue metal weapon rests against a shelf before coming back with it, "I overheard Edd saying he was glad to see it gone, buuuut…"

"He's got no idea." Tom chuckles, sharing the perfectly Richwells sly grin with Laurie, "Once I can touch solid objects again, I can't wait to mess around with it."

Yeah no, something tells me Edd wouldn't be happy to see the harpoon in the house.

"Well," I wonder aloud, "What's the first thing you'd do with it?"

"Physically attack Laurie's homework. Maybe threaten her teachers to give less of it."

"Tom!"

"Tom!"

"I said what I said! By the way Laur, I hope your school realises they suck! And I'm saying it after all the crap you've told and shown me."

"Yeah," Laur tiredly chuckles as she puts the weapon away, "It does. Everyone there agrees with you on that. Actually…" her sleepy smile fades as she plops back on her beanbag, "It's the only thing everyone can agree on now."

"Really? What do you mean?"

"Seriously?" she sits up straight, "Didn't I tell you?"

"Duckling, I don't think you told anyone about what happens at school," Tom points out, sitting up, "Apart from homework and how it's hell. I guess those things haven't changed in the past few decades."

"Tell me about it," I roll my eyes, "Probably some of my worst memories and days were in high school. Wait, 'Duckling'?"

"He saw me use a rubber duck to rant at when working on some code when Tord was busy," Laurie swings a nearby holoscreen to herself, tapping in some stuff, "and he never let it go since. It's totally normal for programmers to do that sort of thing, Tom!"

"Having seen it done before, it's true." I nod, "It seriously helps her!"

"I don't want Tord picking up the Duckling habit either! Bad enough you already won't stop!"

"I'm sure he won't, Duckling!"

"Shut uuuuuup! He's already sent me messages in super-old leetspeak which took me FOREVER to understand; I don't need him calling me that in the same typing quirk!"

Tom cackles to himself while Laur groans.

"Forget it Laur," I shake my head, "Might wear off. Say, you wanted to show me something?"

She nods before throwing some of her holos at me.

"Ha! It's in half your face!"

"Cut it out, that joke's already old." I roll my eyes while readjusting it, "More Daily Blargh?"

"Holy pandas pounding pasta, that's still going around?" Tom's astonished, "Never thought those guys would last this long… Say, read it out for me, would you?"

"Um, okay?"

"I'm an old man, my sight isn't what it used to be."

"Sure it is. Give me a moment…"

THE DAILY BLARGH, 20TH MARCH, 2104.

FIREBIRD FOR DEPUTY?

When former CEO of Phoenix Industries Sidney McCoy mentioned in his BBC3 interview that he had future projects in mind after the fall of his company, it was expected he would return to inventing. However, as Marcia La Vella discovered, he'd invented a new personality as a politician. Not as a leader, but as a right-hand-man of the newly instigated and already-infamous Red Party. Social media is already abuzz over this controversial group, with hashtags such as #whynotblue, #reddy2party, and #Thor:redthunder amongst many others skyrocketing to trending pages…

"Reddy to party?" I groan, "God, that's a bad pun."

"Erm, Cora?"

"Yeah Laur?"

"I wrote that tag…"

"What."

"It wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, but all I did was suggest a protest over it on twitter and now people are going nuts over it. I locked my account so they can't find me, but…"

Yikes.

"So it's everywhere now?"

"Yeah. It's even made it to the Legend of Legion servers."

"So they are real! I mean, I knew already, but damn it's still weird to think about."

"Yeah," Tom nods, "Tord, Laur and I took a look for ourselves together since she now owns her cousins' old accounts. The 'Legend' part of the name hilariously makes the mystery of the secret forums work. And before you ask Cora, no, Laur doesn't go there alone. She's either with me or Tord to scroll through together."

"Not that I'm complaining, Tom…" Laur shakes her head, "But why do you keep insisting you and Tord look through Legion with me?"

"You don't want to go through the Commie's lecture on internet safety, trust me." He shakes his head, "I agree with him, it's better to keep you safe than sorry, but what he has to say isn't all that fun to hear in whole."

Come to think of it, I must've dodged an entire conversation of it with him a few weeks ago…

"Well," I clear my throat, "do you want me to go on with the article?"

"Yeah Cor," Tom nods, "where were you at?"

"Do you want me to pick up from where I left off or start all over from the top about Sidney since you're an old man?"

"Shut uuuuuup- wait wait wait wait, just realised. The bloke the article's about, the Sidney guy: his last name is McCoy, right?"

"Yeah? Why?"

Tom's brows furrow.

"...Edd, Matt and I have something against that last name. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's probably a very different person to who I'm thinking of, but… Eugh, I don't like the sound of it already."

I skim the rest of the article to myself and I have to agree.

The only difference is our reasoning.

Probably.

