Eric's school life was remotely peaceful all things considered. He attended his classes with vigor and determination and answered problems he was quick to solve but remembered to allow other kids a chance, so he won't be considered a know-it-all. He treated his teachers with the utmost respect and his fellow classmates, minus Damian and company, with cordiality. Many of them still kept their distance due to his rivalry with Damian because they didn't want to get caught up in the crossfire. The only one who stuck close to him was Becky who remained unbothered.
At the end of class as Eric finished the last of his notes for math, he heard a surprised pain-filled yelp to his left. A girl with shoulder-length black hair held her index finger that sported a fresh papercut. Her friend and desk mate checked her finger and hissed at the blood oozing out before the black-haired child sucked on it to relieve the pain.
Eric sighed as he fished out a band aid from the side pocket of his bag and approached their desk. "Excuse me? But will this help?" He asked pleasantly as he presented them with a band aid.
The two girls blushed upon seeing the calm green eyes of Eric Forger, the one who outwitted Damian Desmond single handedly without throwing a single punch. The girl could hardly say a word as the beautiful boy got closer and held his other hand out to her. "Let me see." Under the spell of his green eyes, she held her papercut out to Eric who blew on it gently to soothe it before gently wrapping the band aid around little finger. After smoothing out the adhesive onto her soft skin, Eric smiled slightly yet softly at his work and looked up at his classmate. "Better?"
Their blushes increased at his lovely assuring smile. "Um, I, well-" When she couldn't get the words out, she simply nodded and smiled nervously.
"You be careful now and avoid getting it wet. Okay?" Eric gently instructed as he pulled his book bag over his shoulder.
"Yeah, thanks Forger." The black-haired girl said before he left to join Becky who waited for him at the entrance.
Once the two were out the door, she and her desk mate squealed quietly as they looked at the band aid around her finger. "Lizzie, you're so lucky! You touched his hand!" Other girls came to their desk to look at the girl's finger. Whispering excitedly after witnessing Eric's gentle act.
Lizzie held her band aid out like it was the holiest thing in the world. "His hands were so soft and warm." Lizzie sighed dreamily, "It felt nice."
The others pouted and whined, "No fair." "I want to get a papercut."
"You know, you're gonna give those girls the wrong idea." Becky stated to Eric who turned to her in confusion, "Why do you say that?"
Becky sighed at his cluelessness, "Never mind. You're just so nice to everybody despite how they treat you."
"Nice? I was being professional. It wouldn't do well for her if she's bothered by a papercut the whole day." Eric explained, unsure why this bothered Becky.
"You're just gonna give first aide treatment to everyone in class. Aren't you?" Becky asked already seeing a gaggle of girls lining up to get 'treated' by Eric. It hasn't been two weeks since they started school, and the girls are already staring at him. Eric thought they were cautious stares after what happened at the start of the school year. But Becky knew better than what her dense Eric believes.
"I like to think of myself as the class medic. Save them a trip to the infirmary." Eric explained, already establishing himself as the Cecil Hall's first responder to the students.
"Yeah, until they suffer heart attacks."
"Unlikely at their age. Still too early." Eric disagreed then explained, "While the average age for a heart attack is 64.5 for men, and 70.3 for women, nearly 20 percent of those who die of heart disease are under the age of 65." He then raised a finger to point out another medical factor, "But I read somewhere that children are susceptible to heart palpitations. They can be caused by a variety of factors, including being startled, frightened or under stress, cold, allergy, and asthma medications. However, two of the most frequent causes for heart palpitations are not drinking enough fluid on a regular basis or being out of good physical shape. I haven't learned the proper treatment for it yet, but I do watch out for the signs such as fainting, lightheadedness, difficulty breathing and chest pains."
'So clueless. He's the one who's gonna cause heart palpi-something.' Becky sighed and laughed as she ruffled his hair, "Oh Eric, you are just so adorable."
"Hm?" Eric blinked, wondering where that came from all of a sudden as they got closer to their next class.
At an outdoor cafe sat Twilight and the Handler as they quietly discussed Operation Strix.
"Your son's academic progress, give me your honest assessment." Sylvia ordered as she took a sip of her coffee. "HQ estimated that he'll need to acquire eight Stella Stars in about four months."
Twilight set his cup in its saucer and wove his gloved fingers together. "I have no doubt in Eric's genius. It won't be a problem. However, it would be counterproductive if I pressure him to acquire those Stars faster. He barely started school, and his first exam won't be for another month." He stated since he needs Eric to enjoy school while getting good grades. He's already aced his homework and quizzes. It wouldn't be a good idea to push his six-year-old into obtaining those merits.
