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Right, the mirrors. Luke honestly thought it sounded a little spooky. Like, mirror universe? Spooky. Anyway, he double checked his bag one more time, and it was right there in a little felt pouch so it didn't break. That would suuuuuck.

Once they landed, Luke pulled the goggles over his face and grimaced in preparation for what he imagined was an awful bitter cold. He was a little surprised that it the chill that rushed onto them was actually only 'very cold' and not 'instant frostbite' or something. He was relieved but also it was kind of underwhelming which was a bit silly but still. Antarctica.

Anyway, Luke stepped stepped out into the white, cold desert. Antarctica was a desert right? Dang, he ought to know that. Luckily, it didn't seem that awful. Cold, yeah, but Luke was actually pretty comfortable out here. Plus, as he took a moment to look around, it was freaking beautiful here. It almost made him a little choked up, the glacial runoff and all.

Luke crossed his arms as Valkyrie and Mirror discussed their current plan. A huge sheet of iron, or some other magnetic metal he supposed, to use as an elevator down into the caves. It sounded good, and definitely really cool, but...

"I hope I'm not too heavy." He wasn't sure how much weight she could handle, and he didn't want to assume if she didn't realize he was...big. "I'm like, two-seventy, last I checked."

"Maybe uh, take two trips? It's fine if you've got it, just, yeah." Better to be upfront about it and not, y'know, plummet to horrible doom.

In his current state of trying to maintain his composure, Luke was not sure what caused the infuriating swarm to suddenly subside, but he was definitely not going to complain. As he reoriented himself, taking note of Shin’s position and the guy’s, though neither had moved much, Luke quickly steadied his wits, clenching his fists (being sure not to skewer his palms with his claws) and took a few quick, deep breaths. He was smart enough to know the fight was not over yet.

He was right, of course; when he heard the guy speak aloud, he looked over at Shin, hoping for an explanation. He could make it out perfectly, of course, but…what was Voltron? The name was familiar…

“Wait, what?!” As the mini-giant robot came into being out of the remaining fleet of paper, Luke could barely believe he was seeing this. Paper planes was one thing, but…a mecha? Why?! Who does this?!

…Present company not included. Shin was many things, but at least he didn’t turn his nerdy interests onto random people in the streets.

The robot moved forward with unexpected speed; Luke supposed it was quite light, though it was very plausibly less fragile than the sum of its parts. The obvious solution was to take out the controller, but the paper-bot was right between the guy and Luke and Shin. All that said, it made it halfway across the 50-foot space in a couple of seconds. There wasn’t much time to plan. He had an idea. If it worked or not, it was going suck.

Luke moved, stepping sideways such that as the mech approached, it was quickly at the vertex of a 90-degree angle between Luke and Shin. Now he had an angle to the puppeteer. Luke rushed forward on all fours, bounding across the pavement in only a few lunges.

With unexpected speed, the paper pivoted on its waist, spinning in a full 360-degree from facing forward and whacking Luke mid-stride, slamming him in the chest and knocking him across the street onto the opposite sidewalk. He tumbled backwards once, managing to end his trajectory on his hands and feet, but was clearly a bit unsteady; the sword wasn’t sharp enough to cut him in half, thankfully, but he was pretty sure one or two of his ribs were cracked.

Luke dropped to his knees, gasping dramatically. He wasn’t winning any awards, but he definitely looked worse off than he felt. As he did so, he briefly turned his eyes to Shin, then to the bad guy, then to Shin.
The paper-bot turned to Luke and started moving towards him, quickly, sword over its head as though to squash him like a bug.

Luke could hear the guy giggling with probably-unhealthy glee at the sight of his enemy bouncing across the street. It was probably all very cinematic and ‘anime’, though he hated that phrase as a descriptive even before this. If they survived this, Luke was cancelling his CrunchyRoll subscription.

Jack was probably not nearly as startled as Luke was.

Though he was in a very good mood after his very special gifts earlier, he was also pretty hungry, so he'd headed down into the kitchen to make himself some food. Unfortunately his mind was understandably wandering somewhat as he got a bunch of stuff out to make a gigantic bowl of pasta. So he'd set the pot down next to the sink, turned away to double-check something else, and then the (luckily empty) pot fell down and clanged to the ground. Very loudly.

Every single hair on Luke's body stood up in surprise and he cringed, claws fully out as his hands froze in front of him and his back arched. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, at which point his muscles (though not his fur) relaxed. His ears were a little unhappy but he could live with that.

