Destrillians: OVAs

She kissed me…what the fuck?! Thetis just wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me! I mean, how? Why? She just…did it. I almost set the apartment building on fire just then. My emotions were completely unchecked. If there was ever a time that someone caught me off guard—which was never—it was now. Granted, it was getting easier to live with Thetis in a really short span of time, but this kiss brought buried feelings a little too close to the surface. I didn’t know how to feel. Literally.

I stared at the wall with an intensity that I was sure would burn a hole through it. I think I did see a small amount of smoke before I shut my eyes altogether and tried to really process what just happened. When and where had she even learned to do something like that? That didn’t matter now. What did matter was that there was no turning back now. I was about to teach her more about kissing than she probably thought possible.

I turned back to see Thetis already putting on the new shirt I had bought for her from a nicer part of Osea. The perfect fit, of course. Then I noticed that the grin she put on when she first opened the bag was still there. That was about to disappear in the best way imaginable. In one swift movement I left almost no space between her and myself. I swept her around to face me and planted my mouth over hers. Making sure she didn’t pull away, I placed one of my hands on the back of her neck and held her close. She wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

A fire of a different sort had ignited within me that night that I never thought would. I had heard humans refer to it as “love”. Naturally, I laughed at the whole concept. Looking back, I can’t imagine why. Holding and kissing Thetis the way I was...it felt…good, and only added fuel to this new feeling I possessed. My other hand went for her arm and guided it back around my neck and held it there a few moments to let her know that she had that part right. I released her arm and brought mine around her waist, embracing her with both my body and a soothing warmth that I had started to radiate. We stayed this way for what seemed like forever.

I finally pulled away and took a step back. I didn’t know how she would react. Her eyes were trained on the floor and I wondered what was running through her mind. Before I could say anything, Thetis wrapped her arms around me and buried her face into my neck. “Was that a thank you?”

I chuckled. “That was more than a thank you.”

I could feel her features turn back into a large smile. “So, you’re not angry?”

I placed my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back so I could look right into her eyes. Staring for a moment, I must have worn the slightest hint of a smirk as I ran my hand through her hair and ruffled it up. Without saying another word, I dismissed myself to sleep, leaving Thetis wondering what was going to happen next.

The next several weeks became very interesting. The dissipating tension fell away even more rapidly as our relationship changed drastically. Ever since that first kiss, things have only escalated. Thetis told me that some folks either commented or stared a moment too long at all of the marks I had been leaving on her neck. Better still, Thetis quickly learned how to be a good kisser, herself. She found out on her own how good she became one night when she almost stuck her tongue all the way down my throat and I burned a hole into the sofa. From that point on, I made sure to keep my powers in check—tried to, anyway.

One night I came home late and Thetis was waiting for me in the living room. Not that this was a rarity at this point, but she had a look of nervousness about her, like she wanted to get something off of her chest. I thought nothing of it and made myself comfortable by straddling her. Afterall, if it was important, she’d tell me after I made sure to give her a little “goodnight kiss” before we went to bed. A few minutes in, Thetis made a move that I never suspected. Her soft hand started to reach underneath my shirt and up my side. Something new that you learned on TV?

Without disturbing our moment she slowly shook her head. It’s not that. Her hand slowly crept up my back and I could feel my temperature rising. Just curious. If my body was getting too hot for Thetis, she didn’t let on.

Well then… I slipped one of my hands beneath her top and explored her abdomen and chest as released my lips from hers and began to assault her neck. She almost went limp, but kept her one hand gripping the middle of my back. I didn’t let it go on for too long, my response to her curiosity seemed to be overwhelming her slightly. That and I wouldn’t want to rush into anything that would keep us up all night and day, now would I? I retracted my hand from under her shirt and stood up from the couch with a smirk on my face. I looked at her for a moment and simply made my way into the bedroom. We’ll save the rest of that for another time. Goodnight, Thetis.

I never knew that I could get her temperature to match mine.

