Lexie gaped at her father, then at the box, then back at her father again stunned at what he was telling her.

"Are you serious?"

Aiden nodded with a wide grin. "Yes. Typically, you would need to be at least a year two scholar to get access to those, but luckily your father pulled some strings."

"Expensive strings," Elric commented from behind the counter, but Lexie barely heard him. She was still focused on Aiden and the box in her trembling hand.

Lexie immediately put the chest back on the counter and went to him. Her heart raced as she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his waist squeezing tight.

"Thank you," she murmured into his belly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"You're very welcome, bumble bee." His voice was warmth personified as he laid a hand on her head. "I'm glad you like your gift. I told you it would be a surprise."

And it was. Lexie had assumed, after their last fight, that her father would slow down on teaching her card magic, or may not even teach her any magic again. But now he'd gotten her a card crafting kit. Which meant he was going to start teaching her crafting too!

She finally let him go, her heart overflowing with gratitude and glanced back at the box. She didn't know how expensive it was, but she was going to find a way to pay Aiden back. After all, she still had about 1,000 ill-gotten credits in her account. She would find a way to give it to him without explaining how she'd gotten it.

Or maybe she just needed to be honest about the gambling. It might show up on his tax documents, or he might get mail about it anyway. But she decided to deal with that later.

"I'll tell you how to use it later today," Aiden said as Lexie went over to retrieve the box. "For now, let's go to our last destination."

She nodded and beamed. "Sure thing, Dad."

Their last destination was another ten-minute walk away, and it was some kind of pawn shop combined with a souvenir shop. But the souvenirs were things from trips to different dimensions. Through the window display, they saw cell phones, including flip phones like the ones they had in the eighties. Also a skateboard. And plastic hangers for whatever reason. A few books. And a whole bunch of things that Lexie had never seen before but probably came from another Earth dimension.

"These are all brought back by people from the ISTS travels?" Lexie asked and Aiden nodded as he pushed the door open.

The man behind the counter looked up at them when they walked in. He was a round tall elderly man with a ponytail, surrounding a bald top, and round glasses perched on his nose.

The second he saw them, he did the strangest thing. He smiled brightly. And not the customer service smile you get when you typically enter someone's shop. This one was a real warm smile.

It even took Aiden aback.

"Welcome," the man said and he went to the far edge of the corner lifting the separator. He was wearing a workman's apron, with ratty sneakers, stained with grime. "It's nice to see you again, Lexie."

Lexie blinked. "You know me?"

"Of course. Although the last time I saw you, you were knee-high." He looked at Aiden. "Welcome, Archmage."

Aiden smiled weakly. "Thank you. But I'm not the Archmage anymore."

"You'll always be the Archmage to some. Especially in the heart of many of us in this town." He gestured. "Let's go to the back, I have what you're looking for."

The man led them around the counter and through the backdoor of the store down a dark hallway that smelled a little moldy and dusty but thankfully wasn't too long. At the end of it, he unlocked a door that led into what looked to be a small warehouse, with shelves of brown boxes filled to the brim with stuff. Junk, Lexie's mother would call them, but she was a stickler for cleanliness and hated any kind of clutter, especially the type Lexie's father had lying around when he was trying to fix that Camaro.

The man lifted one of the boxes onto a dusty table with one leg that had been broken and reattached, and then sorted through it, taking out picture frames, smaller boxes, and other miscellaneous items.

"I was about to send this off to District 4 for auction," he began speaking as he rifled through. "Because I didn't think you would be coming for it. I thought you'd maybe forgotten all about it, or maybe outgrown the hobby but something kept telling me to hold onto it. Maybe it was remorse or something of that sort…but I'm glad I did. That way I still had it when I got your call, Archmage."

"Sorry that it took so long," Aiden said. "I had a lot of emotions about this place that I needed to sort through."

"Completely understandable."

The man finally retrieved the thing he wanted, which looked to be a straight cylindrical case, like something you would put a cigar in. He brought it and handed it over to Lexie who took it and opened the box tentatively.

