Chapter 8:

Alex (plus) drooling fangirl (equals) Manipulation 101

Lunch passed quickly as Tammi thumbed through her A Beginner's Guide to Alchemy book. She knew she'd likely be up all night working on Kraden's assignment. So she was startled when the bell rang, signaling that she had five minutes to get to class. She gathered her things and rushed out the door, headed for room 156.

She pushed through the door and let out her breath.

"Sit."

It was Mia. She appeared to remember Tammi from the infirmary, because her mouth twitched slightly. Tammi decided to make a slightly better impression on Mia than she had at first, and walked toward the front of the class.

"Hey, Tammi."

She sat down. "Hey, Shane. Imagine meeting you here."

"Yeah."

The two sat in silence for a bit of time before a second bell rang and Mia began pacing. She examined the class carefully, eying a few boys near the front who were staring rather greedily at her.

"This is the course on Romance Fanfiction, also known as Golden Sun, not Golden Lemon. Jenna will be co-teaching this class with me, but she was apparently stampeded on the way here and, as a result, will be a bit late."

At the mention of Jenna's name, several more of the males in the room began to drool.

"Now, let me make a few things clear," Mia said. "As you know, there will be no glomping in this class. Jenna and I will constantly be team-teaching. For the males here, no, we will not marry you no matter how nicely you ask. Nor will we be asking you to marry us. Nor will we be doing any . . ." Mia glanced at a sheet of paper in her hand, slashy activities, such as making out with or groping one another--" She gagged. "This is ridiculous. I can't believe you people write things like this."

"But you two are both so sexy, and you look even better together!" a boy from the back of the class called.

"Dragon Fume!"

He was scorched by Jenna's attack as she entered the room, Jeena the mini-Dullahan following right behind her. Jenna herself was looking more than a touch grumpy, and rather dissatisfied with whatever had just happened. Jeena, on the other hand, seemed quite satisfied with itself; it was using what Tammi suspected was part of a fanboy's shirt to wipe blood off its sword.

Tammi shuddered.

"Welcome to class!" Jenna said, marching up to stand beside Mia. "As Mia's already told you, this is the course on Romance Fanfiction. Now, we don't really care whether you worms write a good amount of romance or not--you're in here to learn how to if you ever do, or how to do it correctly if you ever have. Is that clear?"

Mumbling.

Jenna scowled. "I said, is that clear?!"

Silence met her question this time.

"Good," she said.

"So," Mia interrupted, "Let's start off with an introduction of couplings. Now, there really aren't any canon couples in Golden Sun, because character interaction in the first game is minimal and we were concentrating on other things in The Lost Age. Even yaoi or yuri--same-sex relationships--might be canonical if looked at in the right light. So we can't really lecture you on keeping couples canon. Except for a few. But, as you've already likely been told, if you do it well enough then messing with canon is acceptable. Is that clear?"

Silence again.

"Good."

"So." Jenna held out her staff, as if ready to defend from a sudden onslaught. "Now, just because people are in love doesn't mean they have to do the nasty, if you get my drift. Even if they do, what makes you think people want to read about it? Frankly, I don't care to read about what Isaac and Mia do together in the dead of night, thank you very much. That sort of thing does not belong on--if you haven't noticed, NC-17fics are not allowed there. If you're going to write them, stick them someplace else, preferably up your own--"

"Easy, Jenna, let's not get carried away," Mia interrupted.

"It's a free world," a girl near the back called. "We can write what we want to, even lemons and limes!"

Mia sighed, rubbing her forehead with one hand. "Yes, you can. We're not going to stop you. Jenna just doesn't like them much, that's all. Besides that, love isn't all about sex. That would be lust. But what's it matter anyway? A good deal of you can't tell the two apart. Now, we're going to talk about how to do a successful romance fanfiction without any mention of sex, all right?"

Tammi left the class an hour later with a pout on her face. They just didn't get it, that was all. Romance always led to sex, didn't it?

Shane, meanwhile, had seemed pretty satisfied with the class, and bid Tammi a cheerful goodbye as they parted ways in the hall. Tammi just grumbled something and continued on her way.

Her mood lightened when she saw Alex lounging in the front of her next class, looking bored and waiting for the bell to ring.

She eagerly took a seat at the front, and her drool began to puddle beneath her feet.

The bell rang, and Alex took a quick glance around the room. His eyes fell on Tammi, and he smiled.

