Chapter 71

With all his friends occupied, Gus explored the school's history department and asked the people there questions about the Human Realm.

...Unfortunately, human history and culture are vast and complex, and in the end, the only useful information he got was a recommendation to check out the library and confirmation that Luz had lied to him about the true purpose of dental braces.

Undeterred, Gus made his way to the library, pausing only to give a friendly wave as he saw Willow sitting at a table with a few books, but as she was talking to a girl with antlers he didn't approach her. The history was easy enough to find but he didn't know where to start.

"Huh," came a voice from a few aisles away. "World War II was a bummer."

His curiosity peaked, Gus snuck away in the direction of the voice and saw a girl about his age standing in the aisle with her nose in a book. She was fair-skinned, had quite a lot of wild, light reddish-brown hair, and most strangely was dressed in a mostly green outfit that resembled a combination of an acrobat's leotard and a pair of footy jammies.

She noticed him and immediately dropped the book as she vanished from sight entirely. This got Gus's brain working. She was too solid and physically well-defined to be a ghost and the displacement of air would have affected how the book fell if she'd teleported or been summoned... No, clearly she'd hidden herself somehow, and Gus smelled an illusion.

He took the magic amplifier he'd pilfered from Adrian from his ear and... Given what he saw the last time he used it he hesitated for a moment, before using it to help focus his magic into an illusion-piercing spell and immediately saw the girl floating in the air in a crouching position as if waiting for him to leave. He made eye contact and said, "I can see you."

"No you can't," she replied. Then, what just happened seemed to occur to her. "Crap."

"Who are you?" Gus asked.

The girl blinked. "Are you not with the school?"

"Oh, no, some friends and I are just visiting," Gus replied.

"...Okay, I'll answer your questions but you've gotta be cool about this," the girl said as she landed. "I'm not supposed to be here."

"Why not?" Gus asked. "Are you... Not allowed in the library?"

"I'm not a student," the girl said. "And I was banned from the campus after the headmaster tripped and I conjured an illusion of a troop of dancing oompa loompas to mock him for falling."

"I don't know what those are," Gus replied. "So... Why are you here then?"

"Becuase this is the best library I've found so far and thus my best chance for getting caught up on some stuff I'm missing," the girl replied. "There's just... so much about the world I don't know and... You know what, let's find somewhere better to talk."

The girl then led Gus out of the library, still hidden so that only he could see her, and then out of the school entirely. "I um, don't think I should l be leaving the campus."

"What, are you scared?" she asked as she began to float away. Gus knew she was playing him, but... He summoned Emmeline as a staff and flew after her anyway.

The girl didn't fly all that far, just to what seemed to be a large public park. She landed near some trees. "Good, you followed. So, mortal, what's your name?"

"Agustus Porter," Gus replied. "My friends call me Gus. What's your name? And why did you call me mortal?"

"I'm Sprite," she replied. "And um," the girl giggled. "How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know, about twelve? Same as me."

Sprite laughed again. "No. I'm way older than that." She floated up and spread out her arms as dramatic lighting in a myriad of colors formed around her. "Believe it or not, Agustus, but I am well over a millionyears old. I am Sprite of the Eternals!"

"...So have you just been in the middle of puberty for thousands of years, or...?" Gus asked, thinking of how rough the first leg of his witch puberty had been.

"Oh, no," she said with a suddenly green expression as she fell from the sky and landed on her butt. "No, Celestials no, it doesn't work like that, um... I'd have gone insane a whole lot sooner if... I've said too much."

"You're insane?" Gus asked.

"I... Was insane," Sprite corrected. "Um... It's a long story and it doesn't really matter and..."

"I've been told I'm a great listener," Gus replied while wiggling his ears for emphasis.

"...So, with rare exceptions, Eternals aren't born," Sprite said. She waved her arms and conjured an illusion around them, transporting them to outer space with a breathtaking look at a blue and green planet below them. "Longer ago than most mortals can comprehend, the Celestial Host approached this planet."

Suddenly they zoomed down to the surface of the planet. Moments later, absolutely massivebeings... Not as big as the Titan, but still huge. Bipeds dressed in fancy-looking armor in a multitude of colors began to come down from the sky and land feet first on the surface with a force that Gus could somehow feel in his bones despite knowing that this was just an illusion.

As the massive figures moved about, doing... He didn't even know, Sprite spoke again. "The Celestials were creations of the First Firmament, the embodiment of the first Cosmos, before rebelling against him As Each universe dies, the Celestials help to create the planets and stars of its successor and answer to The Fulcrum, who is an aspect of The One Above All. Between the creations of a new Cosmos, the Celestials travel time and space, across realities, to seed planets with the building blocks needed for life to form and periodically come to test and experiment on the life forms of the planets. This is for several reasons, sometimes to make more Celestials, sometimes to create a counter for a threat, to balance acts of destruction committed by the Hoard, the counterparts of the Celestials who embody destruction, etcetera. Regardless of the goal," Sprite continued, "the methodology remains the same. Taking the native lifeforms of the planet, they uplift them into three groups."

An image of three... They looked like uglier and harrier humans dressed in loin clothes. Three such bipeds were lifted up and alteredby crackling energy filled with large dark spots generated from the eyes of one of the Celestials.

One had become a purple-skinned, hairless biped with long, pointy ears and tusks. "The Deviants, who embody chaos."

One had become fit and beautiful-looking looking, their clothes replaced with an outfit similar to Sprite's. "Eternals, like me, embody order."