To be honest, Idris herself had no idea how she ended up getting into this situation. It was true she'd always been rather popular, and other girls would giggle as they said how jealous they were of her brilliance at math and science tests, but she always had her clique of people, those she sort of loosely connected herself with, and those people did not include all of the people who sat at their newly christened table, Tao. Perhaps Thetis and Emma would be part of her group, that much she could expect, the both of them being rather normal and social, but not so much the atheletic girl Kai or Fiona, who was just plain bitchy, or the shrinking violet Terra.

No, this was all something she had really inherited from Ariel, the legendary girl who could make friends with anyone, the one who had started this group somehow in the first place. The story the near-mythical woman told her before she transferred was just so bizarre it was barely to be believed. It was almost like something out of a ridiculous comic, her story that they had 'powers' that were given to them by the bracelets they wore, but only when they called upon them. She wouldn't have believed her if she hadn't gotten a similar bracelet, one with a warm lump of metal with a strange, alien symbol etched into it, attached by grey thread precariously hung from her wrist. And of course if she hadn't witness her personally blast a dent into the wall with her voice alone. Not to mention the outfit she wore was something else entirely. This was how she ended up sitting at this ordinary plastic table that had been named by Ariel before she left, sitting with these girls that she barely knew.

The rude girl, Fiona, was quickly growing tired of being near the other girls, "I know she grabbed this bitch before she went to Damascus High, but if I don't get my fucking lunch soon, someone's going to know what it feels like to walk with my foot in their ass." She reached to the girl next to her and grabbed Thetis' milk, managing to finish the last 3/4ths of the carton in a single swig. The girl with blue and white hair's expression changed into something sullen but accepting, evidently she was used to the redhead's behavior.

The athletic girl kept checking her watch, which unintentionally made clear she had somewhere else she'd rather be. Emma spent most of the meeting looking disapprovingly at Fiona, which the other girl didn't seem to care about terribly. Thetis just seemed to look tired of all of this, and Terra just looked scared that Fiona was going to grow a pair of fangs and eat her, though her terror wasn't reserved for the violent girl only. She seemed to look around the table in mild fright, and the popular girl felt a little sorry for her.

Idris had never lead a meeting before, since she often acted alone when she was in groups and would occasionally turn in an entire group project by herself. But with everyone looking a bit restless, and the old leader having handed over the reigns of this group, she tried to do the best she could, "Hello, everyone. As I'm sure Ariel told you before she left, she decided to leave you--all of us, in my hands. So I'll try to run this...group half as well as she did-" Fiona openly laughed at this point "-but let's just try to work as a team, alright?"

"You can't run this group. There's no goddamn way you could. Ariel's the only one who could keep us all together, and the fact you even think that you could replace her shows just how retarded you must be," Fiona, apparently annoyed with the entire situation, stood up and left the table, walking off without a look back. This set off a chain reaction: Thetis sighed and rubbed her eyes with her fingers, standing up to follow Fiona, Kai grabbed her dufflebag and left in an opposite direction, Terra let out a loud sob and started to run to the restroom, Emma following quickly after her. Idris was left alone at the table with the various bits of trash the girls had left.

She sighed and started to pick up the empty milk cartons and wrappers from snacks and ran a hand through her blonde hair with a tired sigh. Honestly, Ariel was amazing to be able to hold these people together, considering how apparently moody they were. Hell, it was hard to believe how well they worked together only a week before, when their former leader was leaving for Damascus High.

She could still see Ariel in that strange white duster, standing strong among her friends, blasting some strange creature she called a Violan with bursts of sound from her palms. Fiona was the one to seperate the head from the body in the end, killing it for good, literally punching its head off the rest of the body. But the teamwork they had shown, how Terra had it half-buried in the ground, and how Emma held it down by the tendrilly roots she could control, how Kai had kicked it into the air and blasted it with wind, how Thetis had cut the ligaments in its extremities using only water. Idris had no idea how the hell she would ever be able to get the group to work like that again, if it was even possible.

The blonde tossed the last carton into the trash, dwelling on what seemed to be impossible at that time. She needed to get the group to work together again, especially if another Violan attacked. The new leader nodded to herself, renewed in determination, because she knew that they could fight if they needed to. All she needed was some way to get them to do so.

