IV

Axel let out a string of cusswords.

"Lou! Get her to the corner with her clothes!" From the shrill in Alabaster's voice, Pax could deduce three things about Alabaster: he hadn't realized Pax was a boy, he had never seen a naked girl outside of a magazine, and he was covering his eyes. Either that, or Alabaster had a thing or two to learn about girl anatomy, possibly true if Alabaster had never seen a naked girl.

Lou Ellen took Pax's elbow. She pulled him towards the shelves. "Come on, before you give my brother a—"

When she quarter turned Pax, she went bright red and burst into giggles. "Oh!" she said.

There weren't a lot of options on how to react. He could apologize for his nudity and for tricking all of them earlier. He could sprint to the corner and pretend to be embarrassed. (Nudity had never bothered him.) That felt disingenuous. What would Uncle Frasco have done? How could he keep Axel focused on reprimanding him instead of attacking the witches for exposing his face?

Pax winked his hazel eye at Lou Ellen. "My uncle said the best mornings are filled with surprises." He tried to give her a charming smile.

Pain erupted in Pax's ear. Axel might have been about to rip it off as he dragged Pax away from Lou Ellen, towards the corner with his clothing. "Don't be a creep!" Axel snarled.

"Aye!" Pax complained. He switched to Spanish to whine, "I'm young enough; she might have thought it endearing and adorable instead."

Uncle Frasco said Pax would only have a few more years that he could use age and ignorance as an excuse. Might as well use it.

"Get dressed," Axel said. The tone cut off any more resistance.

Axel had handled killing the praetor. He'd handled chasing Pax down after Pax had run away—Pax knew Axel would. (Pax had just hoped the rest of their siblings would have been here with them.) Now, one of Axel's last defenses had been robbed from him. Without the illusion, Pax could clearly see Axel's massive canines, the gold glint to his eyes, and the way his tufted ears folded back into his hairline, several inches higher than a human's would have been. Pax wondered if Axel could recreate the illusion when Alabaster was holding the old one or if Lou Ellen's "Mist" weakening ward would make it difficult.

Without complaint, Pax slipped the huge band shirt over his head and tied the flannel shirt back around his waist. Although now wasn't the time to investigate, Pax could feel something in the flannel's front pocket. There hadn't been anything before. Had Mercedes put something in there when she moved his clothing?

"They just seemed curious," Pax said. "I don't think they meant harm." He was scared of upsetting Axel more. His older brother only ever showed his real features around the circus, where people thought it was costume make up or were performers that didn't care. When their papa made a big deal about it, saying it showed favor from the gods, it made Axel even more self-conscious.

"Is she dressed?" Alabaster called.

Lou Ellen's voice trembled with repressed giggles, "Almost."

If she let him, Pax would hug her later for continuing the farce on the older boy. He liked making Alabaster flustered.

Now that Axel had accepted his features would be visible, he jammed his hands into his pockets. When the two of them approached the witches' work table again, Axel scowled, making his elongated canines look more vicious.

Once, when their youngest sibling, Hiro, had cried at seeing Axel's barred fangs, Pax had grabbed Axel's jaws and opened and shut them saying, "Nom. Nom. Nom!" It sent Hiro into a fit of giggles. Pax hardly resisted doing so now, though doubted it would ease Axel's tension.

Lou Ellen gave Pax a wink when they returned. "She's dressed." From the expression, Pax could tell it wasn't a flirtatious wink but a mischievous one. Pax got the feeling she liked to mess with her sibling's heads as much as he did.

Alabaster had uncovered his eyes to pick Axel's fake face off the ground. He must have dropped it when Pax transformed. After clearing his throat and pretending his face wasn't bright red, Alabaster held the illusion up. "This is excellent craftsmanship, though completely unnecessary. Lots of monsters on the ship have a combo of humanoid and animal features."

"I'm not a monster," Axel snarled, not helping the claim. Best way to convince people you're not terrifying: bare your fangs at them.

Lou Ellen's Mediterranean tan shifted to a deeper red. She seemed more enchanted with him now that she could see the shorter, spotted fur below Axel's ears, where he pretended to shave his hair. "People have animal features too. You should see our sister, Lamia. What are you?"

