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39 - Nail Painting Discovery and Shocking Rescues
🕑 Added 2025-02-20 08:59:19 +0000 UTCWhen she got to the kitchen, Lexie found Aiden busy baking something. The TV was on in the background and he was intensely watching the cooking queen again, so he’d likely not even heard Lexie’s call.
He finally turned when she patted him on the shoulder, glancing at her. “Hey, honey bee. What’s up?”
“I need your help." She then glanced at his hands which were sticky with dough. “What are you making?
“Cinnamon raisin cookies,” he said. “I’m tweaking the recipe to make it a little chewier. Better.”
“Why? They’re already pretty good.” Lexie noticed that some cookies were cooling on the dinner table and she strolled over to pick up one, taking a bite. “Incredibly good actually.”
“Thank you. But I’m trying to make them better than good. I’m trying to make them utterly addictive so I can use them to entice people to our next Dungeon Disaster Drill.” He gave Lexie an evil smile. “My plan is to hand out free samples at the hospital, and once I get them hooked, I’ll tell them they can get more at the next DDD session. That's what we're calling it now. Anyway, they'll come to feed their addiction and hopefully stay for the rest of the talk. And once they start they won't be able to stop.”
Lexie eyed him as she nibbled on the edge of the cookie. “No offense Dad but that sounds like something a drug dealer would say.”
“No offense taken. I’ve always thought I would make an excellent drug dealer. Probably the best, or at least better than a lot of the incompetent riff-raff currently doing it.” He paused and gave her another mischievous look. “You know, I accidentally created a potent love drug in potions class once. Of course, it would have been unethical to test it out on a wide scale, but I did do some testing and found that it seemed like it had none of the usual side effects of other love potions; you know malaise, heart-sickness, mild constipation. It only wore out after a whole month, and was even undetectable in food and drinks. Something like that would have made me a fortune in the underground world, but alas, I simply reported my findings to the proper authorities and they took one of the ingredients off the market to prevent anyone else from discovering such a thing.”
Lexie smirked. “Shame. That could have been the next step in your villainous enterprise and it would be a hit in a town like this. You can call yourself The Kingpin Cupid.” She imagined her dad dressed as the godfather reclined in a leather seat, a cigar in one hand, heart-shaped love-laced cookies in the other. “You should open up a bakery and use it as a front. Your motto can be ‘love in the shape of sugar cookies.’ ”
Aiden chuckled and shook his head.
Lexie swung herself up to the counter to watch him knead dough. “But you probably want to take it easy on the sugar for the next batch. It’s one thing to create illegal love potions, but giving the elderly diabetes is beyond evil.”
“Noted. So, what did you need my help for?”
“When you’re done,” she said. “I found a deck I want to try but I need your fingers for it.”
“You're not chopping them off, are you?”
“Nope. Painting them.”
“Oh good. Because I need my fingertips intact to measure the correct ratio of water to rice later."
Lexie analyzed her father closely for the first time in a while. He was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants like he usually did at home, but now she noticed that he seemed slightly broader than she remembered, filling it out more. And were those calluses on his dough-covered palms?
“Have you been working out? You look bigger.”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” Aiden grinned. “Yeah. I've been taking fighting lessons from Max and another member of his dungeon party. They've been teaching me a few combat things whenever he has time. Plus I'm also building muscle in my spare time. Even though the Tilling bands keep my strength low, I should at least be able to max out what I’m capable of.”
Lexie thought that was a good idea. “Where is Max by the way? I feel like I haven't seen him in forever.”
“Probably because he’s begun preparing for Dungeon season to start back up again. He's going to have to leave in about a month and so he has to set up meetings with his party, get the documentation ready, and also pay all the Dungeon Union fees.”
“Oh right.” Lexie swung her legs still looking at her dad’s shoulders. “So how’s training going?”
He shrugged as he kneaded. “Good, I suppose. We’re using some mechs and potions to help me boost my strength. Only problem is mechs are expensive and the Tilling bands seem to interfere with them too, just not to the same degree. But it’s fine. We’re finding a work-around.”
