Running. It's a thing that humans do. They run. They're good at long-distance endurance, they're not too bad at short distance sprints, and some people run for fun. Like Theo. He's running a 400m dash, he started about 25 seconds ago, and he's about halfway through. That's pretty quick for someone who just started running properly at the beginning of the year. He gets first place. The other runners don't seem thrilled.
Mr. Second-Place lunges towards Theo. Amelia steps out of the way with a confused expression in her face. Unfamiliar boy is about to intervene but then stops.
Theo was focusing on Amelia when the boy lunged at him, so he doesn't notice the move immediately. He gets knocked to the floor, surprised by the attack, and tries to roll away from his attacker. "What the fuck, dude?"
Putting his hand to his face, he notices he's luckily not bleeding, but seriously, what the hell? He notices the other guy coming towards him again and dodges.
The boy doesn't get any other hits in and after about four of five attempts he is pried off Theo by the unfamiliar boy, who looks annoyed.
"Yeah, Thompson, what the fuck?" Amelia says nervously and unsincerely.
The unfamiliar boy holds Thompson down by locking at his arms.
Theo gets up, looks at the restrained boy, then says, "Thanks," to the unfamiliar guy. He brushes himself off and glares at the guy who came second place, apparently "Thompson". 'If looks could kill' indeed.
"Did you seriously just attack me because I beat you in a race?"
"You can't get this good so fast!" Thompson snarls. "Who is this clown?" He says to the guy holding him. "Is he your dealer? Fucking dopers. Oh, look he tensed and he is strong." The unfamiliar guy presses harder against Thompson. "Fuck, I can't breathe."
Thompson growls something and tries to wrestle his way out of the other boy's grip, to no avail.
"Oh, for god's sake, just let him go," he says to the unfamiliar boy. "Idiot." he spits in the direction of the attacker.
"You better go." The unfamiliar boy speaks for the first time.
Thompson leaves.
"Are you two going to report him?" He asks.
"Yeah, not a good idea to just report people like that. I'm sure he learned his lesson." Amelia says, is she a bit frantic? She might be.
"You instigated the situation, they are likely to punish you as well." He says bluntly.
Now Amelia is frantic and defensively she asks "Who are you anyway? I never forget a face."
"Yeah. I mean, thanks for stopping him... eventually... but who are you? I know you don't go to this school."
"My sister might attend here next year." He says like reading a script.
"Right!" Amelia says incredulously.
"I can report this to the principal."
"Right!" Amelia says credulously.
"Okay, I guess," he says. Not wanting to continue to talk to Amelia or the weird guy, he just walks away.
Later on Theo's way home he might notice a certain familiar face sitting on a park bench. This time the guy waves and calls Theo closer.
That's... weird. He walks over to the guy warily – they met once, so what? – and says, "Hi?"
"Hi!" He smiles warmly. "You met my twin earlier."
It isn't hard to believe the two are different people just by general posture and speech, but Theo isn't all that familiar with either of them.
"Yeah!" He responds quickly "He thought he had recognized you from when we were kids."
"I'm not entirely unsure. Do you remember this game where we had to pick seven powers from a list, then pass those powers to the next person, who picked more seven powers to pass and so on?" He is paying a lot of attention to Theo's answer.
Something similar to disappointment crosses his face. "There wasn't a formal name... Well, I guess you are not the specific person we are looking for."
There is a pause.
"Anything weird happening to you recently?"