Aunt Rey

'Analyze and learn everything. Improvement is much faster. Does that only include things like math or languages? Or can I also learn to play the guitar faster? Or to sing? Some martial arts maybe? Using guns? Alright, I'll ask for a guitar during dinner. Alan should have both classic and electric ones. Till then… Let's try French.'

Lian took out his tablet from backpack, searched for some Online French language courses and began his studies from the very beginning.

…

An hour later Sofi came back into the room. When she entered she was welcomed with a strange phrase.

"Pourquoi est-ce si long?"

"Huh? Oh, you are French now? Okay… Papoujo aro liar." His sister said after closing the door, with her finger pointed at Lian.

"But, that is not French?" Lian said tilting his head.

"What do you mean not French? Did not it sound like French? It had that funny French pronunciation, so it is French." Sofi continued standing her ground.

"Then what did it mean?" Lian didn't want to let go as well. And thinking about his sister's next question he decided to tell in advance. "My phrase meant 'What took you so long?'"

"And my phrase meant 'My brother is an idiot who can't joke along'" Sofi threw at Lian his cellphone and got on her bed with her back facing Lian once again.

"Ouch. Sis, that hurts. Right into my sense of humor." Lian comically clutched his heart area, as if it hurt.

"You don't have one." Sofi said without turning around to look at him.

'Better stop it here.' Lian thought. "Fair enough. My jokes are pretty bad. Changing topic. We have two hours till dinner. What do you plan to do?"

"I'm tired. Want to sleep." She mumbled.

"Alright then. Good night." Lian changed his focus back to studying. 'Isn't it too good? In like an hour or so, I managed to learn all the basics and can now have an elementary talk. It's just a bug. All I need to do is to scan trough a page, and voila, I have it all in my brain. Now this is the kind of superpower I always needed, and not the one to stop time as I thought!'

Lian was really excited about his power for some time, but then his excitement died down. 'So what if I can learn anything faster? Will I become a great physicist? Or a world-known celebrity? When there are people out there who can destroy a tank with a single shot, what is a point of being a chemistry professor? It is too boring. Being a celebrity? Will there be any celebrities left after everything that happened today? Whatever, I'd better continue learning French for now.'

Lian continued his studying. Quickly two hours have passed.

Knock… Knock… Knock…

Lian heard someone knocking at the door. He got up, came to the door and opened it.

Outside stood a woman that looked to be in her late forties or early fifties. She was a much smaller then Lian, only at about 160 cm. She was plump and looked like some of her ancestors were from India. And with just a glance you could see that she was a very kind and easy-going woman. She was Hinson Donald's wife – Hinson Reyla.

"Lian, hello. I have not seen you for ages. I think the last time we met was at New Year holidays?" She started talking right after seeing Lian.

"Aunt Rey, nice to see you. Sorry for interrupting you, but maybe you want to come in? If so, please be quieter. Sofi is sleeping." Lian softly interrupted her. He knew that if he didn't stop her, she could talk for a long time.

"Oh, sorry. No, I'll go now. I came to tell you that dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, so wake up Sofi, and come to the dining room." As she said up to here her tone changed a bit, becoming somewhat displeased and worried.

"It will be only me and you two today, because my husband took Alan as well as those other old fogies and they went to headquarters. I told him that it is too dangerous to go out, but he did not listen to me and said that it was too important. Whatever, we will have more to eat now that they are gone. Alright, see you soon." She said and walked away.

"Thank you, Aunt." Lian said back, before closing the door.

'Well then. Looks like Alan already woke up. And it seems like he really got some superpowers, otherwise they would come to me with questions. I wonder, what power did he get? Assuming that phenomenon happening when one is unconscious can serve as a demonstration of what power a person will have when he wakes up, what power will Alan get? Is it temperature control? Or ice control? Or was it colder in the room, because it is some sort of death energy? No way, it is too wuxia-like. Did I emit any sort of energy when I was unconscious?' He fell back onto his bed only to get up again.

'Right, sister!'

He had to wake her up, otherwise she would complain that she was hungry when she woke up at night.

Lian quietly came to her bed and began thinking how to wake her up. In some irritating way, of course. Deciding on one method he returned on his bed and just called her. "Sis, wake up. Eminem released a new music video."

"Where?" Sofi immediately sat on her bed, although her eyes were still closed. One could guess that she was a pretty hardcore Eminem fan.

"Come here. I'll show you." Lian said, waving his tablet in his hand.

She slowly crawled out of the bed and, with sleepy eyes, came to Lian's side. Then she heard…

'Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me…'

And the next three and a half minutes three voices were heard from the room. With two of them being pretty bad at sinning.

But after the song ended… "So, where is the Eminem's song?"

"Probably still in his head? I have no idea. Just had to wake you up. Dinner will be ready soon." Lian told her in a casual voice.