"Interesting, you're quite honest in the faith you have for your son." Sylvia stated sincerely before moving on to another pressing matter involving one of their informants being compromised and turned over to the State Security Service (SSS), whose main goal is to root out spies and traitors to the country. While spies do most of the dirty work, their informants are just as valuable since they're the extra set of eyes that help spot for oncoming danger. One less informant means more danger surrounding them.
At home, Loid was helping Eric with his homework while Anya sat fixated to an episode of Bondman being tortured. "How is this a kid's show?" Eric couldn't help but ask since he's pretty sure cartoons are supposed to be innocent and less violent. At the end of the episode telling the viewers Bondman has two bullets left in his pistol, Anya turned to her father and brother, "How many bullets can Bondman's pistol carry?"
Loid was surprised at the question, but answered, "If I remember correctly, it holds eight, right?"
"He's got two-eights." Anya stated, surprising them with her mathematical answer.
"Way to go, Anya." Eric praised his sister while Loid stood up, "It is, good job."
Anya stood up and gave them a tough look. "He's got two-eights bullets left."
"So you actually know what that means?" Loid asked incredulously.
"I guess cartoons can act as some sort of stimulus if it can serve educational purposes." Eric said thoughtfully since he described fractions to Anya the previous night. As expected, she conked out on his bed while he finished his homework. That kind of teaching method won't work on his sister.
Then Yor entered the apartment looking frantic as she came into the living room. "Loid, we got some serious trouble brewing!"
"Hi Mom."
"Welcome home Yor."
"There's two-eights bullets left." This earned Anya a look from her family before Yor went back to the issue at hand.
"Yuri is coming here tonight! Here!" Yor informed the family with a look of panic.
It took Loid a moment to register this curveball. "Here?"
Eric dropped his math book in response while Anya kept her tough girl posture.
After Yor hung up her coat, she then conferred with Loid with the kids present. "Now he knows. So of course he insisted on coming over." Yor fidgeted then turned to Loid, "What are we gonna do? He can't find out that the whole thing is fake."
Luckily, Loid had an easy solution, "No need to worry. I've prepared for this. Picked up a couple of lovey-dovey stuff for this occasion."
The 'emergency lovey-dovey kit' he so eloquently pulled together just so happened to be a toothbrush holder with 'love' written on it. A few photoshopped family pictures, and last but not least, a ridiculous valentines-style bedspread in Yor's room. The fake couple looked at it with blushes on their face.
"Mama and Papa are flirting." Anya stated from the doorway as the flustered couple denied, "No, we are not!"
Eric sighed, his arms crossed as he leaned his back against the wall outside beside Yor's bedroom. "Leave it to Dad to go overboard with his backup plans." 'He obviously doesn't know how marriage works. I seriously doubt Yor's brother is gonna buy this.'
"Maybe if they actually kissed every once in a while, even in private, they could surely sell the act." He never meant to say those words out loud as the couple blushed deeply.
'Yep, we're doomed.' Eric sighed again as Anya giggled. This is so much fun.
The grandfather clock chimed at 9pm. Loid, Anya and Eric sat in that order on the couch where father and daughter read Spy Wars comics while the son read a few chapters ahead in his science book.
"Mama's brother, he's still not here yet?" Anya asked Loid as he turned a page.
"You mean your Uncle." Loid corrected.
"Unkie." Anya tried out the word.
"No thank you." Eric responded, not looking up from his book. He was not exactly open to calling their mom's brother so suddenly without getting to know him properly.
Anya yawned deeply, catching Loid's attention. "Seems it's gotten way past your bedtime, Anya." He stated, watching how the clearly tired little girl started to sway and her eyes become half-lidded.
"But I really want to meet my Unkie too." Anya slurred.
"He's probably still stuck at work." Yor said from the window, trying to catch a glimpse of her brother.
Anya lost her fight to exhaustion and fell on her father's lap.
Eric hummed and shut his book. "I'm gonna turn in as well." He said as he got off the couch.
"You sure you don't want to meet your Uncle Yuri?" Yor asked.
"Yeah, I'm pretty tired, and I have school tomorrow. I'll meet him another time." Eric said as he made his way to his room while Loid prepared his unconscious daughter for bed.
While Eric did go to bed, he only got at least an hour of sleep before commotion from the living room woke him up. He glared tiredly at the ceiling with hands woven against his front. He recognized his parents' voices, but the third one was completely foreign to him.
'Yor's brother, Yuri Briar.' Eric hummed to himself. He closed his eyes to try and go back to sleep. The time amount he got was fifteen minutes before his eyes shot open in alertness upon hearing someone scream 'Loidy'.
Growling lightly to himself, he raised his hand and opened the bedside table drawer and out came the heavy earmuffs. Catching the earmuffs above his face, he placed them over his ears. While the sounds were muffled, it didn't completely silence the commotion. He took meditative breaths and willed himself to relax, closing his eyes once again.