He's looking at me he's looking at me he's looking at me he's smiling he's smiling he's smiling

"Miss Tammi Holmes, was it?" he asked, walking over to her desk. In an effort to look her best, Tammi pulled her tongue back into her mouth. "I suppose your presence here today means you fully recovered from that awful blow the Mini-Dullahans gave you?"

"Mm-hnuh," Tammi managed.

"Oh, I'm so relieved," Alex said. "I've been worried about you ever since I saw you in the Sanctum, you know."

"Mraaaaaaah. . ." Tammi couldn't seem to get words to form on her tongue.

"Would you come up here, miss Tammi?" Alex extended one hand. Tammi took it and dazedly followed Alex to the front of the room.

"Welcome to class!" Alex said, turning away from Tammi for a moment. "Observe carefully, and take notes!"

Observe what? Tammi wondered.

"Now Tammi, do you love me?" Alex asked, turning back to Tammi.

At the sight of his eyes, she froze again. "Nn-hn."

"Oh, good," Alex said. He was still smiling; Tammi wanted to melt on the spot. "I was worried you wouldn't. Well, Tammi, if you love me, then what will you do for me?"

She spent a few minutes stammering, then finally managed to say, "Anything."

"Would you let my friend Alec here kill you again?" Alex asked. "He needs practice, you see, and I think you're beautiful when you're Downed."

Wait wait wait, Alex just called me beautiful!

"Uh-huh," she said. "If that's what you want."

"Take it away, Alec," Alex said to the Mini-Dullahan at his side. The mini seemed rather delighted at the concept of willing prey, and readied its sword. Tammi braced herself, and the sword screamed through the air toward her neck.

It stopped just before chopping her head off.

"Welcome, class," Alex said, "to Manipulation 101."

There was a burst of laughter, and Tammi, redder than a tomato, snuck back into her seat.

"You're lucky," Alex said to her. "I don't want the room to get messy, so I told Alec just to scare you a bit. Of course, you would have gone willingly to your demise. Such is the essence of manipulation, is it not?"

That was the moment that Tammi started to dislike Alex. Only a little, but even a little was monumental in her case.

"Anyway, class, today we will be discussing how to find out what a person wants and using it to your advantage," Alex said. "I did the exact same thing with Felix, Saturos, and Isaac. What did Saturos want? To light the beacons in order to save Prox. What did Felix want? To light the beacons and liberate his parents. What did Isaac want? To save Jenna. So I manipulated all their best interests to prevent anyone from stopping me. Think about it--Saturos and Felix did all my dirty work, and since Isaac was off with Jenna, no one was in Vale to stop me from taking the Golden Sun. I won."

"Not so!" Susie called out, standing up and slamming her hands down onto the desk. "The Wise One beat you, remember?"

"The Wise One was not part of my plan," Alex said. "An unforeseen circumstance--an externality. They always crop up, but this one was not good at all. We will not be talking about him in my class. Understood?"

Tammi, having just been to Romance Fanfiction, knew that silence was the way to respond. It seemed most of the rest of the class understood this as well.

Susie did not.

"I think you're just making excuses!" she yelled. "You just can't admit that the Wise One beat you!"

"Perhaps," Alex replied cryptically. He looked at Susie for a long minute. "And then again, maybe you're entirely mistaken. My class is not the place to be discussing such things."

Tammi raised a hand. Alex looked at her and smirked. "Yes, Miss Holmes?"

"So, um, how do you tell what someone wants?" Tammi asked, her voice trembling. Maybe she could find a way to get back into Alex's good graces.

"I see you like to remain right on subject," he said. He turned away for a moment and tossed out his hair with one hand.

A different Alex fangirl lunged; Alec called up Charon and the girl vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Now, can anyone tell me what it is that girl wanted?" Alex asked, turning around.

"You, obviously," Wing Sarten called from the back of the class.

"Good observation," Alex said. "So, by observing people and the way they act, you can tell what it is that they want. I had already met Miss Holmes here," he made a gesture toward Tammi, "and since I was in the room at the time, it was painfully obvious--very painfully obvious--that her desire was to have me."

Tammi turned redder and sank in her seat as all the eyes of the class suddenly fell on her.

"Now, another key to manipulation is to only let the person have what is beneficial to yourself as well," Alex said. "The rest, you should care less about. See, since Miss Holmes here wanted nothing short of strangling me to death with her so-called loving embrace, I decided that giving her what she wanted would not be beneficial to me. So I took her desire and twisted it to match my own. Does that make sense?"

Everyone was silent (including Susie). But, as always, all good things must come to an end.

"You're a scumbag!" one of the I Hate Alex Club members near the back called.