“Wait Dad, when you say potions...you’re not doping are you?” Lexie hadn’t looked into what steroids were on this earth, but she did know that Everstone had had a 'Say No To Illegal Drugs and Potions' class and they'd all watched a video of a guy who had taken strength potions until his heart exploded in chunks.
It was a very unnecessarily graphic video.
“Not technically.” The corner of Aiden’s lip quirked. “The potions are my own making, with the assistance of an old friend’s notes. They’re extremely low-dose so the Tilling bands don't detect them and mostly just help me with recovery. And also a slight boost for muscle production. But all very low-risk stuff, believe me.”
Lexie still wasn't entirely comfortable with it, but she really had no right to lecture him when she was doing practically the same thing, unethically experimenting with card magic.
"As long as you know the risks," she finally said. Aiden's determination to get stronger reminded Lexie that she needed to do the same. Sure it was nice and all that she was learning and earning scholar points, but she'd already experienced firsthand why she had to be able to defend herself. While she still didn’t intend to be a [Hero], she wasn’t planning on being deadweight either. Her dad had probably made enemies of both [Heroes] and [Villains]. Any of those enemies could come after her again and use her to lure him into a trap.
Lexie didn’t want that to happen again.
So the next step was to scour the NET and try to find defense and attack-heavy decks. Aiden told her there probably wouldn't be any but she needed to look for herself. And if there weren't then...she just had to make her cards more attack-friendly.
Which brought her back to now, trying to see if she could calculate and sense the Heisman stop and use those to perhaps adjust the effects of her other cards.
Lexie waited for the next thirty minutes for Aiden to be done kneading. When he wasn’t looking Lexie had two or ten more cookies until she felt slightly ill and stopped. Then, after he popped the cookies into the oven and washed his hands, they retired to the living room floor, sitting cross-legged across from each other.
Lexie picked out the color card from the Nail Artist's deck.
The pathway itself was simple, and Lexie went slow. Instead of calculating, she used the black hole method to visualize and get a feel for each notch. She memorized how many breaths it took her to get from one color to the next, and wondered if the average distance between each stop was the same on every card pathway. That was what the textbook alluded to, wasn't it?
When she reached a stop, she would activate it by pouring mana into the walls, which would then open up a branched pathway. It would then generate an effect. For example, the first notch turned Aiden's nails red, and the second turned pink. The card was designed so she could skip notches and then go to the final notch which added a glimmering sheen to the nail. Then she retraced her steps, retreating to turn it blue and then green and then hazel.
“That one matches my eyes,” Aiden said and Lexie smiled.
“It does.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen this deck before,” Lexie’s father commented. “Where did you get it?”
Lexie already had a lie prepared for the moment.
“Xena told me about it. She’s into fashion and stuff and wanted me to paint her nails.” Lexie winced as she realized belatedly what she’d said. “But don't tell her I told you that. And don’t tell anyone else either. She would kill me if she found out.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Lexie gave her father a distrustful look, which he met with an innocent one.
“What?”
Lexie sighed. “Can you at least just not tell Emma?”
“I won't tell anyone, Lexie. You have my sincerest word.”
Lexie stared at him for a few seconds and then shook her head in resignation. It was her fault really for letting it slip. She would have to warn Xena before her dad inevitably told someone about it and it got back to Emma. It was only a matter of time.
And Xena would be pissed but hopefully Lexie's apology would make things a little better. Plus she was willing to agree to change the group name if that was what Xena wanted.
After Lexie had done enough nail art, she retreated to her room with her findings.
And then, twenty-four hours later, she tried to feel out the notches with a simpler card, <Hustle and Shuffle>.
She felt around and found that the notches were indeed at very similar distances in the pathway. They were also not as noticeable as the ones in the card she'd just used; while those felt like cogs, these only felt like slight protrusions in the pathway walls. And apart from one or two of them acting as sensors, the rest of the notches weren't doing anything. She tried pushing mana into the first few notches and nothing happened. So why were they there? Were they manipulable? If she pushed more mana into the notches or skipped notches would anything happen?
She continued up the card and then pushed mana into a notch. She felt something lock inside her and frowned. What was that?
She completed activation and felt the effect of the card on her body. She jumped up and down and then frowned.
Was it just her imagination or did she feel lighter on one leg than the other?