Already feeling slightly embarrassed, as Luke turned to pick up the pot, a large crustacean-looking person appeared suddenly through the door. Luckily he was able to compose himself as he turned to acknowledge the unfamiliar person. They appeared to be glowing slightly, and listening to his (her?) voice was a bit weird, since they didn't sound like a person talking. Like, how parrots talked, though Luke knew better than to suggest that. He knew pretty well what that particular situation was like, though he/she maybe had it a little worse.

"Uh, yeah, I'm good. Sorry." Luke lifted the pot in demonstration. "Just me being clumsy, heh."

He moved the pot under the nearest sink and started filling it up. "So uh, you new here?" He turned and gave a little wave, then turned off the faucet. "I'm Luke. Nice to meet you."

It was dinner soon, probably, but Luke wasn’t really hungry. That was good sign something was wrong, but he already knew that.

Luke hadn’t gone home last Christmas, and it hadn’t happened this year, either. It was Christmas Eve, and he was sat on his bed with a box. The box was new, though; last year, he’d gotten two letters from his family, instead. That should have made him feel better. The problem was, Ethan had clearly written one—his handwriting was pretty rough—and his parents had just signed it, and not written anything themselves.

On the plus side, from what his brother had said, things were going okay for him, and he named a couple of Luke’s friends as wishing him well, which was nice. Ella, his grandma, had sent her own, with an embarrassingly big check and some words of encouragement. It was better than he’d worried, but he couldn’t help but be disappointed anyway. He’d hoped to hear from more people; at the very least, Mom and Dad, right? Not to mention his aunt Natalie and uncle Harry, who’d always been close with Mom and him and Ethan. And even his other family hadn’t…

Now Luke had gotten a box He didn’t know if he wanted to open it, which was silly, but he also felt really nervous about it? It wasn’t just anticipation, either. He wasn’t sure what to expect, or something, but what kind of bad thing would it possibly be? He couldn’t just sit here staring out the window forever.

He just had to bite the bullet, he guessed. His claw easily tore the mess of duct tape over the cardboard lid. Luke took a look at what was inside. The first thing that caught his eye was the two envelopes on top of another, smaller box. Whatever was in that one could wait.

The top envelope was first; Luke was very careful opening it without ripping up whatever was inside. There was a check, first, that he set aside without even looking at it. It was a letter, of course, on white printer paper in big curly font. Luke's lips pulled back like a grimace—though for him this an unconscious motion closer to biting one's lip, which he obviously could not do—because he immediately recognized the font Grandma always used even though Mom always complained it was hard to read.

"To my oldest grandson,

It's been too long since we heard from you. Your brother helped me set up an email account, egwallace@gmail.com, so you should let me know how you've been down there! I want to hear about all your heroics—I heard you were in California to help with the fire evacuation, but they didn't show any pictures of you!

I hope you're doing well, but I don't know if I need to hope. I'm sure you've got lots of friends and I bet the big city suits you just fine. I'd say don't get into trouble, but that's a bit silly isn't it? Get into whatever trouble you need to, just be careful. If whatever you're doing would give me a heart attack if I saw, think twice, for my sake!

With love and all the cheering I can manage,

Grandma"

Luke sniffled a little. He'd definitely set up the email, of course, but just hearing her made him feel so much better. Well, 'hearing', but it was like he could hear her voice there. He took a quick look at the check—it was not as sizable as last time, but he could hardly complain, and it was still pretty impressive. Grandma had always been good with money, so now that she was retired, she'd been wont to spend on her daughter and grandkids.

Now, for the other one. Luke was a little less antsy now, but he didn't know if this was going to be like last year. Inside was...not a letter. Just an index card, with a line of writing on it. It took a moment for Luke to recognize the number as a phone number, though it wasn't one he recognized.

He dialed it. Texting was for less special days. Christmas, man! Plus he had a little trouble with touch screens, and setting the phone on speaker suited his ears just fine.

"Hello?" Luke knew Ethan's voice instantly, even though his brother was now 14. "Luke?"

"Yeah! Yeah, it's me. Hey!" Luke was practically vibrating in place, bouncing his legs and making his bed shake. "How are you? Merry Christmas!"

"Yeah, you too! I got a cell phone for Christmas and Mom and Dad gave it to me early so I could call you. How is it in New York?"

Luke's heart jumped a little. "It's fine, it's less snowy, but it's so crowded you wouldn't believe it. Uh..." He stared out the window, unconsciously. "Are Mom and Dad there? Can I..."

"Yeah, there are. Hold on, lemme put it on speaker." there was a sound of fumbling before the quiet buzz of background noises came through. Luke heard the bed suddenly groan from the sudden extra movement, and managed to hold still.

"Hi, sweetie! Merry Christmas!" That was Mom. He hadn't heard from her in almost two years. "Merry Christmas, Luke." And that was Dad.

