As it turned out, he wasn't. He was calling Athena by the name Asher, as it was her new name in this new reality where she was a dedicated ballerina, as well as a lover of dark things. She wasn't a Goth, though, and she may never be, but one of her favorite movies was "Black Swan", despite being rated R (her parents weren't quite restrictive when it came to movies, it seemed), so she was different enough from the original Lilly Ross to keep her from being a near carbon copy.
It became more clear to her when the unknown boy started referring to Zelda as Zachary, which was her (or rather his) new name. And that's when it finally clicked for her. Zelda was a boy! That was the thing that eluded her moments earlier. But that meant that that boy was referring to her when he said Asher. But that's not my name, she thought. My name is ... is ... Her eyes went wide. She couldn't remember her name! She had a feeling that it started with A, but so did Asher! It was happening again. She was trying too hard to remember, and now it was all completely gone.
"Hey, Asher, are you alright?" asked the boy who was talking to Zachary. The boy, whose name was Benny, was Zachary's best friend, but he also had a crush on Asher, which was why he had called out her name earlier. He was hoping to ask her something, but then he ended up talking to Zachary instead, about the things they usually talked about - video games. Benny never knew why, but video games always came so easily to Zachary, as if he had a gift for playing them. It was actually one of the few things that Zachary had retained from Zelda's life. Back before Zelda had been affected by the magical phenomenon which forced her into this new life, she was an exceptional hacker, knowing a lot about computers and computer games. Now with Mikey's love of video games being forced upon him, Zachary was basically a video game whiz. Way better than Mikey ever was.
"Yeah, Asher ... what's wrong?" Zachary asked, not even realizing that he was practically a completely different person now, not even the same gender as he was just that morning.