Idris honestly had no idea why she was still trying to get this group to work together, but after Fiona’s well, bitchiness, she felt determined to prove that she was wrong. Part of this, she acknowledged, was her lack of connection with the group. The best thing to do in order to remedy this situation would be to go through the group and make friendly with all of them, and she tried to start off with some of the easier girls that she assumed she would have been friends with anyways. Of course, this route started out with Emma, who seemed much more amicable than some of the other girls, and whose personality seemed to mesh nicely with Idris’ own. Plus, if she got Emma on her side, that pretty much guaranteed that Terra would follow her as well. After school, the red-head was going to be at her home economics club, along with the girl who seemed to follow her around like a lost puppy. If the wobbly seams and weird smelling cakes were any indication, Terra did not have the natural knack for basic cooking and sewing that Emma seemed to.

Within a few minutes of looking, the blonde could tell this was the sort of thing that Emma excelled at. She flit around the room from one member of the club to the next, giving advice and an encouraging smile. Meanwhile, back at her station, her table had been adorned with an almost nauseatingly cute tablecloth with patterns embroidered onto it and topped with a lovely cake, covered in some fluffy white frosting and topped with strawberries. Idris could feel herself getting diabetes as she looked at it. The red-head caught Idris whilst the latter was gazing at her cake with a slightly ill look in her eyes, “You okay, Idris? Do you need to sit down?”

“O-oh, no, don’t worry about me, Emma, I’m just feeling a little, uh, overwhelmed,” Idris said, shaking her hands.

Emma smiled cordially in response and gestured to a seat at her table where Terra also sat, hiding behind her lumpy cake. When Idris took a seat next to her, she waved hello to her, which apparently was enough to cause her to squeak, grab her bag, and run out of the room while covering her face. Emma sighed softly and shook her head, “Sorry, she gets startled very easily. I’ve heard she doesn’t have the best home environment, so she’s even scared of people at school.”

“Geez,”was all Idris could think to say, but she didn’t want to inquire further. She was here to make friends with Emma, anyways, not bother her about the history of her friends. “So, uh, how has your club been going?”

“Pretty well, if I say so. Are you here to try and get everyone back together again?” Emma asked in a tone that made Idris feel rather ridiculous about what she was attempting to do. The red head smiled at the evidently uncomfortable look and waved it off, “Nothing to be ashamed about, Idris, Ariel is rather hard to live up to, she was a real inspiration. Hell, she was even nice to that loner Kerr, even though I think that was more of her own sense of love than anything else.”

“I…what?” Idris asked. She’d never talked at length about gossip, and she had thought she knew everything she needed to know about Ariel. She had heard of Kerr, a quiet guy who kept to himself most of the time, who as far as she knew was taking classes at school on his own, so she had always assumed he went to classes made for him alone. Now she and him were dating? What do you care, Idris, it’s not like it’s any of your business. Shaking the awkward mental image of Kerr going on long walks with Ariel and serenading her with popular love songs, she instead said, “Never mind that. Emma, do you think you could tell me how you think I should try to keep this group together? I know Fiona’s pretty resistant to me being the leader, but I was hoping with some of the support of the other members, she’d eventually come over.”

In the middle of Idris’ talking, Emma had wandered off to the middle of the room, apparently not noticing the end of what she had been talking about. “Alright, guys, great work today! I hope I can see you again next Monday after class!” She made a dismissing motion, and most of the people got up to leave the room, with a few stragglers staying behind and gathering their stuff. “Sorry about that. Anyways, I think your idea is interesting, but you seem to be ignoring how stubborn Fiona is. Even if you came by and made friends with each of us, she still wouldn’t come to your side so easily. She’s the sort of person where you need to prove your leadership skills, or already be her friend. It’s just how she is.”

The blonde girl went quiet for a moment, assuming that Ariel must have exerted her power in order to impress Fiona. Would she need to do the same? Emma smiled at Idris and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Oh, um, which way are you going home? We could walk back together for a bit if you want.”

