2.5 Invocation

Getting out of the bathroom was the easy part. Getting the slightly overweight girl to hear me out proved to be much more troublesome.

"Where am I!?" She exclaimed, noticing that she was on some strange bathroom stall. She stood up, and pointed a small stick my way.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring you here, but I need your help." I said, sensing how agitated she was. I focused on her state of mind and was surprised that she was more angry and afraid about being in a strange place than grateful for being alive.

"What, my help? No one needs my help!" She exclaimed, and made a stabbing motion with the stick, a faint after-effect followed the stick wherever it went. "Who are you? Did Olive Hornby send you?"

I shook my head. "I don't know this 'Olive Hornby'. My name is Taylor Hebert, and I am what people know as a 'parahuman'." I waited to see if she recognized the word. My link to her memories wasn't quite as well attuned as it was with Akane.

She frowned. "Parahuman? You seem to be able to walk just fine."

"Not paralytic, parahuman. Is a person with special abilities, sometimes small, sometimes big enough that some people think it's like magic or something."

She studied my words carefully, and eyed the room. "This isn't my bathroom, it looks- it looks-" It seemed she was looking for a word, but wasn't sure if it was impolite.

I focused in the word she was looking for, and said. "Muggle?"

She numbly nodded. "You're a muggleborn, too?"

I didn't respond immediately, instead I studied the meaning of the word according to her. Muggleborn came from muggle, a person with no magic. I blinked. No magic? So, the stick is a… wand. Yes. I got myself a wizard.

I smiled and tapped on Akane's ki control. I closed my hand into a fist and focused an aura of power around it. She looked at it and blinked.

"Wha-what?" She said, and took a step back, almost falling on her ass on the toilet, but used her hands to keep herself up.

I let the aura fade away. "I am not a wizard. I am a parahuman." I explained. "I have the special ability to bring people back from the dead. That's how you showed up here."

She frowned. "Back from the dead? But I never died!" She massaged her chin. "Or did I go through with it, this time?"

"This time?"

"I- I- huh- I was thinking of killing myself." She said, a bit afraid of actually admitting that fact.

"Bullying?"

"Olive Hornby and her little entourage!" She exclaimed, suddenly angry. The tip of her wand turned red. "Why won't they leave me alone!" She glared at me. "You said I died?"

"Yes? That's how it was to my other summons."

"Summons. So, I'm some summon, am I binded to you or something?"

"I can sense what you sense, and have some limited access to your memories." I explained, hoping that she would calm down a bit.

She took a step outside the stall and kicked the floor. "So what, I died, but I'm now alive again?"

"I guess so."

She made a face, almost as if she smelled something foul. "What year is it?"

I sensed what year she expected to hear, and gulped. "2011." 68 years after she died. Or maybe not. Maybe her world wasn't time aligned to Earth Bet like Earth Aleph was.

Her face went red. "That bloody bitch! Olive Hornby must have gotten married and lived a happy life by now! And what did I get?" She sniffed the air. "An awful stench!"

"One more thing, we think I summon people from other worlds, so maybe this 'Olive' doesn't even exist here."

That made her face shine a bit. "Really? That sounds wonderful! She's really horrible to me, you know, always making snide comments at my expense. She calls me fat, ugly, and last time she made fun of my glasses! I couldn't take it anymore!"

I should've sympathized more with her, but somehow, looking at her memories, the bullying she suffered seemed extremely tame compared to mine. And she killed herself over that? What a crybaby.

I shook my head. No, she's not at fault. Bullies suck. They killed her.

I forced myself to smile at her, and pointed at the door. "Someone jammed the bathroom door, I believe you can be of assistance with that?"

She seemed almost mousy when she made a slight movement of her wand, not quite sure if she remembered her lessons correctly. She nodded to herself, made another motion of her wand and said, "Alohomora!"

With that out of the way, I was going to tell Myrtle to wait for me until my last few classes ended. But a scream a few feet away caught my attention.

"Wha-?" I managed to say, and turned. There was a boy on the floor, seemingly asleep. Another girl was crying by his side.

I motioned Myrtle to follow me, she frowned, not completely sure if she should trust me, but followed me anyway. I made a mental note to be more careful about when I use my power. Bringing too many people could be problematic. I didn't even know how we were going to explain Myrtle to my dad, let alone to the authorities.

"What's going on?" I asked the crying girl, and bend over to see the boy better.

"I don't know!" She yelled at me, and pointed. "He was like that when I arrived! I was running to my next class and-" She started sobbing.

I checked for a pulse, and blinked. The boy, whom I didn't recognize, was dead. "How did this happen?"

"I said I didn't saw, alright! Geez, those girls are right, you are kind of a moron!"

I flared a glare at her direction, and stood up. My danger sense was going off and wouldn't shut up, screaming for me to leave the school. "Something's going on. I think- I think everyone here is in danger."

"Danger you say?" A gruff voice asked, I turned and saw a gym teacher. I had seen him around school, but had never taken a class with him.