Did the notch affect how the skill was distributed around her body? Why?
And what did that mean for her?
Lexie continued to play with her discovery all week. She tried pushing mana into the notches for several of her cards. She discovered that she could sort of suss out the distances between each notch without knowing what the other equations were, which was good because it meant she didn't have to spend hours learning the equations just yet.
Instead, she got good at playing with the notches and seeing what they did. Some notches didn't do anything. Some had mild changes in the effect, but nothing too serious. Lexie also took a second to marvel at how far she'd come. Just a few months she wouldn't have even dreamt of being able to do this, but her mana control was near perfect at this point.
So the next thing Lexie tried to figure out was how exactly she'd combined the cards the last time.
She had a feeling that it had to do with the notches. While trying to skip the sensor, she'd probably accidentally pushed in too much mana at close-by notches on the two different pathways and that had caused the pathways to combine.
She just didn't know exactly which two of the notches.
So she sat down, brought out the two cards–<Hustle and Shuffle> and <Getting Out of Hand>– and performed a partial activation of both. Then she slowed it down and went notch by notch, pushing mana in there and trying to activate it. The first notch didn't give a response and neither did the second. By the third, she was beginning to think that she maybe didn't know what she was talking about.
And then suddenly on the seventh notch, something changed.
The two separate pathways moved so close they twisted and wrapped around each other. And then a connection snapped into place. This time Lexie didn’t immediately complete activation. She kept staring at it, analyzing what had happened. She felt the mana in that area, felt like notches combined, the first card feeding its mana into the second.
And then the activation was completed and she got exactly what she wanted.
She didn't even need the +1 ingenuity and +2 discovery alerts to tell her that she'd gotten it right. But it felt good to get it anyway.
That light almost drunk feeling filled her, confirming what she'd thought. She'd done it. She'd combined two cards!
It was incredible!
Lexie finally opened her eyes and hopped. She flew so high her head skimmed the roof. Once she landed she tripped and fell onto the floor, sustaining no injuries thanks to the soft, weightless landing. She laughed. What on earth? Her heart raced. She couldn't believe she just did that.
While on the floor, she immediately opened up the group chat. She had turned her chat notifications off to concentrate but now she had to tell someone what she'd found.
She first took a second to read the last two messages sent to the group chat. It was the usual.
Dewie had shared an animal factoid for the day, and Xena had given a joking response.
Lexie immediately began typing
Lexie: Guys! I have good news. And bad news. Which one do you want first?
Dewie: The good news.
Xena: No. Always start with the bad.
Lexie: Okay. The bad is… I don’t know how to say this. Xena, I…
Xena: Xena you what?
Lexie: Are you sitting down?
Xena: Why would I need to be?
Lexie: You know what, I’m just going to start with the good news.
Xena: Oh no, you’re not. You can’t just say my name in association with bad news and not tell me what the bad news is? Why do I need to sit down? XENA YOU WHAT?
Lexie: The good news is I think I figured out how to activate two cards at once. The trick is the Heissman notches on the cards. Some cards are combinable if you push enough mana in the right notches at the right time. Which I can do because my mana control is impeccable by the way.
Dewie: Wow Lexie, that's awesome. No one has ever managed to do that right?
Lexie: Well I don't know, but I don't think it's something a lot of people can do.
Xena: Probably because they’re not suicidal. I thought you were not supposed to play with pathways like that, especially without a tutor present.
Lexie: Since when were you such a stickler for the rules? And my dad’s the Archmage. He’s better than a tutor.
Xena: So he knows what you're doing?
Darn Xena and her perceptiveness.
Lexie: Can you two just be happy for me for a second?
Dewie: I’m happy for you!
Lexie: Thank you Dewie.
Xen: I’m happy for you but it’s just I dunno…it feels a little dangerous. Also, you must have studied like crazy to get to that point.
Lexie: Well yeah.
Lexie pretty much spent every waking moment studying except for mini breaks to manage her headaches.
Xena: How did you do it? And how come no one else can?
Lexie had to take a second before answering Xena's question thinking about how much she could reveal. She obviously couldn't disclose anything about Aiden's black hole lessons, neither could she tell Xena that it was easier because she was actually from a dimension with no mana so that made her more sensitive to mana and improved her mana control.