The question wasn't said with a scared or harsh tone, just curiosity. The Pax boys were used to hearing it in so many capacities. Pax and Lapis got it about their gender. Hiro, with his monolids, and Axel with his ambiguous bronze skin, got it about their race.

"Maybe some sort of massive cat?" Lou Ellen continued, not seeming to realize how rude her question was. "You don't have slit eyes—"

"Large cats don't have slit irises, Lelly," Alabaster chided.

Axel cut off their conversation by motioning towards his face. "This was not for the public to see."

Alabaster's gaze went from distantly considering Axel's face to narrowing at Axel's eyes. He cleared his throat and held the illusion out for Axel.

Axel snatched it from Alabaster and began smoothing the mask of brown eyes, human ears, and shorter canines back to his features. He muttered in Mayan while he worked.

"I—I'm sorry," Alabaster said, "I let my curiosity get the best of me. I've never seen someone tweak just a tiny bit of their face before. Lou Ellen is right though. You don't need to hide your features here."

"You're even hotter with your real ones," Lou Ellen said.

Pax glanced at Axel to see if the older one blushed.

Axel cleared his throat. His mouth moved like he had a response.

He didn't.

Pax gave Lou Ellen an appreciative grin. That was the best way to disrupt tension: shocking it out of people.

"You guys are cool," Pax said.

This time, Alabaster blinked in surprise. "That's not the typical response we receive when turning people into small mammals."

Most people, Pax decided, didn't naturally have the disposition for cute, furry things the way that Pax did.

Pax scurried up to Alabaster's side. The boy didn't flinch back when Pax tugged his lab coat sleeve. Pax tilted his chin down and batted his eyelashes at Alabaster, the way he'd learned from Kouta's girlfriends and some of the prostitutes their dad occasionally hired for parties and business meetings. "Can you really do magic?"

Alabaster stared at Pax for a moment, his brow furrowing in confusion. "As can the two of you, apparently?" his question was directed more at Axel. "Are the two of you children of Hecate?"

"Half our siblings are monsters," Lou Ellen said, seeming to forget that Axel really didn't like the M word.

"No," Axel said.

Neither Axel nor Pax knew what to say about their parentage. Pax didn't like saying who his mother was. Not with the mini-cult his father had formed around her and the way that cult treated Pax. [footnote]

Could they talk about Axel's heritage with anyone on this ship?

Lou Ellen tilted her head to one side. The black locks of her ponytail tumbled against one shoulder. "Are you even Greek?" she asked. "You two have some other magic that interfered with my vial."

Alabaster appeared to forget Pax for a moment. "I haven't read of cat people in Greek mythology. Maybe—Egyptian? Though I suppose that would be your full head. Mesoamerican?"

If Alabaster were throwing at a map of the world, he would have been hitting way too close to home. Axel flinched, like each of those metaphorical darts could blow up the country of Belize. To be fair, Pax thought, Belize was a tiny country.

Something high-pitched chimed.

All four of them jumped.

After a moment, Pax realized the sound had come from a ship's intercom in the corner of the room.

Alabaster sighed. He went to write something on his flip notebook. "I want to test your magic and how it interacts when combined with Greek magic," he said. "They'll want you on the top deck to test you for sword prowess, combat training, and knowledge of mythology. I'll be up shortly to help with the assessment. They're split into specific skills afterwards. I expect you to report back here during that time."

When Alabaster tore the piece of paper out of his flipbook, it glowed green. Axel hesitated to take it. At his pause, Pax snatched the sheet.

He couldn't read anything on the page. As they always did, the letters looked like abstract art to him. The sheet itself felt warm. "We get to come back!?" Pax asked. He failed at keeping the excitement from his voice.

Alabaster gently removed Pax's other hand from his lab coat. The motion wasn't angry, just awkward, like Alabaster wasn't used to people touching him. Him and Mercedes. Pax vowed to give them both more hugs. "Willing test subjects, especially in their rarity, are always welcome back to the lab."