“Down to Piper, I don’t think it’s far from your house.” Emma said, tucking a red strand of hair behind her ear. She looked around as she left the classroom, as if she were expecting someone. “Hmm, I guess she went home. Hope she’s okay.”

Idris assumed that she was expecting Terra to be there, considering how inseparable they normally were. She ran a hand through her blonde hair sheepishly, half-wondering if she had made the other girl run off in terror. “Sorry about that, Emma.”

The other girl laughed and waved off Idris’ fear, “Don’t be silly, it wasn’t your fault. She probably went down to the library to read before they finally close it up. It wasn’t your fault at all!” She patted the shoulder of the blonde, smiling, silently telling her it wasn’t her fault that Terra was as jumpy as she was. Idris felt encouraged by the kindness that the red-head was showing her, and by the quiet fact that they seemed to have struck up a friendship so effortlessly. With any luck, getting to be friends with the other girls would be this easy.

Idris held the door open for the other girl, Emma giving her a cheerful nod in acknowledgement. They started to walk to their homes together, when Idris finally brought something up that had stuck in their mind during their prior conversation, “Emma, do you think I’d have to fight Fiona in order to get her to recognize me as the leader. I know she’s pretty resistant to the idea of Ariel handing me that power and it’s looking like it’s going to be the only way right now.”

The red-head went quiet, apparently carefully thinking about her words before she said them. “In Fiona’s case, it may be much more complex than—did you hear that?” Idris hadn’t noticed anything, but Emma took a defensive stance, facing towards an innocuous park that was on the way to their houses. The red-head stood absolutely silent, allowing only her eyes to move about the field while the other girl gave her a funny look.

“Uh, you okay, Emma?” Idris asked, but she was quickly silenced by Emma diving toward her and pushing her hard to the ground. She was about to yell at her for almost giving her a concussion before she saw some beastial creature sailing over her and the other girl. The red head quickly pushed herself up to her feet, glancing over the creature before she nodded.

“It’s a THOMAS-Violan. I hope it hasn’t caused much damage around here…” The creature with spiked knees and jaw growled at Emma, pacing around her slowly, but she showed no fear towards it. Though it had impressive fangs, a dark fur, an arrogant sort of look in its eyes, and the fact it was the size of a lion, there was a small part of the way that this monster held itself that told Idris it was actually afraid of Emma. Lightly, she brushed the sleeve of her shirt up, and touched the metallic bracelet on her wrist, “I implore the Powers That Be, bestow upon me the powers of 000-000-008!”

A brilliant flash overcame Emma, the creature hissing at the sightand Idris realized that she was returning to that strange form she had been in when she first met the group: that of a Destrillian, some strange human who was able to kill these monsters effortlessly. Her outfit had changed into a skirt of green and pale pink, like an upside-down flower, fingerless gloves of the same dark green, and a light pink shawl around her shoulders. The creature growled at her appearance even more harshly than before, apparently not caring about Idris any longer. It lashed out at her, jaws open and snapping viciously at her skirt as she dodged gracefully. It was back in the grass, which was just the opportunity that Emma needed. Suddenly the growth around the demon grew at an accelerated pace, whipping around its ankles and holding it in place.

She leapt forward to strike the finishing blow when another creature attacked. It knocked her down, pinning her to the ground as she screamed. “H-help! Idris!”

Idris was no more certain about the situation than she was, though Ariel had told her what to do. She hesitated, before she touched her bracelet and felt slightly silly as she said the words, “I…implore the Powers That Be, bestow upon me the powers of 000-000-009.” Suddenly, the world around her burst into light as her clothing dissolved embarrassingly and was replaced with huge plate armor, and the world was restored to her vision with a sword in her hands. The trapped Violan monster had managed to free himself with Emma distracted, and was charging towards her, but almost instinctively she struck at him with her sword, the creature letting out an unearthly wail as it dissolved into dust. The other Violan seemed to have realized what had happened to its friend and held its jaws over Emma’s face, snapping them threateningly. Even Idris could see Emma shaking as the monster snapped, and she knew there had to have been some way for her to save her new friend from this situation. But the creature had its hostage, and it didn’t want to let her go. Didn’t she have some other power, like Emma or Thetis or one of the other girls, that she could utilize. She closed her eyes and focused, there had to be something like that for her, not just the sword. Remarkably, she felt something, something within her, Emma, and the creature that was threatening to bite the other Destrillian. Could she somehow control life-force? She pulled mentally at this thing that beat throughout the monster and heard a yelp. She opened her eyes and realized that somehow, in whatever way, she was pulling the metals from the creature’s very blood, leaving it suddenly far more anemic than was healthy.

