"Hey Alexis, why don't you come over to my apartment and come meet my sister Mira? I know you've been curious about meeting her since I don't shut up about her." (Thomas)

"I'd like that. I can't help but wonder what type of person your sister is, since she pretty much raised you." (Alexis)

.....

"Mira, I'm home and I brought company." (Thomas)

"Which I really hope I don't regret." I mutter to myself quietly, only now realizing I'm introducing two women who give me problems on their own, and now they would be able to collaborate with each other. I just hope they wouldn't come to realize this on their own, not that I was holding out much hope for that to occur, after all, they weren't stupid.

Mira walks out from the living room where she was lounging out in her pajamas assumedly watching tv since it was her day off.

"Hello there, I'm Mira Tommy's big sister, nice to finally meet the Alexis I've been hearing him talk all about." (Mira)

"Likewise" Alexis says politely with some enthusiasm that can be seen in her smile, which only serves to send shivers down my spine.

"Well let's get settled in the living room instead of standing in the hallway. I also have some gifts for you Mira, Alexis already got hers." I usher them urgently before they can begin plotting, baiting Mira doesn't hurt my efforts either.

We get situated on our dark pleather couches and I start bringing out the cores and wooden amulet for my sister. "The cores are to help Lyra evolve and to gain some offensive abilities to help protect you. The necklace is a potential lifesaver and will act to heal any major wounds on the wearer, it only has up to 5 uses to heal your injuries, so let me know when it runs out."

"I love it, and I guess this will make you feel better about me being safe when you're not around. I know how paranoid and concerned you get over me, so I'll keep it on me at all times for both of us." (Mira)

"I think it looks pretty good on you, like some sort of new-age jewelry worn by a crystal and zodiac sign obsessed lady. You make it look better than most though." (Alexis)

"Onto the next thing, why don't you bring Lyra out and feed her the cores. She's only a tier 2 summon, but the cores are a tier 3 and 4, so we might just get lucky and get her to evolve without us having to go out and fight. I know it's not your biggest concern to make Lyra strong, but it would make me feel better." (Thomas)

Having said that, Mira was more than happy to bring her little grey snake out for us to look at as she feeds her the two cores I got her. The adorable little snake gobbled up the cores like she was starving and about 10 minutes later it seemed like she had fully assimilated and digested them.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get her to evolve, but she seemed to be close to evolving, not to mention that she had grown in size compared to when she was initially brought out. I imagine that she would evolve to gain some offensive electrical type skills with her evolution, that was the hope at least, but evolution is still something we don't understand, and nothing is absolute when it comes to evolutions.

"I guess we'll have to take you out tomorrow or when your next day off is to get Lyra to evolve. At least we know she is close to evolving, so we should only need part of one day at most. I don't mind taking you out with us, so don't try and protest out of concern for us. You're important to Tommy, so it's the least we could do to help ensure your safety." (Alexis)

"You're calling him Tommy now are you?" Mira couldn't help but say with a smug tone and a giant smile on her face.

I could feel the blood rush to my face in a fierce blush, and face-palmed about the fact that she focused on how Alexis called me rather than anything else she had said. I palm my face and suppress a groan that tries to escape my lips at the impending girl talk.

"We decided that we were close enough to be calling each other by our nicknames, and since you call him Tommy, I thought I would as well. You can call me Alexis by the way, Alex is usually for people I don't know or don't care to know very well." (Alexis)

"I appreciate that Alexis, I don't really have a nickname, so I guess you can keep calling me Mira. So how has Tommy been lately? I hear little bits of his life and job as a summoner, but I'm pretty sure he sugar coats or brushes off a lot of it. In exchange, I can tell you some stories about Tommy as a kid." (Mira)

I couldn't keep my look of horror off my face as my worst fear came true, I could already see the plans being cooked up in their heads as they began to plot together. It wouldn't be long before I was being pranked or teamed up on by them.

Luckily it only progressed to sharing stories and Mira getting mad at me for leaving out a few important life-risking things from my recent activities. I'm just glad Alexis doesn't know about some of my closer calls when I was by myself, she would be furious, and I was in enough trouble as is.

They continued to swap stories as we ate dinner, and I stayed off to the side trying to move and speak as little ass possible so I didn't grab their attention. I was treating them like dinosaurs that could only see movement, and for good reason too, it was better for them to distract each other rather than they focus on me and what I may or may not have done wrong.

It doesn't even matter if I've done something wrong or not, living with Mira for so long has given me plenty of experience about the rationale and logic of girls. Needless to say, I didn't particularly want to mess with them and would endeavor to keep them far away from each other as much as possible.

"Well ladies, it's been fun, but I need to get Alexis back and we have an early day tomorrow so we all need our rest. Plus you can continue swapping embarrassing stories about me later while we're out tomorrow." (Thomas)

With that, I managed to separate the two girls and brought Alexis back to her place as the polite thing to do. We agreed on meeting up at sunrise to take Mira out to evolve Lyra, then we would bring her back safely before returning to the swamp to hunt deeper in the center of the dangerous biome.

We both felt strong enough to venture that far after being able to wipe the floor with our opponents in the arena. Okay, so maybe Alexis wiped the floor, I just managed to get a lucky win. I won in the end though, and that's what matters. At least that's what I keep telling myself.