"Hey, hi." Luke sounded a little choked up. There was a brief instinct to demand an explanation for the silence, but he supressed it. Don't ruin the moment. "I...I'm happy to hear you. Congrats on the phone, Ethan."

"Thanks!"

"Well..." Luke had never heard him mom sound so unsure. "We're sorry it's been so long. We...didn't have our priorities straight, but...We love you more than anything."

He was definitely tearing up a little. "It's okay. I getcha. I'm doing okay. It's been pretty crazy here, but it's going good. How are you all?"

-----

A lot of time passed. Maybe an hour or so. They talked and took turns, explaining how things were on either side. Ethan was in 8th grade and still playing soccer, and apparently some of his teachers had asked about Luke, and had remembered him fondly. Mom was working at the high school now teaching English, which was terrifying to Ethan, which made Luke laugh. Luke told them about the city, and his friends, how he'd helped the seniors on their prank (Mom was indignant and everyone laughed at that).

Grandma wasn't at the house at the moment—the family always ate dinner early on Christmas Eve and she'd gone home after. But she was doing well, and wished him well. Luke got the sense they weren't so sure how to talk about the whole X-Man heroism thing, so he left some of that out. They'd get used to it, he thought.

Before Luke hung up, he finally opened the smaller box, and his gasp of surprise was completely genuine. It was a Switch repackaged, presumably to keep the surprise, and it already had Smash Ultimate, which he'd been hoping to pick eventually. He could never have expected something like that.

After plenty of goodbyes and promises to keep in touch more and assurances of love, they hung up. Luke set the console on his desk, plugged his phone into the charger, and laid back on the bed. He only basked in the good feelings for a few minutes though. After that, his stomach strted growling at him, and he noticed it was now well past normal dinner. He got up and, with one more look at his phone on the desk, went out of his dorm to go to the kitchen.

It was a little late to be out on the town, so to speak. Luke had good reason, though, namely that the mansion was kept warm for the sake of those poor folks without a coat of fur to keep them warm. Not that said coat was much help for him, either; it was way too hot for his liking inside.

While there wasn't much Luke could do when he had to go inside, he could at least go without much (or any) clothing in his room, which helped a little. For the rest of the day, though, he was spending time outside. What was cold for most was at worst long-sleeved weather for him, at least in the northeast. Luke was less confident he'd be comfortable in, like, Siberia.

Now he was finally on his way back home for the night. He'd gone on a pretty roundabout route, but he was a little surprised to see the Sister School right there. Had he really gone that far away?

In general, Luke was typically pretty alert. He didn't even have to try, really; when you have super senses, it's hard to just not notice something when you could hear and even smell stuff going on as well as he could. He picked up on a quiet hissing, like pressurized gas, nearby. Not sure what to make of that, he approached the source.

What Luke discovered was a few different points of interest, of a variety of levels of weirdness. The 'normal' thing was that he was watching a person graffiti the wall. That was just rude. It was a big mess, and wasn't this private property? The weirder thing was that this person was invisible. Even weirder, though, was that they were really terrible at being invisible. Apparently they couldn't turn their clothes invisible, or something, which meant it was...not hard to see them. Or, well, see their position.

Also annoying was that the smell of paint was pretty overwhelming to him. The not-very-invisible person was obviously on edge, but hadn't actually caught on to Luke's presence. Lucky for Luke, they were pretty obviously distracted by their vandalism. That was unlucky for them, since, like, Luke was right here, and he wasn't super thrilled with stumbling onto some punk defacing part of his home.

"Ahem." Luke crossed his arms and stood menacingly behind the person. Technically speaking he didn't necessarily need to like, read them their rights or anything, but he wasn't too keen to just grab someone from behind. Graffiti was bad and all, but it wasn't like, actively beating someone up.

Well they were on a first name basis. That was good!

Luke sat on the ground, cross-legged. Chase sounded pretty glum. The kid seemed to be alone a lot, but not super happy about it. Poor guy. He had a brother, right? Where was he?

Gently picking up a Lego brick, Luke held it delicately between the tips of his claws. "Well, I need to do an essay for English." he started counting on his free hand. "Finished my trig homework, finished chem. Oh, and a thing for You-shag." USHAG, or rather US History And Government, was his least favorite class. Too many names and dates and all kinds of stuff that ties together in weird ways. Better than Global History, but still.

Luke laid back in the grass and exhaled. He wasn't too thrilled about what he had left to do, but it was almost done. Of course, he had a few 'Regents' test in January for English since he messed the last one up. Writing was hard, okay? "What about you?"

Groaning slightly, Luke stretched, arms past his head. Then he sat up. "Hey, how's your brother? What's he up to?"