It gave one final, meek nip towards Emma as it dissolved into dust as well. The other Destrillian was dirty and covered in long, jagged scratches, but she was alive, and for that she was grateful. She pushed herself off the ground and hugged Idris, mumbling to her, “Thank you so much. I was absolutely terrified, if you hadn’t been here, I would have certainly died.” She touched her chest and her costume was sucked back into her bracelet, Idris imitating the action. The blonde let out a long sigh, the adrenaline from the fight draining out of her slowly and making her feel exhausted.

But at least she had saved Emma. She sighed and flicked a blonde hair over her ear and smiled back at Emma, “Don’t worry; I’m just glad I could help. But next time, I’d rather get some practice before you toss me into something like that, alright?”

The red-head laughed and continued her way down to Piper Street, yelling back, “Glad to have you as our leader, Idris!”

Idris was still rather shaken by her sudden transformation and her saving of Emma, so she was secretly hoping this would not devolve into violence against monsters with Thetis. She seemed to be all-around average. The girl was in band, not because she particularly liked it, but because her mother thought that it would be a good idea and even bought her a French horn for it. No use debating once new instruments got involved. Otherwise she seemed quite dull, almost painfully so, receiving average marks in her classes, doing average within the band, was never the first to be picked for PE teams, but certainly not the last either. Possibly the only thing that she could detect was unusual about her was her inordinate amount of hate for her cousin and his girlfriend. For example, as Idris happened to be walking by as Thetis was going to drink her morning milk she witnessed this scene.

“Hey, cous, can I have your milk? I haven’t had any today!” Said the young man with black hair, known as Rider, her cousin, while also grabbing her fresh carton.

Thetis was moments away from verbally ripping him a new one when his girlfriend, a white-haired and red eyed girl known as Dao, told him, “Oh, Ridey, you didn’t even wait for her!”

“That’s cause I know my cousin is generous and would gladly give me her milk! Love ya, cous!” He said, walking to his first class and taking a hearty swig from her milk.

Now, certainly, uneventful as far as herself and her cousin were concerned, Perhaps he had been slightly bullying, but not really intentionally. Oh, no, the interesting part came right after Rider and Dao had left. Thetis wandered off to the sparsely populated part of the lunch room that housed the table the Destrillians usually sat at, and suddenly pile-drived a chair into evident submission. “NO RIDER FUCK YOU, YOU CAN’T KEEP DRINKING MY FUCKING MILK.” She picked up this chair, and spun around a couple of times before she released it into the table like some sort of bizarre shot-put. “IF YOU DRINK MY MILK ONE MORE TIME, I’M GOING TO CRAM MY FUCKING CARTON OF MILK DOWN YOUR THROAT AND LAUGH AS YOUR GIRLFRIEND KEEPS GOING ‘RIDEY, RIDEY OH NO’ BECAUSE SHE’S AS FUCKING USELESS AS A SACK OF POTATOES.”

As Idris watched from a distance, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was like some sort of maniac-depressive disorders, except that Thetis suffered from secret rage instead of sudden bouts of depression. Why she couldn’t just tell her cousin ‘No, that’s my milk’ was absolutely beyond her. Thetis was far too busy drop-kicking the table they sat at for her to feel comfortable asking. She finally lifted the chair and climactically slammed it against the table, cleanly splitting the plastic seat in two. She huffed and puffed before she realized she probably needed to clean this mess up. Perhaps she would be calm enough to approach now? “H-hey, Thetis, do you need some help?”

