I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 118: CP: Meeting Alex’s Sister pt. 2

"We used the back entrance," Alex lied quickly.

"We don’t HAVE a back entrance!"

"The... fire escape?"

"THE FIRE ESCAPE IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BUILDING!"

[She’s smart,]

System observed.

[You’re going to have to tell her something closer to the truth.]

"No I’m not," Alex muttered.

"THERE YOU GO AGAIN!" Sally pointed at him accusingly. "Talking to yourself! Or—WAIT. Are you talking to someone we can’t see? Do you have an EARPIECE? Is this a SPY thing?! Did you join the CIA?! Are these your Hot CIA HANDLERS?!"

"I’m not in the CIA!"

"That’s exactly what someone in the CIA would SAY!"

Drakar, who had been watching this entire exchange with visible delight, finally laughed—a warm, rumbling sound that made Sally stop mid-accusation.

"Your sister is delightful," he said to Alex. "I see where you get your stubborn refusal to accept simple explanations."

"See?!" Sally pointed at Drakar. "FINAL BOSS gets it! And you—" She jabbed a finger at Alex. "—are being SUPER WEIRD right now. Weirder than usual. Which is saying something because you once tried to explain quantum physics to me at 3am while eating cereal."

"That was ONE TIME—"

"It was MEMORABLE," Sally interrupted. Then her expression shifted, something more serious creeping into her eyes. "But seriously. Alex. What’s going on? You look... different."

"Different how?" Alex asked warily.

Sally studied him for a long moment.

"Happier," she said finally. "Like... actually happy. Not ’I’m fine’ happy or ’I’m surviving’ happy. Actually, genuinely happy. Which is weird because you’ve been super stressed about school and money and everything since—"

She stopped, clearly not wanting to mention their parents.

"Since," she finished quietly.

Alex felt his chest tighten.

This was his little sister. The one person left from his old life who really knew him. Who’d seen him at his worst after their parents died. Who’d watched him struggle to keep them afloat while going to college full-time.

She deserved some truth.

Not all of it—she definitely couldn’t handle "I fell into another dimension and have three beast-man husbands and six snake babies"—but some.

"I met some people," he said carefully. "Good people. People who... who helped me remember that life can be more than just surviving. That family doesn’t have to be blood. That sometimes the universe puts people in your path exactly when you need them."

Sally’s eyes were suspiciously shiny.

"That’s the SAPPIEST thing you’ve ever said and I love it and also I’m DEFINITELY reading this friend group as a polycule situation—"

"SALLY—"

"—which I’m SUPPORTIVE of by the way! Very supportive! Love wins! Multiple loves win even more!" She beamed at the assembled group. "So which one of you is dating my brother? I’m taking votes. I’m thinking all of you because honestly that’s the only explanation for the ENERGY in this room—"

"We’re just friends," Alex said desperately, even though technically he and his three mates were very much not just friends and Sally was absolutely reading the situation correctly.

[She’s smarter than you give her credit for,]

System observed.

[She knows. She just doesn’t know the details.]

"Can we maybe change the subject?" Alex tried.

"FINE," Sally huffed. "But I’m filing this away for future interrogation. For now—" She clapped her hands together. "—I’m assuming you didn’t ACTUALLY go grocery shopping since you have zero groceries, so what’s the real reason for this very attractive friend group visiting our apartment?"

Alex looked at his mates helplessly.

Naga’s expression said you started this lie, you finish it.

Leo’s said I have no idea how to navigate teenage human females.

Zale’s said please, I myself don’t understand what’s going on.

Drakar’s said this is the most entertainment I’ve had in centuries.

Skye just looked quietly amused, his silver-grey eyes tracking the chaos with the air of someone who was very glad the attention wasn’t on him.

"We’re... visiting," Alex said finally. "They’re from out of town. Way out of town. And they wanted to see where I lived."

"Out of town," Sally repeated slowly. "All of them. From the same out of town. Which is apparently so far out of town that they needed to visit via—" She gestured vaguely at the space where the portal had been. "—mysterious means that I definitely didn’t hallucinate seeing a weird shimmery doorway appear in our living room."

"You definitely hallucinated that," Alex said.

"Uh-huh." Sally crossed her arms. "And I’m definitely hallucinating the fact that tall-dark-haired guy over there has a slightly weird texture to his skin that looks almost like—nope, not going there. And golden boy’s hair is DEFINITELY naturally white despite that being genetically improbable. And ocean aesthetics guy has a slight BLUE TINT to his fingernails. And final boss man’s eyes are literally GLOWING."

She smiled sweetly.

"Totally hallucinating all of that."

[Your sister is VERY observant,]

System said.

[The disguises are holding but she’s noticing the edges. You have maybe six hours before she figures out something supernatural is happening.]

"Great," Alex muttered.

"AGAIN WITH THE SELF-TALKING!" Sally threw her hands up. "You know what, fine. FINE. Keep your secrets. I don’t care. I’m just going to assume you joined some kind of very attractive support group or maybe a modeling agency or possibly a cult—"

"It’s not a cult—"

"—and that you’re all here for mysterious reasons that you can’t explain. THAT’S FINE. I’m a COOL SISTER. I can handle MYSTERIOUS HOT PEOPLE in my living room."

She flopped dramatically back onto the couch.

"But you OWE me," she added, pointing at Alex. "You owe me SO MANY ANSWERS. And also I’m ordering pizza because there’s no way you actually went grocery shopping and I’m STARVING. Does anyone have dietary restrictions? Allergies? Strong feelings about pineapple on pizza?"

There was a moment of confused silence as the Beast World natives tried to parse what "pizza" meant. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"What," Naga said slowly, "is pizza?"

