Young Writers Society

"Oh, you're still a student," said Harry, nodding, "didn't think about that."

"You didn't?" asked Jennifer.

"You're missing the point," said Harry.

"Oh, right," said Jennifer, before turning to the girl and adding, "well, gamer sounds like a cool thing to do."

Elem hesitated.

He wasn't used to asking questions. Asking too many questions could raise eyebrows, but...

His gaze landed on her wings again.

"...Why do you have wings?" he quietly asked.


"It sure is," Tony agreed.

She took a sip of her lemonade again, eying the two in front of her. The conversation felt like it was coming to a natural lull - assuming, of course, she didn't bring up a completely new topic. Rux was giving her the silent treatment now; he wasn't going to be any help.

But she already had an idea.

"So what do you do?" she asked. "I've never seen uniforms like yours before."

"What do we do?" asked Jennifer, turning to Harry and raising her eyebrows.

"Oh, we are sailors," said Harry, quickly forming a story. It wasn't technically a lie either because they did drive a ship, the fact that it was a spaceship that jumped through time was entirely unimportant.

"Yeah, we just sail around the ship, helping people out," said Jennifer.

"Like superhero..." began Harry but stopped at a glare from Jennifer.

"Yeah we do feel like superheroes sometimes, but we are not...we just like to help people," said Jennifer.

Harry rolled his eyes at her. As if her answer didn't immediately make it obvious they were superheroes.

Glena laughed, a sound most people didn't live to hear. "Well, I'm an angel. I've always been like this."

Tony looked the two over.

Their suits didn't look much like sailor outfits. The only kind of ship she could imagine them on was a spaceship. That realization had to be setting off alarm bells in Rux's head, but the alien was stubborn. He really was giving Tony the silent treatment right now.

But Tony needed something to do right now, so she decided to play along for a bit.

"I love superheroes," she said. "I'm more of a magical girl fan myself, but they're basically the same thing."

She gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Fangirling aside, where do you usually sail? I've always wanted to go on a ship, but I've never had the chance."


Elem stared. Her laugh sounded pretty, but he was too preoccupied on her answer to really think about it.

"What's an angel?" he quietly - and hesitantly - asked.

"Oh she's onto us," whispered Harry, dropping his voice to below normal hearing ranges.

"You think I didn't notice," said Jennifer, "this is why we usually rehearse our cover stories for a few minutes before every mission."

"Yeah, so what do we say?" asked Harry.

"Err on the side of truth," said Jennifer, "tell her its a spaceship but keep it to that."

"Fine," said Harry and turned to the girl again.

"Oh we sail all over the universe," said Harry, "well many many places...no fixed routes honestly, we just like to mix it up every century or so to keep it interesting...because you know its going to get boring otherwise."

"Yeah," said Jennifer, laughing, "boring, sums up our lives perfectly." The sarcasm was palpable.

Tony couldn't hear what they were saying at first, but she could assume that they were once again trying to come up with a story to hide whoever or whatever they really were. After hearing their answers, she couldn't really guess what their secret was. The flying around in a spaceship part sounded real enough. Maybe they did something else besides randomly traveling around the universe?

"You change it up every century?" she repeated, looking the two over. "Does that mean you have a longer lifespan than I do? I'll be lucky if I make it to one."

Glena stopped laughing and stared at Elem. "Well, there a few different kinds of angel, but angels are God's servants. We sometimes go get honored dead from Earth, but really all we do are blow trumpets and stuff like that." she smirked. "Not me though! I got special privileges because my dad is Gabriel, one of the most famous angels ever."

"It's safe to be ourselves right?" asked Harry quietly. Jennifer gave the briefest of nods.

"As long as they don't know about The Darkness and Princess, two Hydranian siblings should be fine."

"Well at least that's easier than conjuring nonsense," said Harry, before raising his voice to audible levels. "You could say that, yeah. We've been around for a while, and we'll probably be around until, you know...the end of the world and all that."

"What this idiot is trying to be fancy with is that we're immortal," said Jennifer, deciding to be more straightforward. Speaking in fancy riddles tended to get people noticing far more than they normally would."

Elem blinked.

Glena's explanation didn't entirely sense. He hadn't heard of angels, of Earth, of God, or even of her dad. But he was terrified of what would happen if he admitted it, so he gave a tiny little nod and hoped she wouldn't notice how his gaze dropped down to his empty bowl again.


They-they're what? Rux sputtered.

It looked like the silent treatment was finally over. Tony didn't comment on it. Part of it was because she was still in awe of the idea of immortality being a thing. If she could have been granted magical girl powers by an alien in her gaming necklace, things like immortality were probably very much possible. The other part of it was because she didn't want to let Rux know that she was so aware of his moods.

We could use that, Rux muttered. Tony knew that it was really a comment for him and not for the two of them; he was as bad as Deku in My Hero Academia when it came to his muttering. Immortality would put us ahead of everyone else...

Tony took a casual sip of her lemonade.

"That's incredible," she said. "Is the immortality something you were born with? Or was it something you gained?"

If it was something they gained, Tony was going to have to get a little bit more creative.

Is this still open?

"Hmm...I don't believe anyone has asked a question like that from me before?" said Harry, laughing lightly, "funny...you think you know all the possible questions after a while but then you always find out there's something left."

"UMm...but to answer it," continued Jennifer, "um...it's a bit of both really...there are so many ways to gain immortality, most of which we've done just as a part of...other things...not really meaning to...but I suppose we were always born with it too."

"Yeah," said Harry, "we just weren't really die...not that we were ever really born to begin with...I mean of course we were born...but..umm...yeah...we were born with it...to answer your question." He nearly slapped a hand over his face in embarrassment.

"Excuse my idiot of a brother's rambling," said Jennifer. "But I'm curious. Why do you
ask? Someone looking for a chance to be immortal herself?" She winked.

Glena shifted in her stool. "So, um." she nibbled at a chip. "Yeah."

Oh, how she hated awkward situations like this.