Thetis looked up, realizing that their new leader had apparently been watching her cruel acts against this innocent chair and table. Her face turned slightly red, muttered, “So, you were watching, I assume.”

Idris gave a quiet nod before she finally asked, “What do you have against them? I mean, I guess I can see why you don’t like Rider, but what do you have against Dao?” Certainly, Dao wasn’t one of Idris’ close friends, she was more with the hyper feminine girls of the popular group, to which she generally shied away from. But it wasn’t like there was anything wrong with her, she was just someone the blonde didn’t talk too much. There certainly was no crime against having a different group of friends than her, that was certain.

“It’s not Dao. Or Rider, even. It’s just the principle, why the hell would someone take something rightfully bought by someone else? Why would someone just stand by and watch as someone gets food stolen from them?” Thetis said, making the entire situation sound much more philosophical than it had seemed moments before. Idris supposed this was all true, and she honestly had no idea why someone would take food that belonged to someone else. If she looked at it that way, Thetis’ actions made some sort of sense, although this quickly dissipated with her next lines. “Also her going ‘Ridey’ is just so stupid. I mean, what is she, seven? I mean I know she’s a foreign exchange student but is the ‘r’ sound seriously that difficult for her to pronounce?”

The blonde wondered why this sort of thing didn’t happen after Fiona had taken her milk during the first meeting, since the situation had been almost the same. “Why didn’t you freak out at Fiona then? I mean, she did the exact same thing.”

Thetis went quiet for a moment before she tucked a strand of white hair behind her ear and responded, “Fiona… she’s different. She doesn’t specifically seek out targets to take milk from. She just takes it. Hell, she took it from Kai once and the girl almost punched her in the face for it. So when she realized I just don’t care when she takes my milk, she’ll just take it, no questions asked. I almost prefer that to Rider asking and not waiting for an answer, honestly.”

“I… see,” Idris said, though this was a rather transparent lie. Thetis apparently enjoyed having things stolen from her with no questions asked, as opposed to someone hesitantly taking it. Or something like that. Really, Thetis’ explanation only served to further confuse Idris and make her wonder just how mentally unstable the blue haired girl was. In some sort of way to soothe her evidently wounded soul from the constant thievery of Rider, Idris held up a finger, indicating she’d be back in a moment and bought a carton of milk for Thetis.

When she came back, holding it out, the other girl looked at it with suspicion, raising an eyebrow at Idris, “You don’t want it then?” Evidently milk was a much more prized commodity than the blonde had realized, since she was staring at Idris with the same sort of confused mistrust that you’d give to someone offering you money or free drugs.

“Er, yeah, I bought it for you,” Idris said, not realizing how much a seventy-five cent carton meant to the other girl. Cautiously, she took it from her leader’s hands, like she was Indiana Jones about to replace it with a bag of dirt of similar weight so that the blonde would not also suddenly fly into some sort of psychotic rage. At least, that was how Idris felt the Destrillian was taking the milk. Finally, Thetis opened the carton and gave a small sip, smiling to herself.

“It’s been a very long while since I’ve had milk. What with Rider and Fiona and such,” Thetis said with a small smile, tucking a white strand of hair behind her ear, “It’s quite a shame I’m lactose intolerant.” She slumped onto the table in evident stomach cramps while Idris had to force herself not to look annoyed.

“So how long have you been, uh, lactose intolerant?” Idris asked with trepadation, while Thetis continued to drink the milk that was causing her clear pain.

“M-middle school at least. I honestly don’t know why I continue to buy milk for lunch and breakfast, considering I almost always throw it back up. It just tastes so good…” She mumbled, finishing the last of the carton. “Ugh, yes, I’m certainly going to be ill,” She bent in half, clutching at her stomach and groaning in pain.

Idris couldn’t stand by as Thetis was in agony, so she suggested, “I could help you to the bathroom, if you’d like.”