It hasn't been ten minutes before the entire apartment shook from a destructive force. The impact was enough to knock over the books and pencils off his shelves and desk. Eric sat up, floating above his bed, feeling cranky and irritable enough to shake the furniture in the room. A very displeased frown etched itself onto his face before he willed himself to calm down again before he ends up destroying his room. Gently, he lowered himself back onto the mattress. With a tired sigh, he waved his hand around and picked up all the books and slid them back in the shelves while placing the pencils back in their holders.
He flopped himself back against the bed and tucked himself in to try and go back to sleep. After a while, he finally returned to the world of dreams.
Morning came and Eric looked groggier than he normally would when he woke up.
Yor was already there as he trudged over to the sink, thumping his head against the ceramic but paid no mind as his hand found his toothbrush.
"Are you okay Eric?" Yor asked as the boy went on to brush his teeth.
"Yeah, I woke up some time last night when the earthquake hit." Eric said, eyes still closed as though he was still asleep.
Yor flinched and blushed red, choosing not to say anything about that.
Anya joined them, dressed in her adorable blue onesie and tired expression.
"Good morning Anya." Yor greeted after wiping her face with a towel.
Even though his eyes were barely open as he brushed his teeth, he was aware that his sister needed the sink as he pulled the step stool out with his foot and moved aside until he was sitting on the closed toilet.
"It's too bad you didn't get to see Yuri last night." Yor commented while brushing her hair as Anya splashed her face to wake herself up.
"Hm? Who's that?" Anya asked tiredly, shocking Yor. 'But she was so excited about meeting him.'
"Don't count on the attention span of a four-year-old." Eric said as he pulled open the toilet seat and spat the toothpaste into the water.
Eric sat at the breakfast table beside Loid, eating whatever strange dish Yor prepared. It took all of Eric's willpower not to throw up out of consideration for his mother. Half-way through, he was mildly certain he was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as his eyes began to close.
"Why didn't you wake me up and introduce me to Unkie! Gimme back the excitement I wasted!" Anya's outrage voice brought Eric back to life before he lightly slapped himself on the cheek to wake up.
"It meant that much to you?" Loid asked, unaware that his thoughts betrayed him to his daughter who just learned that Yor's younger brother is from the Secret Police, an arch-nemesis of WISE. Learning another secret brought a new kind of excitement to Anya's life.
But now that the storm passed, he can go back to focusing on Eric's education. "Now hurry up and eat, or you'll both be late."
The dish Yor prepared at almost gone save for a fish head and bones. Anya wept as she ate, not because she missed the excitement of meeting another relative with a double life, but because Yor's cooking tasted more like hate and anguish.
'You're okay Anya. Just think of this as poison training.' Eric thought sympathetically as he struggled to digest his food. 'If coming in was bad, I'm afraid to know how it feels coming out of me.' That little slip made Anya cry even more.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll meet him soon." Yor said to Anya, not understanding just how terrible her cooking is.
Breakfast carried on into a peaceful conversation, but Anya could sense her father's suspicious distrustful thoughts about Yor. Since her brother is SSS, he wasn't sure if she was aware of Yuri's real occupation or whether SSS sent her to monitor him.
"Papa, Mama is..." Anya spoke without thinking.
"Hm? She's what?" Loid asked as everyone's attention turned to her.
She wanted to tell him Yor wasn't aware of anything, but thankfully, she stopped herself just in time and instead said, "Mama is...bad at cooking." Which was stomach-achingly true.
Yor blushed as a tear rolled down her cheek. "C'mon, I didn't even tell you I made breakfast this morning! Was it really that obvious?"
Eric nodded morbidly as he sipped his milk to relieve his internal organs.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I tried my best." Yor apologized, feeling ashamed.
After Eric and Anya got dressed in their respective school uniforms, he stood beside his sister just in time to see their mother looking flustered as Anya gasped at her thoughts.
After Eric got onto the Eden bus and rolled away, it was Anya's turn to get on her own bus. However, before she climbed in, she turned to her parents and firmly told them, "Mama and Papa, you two need to be good and get along."
This surprised the couple as Loid reassured her that they weren't fighting. Yor added in that everything was alright.
After bidding their daughter goodbye, the bus rolled away. Yor and Loid both left to their respective jobs, one to City Hall and the other on the roof of City Hall to listen and spy on his wife.
Eric groaned in his seat as he morbidly waited for class to start.
"You don't look so good." Becky commented, noting how his blank face held more grimace and suppressed agony.
"I did not have a good breakfast this morning." Eric closed his eyes and breathed deeply to calm the tension in his stomach. 'The worst time to begin poison training.'