Turned out, it was a necklace, a shimmery golden statement piece with pearls hanging off it and a rose petal as a pendant. Lexie analyzed it for a few seconds, before turning back to the man who was looking on eagerly.

"Thank you," she said politely, but his face still fell. She felt like she'd disappointed him with her reaction, which told her she was missing something here. "You kept this for me?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry but I have to ask. Why?"

Confusion rippled across his face and then Aiden finally spoke up. "Lexie suffered a bad fall a few months ago. Lost most of her memories."

The man's eyes widened dramatically. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"It's okay," Lexie said. "I'm fine now."

"Yes, but she doesn't remember anything about your relationship in the past," Aiden said. "And she also won't know what the necklace symbolizes."

"Oh." Worry and pity appeared on his face but he immediately covered it up with a bright smile. "Well, I'm sure it will come back in due time." He sounded hopeful and sad at the same time, and Lexie wondered just how close she'd been to this man.

"About the necklace," he continued. "I kept this for you because you wanted it very badly. You and your mother would always come to my shop every time you were in town and you would ask if I'd gotten it yet. The answer was always no, until now."

Lexie gently palmed the necklace and then lifted it in the air. "What is it?"

"It's a photosynthesizer, a tool from Earth 5 Dimension," he said. "It was used to grow specific types of plants in climates that usually would not tolerate them. You wanted it very badly."

"I'm guessing that was during the phase when you wanted your own Phoenix-rose flower garden," Aiden commented wryly. "You had been talking about it for months. I was away from home then, but I remember your mother would message me all the time telling me you were in our backyard digging again. You wanted to grow Phoenix-roses, but Hovelton cannot grow them due to the climate."

"And this would have helped." Lexie regarded the necklace again with a new respect. "How?"

"Let me show you," the man said and gestured for the necklace. She handed it over.

He twisted the petals, and the sound of a click could be heard. Then the pendant began to glow. "Basically, at this point, you put a sample of the plant that you want into this and it will create a forcefield, around it to analyze it. Then it will ask you to put some soil in a different compartment right here," He twisted the petals again. "That's for the soil you want to grow it in. From there, it will run tests and try to create a seed that should be able to grow a similar flower in that soil."

"Wow." Lexie blinked. "Sounds incredible."

"Yes, but note it's not very powerful. It will usually only produce only one of that plant and it takes weeks to recharge. There are also some plants that it will not work for. I even told you that it may not be able to make you a Phoenix-rose garden without some serious magic involved. But you said, and I quote, 'My daddy is the most powerful mage in the world. He'll make it work.'"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Lexie glanced up at Aiden who was beaming down at her. Although his smile had a tinge of sadness in it.

The man continued, "It's a rare artifact indeed but a traveler from Earth 5 finally brought it in one of those days and I just knew I had to have it. I put in a ridiculously high bid for it, fending off a few collectors and even called in a favor before I could get my hands on it."

"Wow." Lexie was moved by his determination and dedication to getting her the trinket. "Thank you."

"Of course." His wrinkled face lit up at her thanks. "After I heard what happened to your mother…I suppose you could say I wanted to give you something that could at least, if not dull the pain, then it would …" He couldn't find the words to finish the sentence, especially after he met Aiden's gaze then which had gone very somber. "I'm so sorry. She was a good woman."

Aiden's smile was now stiff on his face. He looked a little sick like he always did whenever someone mentioned his wife's death, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. The old man wasn't unaffected either, his eyes holding a sheen in them.

It was strange that Lexie was the only one who wasn't emotional during this moment.

Yes, Lexie knew in a logical sense that she (or the girl whose body she was inhabiting) had lost her mother and that was sad, but she didn't remember the woman and unlike with Aiden, she'd had no chance to form that bond with Lara.

So in her eyes, when Lara was mentioned, all she saw was a faceless, kind, smiling woman who would cook meals for her and take her places. Although the image was nice, there was no emotional attachment to them, no true sense of loss. It was more like a fantasy and wishful thinking than a memory. After all, you couldn't miss something that you never had.

