Wednesday came, and everyone was back in Entity Studies class.

Jasper was at his lab table with Aren, and Josephine and Maria were cackling silently at the table behind them.

“Three classifications and three types.” Professor Ozu said. “Josephine and Maria, care to tell me what they are?”

“Positive, Neutral, and Negative for the type.” Maria said, straightening up. “Normal, Royal, and Variant for the classification.”

“Good.” Ozu said, leaned against her desk in the front. She was wearing her short natural hair today with silver dangling earrings and a dark orange patterned dress. “Now tell me about the most common type.”

“Negative. The ones we go boom boom to.” Josephine said. Ozu gave her a look, so she continued. “Festered from negative emotions from literally anyone, that energy coalesces and takes form, but once we kill the negative we’re left with a core of pure energy we can absorb or use.”

Ozu nodded. “Bashira and Jorge, can you tell me the Normal classification of Negative entities in ascending threat order?”

In the back, Bashira spoke. “Minor, like the bugs, zero to three mions. Trickster—”

“Which is as high as we’re cleared to fight.” Jorge interrupted. Ozu rolled her eyes at him.

Bashira picked back up. “Four to ten mions. After that, Negative entities can really hurt people. Feral, eleven to thirty mions. Hound, Thirty-one to fifty-five mions. Warrior, fifty-six to one-hundred mions. Major, one-hundred and one to two-hundred mions. Disaster, two-hundred and one to three-hundred mions. Catastrophe, three-hundred and one to four-hundred mions. There is also Dragon to five-hundred, and S for anything above five-hundred, but there haven’t been any of those recorded in many years.”

“Great job, Bashira. Probably the only one of you all that could list that by heart. And it will be on the test next Monday.”

A collective groan from the class was heard.

“And I may add, while Dragon and S level entities haven’t been recorded as of late, that doesn’t mean they haven’t existed. Sometimes, the world is better off not knowing, and some of us know how the Council can be. Now, Xavius and Xandrelle.” Ozu continued. “Tell me about the Royal classification.”

“They can’t be killed by stabbing or blasting.” Xavius said.

Xandrelle picked right up where he left off. “They’re the only classification that grow in power on their own, once formed.”

“And they can only be killed in a special way—”

“—relating to their specific emotion—”

“—or how they were created.”

Jasper fully believed these twins had actual telepathy. Good for them. Even Aren gave a smile when they spoke in tandem.

“Fantastic.” Ozu said. “Jasper, Aren. Tell me about Variants.”

Jasper stifled in a sigh, and Aren immediately started writing on scrap paper. Jasper reluctantly spoke. “Variants don’t fit any rules.”

He really didn’t want to talk about this right now. Variants were the one thing that put his shoulders up, and made him feel reclusive and agitated. 

In truth, it was a touchy subject. A fear above any other he tried to forget about. He would’ve answered any other question happily, but anything that reminded him of The Warden-

Ozu cleared her throat.

Ah, Jasper zoned out of reality again. “Um, they can be… extremely dangerous, or otherwise chaotic. Anything that doesn’t fit a common, known mold is a variant.”

Aren slid his paper over, and Jasper took a look at it. “Aren also wants me to add that Variants either need to be killed in a specific way, or can’t be killed until…”

Jasper gulped as mental needles surrounded his brain, needles that always lay over the bottom of his skull, but every now and then bore their bleeding points. His arms felt itchy, and he closed his eyes for what was probably too long. It’s ok. You don’t have to run this time. It hasn’t found you or your parents yet, even if it was… a matter of time. Jasper didn’t want to think those words, but he knew them.

“Jasper, are you ok?” Ozu asked.

Jasper flipped his eyes open onto Aren’s note. Aren was currently adding a heart and a goofy face on it, and had underlined:

“Or they can’t be killed until they accomplish their task.” Jasper said, a rock falling down his throat. He cleared his throat, then muttered to Aren, “Thanks.”

Aren always knew the instant something was wrong with someone. If one was lucky, Aren would incant tiny fireworks or gift a rock imbued with some random type of magic. Jasper loved Aren deeply.

“Yes.” Ozu said. “But if a Variant accomplishes its task, they often disappear. No need for killing.”

Aren stuck their head into the table. Knowing them, they probably knew this, but didn’t include the extra wording in their note. Jasper smiled. Who cared if he was constantly threatened by an unstoppable Variant? He had amazing friends like Aren and—

“Cody, Marilyn. Tell me about the Positive type.” Ozu said. That was poor timing against Jasper’s stream of conscious. Did the universe want him to put Cody on some relational pedestal? Ugh.

“They’re very rare and all considered variants.” Marilyn said. “And they bring about a blessing in some form.”

“And it usually takes some huge, positivity-generating event to create one.” Cody added. “Like the Renaissance.”

“Very good.” Ozu said. “Now Bryan and Claire, if you could stop playing footsies and tell me about what we haven’t covered yet.” She opened her palm out like a serving tray, “Please.”

It was sarcastic and beautiful amidst the reaction. From the back corner in the literal farthest place in the room from Jasper, the couple froze and looked at Ozu. If Jasper had adequate vision, he might’ve spotted drool.