"Asshole." Sofi said falling back on the bed.

"Hey-hey, don't you dare sleep any further. I know you will wake me up at 3 at night to go buy you something in the shop. I'm not going. You saw what was happening outside for yourself." Lian came to her side and began to shake her.

"Oh, come on. I just want to lie for some more time. Can you stop bothering me for like five minutes? Thank you" Sofi mumbled in an annoyed voice.

"Hm… Well… Alright. But I'm watching you." Lian said, stepping back.

Ten minutes later Sofi sat on the bed, stretching her body.

"Sis, looks like you grew a little bit." Lian said, putting aside his tablet and standing up. "Come here."

"Really? That would be nice." Sofi replied, standing up as well. "But how do you want to measure it?"

"Easy, just stand straight for now." Lian positioned himself in front of his sister, his back straight. "So, you used to reach just a little above my chin. And now it is… Hm, up to my nose. It should be 5 to 7 cm, I guess. Not bad, to grow up so much in a day. Will you catch up to my 186 soon?"

"Why not just ask for some sort of a ruler to measure it precisely?" Sofi said.

"Too difficult." Lian answered with a single sentence and didn't bother to speak any further.

"It is not difficult, it is just you who are lazy. You are too lazy to ask Aunt find some sort of tape measure, ain't I right?"

"You need it, so you ask her." Lian said, walking out of the room.

"Fine!" Sofi said

"Fine." Lian returned

"Good!" Sofi didn't stop.

They butted like this all the way till they got to the dining room.

…

"Lian you are here. Hi Sofi, nice to see you again. Sit down, everything is ready. Wait a little, I'll bring it." Aunt Rey met them in the dining room. When duo walked in she was placing the dishes on the table.

"Hello, Aunt." Sofi politely greeted.

They walked into a small room. It obviously was a room for family dinners, as the table could fit only four people. The table was wooden, but of a light color. The room itself was painted in soothing warm green with a beautiful chandelier hanging from above the table.

"Aunt, let me help you." Lian went in the direction of the kitchen.

"No, sit down, I'll do everything myself. Poor kids, you must have suffered so much during the day. Sit down and rest." Aunt quickly went and pulled Lian into a chair, not letting him do anything.

'We have already rested for like 3 hours. Eh, whatever…' Lian sat without much complaining. "Aunt, by the way. Can I lend one of Alan's guitars? I started practicing some time ago and don't want to stop."

"Sure." He heard from the kitchen. "After dinner you can go to his room and get a guitar you want."

After a minute of waiting all the food was already on the table.

"We don't have anything fancy today, but please make do with it." Hinson Reyla apologized. "We have some salads, mashed potato and a few steaks. Lian, I remember you liked my steaks, so I specially prepared a bit more of them."

"Thank you, Aunt." Lian nodded happily, while thinking. 'It is because you usually only make some vegetarian stuff, so steak is the only type of food left for me to eat.'

Then all three said 'Have a nice meal.' and began eating.

"I'm really glad to see you safe and sound. Have you called your parents? How are they? Is your brother also alright? Have you contacted any of your friends?" Aunt Rey asked a few questions one after another.

"Our family is doing good." Lian answered after chewing his food. "They are currently on a yacht somewhere in the Japanese sea. As for the friends, not yet."

"Did they have time to get food? Won't they starve on a yacht?" Reyla again asked full of concern.

'You already said "Have a meal", why can't you let me have it then?' Lian thought a little annoyed.

"When I spoke to Dad a few days ago he told me that they wanted to go to some island. They planned to go on a picnic or something with their friends for a few days. So they had some food on the yacht prepared beforehand, I guess." Lian had to answer again.

Just as he thought that this series of question won't come to an end, Reyla's mobile phone rang.

"I'm sorry." She said, picking up her phone, and when she saw who was calling, she answered. "Hello, Darling?"

Then she woke up from her sit and walked to the door.

"Sorry guys, I need to go. See you later." She said in an anxious voice and quickly left through the door.

Exchanging glances Lian and Sofi slowly continued eating.

…

Fifteen minutes later they have already finished eating, put everything into a washing machine and left.

Now Lian was standing inside Alan's practice room. One had to admit that Alan was a guitar-lunatic. He could play any type of guitar, whether it was Acoustic, electric or even Ukulele. And he had a great variety of those.

"I don't know pretty much anything about guitars. Should I try electric? Nah, better begin with Acoustic one. I heard that Yamaha makes good guitars. It's decided then."

Lian took and ordinary looking guitar, tried it a few times. Then he found tuner and went back to his room.

Two and a half hours later Sofi was sinning "Happier" with her brother's guitar accompaniment.

At some point in the song the door opened, and a person walked in. The figure just stopped next to the door, without interrupting the duo. After the song ended they heard female voice. "Not bad. Didn't know you can play a guitar. So secretive."