"Coach!" The girl exclaiming, standing up. "Someone killed him!" She exclaimed, pointing at the fallen boy.

The coach's eyes bulged at the sight of the dead body. "What the hell?" He checked his pulse and glared at all three of us. "What the hell is going on here?"

I raised my hand to speak, but before I could explain we didn't have any idea, someone else screamed around the corner. We all turned and blinked as we heard people running on our direction. When they turned around the corner, we saw that a dozen kids were all running. They looked scared for their lives.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing? All of you should be in class!" The coach said, but none of the kids paid mind to him, they just ran past us, some stomping over the prone body of the dead boy.

I grabbed one of the slower running girls, and asked, "What's going on, why are you all running?"

"M-m-monster!" She exclaimed, and pushed me to the wall, and resumed her escape.

"Monster?" Myrtle asked, she sounded more scared than interested. Not exactly the hero type, her.

"You!" The coach said grabbing one of the boys by the collar and lifting him off the ground. "What's going on, and don't just yell 'monster' at me, that doesn't explain anything!"

"I don't know man!" The boy said, struggling to get free. "Some snake monster got into our classroom, and then, just- just like that, a bunch of my classmates died! Even Mr G. is dead!"

"Gladly?" I asked. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I shook my head, again trying to push those feelings deep inside me. I was a hero. "Where did this snake monster go to?"

"The other way, we're not going to be running towards it, we're not idiots!" He exclaimed, and kicked the coach's shin. The coach let go of him and he resumed his running.

The coach gave us one quick look, and then, without saying anything else, followed after the scared kids, leaving the dead body on the middle of the hallway.

I turned to Myrtle. "Ok, this is our chance. Come on, let's go kick that snake's ass!"

Myrtle looked at me like I had grown a second head. "What? I am not a Gryffindor!"

I pushed her to the wall, and kept my hand on her solar plexus. "Look, I revived you, didn't I?" I hissed at her. "You're supposed to be a hero. We can be heroes together. Let's save this stinking school together!"

She gulped. "But I am scared! That sounds dangerous! Besides, I'm useless without magic!"

I raised an eyebrow. "So? Use your magic."

"It's not so simple, I am a minor, I'm not supposed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, besides, I can't just break Wizarding Secrecy just like that!"

" Wizarding Secrecy?" I asked her, and laughed a bit. "We're not in your world! Everyone knows about magic and the supernatural here! We have super-heroes fighting super-villains all the time!"

"If you say so." She said, not really believing me, "but I'm scared, I can't- I am not a hero."

"So? Weren't you suicidal before? Well, this is a much better way of dying than just offing yourself in a bathroom stall."

I wanted to kick myself, looking at her. She was like a kicked puppy. Sure, she was suicidal, but I felt awful manipulating her into coming with me. But it didn't matter, if something happened to her, I'm sure my power would allow me to bring her back. No harm, no foul.

She looked at me like I had slapped her. Tears started flowing down her cheeks, but at least she nodded. "I'll follow you."

We hurried in the direction the students had been running from. We walked past the classroom that had a dozen dead bodies, and I blinked looking at Mr. Gladly.

He wasn't dead. Or rather, he wasn't on the floor, like the rest.

I entered the room, checked that it was safe, and went to touch Mr Gladly. He seemed completely solid. Like he had been turned into stone.

He just had this pained expression written on his face. He had his back to the door, and I followed his gaze. He had been looking at the whiteboard when it happened.

"What the hell? What kind of parahuman power kills people on sight, but turns others into stone?"

Myrtle just shrugged. She looked left and right. "Can we leave? I don't like this, how did they even died?"

I nodded, and we resumed chasing after the supposed snake. While we ran, I tried to reach for my power, but somehow it felt as if it was out of batteries.

"Crap." I muttered.

"What?" Myrtle asked, gasping for breath.

"I never noticed. It seems I have some sort of recharge time for my power. And I bet something like this could've led to an amazing cape for my team." I grumbled, but didn't slow down.

"What do you mean?"

"Not important right now. Dead people all around, remember?"

That's when Myrtle stopped running after me and crouched to the floor, crying. "I- I don't think I want to die!" She told me. "I think I was half-joking about killing myself!"

"But you died, and you said-"

"I don't know if I died!" She said, and stabbed her index finger at me. "You told me I did, but maybe you're lying, or maybe you are not even sure!"

I stared at her. I wanted to strangle her. But she wasn't wrong. Maybe I had just taken her from a private moment? Maybe she was just going to cry a bit in the bathroom and then go on with her life?

My thoughts were interrupted by more screaming, followed by stunned silence. I glared on the direction of the screams, grabbed my backpack and put on my crappy blue mask over my face. "Stay here Myrtle, you shouldn't be a hero if you don't want to."

We heard someone yelling. It was Emma. But she wasn't screaming in fear. Well, not just fear. She was calling for someone to save her.

Ok. This is it. Time to be a hero.