There was also the fact that she was a dramatic overachiever in her past life and tended to get obsessed with whatever she was studying.
Aiden was type A too, even if he liked to lecture her on taking breaks and would sometimes make her take a walk with him when he felt she’d been inside too much.
She was sure there was a genetic component to Lexie Sparrowfoot's study habits, and perhaps that influenced Lexie Evans as well.
So she supposed she couldn't tell Xena that she was able to do it because of a combination of classified information, exceptional mana control, due to not being from this world and growing up in a literal dead zone, good genetics, and sheer tenacity.
So instead, she went with an adjacent explanation.
Lexie: It's not that other people can't do it probably. It's just that anyone who can probably isn't going to stick with cards long enough to be able to. They would have moved onto spells or something more powerful by now.
Xena: But you won't.
Lexie: No. I like cards. They're the safest type of magic to experiment with.
Xena: If you say so. As long as you do it safely.
Lexie: Is that…concern I detect in your tone Xena? Oh my gosh. Do you love me? Dewie, I think she loves me.
Xena: Like a tumor. Now what’s this bad news that has to do with me?
Lexie: Um yeah. About that…so…I kinda owe you a huge apology.
Lexie's next discovery was that she could reverse the card combination to create slight changes in the action.
For example, using <Hustle and Shuffle> as a waste card instead and activating <Getting Out of Hand> first generated an effect rather than ability and meant that the target got much lighter and clumsier than the other way round.
Or at least that was her theory.
Lexie got the chance to try it out the next week.
Aiden had been gone all day with Max and so Lexie had gone to the bakery near the grocery store to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. They had one bakery in the entire town and while their sandwiches weren't bad, they were nowhere near the quality of Aiden’s baked goods. Lexie was so spoiled by Aiden's cooking that she could barely stomach the sandwich, but she had to because Aiden had been too busy to cook for the last few days and she didn't want to order anything expensive.
He was still struggling to attract more people to the DDD meetings and to get them engaged in what he was saying. Lexie was getting sick of the elders and their snark but her dad had the patience of a saint. Aiden thought that they would take it a lot more seriously if they saw what was at stake, so he was staging a demonstration for their next meeting. He was arranging it with Max right now, leaving Lexie to wander alone on the streets walking back home.
As she walked, she responded to Xena’s messages in the group chat that had now been renamed 'THE VILLAIN ALLIANCE IS LEAD BY LEXIE QUEEN OF EVIL AND BETRAYER OF SECRETS' as retaliation for Lexie’s gaff. All things considered, Xena had taken it pretty well. She hadn't even sulked for that long. But that was because according to her, she'd seen it coming.
I knew the second you found me that it would come out, she'd texted. Neither you nor your father can keep a secret.
Now, Lexie took offense at that because she totally wasn’t like her dad in that regard. She could keep a secret most of the time. After all, no one here knew she was from another Earth 2 and that was a pretty big secret. And she didn't tell anyone about her dad's lessons either.
In any case, it was while she was responding to that text defending herself that she heard noises that sounded like someone or something was shouting.
At first, she thought it was an animal call carried by the wind. But then when she stopped and listened for it, she heard the voices even clearer.
"Anyone out there?!" someone screamed. "We need help. A hippo fell on her ass."
"Wow. Real nice. How lovely of you Glinda."
"Well, how else do you want me to explain the situation, Grandma!”
Lexie frowned. That first voice sounded familiar. After a split second of indecision, Lexie followed the voices down a lonely hiking trail into the woods.
She almost immediately then came upon three women, two of whom she recognized and one she didn’t.
The first was the purple-eyebrowed woman, dressed in hiker gear and holding a hiking stick.
The other one was the woman at the first DDD session who called her dad a criminal. She was also dressed like a hiker.
And the third woman was a pleasantly plump woman who sat on the floor, wearing sweats and sneakers. She peered up at Lexie.
“Are you lost sweetie?” she asked.
“Um…no. I’m Lexie. I heard your distress call."
The women shared a look. “Oh no, we weren't shouting for you. Sorry about that. We already called those lazy bums over at the sheriff's station, but I really don't want to have to wait in the woods for them to get here. I thought if maybe someone–an adult–was walking by, they could give me a hand to get back on the road and flag down a passing car."