She had Aiden now and he'd somewhat taken the position of her father here. But in her mind, her real mother was still back on earth. For better or for worse, it was the no-nonsense, brilliant, Dr. Evans.

Lexie had had a complex relationship with her mother. On one hand, she understood her. The woman had come from a developing country and then fought tooth and nail to survive. When she arrived, she immediately taught herself English, had to take a lot of menial jobs to put herself through college, and then somehow clawed her way through the elitism and sexism rampant in such spaces to establish herself as an expert in her field. She'd then gained a coveted tenure spot in physics and continued fighting until she was well-respected in the field of quantum mechanics.

She'd done that through sheer determination, forgoing just about everything in pursuit of her ambition. She'd had to be brutal and strong to survive the world of high academia. But that same harshness might have been what robbed her of any motherly warmth and what disenabled her from sympathizing with any flaws she viewed in her children's characters or performance.

Or maybe not. Maybe that was just who Harlow Evans was. After all, Lexie had met plenty of academic women who made fantastic, soft, loving mothers.

But Harlow wasn't one of them.

From the moment Lexie was young, it had been decided that she was someone who would follow in her mother's footsteps. While Logan was far more rambunctious and had to be wrangled down to have his lessons, Lexie had always been inquisitive and quiet. No one had to force her to study at an early age because she enjoyed reading, asking questions, and learning new things. Her mother had seen that and exploited those traits to set Lexie up for maximum success. She'd spared no expense in doing so, got the extra tutors, and study aides, and spent a ridiculous amount of money on afterschool classes from the moment Lexie was six.

And of course, as could be expected, all that work and pressure to perform killed any joy Lexie had in learning anything. She began to hate the routine of it, and would quietly rebel in little ways by watching videos on her phone or playing computer games.

But, she was too much of a coward to truly rebel. Especially after her Grandpa's death. After she saw what it did to her mother, and saw her mother nearly break down for the first time, it was like that urge to fight completely left her. Lexie may not agree with Harlow but she didn't want to see her suffer like that again. So she'd swallowed whatever animosity she held and simply played the part of the good daughter to make her mother happy.

It made her mother happy to see her get perfect grades so that was what Lexie did. Her mother wanted her to go to MIT, so Lexie did that too. On a selfish level, being so obedient made life simple for her. She didn't have to think about what school she wanted to go to, or what she wanted to do with her life. She didn't have to think about the fact that her parent's marriage was falling apart or that Logan was having a terrible time in school, and distancing himself from their parents. She just had to do what was asked of her and everything else would be fine.

She wondered what was happening now that she was gone. Was Lexie Sparrowfoot in her body and continuing with the routine? Or had her entire family imploded without her good-girl buffer?

Aiden laid a hand on her shoulder and she realized that he took her quiet for melancholy. And while Lexie was a little sad, it wasn't for the same reason as the other two.

Tumultuous emotions shifted and bent within her but she smiled back at him anyway.

"I don't know if you heard," the man continued. "But we held a little memorial service for your wife, down at the field. A few days after the funeral."

Aiden shook his head. "No, I didn't hear. I was in jail then."

"Oh. Right. Of course." He cleared his throat as his gaze lingered on Aiden's neck, as though he could see the bands through his shirt. "Anyway, um..yes that happened. We were very sorry to hear about it. And about…you as well."

Aiden nodded. It was clear he was uncomfortable with where the conversation was going but luckily, the older man changed the subject abruptly.

"I'm Gunther by the way," he said, smiling at Lexie. "I suppose you don't remember that either. You used to call me 'Unther because for whatever reason you kept forgetting about the 'g'. I'm the owner of Gunther's Interdimensional Pawn Shop. And of course, I know you are Lexie and you are the Archmage."

"Just Aiden is fine," Aiden said and Gunther shook his head.

"Of course not. I can never disrespect the Savior of Indigo by addressing him simply by his first name. No, that wouldn't do."

The Savior of Indigo? Lexie glanced up at her father who looked embarrassed rubbing the back of his head. But there was also that slight hint of pride in his eyes that told her that it was more so the 'aw shucks' kind of embarrassment and not the type that meant he didn't want Lexie to hear the story.