"What did you eat?" Becky's question made Eric's eye open slowly, but the shadows under his eyes and pale skin made him look kind of dead.
"It's too horrible for me to describe." Eric sighed, feeling sick just by thinking about it. "I wouldn't feed it even to my worst enemy." He added as Damian entered the room with his two loyal dogs.
Upon seeing Eric's state, he took this opportunity to mock him. "Did someone run you over or something? You look dead."
"Getting there. Again." Eric quickly replied, not having the motivation to argue with Damian. "I'll describe the Pearly Gates in more detail when I come back."
'Grr, he hardly even acknowledged the insult and just went along with it.' Damian frowned in annoyance, once again, not getting Eric angry. He sat down with his friends and glared at Eric. 'Although, he does look pretty bad. Wouldn't be as fun.'
Loid and Yor picked up Anya after meeting up along the way. Twilight spent the whole day spying on his wife, trying to detect any connection between her and SSS. Thankfully, she was unaware of either the Secret Police, or of her husband being suspicious of her. When Anya saw them, she joyfully ran up to them upon sensing their thoughts.
"You're getting along. Like I wanted." Anya said, happy that her parents are okay with each other again.
"I told you before, we weren't even fighting in the first place." Loid assured her as she raised her hands up, wanting to be picked up. He obliged her request as Yor smiled at the scene before they left preschool and made their way home.
Eric got off the bus that dropped him off close to his home before entering the apartment building.
"I'm home." Eric announced as he entered the apartment.
Anya rushed to the door like an excited puppy. "Welcome home big brother!" She jumped into her brother's arms as he carried her back inside.
"How's everything?" Eric put her down on her feet.
"We're all okay." Anya said as they entered the living room where their parents sat and discussed all the excitement that happened in their day.
By late evening, Eric was working hard on his homework for the weekend when Anya entered with her Mr. Chimera.
"I can't play with you right now Anya. I need to finish this first before bed." Eric said, not looking up as he wrote furiously, the scratching and tapping of his pencil on paper filled the room.
Anya closed the door securely and dragged her feet over to her brother and placed Mr. Chimera on Eric's head. "But Mr. Chimera says you have a mission da-bref. *debrief*"
"It can't wait until tomorrow?" Eric asked, not fazed as Anya whispered, "It's about Unkie Yuri, Papa found out something that could endanger the mission."
The pencil stopped writing as he turned his attention to his sister and took Mr. Chimera off his head and set him on his lap. "What happened?"
"Mama's brother is part of the Secret Police who hunt down spies." Anya whispered to her brother; her eyes filled with certainty.
"Spy hunters. Then they're Dad's sworn enemy." Eric frowned, "Does Yuri suspect anything about us?"
Anya shook her head with a frown, "I didn't get to meet him last night to read his mind. I'm sorry."
Eric sighed and patted her head, "It's not your fault. We'll meet him next time." 'I hope.' Anya's face perked up at that.
"Anything else I need to be debriefed on Mr. Chimera?" Eric asked, holding up his sister's doll.
Anya nodded, "Yeah, big, big, boss needs you to get all eight Stars in four months."
"What? I barely got started with school." Eric whispered exasperatedly. He said he wanted to get all eight Stella Stars and become an Imperial Scholar, but he was hoping to get there in about two or three years.
"That's what Papa said, but it's what his boss wants." Anya whispered to her brother who looked displeased with the time limit he's been given and tried to assure her brother, "But don't worry, I'm sure Papa can work something out. Just don't stress over it. Plus, there's still Plan B."
Eric's frown was all the answer she needed in response to that alternative. "Yeah, okay, never mind."
Eric sighed as he returned to his work with more vigor. "There is more than one way to acquire Stella Stars, not just with best grades on exams. I'll talk to Dad about it at some point. It's best not to sound so eager either." He said as he handed Mr. Chimera back to his sister.
Anya nodded as she held her toy to her chest. She walked towards the door and opened it then stepped out. Before she closed the door, she said to her brother, "You're gonna do great, just don't work too hard. Goodnight." Once the door shut, she walked back to her room.
"Wonder what all that was about?" Yor asked as she and Loid sat in the living room drinking tea. They both could hardly make out the whispers coming from Eric's room, but they never fought, which was a relief to both parents.
"Probably some Spy Wars stuff as usual." Loid said as he went back to planning how to get Stella Stars for his son quickly and efficiently.
Bet you weren't expecting two episodes to roll into one on this chapter. I tried to add in as much humor without forcing it, so I hope at least some of you giggled. I know some of you wanted to see Eric interact with Yuri, but that was basically an adult episode and kids do need sleep.
Next chapter is the Dodgeball episode. Stay tuned.