“You’re one to talk about lazy bums,” Purple-Eyebrows commented and the other woman turned to glare at her.
“Hey, you asked me to come hiking and I came with you. It’s not my fault my ankle got twisted around."
"It wouldn’t have gotten twisted if you did this more often."
"No, it wouldn't have gotten twisted if you didn't keep pushing me when I told you that I was exhausted."
Purple-Eyebrows threw up her hands. "Of course. Always an excuse with you. Everything is someone else’s problem. I can’t believe we had to cut our hike short because of you. I can't believe after almost fifty years you're still slowing me down."
"You're fifty, sis. I'm still only forty-five."
They're sisters? Lexie glanced between the two women. There was very little resemblance between the two. While Purple-Eyebrows was reedy and slender, with harsh facial proportions, her sister was softer with more delicate features.
“I can help,” Lexie said suddenly to stop the argument the women were having.
They stared at her. “How?”
“I’m pre-awakened. I can use magic to get you to a road so you can flag down the car."
"Be careful with her." The third woman was giving Lexie a suspicious eye. "She’s the [Villain's] daughter."
Lexie stiffened but Purple-Eyebrows rolled her eyes. "She’s also like nine. No offense but what is she going to do to us?"
"I’m not sure she can help either," the woman on the ground said, "Again no offense sweetie and this is nothing against your dad because I‘ve met him and he seems like a nice man and I also don’t believe in holding the sins of the parents against children," she inhaled, "but I’m not sure how you could help."
"With card magic," Lexie responded simply. "I can make you light enough that you won't feel your broken ankle and you could even walk out of here."
The two sisters shared a look. "You can do that?"
Lexie nodded. "At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to try." And Lexie did want to test her second theory out.
They looked at each other again and the one on the floor sighed.
"Alright sweetie," she said with a gentle smile. "But don’t be too sad if it doesn't work."
"I won’t," Lexie said. She was ninety-nine percent sure that it would work.
She took the two cards from her deck and started activating. But while doing so she felt something weird...she wasn't sure if it was coming from the card or the atmosphere but there was an emptiness or weightlessness already leaking out. The air felt thin.
Was she wrong? Was the double activation making the card leak out its effect? Or was there a problem somewhere?
She hesitated for a second before she completed the activation and then pointed at the woman on the floor.
The woman blinked at her. "I don't feel anything."
Lexie could probably just get her to walk, but to prove a point, she walked over and lifted her Cinderella-style making her squeal in excitement.
"Oh my God," she squealed. "Are you seeing this, Glinda? She's carrying me! I’m being lifted by a little girl. This is crazy!"
"It is," Glinda said thoughtfully in a quietly shocked tone. The other sour-faced woman was also wide-eyed but silent.
"If I put you down you might trip again," Lexie explained as they walked. "Because of the card I used. And the fact doesn't last that long so it's better if I carry you."
"Oh right," the woman said, her eyes glowing with excitement. "Oh gosh, this is embarrassing. I haven't done this since my wedding day."
"That’s because you’re twice the woman you were on your wedding day, Terry," Glinda said, making Terry frown at her.
"Alright enough with the fat jokes," she snapped, "I get it. I’m bigger. You’re not exactly a wilting daisy either."
"At least, I try to keep healthy. While you’re eating yourself to a quickly incoming grave."
“You know nothing," Terry sighed and chose to ignore her, facing Lexie instead.
“Thanks, sweetie’," she said “You’re my hero.”
To punctuate the sentence, another ding came in the corner alerting her that she’d earned another point in charisma. And a point in chivalry. Lexie stared at it unenthusiastically.
Great, she thought sarcastically.
To the woman, she smiled and said, “No problem.”
Just as they reached the road, they noticed a group of people approaching from the other end. It was two older men, in what Lexie recognized as a law enforcement uniform, a blue constable shirt, and pants that looked like they belonged in a dojo. And between them was a very familiar woman.
Lexie stopped at the edge of the street and gaped a little as they approached. They froze too, to stare at Lexie in a mixture of alarm and shock.
“Elvira Ernest?” Lexie blurted out.