“Uhh.” Bryan started. “Variants—”

“NOPE!” Ozu interjected.

“Royals—”

“Wrong again.”

“Oh, I got it!” Claire squealed. “We haven’t talked about sprites yet!”

“And sprites are…” Ozu was trying her best to get this couple’s shared brain cell free of cobwebs. Props to this professor.

“Neutral!” Bryan said, and Claire cheered for him, and Jasper gagged a bit.

“And they’re normally sprites!” Claire redundantly added.

Ozu handed them another bone. “And they’re often created by…”

“Trees?” Bryan was vitamin-B deficient today.

“Oh-ooh! Nature!”

“Yes, Claire.” Ozu said. “Sprites can be many things, but they often exist to protect nature or harbor balance. Things like deforestation can turn them negative, but sprites can be important to natural systems— so we typically leave them alone.”

Ozu started walking through the middle aisle. “Now, I know we’ve all seen Negative entities, and no one in the world has seen a Positive we know of in years. But who here has seen a sprite?”

Jasper, Cody and Bashira raised their hands.

Ozu furrowed her eyebrows. “Seriously? You all need to get out to national parks more. Hell, the redwoods are like twenty minutes away!”

Jasper laughed to himself. Go touch the redwoods part two.

“I saw one from looking in a bush one time.” Bashira said.

“Yes!” Ozu said. “This is why we say to touch grass, people!”

Jasper dropped his jaw from his own inside jokes tumbling around in front of him.

“Cody, what about you?” Ozu turned around and asked.

“Uhh.” He was a slight awkward sounding, which made Jasper sit up and listen more intently. “A lot of… normal sprites like to dance in the forest at night. And if y—” he cleared his throat. “If a person is in a state that is…”

He squinted his eyes and chose his words. “Nonthreatening, to them… they will let you join them.” Cody almost finished the statement as if asking a question.

“Cody.” Ozu said flatly. “We fight supernatural creatures and incant magic. You can say you did mushrooms and danced with sprites in the woods.”

Jasper’s mouth went agape. What was he missing out on in life?

“…Yeah.” Cody rubbed the back of his head. Was he embarrassed? This was a huge moment. Jasper wanted to take it all in. Were Cody’s cheeks more red than normal? He was leaning on the table more— oh, his confidence was removed, this was so out of character for him! He pulled his legs back onto his own chair, he looked down just a bit, he—

Jasper… stop being weird. He hit the side of his head. Aren looked at him alarmingly.

Ozu responded to Cody. “And I bet that experience was beautiful.” Then, she turned. “Jasper, what about you?”

Oh fuckin’ boy, here we go. The only other people that knew about this were Jasper’s parents. It hadn’t even come up with his friends here yet.

“Well… it accidentally scratched me. It’s the reason I could see entities since… five years old, I guess?”

Something shifted in Ozu’s eyes as they locked onto him. “Does Jorgien know you were activated by a sprite and not a negative?”

Should he be worried about this? He thought nothing of it before. Entities weren’t new to his family, even if they weren’t a part of the council.

“No?” Jasper said. “But I can tell them if—”

“Sometimes it makes the signature of your magic, your very being, different than most. Jorgien knows more about that than me. So yes, tell them. But did anything else happen? I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Ozu said.

“Well, it apologized—”

“It SPOKE? You had a conversation with a Variant sprite?” Ozu looked fascinated, coated in disbelief. She had bounced out of flabbergast-town but somehow was still in it.

“Yeah, it, uhh… offered me anything I wanted.”

Ozu raised one eyebrow. Jasper also noticed Cody’s eyes directly on him. There was an intensity there that Jasper had never seen before. Was he saying something so groundbreaking? The look was so empty, yet so… direct and burning.

“Go on.” Ozu said.

Jasper had to pretend the Cody stare wasn’t boring down on his mental walls. “So, I wished for the world to be more fun… and the sprite turned all the liquid in I-don’t-know-how-far into alcohol for almost two days.”

Every emotion flushed from Ozu’s face, and her tone went cold. “Jasper. Were you living in Missouri at the time?”

“… Yes.”

“THAT WAS YOU?” Ozu spattered out. The entire class had open mouths, and Jasper felt like he was unintentionally impressing everyone.

Ozu was stumbling for words. “Do you have any idea— THE Great Missouri Booze Torrent of 2007?” She was spinning herself in a circle, then landed on Jasper once more. “The groundwork, the convincing people, the… Where were your parents during all of this?”

Oh…

“… Running from the law.” Jasper said.

“DAMNNNNNN!” Xavius and Xandrelle synchronized, and everyone else was astonished, laughing or engaged in some combination of the two. Truthfully, Jasper said it that way to receive a response. He could feel the excited energy building in the room, and he had to give the people what they wanted by popping it at the top.

He and his parents actually had a house at the time, but every year they had to move because they actually were running from the law, as well as something much, much worse…

Luckily, the entity council didn’t care about Jasper’s parents, or his shifting last names. His grades and abilities were enough to get him in this program.

“Jasper.” Ozu said. “You’ve seen our therapist, correct?”

“Oh, Sherryl and I besties now.” Jasper said.

“Good.” Ozu sighed. “I think we’ll take our class break, now.”