Pax wanted to say that Alabaster could test on him all day. He rather liked turning into a weasel and was excited at whatever else the witch boy might have up his white lab sleeves.

Instead, he grinned at Alabaster's emerald gaze.

Axel took Pax's arm and pulled him from Alabaster's side.

Alabaster shook his head, his expression unreadable. "Surely, if you were capable of killing the praetor, Luke will be most enthusiastic to assign you into the Assault and Battery unit. However, it would be a waste to exclusively delve into the sword with talent like that." He motioned towards Axel's face. The bitterness to his words reminded Pax of the conversation they overheard between him and Luke. The sentiment was so strong, he almost overlooked the compliment.

Axel grunted. "Don't touch my illusion next time."

Pax gave them a shy wave goodbye. Lou Ellen giddily waved back as Axel backed them towards the exit. Pax wanted to point out that the two witches could have turned them into weasels easily, and that Lou Ellen was much more likely to do so to have Axel transform back naked than for any other malicious reason. But, since Uncle Frasco and Aunt Nilley' murders, Pax knew there wasn't any reasoning with Axel's paranoia.

Once outside with the lab doors shut, Axel relaxed.

"They were awesome!" Pax said, "And they want us to come back! They—"

Axel snagged Pax's ear. "Do NOT drink something without asking what is in it. What would you have done if nuts were in there? Did you even think to bring an EpiPen from home?! And what if they'd wanted to drug you?!"

"Your imagination is boring!" Pax whined. He didn't want to consider the idea that his new friends could be bad people.

"Yea, and if they were going to drug you, they would, like, totally slip it into the cafeteria's fountain machine," someone said directly beside them.

Axel jumped and dragged Pax behind him.

The blond, sunburned Nordic boy stood outside the doors, exactly where they had been eavesdropping before. His grin was so wide, Pax thought you could sell advertising space on it.

"Matthias Severe Hanson," he said and extended a hand.

Both Axel and Pax stared skeptically at the hand. It clearly had an electric buzzer strapped to the palm.

When neither bit, Matthias lifted his hand, shook the buzzer back and forth in their faces, and tapped his fingers together. Pax wondered how often Matthias shocked himself with the device if he tapped his fingers together so often.

"You two are good. Pax, right?" He pointed a finger gun at Pax. "Did you get it?! That Mercedes Benz chick said that you got it."

For a moment, Pax didn't know how to respond. This was the first person to properly introduce themselves, but he'd glazed over the introduction so rapidly, Pax was still back by "Matthias Severe Hanson." But hadn't this boy already said that he knew his name?

"Got what?" Axel asked.

The answer hit Pax with a bead of sweat. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them, reaching into pocket of the flannel shirt tied around his waist. As he feared, he withdrew a vial.

Axel was going to kill him.

Matthias bent his middle and ring finger down in some weird hand motion. "Awesome!" he cried.

Pax darted to the side when Axel went to slap him across the head. "Ajax!" he snarled. "When did you even have time to grab that?! You were a weasel!"

Pax dashed behind Matthias as the blond pointed out, "Actually, that's kind of weasels' thing."

"I didn't!" Pax squeaked, "Mercedes!"

"Yea right," Axel growled.

She must have slipped it into his pocket when she moved his clothing. He'd unwittingly been part of a smuggling operation. And he'd just stolen from two witches. He knew what happened to people who stole from witches. "These aren't…. drugs, are they? Am I going to be cursed?!"

Matthias laughed again, snatching the vial from Pax's fingers. He didn't seem to mind his meat shield status between the two brothers. "Na, man. This is the perfect thing for a prank! Ohhhhhhh! Chris is going to owe you some drachma!"

"No, he won't. You are going to owe Alabaster and Lou Ellen an apolo—"

Axel never got to finish his sentence.

Someone threw an arm around Axel's shoulder.

Like any normal teenager would, Axel judo-flipped Jack over his shoulder and onto the floor.

Jack's butt and legs smacked loudly against the carpet. He clutched at the arm Axel had mangled. "Ow—holy titans, kid! That was—"

Axel paled.