The final figure... Seemingly hadn't changed at all. "Latents, who embody potential. They may not look like much, but they've all got power inside them waiting for the process of evolution and/or occasionally bumping uglies with one of the other two to awaken. Humans, mutants, Atlanteans? Basically, everyone from Earth who isn't an Eternal or 100% pure Deviant is a descendant of at least one latent. Spider-people and Hulks and especially mutants all have their powers because natural evolution and interbreeding with deviants awoke and shaped that potential... Would have been nice if the Celestials had told us that that was what they were going for... Eternals like me? There's only a thousand of us... except for the two who were born but we'll be here all dayif I have to explain their deal." Sprite rolled her eyes. "We're called Eternals because... We're eternal. We don't die. Even if you kill us, our bodies can be fixed. Worst case scenario our souls just get plopped into a new one. We have families, but those are just roles we're assigned, alongside our Celestial given purposes. Me? The Celestials designed me to be a puckish trickster, a child who never grows up, who lives for pranks and stories and that's all I'll ever be... I can be a boy or a girl, a playful prankster or a cruel jester, but I can never be a man or a woman or anything but what I was made to be."

"...So you've been twelve for a million years?" Gus asked as everything came together. "...Are you even really a child?"

"Physically I'm the same age as all the other Eternals," Sprite said. "Just smaller and cuter looking. Up here?" She pointed to her head. "I have no goddamned idea how this works. The point is, I'm not just a child, and getting treated like one is hard. Even the other Eternals sometimes forget and... I don't know what set me off but at some point, I snapped a while back and did something really bad. I asked about it but everyone's really uncomfortable about it. Especially Sersi. Anyway, whatever happened was bad enough that not only did the others kill me, but they blanked out the better part of the last couple centuries of my memory when I got brought back," she tapped her forehead for emphasis as Gus shuddered at the thought of someone losing so much of their life experiences. "And then I spent a few years in seclusion while they made sure that the mind wipe fixed whatever made me go crazy. I only got let out a little bit ago and I really need to catch up... The other day I found out that someone wrote a book based on me," Sprite said to change the subject. "Apparently at the time, I was flattered but... I really don't want to know what I was doing back then to make this James Barrie guy think I'd... Never mind," Sprite concluded.

"...I'm sorry," Gus said. What else could you say to that?

"It's not all bad," Sprite said with a shrug. "It's been a few thousand years since I've been a girl, even as far back as my clear memories end I was forgetting how much I liked having a body like this. And I get to watch all my favorite movies for the first time all over again... And learn that movies are a thing that exists. I actually really like one movie I saw but I think it's a sequel or spin-off to something, have you ever heard of The Good Witch Azura: Field of Deadly Fates?"

Gus placed an arm around Sprite's shoulders. "Sprite, I know a couple of girls who would love to talk to you about Azura for hours. Literal hours," he said deadpan as his eye involuntarily twitched and his mind turned to a conversation he'd been forced to participate in. Never again. "And I am also very interested in learning the history and culture of the human realm for personal reasons, so as a fellow scholar I'm gonna help you out and try to cover for you back at the library."

Sprite dropped her massive illusion, one that had given Gus some ideas, and then turned to leave... Only for the scenery to change around them again, casting the park and the city around in a ruinous and nightmarish light as a massive figure loomed above them. Green and gold armor and an opaque glass dome filled with some kind of smoke.

"People of New York!" Bellowed a deep and bombastic voice. "I, Mysterio, Master of Illusions! Have! Returned! No more petty robberies! No more playing second fiddle as part of the Sinister Six! You will all bow down before me and despair!"

"...Illusions are supposed to be fun," Sprite mumbled with bitter venom in her voice.

Gus's eyes narrowed. "Yeah."

His eyes met Sprite's and they shared an understanding and flew off together.

Ten minutes later, they were on the opposite side of the city and this Mysterio person was on his knees, sans helmet, crying and begging that Spider-Man guy who'd helped them on the Day of Unity to please get him away from Gus and Sprite.

"They're monsters," he said between sobs. "Utter monsters!"

"...I was expecting that to be a bigger deal than it was," Sprite said.

"Those weren't even real illusions," Gus complained. "It was just projected light and stage tricks. The beacon over the city was the best thing he did and I did something like that by accident once."

"Kinda disappointed," Sprite said.

"Agreed," Gus concluded.

Spider-Man handed the crying criminal off to the... Please-men? The human equivalent of coven guards who, hopefully, weren't working for an evil ruler... Anyway, the criminal was handed off and Spider-Man approached them. "Gus, right."

"Yes sir," Gus answered.

"Long way from the Institute, isn't it?" the costumed man asked.

"Yes sir," Gus replied again.

"...Does anyone know you're out here?" Spider-Man asked.

"No, sir," Gus said, a feeling in his stomach approaching, not unlike how he felt when he knew he was about to get in trouble with his Dad.

"Hey now, don't go and pick on him," Sprite said. "This is all me. Typical sprite, Eternal Trickster, getting innocent bystanders mixed up when I'm off doing a goof. I'll take him back to the mutant school and we'll all be done with this, okay?" She finished clearly trying to take sole responsibility.

"...I should probably be giving you a lecture right now, but... You did save me quite a bit of trouble so... Just this once, I'll—" They were then interrupted by a song about something called Beer beginning to play. Spider-Man withdrew a phone like Luz's from his utility belt and answered, "Logan, I'm kind of in the middle of something..."

While Spider-Man spoke, Sprite pulled on Gus's arm. "I think we're off the hook," she whispered.

They quickly walked away and took off flying just as Spider-Man shouted "She did what!?"

Landing back at the front door of the Institute, Sprite slapped Gus on the back. "Okay, completely failed to learn anything substantial, but I had a lot of fun," she said. "And, um... I think talking to you... Helped me, Mister Great Listener. So, Gus... If I can call you Gus."

"You can."

"I'll see you around."

Sprite then faded from sight and Gus returned to the school.