"You in particular have the blood theme; when I come here alone how do I get in, assuming it does in fact nope my teleporting?"

"Circe's probably going to educate you in a hermetic tradition, which is kind of a one-size-fits-all Western magic thing. The key spell's pretty complex in any given tradition, but if it's high up on your priorities, she'll teach you as soon as you need it. You can get one of us or Ariel or Circe to let you in 'til then. Speaking of which, want our various phone numbers? In case of emergency library visit and all."

"I haven't gotten a phone yet; probably should. Do let's have phone numbers. Ariel's great, she shepherded me around all yesterday." Bella produces her ever-present notebook.

"Ariel's totally great! We beat the living hell out of each other in the combat sims all the time." He gives the numbers.

"I wish you all the enjoyment that you derive therefrom." Scribble scribble.

"Man, I understand that there are people who don't like the sims, but I do not understand how. What exactly doesn't sound appealing about a completely sanctioned no-holds-barred superpowered battle royale with no permanent consequences?"

"It sounded like they include pain. Do they not include pain? Could also be cultural, for me at least, twins are not encouraged to learn to fight at Gemini schools. Gym class is stuff like basketball and swimming, often synchronized, and even if you go extracurricular it's a little hard to find a dojo that will take twins because we're sometimes a little awkward with the strength boost and it's not fair to anyone we spar with who isn't themselves a twin."

"Yeah, they do include pain. There's probably people who don't like that, I guess. We're definitely encouraged to learn how to fight, though, there's a martial arts requirement that only gets lifted if you literally can't move or something. So you get accustomed to fighting and all."

"Huh, I guess I'll get roped into that, then, what with having enrolled. I'm not strictly opposed to picking up a martial art but in a real fight my reaction would look much more like 'evacuate bystanders and then hang out somewhere else'."

"They'd let you off if you made a fuss, I bet, the martial arts stuff is mostly so we can live in a world we never made et cetera. You seem to live in a world with fewer threats that can be solved by punching."

"There exist supervillains, but not very many, and my utility to the major American organization that deals with them is weighted heavily towards evac, not enforcement."

"Good for America, then."

"I swear to God, Xan, if you get pissy that the other world with superheroes doesn't have a proportional villain population I will slap you."

Xan huffs with excruciating dignity.

"I mean, it makes some sense that there would be more here because you seem to get higher variance superpowers and be much more able to use them effectively without cooperation. I'm well above average in power utility, my sister is slightly above average, and even working together we could at worst mildly inconvenience, say, any two or three of the deSanto quadruplets. The fourth one does not work for the Junebugs even though the girls do, and might go supervillain if he could, but his powers basically do squat without his sisters, so, sucks to be him."

"Well, we get villain teams and all, though. The main reason we have so many is that mutants are hated and feared et cetera, and that causes a lot of backlash, often in the form of taking vengeance on a hateful world et cetera. But since your world apparently doesn't hate you, it makes sense that you wouldn't need to backlash against them, and so there's no need for villains, Xan."

"That is probably a factor too but I still think mine's at work. You don't get to pick who your siblings are. If Alli wanted to be a supervillain I wouldn't help her and she couldn't go shopping at the sister store for somebody else who could heal, twine, and teleport her - I mean, maybe she could find somebody else who could teleport her, but they wouldn't have any twinset advantages at it like I do."

"Yeah, that does make sense. But, like, I'm one of seven kids. If I was twinned with any given one of them in your world, I can absolutely guarantee they would've gone villain and taken me with them. Plus there actually are villainous twins here, they even get synchronized powers a lot of the time. Half of them are heroes instead, but it stands. I do get what you're saying, though. Your end of things seems to have more, uh, generally stable people being given powers anyway."

"And predictable in advance," Bella adds. "Social services, for example, are all over you if they think you're not a fit parent for a twin set - we actually had some trouble when we were little because before my basics came in, I tripped over everything and nothing and kept turning up to kindergarten with bruises. We spent a week in a foster facility before I finally convinced them to prevail upon a lie-detecting gemini to confirm my story."

"Ooh, that's totally a thing too, I hadn't even realized. Yeah, we are very unpredictable."

"Not all of us are predictable because chimeras and similar also get basics, but they don't get bonuses," Bella adds, "just basics, and just the basics that don't require the actual involvement of an actual twin."

"Yeah, a low-level exemplar on the loose could be a problem, but not so much when you've got a superteam to mop them up."