Thetis gave a weak nod and Idris helped her out of the chair, half-carrying her to the bathroom, she set her down next to a toilet where she audibly got sick. In between the heaving noises, Idris could have sworn that Thetis mumbled something about Fiona holding her hair back, but she must have been hearing things. Finally, when she seemed to be done, she mumbled out something to the blonde girl, “I… should really fix that chair, huh.”

Idris had almost completely forgotten that she had broken that chair back in the lunch room, though she doubted anyone would honestly notice. She pushed on the stall Thetis had been too ill to lock and touched her shoulder, “Want me to grab some glue from the art room while you get yourself cleaned up?”

Thetis nodded weakly and the blonde took her leave to the art room. Today was one of the nicer days out, so the art room would be left open while the class went outside to draw the landscape. Still, she wanted to make sure no one was in the room, so she peeked through the small window on the door to make certain. No one, good. She opened the door and went to the supply closet, where they kept most of the glue, first aid stuff, and brooms. She grabbed a jar of paste labeled ‘HEAVY DUTY’ and left the room quickly.

She arrived back at the lunchroom in time to see Thetis grabbing the chair by the backrest. “We should take this outside, right? So that no one sees us,” She suggested, nodding to the door. Idris followed after her, making sure no teachers saw them: it was almost time for first period, after all. But with her grades, she could afford to skip her first class just this once. The blonde girl followed the other into the sunlight, Thetis finding a spot with no nearby windows easily. She dropped the chair to the ground and took a seat next to it herself. Idris put the paste down nearby and with another quick look around to make certain they wouldn’t get in trouble with any wandering teachers, she took a seat.

“Here, you hold onto the sides of the seat and I’ll go over it with paste,” Idris suggested, twisting the cap off of bottle of paste. Thetis grabbed both sides of the seat and pulled them together, while they heard the voice of one of their teachers echoing from an open window.

“Use BARRIERS OF PROTECTION when you choose to engage in a physical moment with the person you love. STDs are everywhere, and nothing is better than a barrier to protect you from it!” Mr. Kayne, the sexual education teacher, informed his most likely incredibly uncomfortable, quietly snickering or silently embarrassed students within the room. Idris ignored his booming voice and started to paint over the crack with the glue brush. She looked up at Thetis who looked rather distant.

“Thinking about something?” Idris asked, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

The blue haired girl looked up with surprise, “Was it obvious? I was thinking about Fiona.”

Idris wondered for all of two seconds why on earth someone would willingly ponder about someone who was such an outright bitch, “Any reason why?”
“She’s not nearly as bad as you think she is. I mean… wait, you promise not to tell anyone about this, right?” She asked, looking up at Idris for a moment, waiting for an answer. The blonde shook her head ‘no’ in response and she continued. “Back in middle school, a lot of the older girls used to tease me because I’d cry over it and, I don’t know, I guess that amused them, and they thought my hair was freakish. So one day they brought a bottle of peroxide and threatened to bleach my hair in the girl’s bathroom. I was screaming and crying for help and Fiona showed up, asked what the fuck was going on, and beat up all of those girls. After it was all over, she stood there, even after the beating from the older girls and told me ‘Don’t fucking cry so much’. From that day on, they never bothered me, and I guess I’ve been sort of grateful to her ever since.”

The leader raised an eyebrow at Thetis’ story, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a high school romance movie. But perhaps she should have taken this as proof that Fiona wasn’t as scary as she thought: clearly, if she wanted to help Thetis at her worst, there was a chance she’d want to help her too, if she really needed her. “Do you think that I could win her to my side, then?”

Thetis thought for a moment before she was about to say something before someone only vaguely familiar approached. “Did you break that chair?”

Idris turned in the direction of the voice, and slowly recognized him as Kerr, the guy who was so smart he had his own classes at the school. The guy who was also supposed to have been dating Ariel, now that she thought about it. Thetis was quick to defend herself, saying, “No, I just saw it was broken and decided to fix it! But I certainly did not break this chair.”

“So you did break it, then,” He said giving Thetis a piercing glare, “Perhaps you shouldn’t skip class and destroy school property, who knows, you might not fail your math class.”

“You…”She glared at Kerr, “Don’t you have some ‘smart’ class to go to?”