Maybe add it to the weird, mostly blurry guy in the background of the photo who looks a lot like Sidney dressed entirely in black…

I swing the holo to Laur, point him out and she nods.

"Seriously, what are you two saying?"

"There's a weird person in the back who isn't always clearly seen in the crowd of Sidney's photos," I explain, "They're always wearing black. I think it's a guy."

"Oh. Not suspicious at aaaaall.

You don't say. If he had actual eyes, I'm sure they'd roll.

"Erm, you wouldn't mind going on with that news report, Cora?" Tom asks, "Where were we up to?"

"Um, from where we last were, the article said some stuff about social media, then finished with describing who the Red Party's primary candidate is… Wait a bloody min. Laurie, is that…?"

She looks up again from typing on another holo. A tiny nod.

"You're kidding, right?"

She slowly shakes her head.

"Hey," Tom butts in, "Sorry about this but who are you talking about? I'm the opposite of fluent in your silent sister language."

Uncle Thor, spearheading the Red Party?

But… That doesn't make any sense.

If he hears the name 'Lawson', he's gonna flip.

"Um…"

"An uncle of ours," Laurie admits, "Well, rather a second cousin actually since our dad's mum and his dad are siblings. He's the leader of the Red Party that's just popped up."

"If he's a commie-"

"No," I shake my head, "he's always hated communism and fascism since he was fifteen, still does now. The Red Party's only red in colour."

"Well, that's good."

"Erm… Not really. Our uncle's apolitical to a fault - that's the part which doesn't make sense. He actually told me he despises the mess politics brings, especially in elections. He's more of a morals-first kinda guy."

Tom cocks an eyebrow.

Please don't ask his name, please don't ask his name, please don't ask his name…

"How bad are we talking about?"

Phew.

"He'd always have a huge fuss over politics at family dinners," I recall, "Any time it was brought up, he had this way of using his two cents on the issue to shut everyone up before the conversation would move to something else. Mum even says before Jaxx was born, he'd even yell and slam his hands on the table to try and stop it."

"Damn. And he's running for Prime Minister now?"

"Well, apparently."

"...Wow. Do you think it might be against his will?"

Even Laurie looks up from her holo.

Damn.

"Should we, uh, move away from this?" she sheepishly offers, "If Uncle Thor were here, he'd have a fit at this point."

"You call your uncle Thor?"

"It's just a nickname, but-"

"That explains the last hashtag. God, I hope he looks like Chris Hemsworth."

Unfortunately Tom, Uncle Thor does not.

"I have to put up with his brat twin kids at high school," Laurie groans, "They're utterly awful when they're there, but everywhere else we're pretty much best friends."

"Ohohoho," Tom chuckles, "you can never escape them, can you?"

"Can I rephrase my last sentence? Everywhere else, we were best friends. The only cousin I'm best friends with is their older brother and he's graduating at the end of this year. The twins pulled the worst prank on me last year and everytime I see them I just… Gah! I want them to pay for it, but I know it's the wrong thing to do! Even if I have their old hologram tech and links to Legion now!"

"...You're honestly more mature than me for holding back," Tom says, "Wait, you got their holograms from their dad, right?"

"Actually, my older brother talked to their dad and got the tech off him. Punishment for their prank and apparently stuff even worse than it."

"Right. Are your uncle's kids the cousins who pulled the Red Radio prank you mentioned?

She whines at the thought of it. Though honestly Laur, same.

"Oh, come on," Tom scoffs, "That can't be the worst. You're in, erm… it's Year Ten, right?"

"Eleven, actually."

"Oh yeah, those changes in system and all. But seriously, it's not the worst thing that could've happened to you back then."

"You sound like Cora and Emily."

"Hey!"

"Looks like they agree with me then." Tom nods, satisfied, "Say, Cor, what was the worst part of high school for you?"

"The workload, the deadlines and the social drama mixing in all at once," I'm already disgusted at the memories, "I heard we got it much worse than your generation did, Tom."

"Bullsh- I mean rubbish! Most of your teachers are virtual AIs these days, right?"

"No!"

"No! Society as a whole has steered away from sentient AI after one guy tried to build his own ages ago and it killed him!" Laur protests, "And we still have terrible and mean teachers!"

"A mean teacher?" Tom scoffs again, "There's a mean teacher, and then there's the Holy Terror."


"In primary school, I had this one teacher who decided to pick on me. Every bloody subject I had with her, nearly every damn lesson. She just bullied me because of my sight and how it looked from outside, as you can tell. She said the worst things to me because I was 'different' to the other kids in that class. Which is a stupid motive in itself, but anyway.

"She called me names, insulted my family behind their backs, gave me more bad grades than the average kid and other things I don't want to repeat - I hope I've forgotten them all.