It was especially evident because he didn't stop Gunther from carrying on with it, telling Lexie, "You don't have a lot of [Heroes] coming to Indigo. The environment is not good for them, and they don't like what it does to their powers. And most of us here have not even seen a [Superhero] except on the news and videos. That was until the Zayket attacked."

"Zayket..." Lexie murmured. She'd heard of the city-state. They were in District 8 and a major player in the Great District Wars.

"Zayket has always believed that Indigo should be a part of their nation," Aiden explained. "And when they didn't get that, they staged an attack on Alberton to destabilize the region, destroy their gains after the last war, and also send more refugees into District 8. They also wanted to drop another mana bomb even though the last one had devastated Indigo enough. Luckily, the [Hero] association got wind of what they were trying to do and they sent me in here to dissuade the attackers. Luckily, it all worked out."

"He's underplaying his role," Gunther said. "I saw it myself, after bringing my little boy home from school. Two great large Bibivs in the sky that would have swallowed up entire neighborhoods and destroyed them. Would have made this place unlivable. Zayket first made threats to the Alberton government to yield to their demands. When they did not, they dropped it. I was standing right there, outside my gate taking out trash in my underwear. I thought I would die like that."

He shook his head recalling it. "But then your father appeared and caught the explosions with one hand and made them disappear."

"You can control fire?" Lexie asked.

"Not proficiently, not to the level of an elemental." Aiden seemed proud to relive his heyday. "What I did was catch it in a forcefield and then I transported it somewhere else, so it could be disabled. I also created a far-reaching shield to block all other missiles. My partner at the time focused on catching the attackers, while I was focused on protecting the citizens."

"And that's exactly what he did. He protected us." Gunther's eyes once again were filled with awe. "Most of us had never experienced a hero in action before. Seeing him dispel disaster so effortlessly… It was like seeing a deity protect us. And then he projected his voice, loud like a Guardian, and told Zayket that if they did not leave he would rain hellfire down on them. They left." He smiled. "My boy…he told me he wanted to be a hero after that. He's now attending an academy in Turnwall. Wellington Academy."

"Ah, that's a good one. He awakened?"

Gunther nodded then tapped his temple. "That Alistair. He's a thinker. He will likely be some kind of technomage." Pride oozed from his tone and then he got serious again. "I understand that your circumstances are complicated, Archmage, but most of us have never forgotten your bravery that day. They still teach about you in some schools. And you have many friends and supporters in this city."

Aiden smiled. "Thank you."

At this point, Lexie finally asked the question she'd come all the way here for. She took her phone out of her pocket and held it out to Gunther.

"Did I get this from here?" she asked him, trying to see if the system had somehow messed with time to add that to her story.

He frowned as he took the item, turning it over in his hand. "No, I don't think so. But I have seen things like this. It's a communicator from Earth 2, 4, and 5 correct?"

"Er, yes," she said. "Although I think this particular one is from Earth 2."

"Hmm, yes. It looks very Earth 2-like."

Lexie didn't know what that meant but she didn't pursue it.

"It's just that there are a few things on it that don't work," Lexie said. "And it keeps saying no signal."

"Of course. Communicators are typically frozen and stripped before they're brought here. Interdimensional communication is strictly banned unless you have the proper authorization. Therefore the signal is locked until then. These souvenirs are just for fun. You get to click it and it makes funny sounds."

"Right," Lexie said, "But do you know how to at least get the software on it back? I think they were there when I woke up from my coma but they got deleted accidentally." Maybe she could get around the no communications rule by using social media.

Now that she knew that the signal could be turned on, then she wanted to try.

"Hmm. Not really but there are a few people who might be able to. I'll reach out and ask them."

"Alright, thank you," she said. "And just out of curiosity how would I get this interdimensional communication authorization?"

He smiled. "You would have to be a very strong, very important person to get access to that. And very wise too." His gaze flickered to Aiden. "With a father like yours, I'm sure you'll achieve that in no time."

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