He and Pax scrambled to help Jack up.

"Don't sneak up on me!" Axel said. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them. Clearly, losing his face once today had left him on edge.

Jack gave him a pained grin as the brothers each took an arm. "We finished up our vocal practices and wanted to check on how you boys were doing with your caretaker. You got your dad good."

"You're not my—" Axel bit back his own comment. Pax could tell Axel didn't want to both physically and emotionally assault the redhead within minutes of each other, especially with Jack's eyes watering the way they were.

A few feet behind them, Flynn stood. She was in the middle of slipping her hair blades back into her bun. Pax realized, in alarm, she must have withdrawn them to use on Axel if things got out of hand. Their new mother was terrifying. Awesome, but terrifying. "You're late to sword practice," she said, crossing her arms.

Pax tried not to feel disappointed. He would rather help with the witches all day. Unlike Lapis and Axel, he never did as well during fighting practice, though he did excel at evasion and running away. Running away was his favorite, next to eating Reese's Sticks.

During their altercation, Matthias must have slipped the vial into his pocket. He'd taken a few steps back, to stay clear of their new parents.

"Are you coming to sword practice?" Pax asked.

Matthias grinned. "If by sword practice, you mean lay down and prostate myself…? I find it discourages people greatly from stabbing me."

Flynn scowled at Matthias. Unlike most other people Pax had seen, Matthias didn't cower away from her.

"He doesn't have to come to this training. He makes the traps for it," Flynn explained.

Matthias pinched his thumbs and forefingers at his collarbone, like he was wearing suspenders. He rocked forward. "I'm a mechanic."

Pax's mind buzzed with ideas. He could be part of this violent cult and not fight? That sounded awesome. Mercedes mentioned the Spy Unit that she wanted to create, but how long would that take to make? "How do I become a mechanic? Or a witch?!"

Jack choked on a laugh. He ruffled Pax's hair. While talking, he shooed Axel and Pax towards the stairs. "Be a child of Hephaestus or Athena, usually. Or Hecate for the other. There are some people that are naturally skilled at it—"

Matthias scurried alongside them. He, like Pax, struggled to keep up with Jack's long strides. "Ximena is a daughter of Ares and she's really naturally adept with engines, so she helps us a lot." Matthias bobbed his head to unheard music and tapped his fingers in the air.

Pax's shoulders sagged. His mom definitely wasn't one of those gods. He liked to sew and draw; he'd never been good at fixing the beat-up cars that their Chiich's boyfriend brought back to their house.

"Does Luke run all the fighting drills?" Axel asked.

From what Pax had seen of Axel's fighting, his older brother would be genuinely curious. Axel always wanted to learn more so he could better protect Pax. After seeing how powerful the witches were, he probably wanted a confidence booster.

Jack beamed at them and looked at Flynn, his bright eyes wide. The way he whipped his head made his red locks flop into his eyes.

"I run them," she said, staring ahead as they twisted up several flights of stairs. Pax wished he would have counted how many they descended so he could make a countdown going up. "And, since I can't show favoritism towards our… children," she said the word with distaste, "I will need to be harsher on the two of you."

Axel beamed at the thought. Leave it to his brother to be excited about a good ass kicking.

Jack grinned back. He poked Axel in the chest and nodded to Pax. "Before Flynn beats you up, you two are in for a surprise today."

They finally crested the last flight of stairs, to a pair of glass sliding door. As their sensors went off and they automatically slid open, allowing a burst of warm air to blast Pax in the face, he almost squeaked.

Waiting outside the doors was a smirking Luke.

He tossed a sword to Axel, then Pax.

Matthias, seeming to sense the gravity of the situation, bolted.

"You're getting private lessons with me today," he said.

Remembering what Alabaster said about Luke's mood and the way he'd struck the witch, Pax swallowed. They were dead.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Next week, I'm taking a short break, but I'll come back the week after with Luke's two-parter Big Boy Conversations.

[footnote] Mel betanote: "cults everywhere!" Jack, "Now you get a cult! And you get a cult!" the Greeks will be so pleased XD