"Point is, I learned a little later down the track… I wasn't the only one who got that treatment. A Jewish girl. A black kid. A Japanese boy. A couple others too. We all pretty much banded together once every lunchtime when we found out we weren't alone in this. At one point in lunch, we'd all come together to talk about our 'loser' lives and figure out ways to get her in trouble with our parents.

"As to how we succeeded, well… It involved an ice-cold bucket of water, a cassette recorder holding a load of blackmail, some interesting tea replacements and Freddo Frog bribery for other kids to get involved. The lot of us got suspended, expelled or just left, but that teacher was fired a week after. The blackmail must've done her in.

"My parents moved me out to another school later - which is a shame, I heard my old grademates who stayed behind got a really nice guy afterwards."

"At my new school, I had to endure bullying and its crap there too. More of the silent type, which I'm pretty sure you two know is the worst. But honestly, I can't or don't want to remember much of what happened there except… I met Edd during those years. Online, I mean.

"I was a fan of his stick fight animations then - they're honestly crappy to watch now, but past me thought they were the best damn thing in the universe. I remember just pestering Edd with messages, making fanart for him - well, it was me tracing his art and just being annoying, honestly. Eventually, Edd gave in and let me be a part of what he was working on, and I pretty much became his friend from there.

"I can still vividly see the day we met for the first time in real life. Man, was that a day."


"He'd been near my town because of some museum excursion his school was having. What the excursion was for, err… Don't remember. What's important was that my class was also going on an excursion on the same day, same place, almost at the same time. So we chatted about meeting up there when we'd get our chance.

"So imagine my surprise when I found out our classes would go into the one for the day. It got even better when I was an odd kid out and got to pick a duo to join. Naturally it was Edd and Matt, but I didn't know Matt at the time, so he was just another kid back then. Another of Edd's friends.

"The rest of that day from there on in was one of the best damn days of my life. Just being with Edd, Matt and… Hell, I guess Tord was okay down the track.

"Huh. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have been through a lot of what I have if it weren't for Edd and other old buddies too. Edd's really the last man standing through, since he's the one who kept us all together, and the others apart from Matt and Tord are old and dead now. I guess I owe him something."


I'm not crying. Nope. Totally not, it's just… Sweat in my eyes and onto my glasses.

"Well, I guess that's a part of my life I never thought I'd tell to two kids in the twenty-second century," Tom shrugs as if nothing happened, "You ready to- gah! Ow, son of a…"

"You okay?"

"It's fine, Cora," He hisses from the pain, "Just a cold shot to the head…"

Tord's neck, Matt's hand, Tom's head: all struck with some kinda random coldness…

"Laur? Is Tord looking into the source of the cold spikes right now?"

"Maybe I should tell him to…" she slowly nods.

"No, no," Tom waves it off, "You good to get that last question done, Duckling?"

"Stooooop!"

"Haaaaah, never gets old!"

Creeeak.

Clack.

"Sorry I'm late!"

"Oh, Em's home!"

"Goodness gracious me, was there a ruckus at the markets this afternoon!"

Ruckus?

"How's Laur doing with her homework, by the way?" She leans on the doorframe, still holding her bags.

"We're almost done with math," Laur tells her, "But what do you mean by ruckus?"

"A protest actually popped up when I was getting some veggies. It was moderate in terms of, well, protesting, but they didn't seem too keen on some 'red party' of sorts. Honestly, I'm glad my parents weren't around - they would've thrown such a fit."

Tom, Laur and I share a glance, worried.

"Emmy… What was that about your parents?"

"Oh… It's nothing. I'm just glad they weren't there. It's all fine."

Even Tom doesn't look so sure about what she's just said.

"I'm not sure if I understand the protest, though." She admits, "Is that related to the polls coming up?"

Uncle Thor.

"Emmy… Can you stay with us a moment?"


A/N: Phew. It's been a lot.

It took me a while to realise this, but middle of either this week or the one before, I realised I may have been approaching the posting schedule of EGC in the wrong way. In that, instead of chapters of different acts, the acts themselves feel like seasons of a show, and that they may need a bit more time.

Or heck, even a mid-season break. I'm going to need these more often than not because university work is really ramping up, and it's getting harder to write and edit for the fic.

Fortunately, I have an even number of chapters for this Act, so this is only the Second-last update before I go on break. Next fortnight will have chapter 11 ready to go, and won't leave you all on a cliffhanger. On the extra bright side, chapter 13 is going quite swell! There's still a lot of notes I've got in the google doc from my notebook, and a lot to get through, but a good chunk of them have already been taken down and written in. God, I still wish I had an editor...

Also, the piece I've commissioned for Act Two's cover are complete! I'm currently in the process of adding the finishing touches and perfecting everything to come together, so stay tuned for when I release it!

See you all in two weeks for the mid-season finale chapter of The Eagle's Cross: Act Two!