Sally’s jaw dropped.

"WHAT IS PIZZA?! What is PIZZA?! Alex. ALEX. Your friends don’t know what PIZZA IS. This is a CRISIS. This is WORSE than the time you tried to make me eat broccoli for a week straight—"

"That was for your health—"

"—this is a CULTURAL EMERGENCY." She grabbed her phone. "Okay. Okay we’re fixing this RIGHT NOW. We’re ordering pizza and I’m going to educate your beautiful mysterious friends on the glory of cheese and bread and—OH MY GOD wait until you try DESSERT PIZZA—"

[I like her,]

System said.

[She’s chaotic but in a fun way unlike you.]

"She’s just sixteen and reads too many romance novels," Alex said.

[So? You’re twenty-one and LIVING a romance novel. Multiple romance novel, actually. With bonus babies and world-saving prophecies.]

"That’s different."

[Is it though?]

Sally was already on the phone, ordering what sounded like approximately seventeen different types of pizza while explaining to whoever was on the other end that this was "an emergency cultural education situation."

Naga leaned down to murmur in Alex’s ear. "Your sister is... energetic."

"That’s one word for it," Alex said. "Sorry. She’s a lot. I should have warned you."

"Don’t apologize," Naga said, and there was something warm in his voice. "She loves you. It’s obvious. She reminds me of—" He paused. "She reminds me why family matters."

Alex felt his chest tighten again.

Sally finished her phone call and bounced back over to them.

"Okay! Pizza will be here in thirty minutes. In the meantime—" She grabbed Skye’s hand before he could protest. "—sad boy is helping me pick out a movie. Something with found family and emotional healing. I’m thinking Lilo & Stitch or maybe How to Train Your Dragon—OH WAIT."

She stopped, eyes going wide.

"How to Train Your Dragon. Dragons. DRAGONS."

Her gaze slowly swiveled to Drakar. "You. Final boss man. You give off SERIOUS dragon energy. Like SERIOUS serious. Is your name possibly Dragon-related? Because if it is I’m going to SCREAM—"

"My name is Drakar," the Dragon Lord said, clearly enjoying himself immensely.

Sally screamed.

Not in fear—in pure delighted vindication.

"I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT! Dragon name! Dragon vibes! Dragon EVERYTHING! You’re a dragon! Or dragon-related! Or your parents really liked dragons! Or—"

"Sally," Alex said tiredly. "He’s not a dragon."

"He’s TOTALLY a dragon."

"He’s not—"

[He’s absolutely a dragon,] System said helpfully.

"NOT HELPING," Alex muttered.

Sally had already dragged Skye over to the TV, chattering about movies and character arcs and "see, the dragon and the boy become FRIENDS which is a metaphor for overcoming differences and also they FLY TOGETHER which is beautiful—"

Skye looked back at Alex with an expression somewhere between terrified and bemused.

"Just go with it," Alex called. "She means well."

"Your sister is..." Zale trailed off, searching for words.

"A force of nature," Leo supplied.

"Exhausting," Naga added.

"Delightful," Drakar finished, watching Sally explain the entire plot of How to Train Your Dragon to Skye using elaborate hand gestures.

"All of the above," Alex confirmed. "Welcome to Earth. This is my life here."

[For once every seven days,]

System reminded him.

[The rest of the time you’ll be in the Beast World with six snakelings and a sanctuary to build and a world to save.]

"One world at a time," Alex said.

Sally had successfully convinced Skye to sit on the couch and was now showing him her phone, scrolling through what appeared to be her collection of dragon-related memes and fanart.

The broken eagle was being aggressively befriended by a sixteen-year-old who collected romance novels and had zero concept of personal boundaries.

Somehow, watching them, Alex felt something settle in his chest.

This was family too.

Different from his Beast World family, but no less real. No less important.

Sally looked up, caught Alex watching, and grinned.

"Stop being sappy and get over here! The pizza’s coming and we need to establish seating arrangements! I’m thinking I sit between sad boy and dragon man because AESTHETIC—"

"His name is Skye," Alex said.

"I know! I asked! We’re FRIENDS now!" Sally declared. "He told me about birds and I told him about the internet and we’ve bonded! Right Skye?"

Skye looked like he’d been hit by a very enthusiastic truck, but he was also... smiling. Slightly. That ghost-smile that had been appearing more frequently lately.

"Right," he said quietly.

"SEE?!" Sally beamed. "BONDED. Now get over here before I start the movie without you and you miss the best parts—"

And somehow, impossibly, Alex found himself squeezed onto the couch between Naga and Leo, with Zale perched on the arm, Drakar taking up approximately half the space in a chair he’d claimed as his throne, Skye trapped between Sally and a pile of throw pillows, and a movie about dragons and friendship playing on the TV.

His two worlds, colliding in the most chaotic way possible.

And somehow... it worked.

[Current status:] System displayed cheerfully.

[Pizza: Ordered]

[Sister: Chaos incarnate but loving it]

[Mates: Confused but adapting]

[Dragon Lord: Having the time of his life]

[Sad Eagle: Being aggressively befriended]

[Cultural exchange: In progress]

[Portal stability: 23 hours remaining]

[Overall status: SURPRISINGLY WHOLESOME]

Alex leaned back against Naga’s solid body, felt Leo’s hand find his, sensed Zale’s quiet presence nearby, and watched his sister explain dragon aerodynamics to an actual Dragon Lord while a recovering eagle tried to understand why the animated dragons on screen were so small.

"This is insane," he murmured.

"Yes," Naga agreed.

"Completely," Leo added.

"Absolutely," Zale confirmed.

"Wonderfully so," Drakar contributed.