"We want you to die!" a second one called.

Alex grinned at the rest of the class. "Of course, it is slightly easier when they just tell you outright what it is that they want." He then looked toward the back and began walking in that direction.

"So, what you want is to have my head on a platter, is that right?" he asked.

"You bet it is!" a third member of the IHAC called.

"Really." Alex continued walking. "Now, let me go over with you what will happen if you attempt to kill me. First off, no matter how strong you think yourselves to be, remember that I carry a good amount of the essence of the Golden Sun. Therefore, even without Alec's help, I could Down each of you several times over, and do it so fast that your little heads would spin."

"A small price to pay!" the first member of the IHAC announced.

"Oh, but that's hardly all," Alex continued. "Miss Jen would be absolutely livid and likely unleash wave after wave of Minis on you. Of course, they'd be only delighted at the chance to use their swords on students. And, last of all, you may wish to know that attacking the staff is a very serious charge. You could be expelled from OFUW for good."

This was met with silence, until a fourth IHAC member asked, "For good?

"That means no second chances. No author's license. And most importantly, no more fanfiction writing," Alex said.

More silence.

"I don't doubt that you still want me dead," Alex said. "I do, however, think you may have changed your mind as to whether you want to be the ones doing the killing."

The IHAC members glared at him, but said nothing, and he turned around, smiling.

"You see?" he said. "I've done it again."

Tammi emerged from the class feeling far stupider than she had ever had before. She also felt that she was beginning to understand exactly why Susie hated Alex so much.

Of course, Tammi couldn't hate him. It was too much for anyone to hope for.

She headed off to her last class of the day, finding with dismay that her second-most-hated character, Felix, sat behind the desk, gazing off into space as he waited for the bell to ring. He was looking very distracted, so Tammi decided maybe, just maybe, she might be able to skip out on class today.

She turned and walked back toward the door. In a flash, a Mini-Dullahan had appeared, blocking her path with its sword.

"Good boy, Delix," Felix said.

The mini poked Tammi in the led with the hilt of its sword and pointed back toward the desks, a dangerous get back to your seat or suffer the horrid consequences.

Tammi shuddered and sank into a vacant seat, watching as Delix walked by and continued its patrol of the classroom. The bell rang, and Felix stood.

He turned to a boy near the front.

"Angst," he commanded.

"What?" the boy asked.

"I said, angst. I want to see if you're one of . . . them."

The boy shrugged and worked his face into a pout and pretended to cry, doing so rather loudly and badly.

"You are one of them," Felix said in disgust. He turned to the others. "And I guess the rest of you are as well! I've read your work! I know what you think angst is! And let me tell you, you're entirely wrong!"

He whirled around, pushing his cape out from behind him with one hand. "One does not angst over a broken fingernail! One does not angst over an argument with one's boyfriend! One angsts because something truly wrong has happened to you--not something unfair, mind you, something that is actually bad and stings you straight through the heart! Do you understand?!"

"Yes?" one timid boy volunteered.

"Wrong answer!" Felix yelled in reply. The boy shrank in his seat. "If you did understand then you wouldn't be in my classroom in the first place, do you see?"

Suffice it to say that Felix spent the remainder of the hour lecturing--Tammi liked to think of it as ranting--on why none of them could understand what angst was in the first place. She left the class feeling a bit infuriated.

How dare Felix imply that she had no idea what angst was! How dare he ignore all her original characters, whose angsty pasts were the size of Weyard!

There was another thing she didn't get. Felix had said something about the source of angst needing to be extremely serious if it was in the distant enough past. A death or being abused were the only ones he could think of to meet such criteria, and he said even abuse had to be a special case.

"No more of this 'I think it's my fault that my father accidentally scratched me with a fork ten years ago!' or any such muck like that!" Felix had yelled.

Tammi, who had tuned out most of the lecture, paid attention at that point, and only that point. Mainly because Delix was standing very close to her chair at the time.

She had left the class with an assignment--a 2000 word fanfic in which one of the canon characters angsts. It was the canon part that got her. Why not Vynna or one of her other originals? Surely they could angst just as well as any of the so-called canon characters!

She'd show him! She'd show him and all the rest as well!

And so it was that Tammi spent much of her dinner hour scribbling own details of Vynna's angst while stuffing her face with as much food as would fit in her mouth.

She scrambled into bed late that night, turning over and kissing her hand-drawn Alex fanart goodnight before she fell asleep.

Her dreams were sweet, unlike what the next day at OFUW would be.