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GAME OVER

The blonde teenager growled at the screen as he dropped the controller onto the carpet. The television set had gone completely dark, a faded view of the character's body strewn across the ground in the backdrop as the giant red letters taunted him.

Alrik Rey was tired of losing for the afternoon. Having found himself stuck on the fifth level for the umpteenth time, it was decidedly a good stopping point for him to take the opportunity to raid his older sister's kitchen for some revitalizing grub.

Lanky arms reached up to yank open various cabinets, green eyes narrowing as his options became more and more limited. He knew he'd already devoured what remaining chips she'd had in the apartment, but surely, surely she had some kind of junk food that was decent enough for a high schooler to gorge himself on?

Whipping open the fridge door, he made a face at the half-empty shelves. Milk carton, eggs, half a liter of soda. Nothing, nothing and more nothing.

Thumping his head on the side of the fridge door, he bounced his forehead back and forth against the plastic while he brainstormed a solution to his problem. Finally, he simply hollered out to his sister.

"Penny, wanna order some pizza or something? Or maybe actually go shopping this week?"

He could always go back to their mother's for food, but she'd also make him do his homework and actually had a curfew, of all things. Where was the fun in THAT?

Eyes rolled as he heard her beckoning, exaggeratedly swinging the refrigerator's door until it closed as he pulled himself away from the kitchen. "Really?"

Long legs scuffled their way across the tile and onto the carpet of the living room, passing the television and couch, where he paused for a brief moment as he debated collapsing on top of the plush looking furniture and forcing his older sibling to come to him and not the other way around. Sighing, he shrugged at nothing in particular as he surrendered and continued on his path towards the back hallway until he was finally within arm's reach of her door.

Penny's bubbly blonde hair was similar in color to his own, though much straighter and well maintained than his casual finger-combed looked. They shared the same eye color, though while hers was mischievous and bright, his was looking rather bored and annoyed, at the current moment.

Leaning against the door frame, he stared down at his sister.

"What is it, dorkbutt?"

His arms folded across his chest as his eyebrows furrowed, his expression hard to read as his sister continued talking. Magic? Video games? The two went hand in hand, but neither of them had a place in real life, outside of virtual reality and the like. Besides, since when did Penny have any interest in any of his extracurricular technogeeky ways?

"Wait. Wait." His arms fell down and his hands rose up, fingers motioning as he spoke, clearly trying to decipher her cryptic request. "You're saying you've got something similar to video games but you're playing it in real life. And it's got magic."

Pause.

"If you've suddenly gotten into some crazy cosplay group, I swear I'm never going to let you live this down, Schwester dearest."

His laughter came next, the mirth of the situation proving to be too much for him. He knew his sister liked her fashion, but to actually dress up like some of these japanese characters? He'd seen his fair share on the ComicCon podcasts and BlizzCon videos - there was no way in hell he was going to let her dress him up like some froufrou super hero alongside whatever it was she was trying to dress up as.

Her words were buttering him up, but he wasn't fully convinced as to what exactly he was agreeing to. Alrik felt the same towards his sister - she'd been his partner in crime since before he could remember. When he got in trouble, she was right there beside him. She helped him with school, she helped him with bully troubles - Penny was always there for him.

So when his older sister asked him for help, his first instinct was to say yes. Her reasoning and her prattling about magic and fighting bad guys sounded absolutely insane, but the teenager was also positive that his sister would never be malicious enough towards him to pull some sort of hurtful prank.

"Okay, fine. Yes - are you happy? I'll beat up bad guys with you, but mostly because you don't know your way around a controller to save your life."

He stared at her, dumbfounded, as he followed her through the house as she seemed to seriously be getting ready to venture out into the freezing January weather outside. Didn't she realize it was the weekend? That going outside was just about the last thing he wanted to do on his days off?

Snatching his jacket from the front table by the door (because it was much easier to discard them there than bothering with a closet or hanger or anything adult-like), he threw it on all the while staring down his shorter, older sister. "Miss Alkaid?"

He wasn't judging - Lord knew his own name was unique - but the fact she'd suddenly wanted to drop everything and see this strangely named woman so they could punch people and rip out souls....well, if he didn't already know Penny through and through, he'd be concerned that drugs were in the equation.

Fingers dragged themselves through his hair as he half-assed a combing instead of wasting time spending it searching for a brush. "Alright, alright. But you're getting one of those soda bottles from the pizza shop too, at this rate."

It never hurt to barter when the odds were in his favor.

Score!

Hands dug into his pockets, idly rummaging around as he waited for his sister to lock the door behind them. A few loose dollars that he'd snagged from their mother were still crumpled at the bottom of his jeans - maybe he'd snag some chips to snack on, long after all this business (and the pizza) were finished off.

The air was chilly, but thankfully the wind wasn't acting up. He hadn't bothered to grab a scarf, but decided it would probably be in his best interest to zip up what he'd brought, to keep the warmth from escaping.

"So this Alkaid lady, is she like...another teacher or somethin'?"

Penny tended to drop names when she chitchatted, but most of them were folks he knew. School teachers, the nerds that kissed butt to his sibling in exchange for library privileges, that sort of thing. He couldn't really see his sister going out on a limb and finding perfect strangers to befriend...but, well, knowing his sister's friendly nature, it wasn't entirely impossible.

One shoe kicked the wooden side rail in front of the apartment, sending a lump of snow tumbling down the side. His head tilted towards the street, motioning for her to lead the way, if she wasn't allowing him the comfort of her car for this conversation...or whatever it was.

As soon as her smaller hands gripped the rickety ladder and began to climb, Alrik instinctively reached out to steady the old, metal fire escape. His eyes had significantly widened, his expression clearly reading what in the heck are you doing, but like many of their prior adventures, the youngest Rey knew better than to question his clever sister.

Even if she seemed crazy. Like now.

"A General, huh?"

He tossed the thought around in his head. The first General that came to mind was the snotty ginger General Hux from one of the new Star Wars movies. He preferred Kylo Ren, to be perfectly honest, but aside from that, the only Generals he knew of were the old ones from war times. Was there a war going on that he didn't know about? And since when were chicks Generals?

Her enthusiasm caught his interest, though, as it always did. Thus, as soon as she'd made her way up the top of the ladder and onto the first platform, he was right on her heels, practically racing up the dilapidated rungs.

His first instinct was to panic.

His bubbly, bright haired sister was gone. She'd been talking, she snapped her fingers and then, just like that, Penelope Rey had ceased to exist. Gone was her sweater that he'd helped pick out (with much lament at having gone clothes shopping). Gone was her perfectly painted nails, which he knew she worked so hard to perfect. Gone was Penny.

In her place stood a soldier. Well, sort of. Her attire was crisp and clean, maybe he just associated her with war since she'd been babbling about Generals and fighting. She looked like a strict secretary of sorts - wait, why did it matter??

"Wha..."

Her mouth opened and Penny's voice came out. He didn't know how he knew it was her, maybe it was some sort of warped sibling bonding, but some little voice in the back of his mind reassured him that despite the attire and the whole new... Stella whoever she was saying she was that this was, in fact, still his older sister.

And she was summoning someone else?

He watched her speak into the crystal, which gave off a dull, purple glow. Deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew that whatever was on the other end of that crystal was listening to his sister's request.