“Well I certainly wouldn’t fail it if I’d skipped,” He said dryly. Idris didn’t care much for his attitude, it was like Thetis was trying to talk to a brick wall. Assuming brick walls were able to talk…

“Just leave her alone, alright? She’s just trying to fix it,” The blonde said, giving him a hard stare. His expression didn’t change, but he shrugged and walked back into the school. The blue-haired girl glared after him and sighed.

“Thanks for that. I hate that guy,” She grumbled, holding the chair together solemnly. Idris finished pasting and smiled at Thetis.

The both of them sat outside and waited for glue to dry, while Idris thought of what Kerr had said. If she was failing math, it was always possible for her to try and tutor her so her grade would improve… “I can help show you some math if you think it’ll help. If not, forget I even mentioned it.”

Thetis smiled at the other girl and nodded. “Sure, if you want. I guess that’s why it’s pretty great being your friend and all.”

Idris smiled back at her, happy to have another ally on the field besides herself and Emma. Perhaps, considering she and Fiona had a past, she could even help with that. She patted Thetis on the shoulder with a smile and said, “Glad I could help."

Having already gained two friends out of the five other girls, Idris decided today would be her first actual challenge: she would befriend the rather sporty member, Kai. To be entirely honest, she didn’t know very much about Kai, just that she was on the soccer team and besides that, she was part of the group of friends that Dao was a part of. The blonde had no interest in one or the other, which would make getting to know the girl that much more difficult. One does not simply walk in on a soccer game, after all. Perhaps she’d need to try and catch her while she was hanging out with Dao and the other girls or something. Idris completed her English class for the day and took a walk to the field, assuming that the girl’s practice would be ending soon, now that school had finished.

Oh how wrong she was.

“Heads up, Kai, it’s coming your way!”

“Got it!”

It was in this moment that a soccer ball brutally assaulted Idris’ face, and she recalled exactly why it was that one did not simply walk in on a game. Shockingly, her head seemed to be quite the player, as it was able to knock it back onto the field, and most of the team went back to attempting to score a goal. The only person who actually stopped was Kai, who ran to the blonde’s side just as she was starting her hasty retreat from anywhere even near the field. “I didn’t know you wanted to join the soccer team, Idris. But you know, you have to wear shin guards when you play. It’s generally not recommended that you try and kick the ball with your face and all.”

The silver-eyed girl was five seconds away from going into a tangent about why it was so very unsafe for a soccer team to be playing with balls flying high enough to hit people in the face, but she refrained. From Kai’s face, she appeared to think that her advice was brilliant and that no one else could have given some that was nearly as sage as hers. For a moment, she seriously questioned if the ‘C or higher’ grading policy for athletes was actually making them less meatheaded. “T…thanks, Kai. I will, uh, definitely keep that in mind. But, uh, I thought soccer was supposed to be over around now?”

The Polynesian girl smiled brightly at the shorter girl. “Oh, yeah, probably, but we wanted to go at one more game before we all called it quits! You know, the longest soccer game ever recorded was like twelve hours long, that’s seriously long. If you don’t play to your heart’s content, things will drag on forever like that.”

Idris seriously doubted that there actually was a twelve hour soccer game or that them not playing to their heart’s content had anything to do with a game that drug on that long. But breaking Kai’s perception of the game might have dire consequences that may or may not have included more facial assaults by soccer balls. “I… see, that’s some amazing information you have there, Kai. I appreciate you telling me,” She said while wondering how on earth she was going to be able to start a friendship with someone who probably thought Des Moines was a river in Egypt. And hoping that the game would be over soon.

Her wish was granted, though she quickly realized this wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. Especially since the end of the game was apparently brought about by most of the soccer team squealing and running back to the other side of the field while squealing, “TELRANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!” Even more so when Kai’s mood soured because suddenly everyone was more interested in this Telran person than they were in the game, “HEY! What the hell is going on, we had a game to play!”

Telran, as it turned out, was some dark skinned guy with a mohawk, a face tattoo, and some earrings: essentially, a punk. And if the swarming was any indication, he was also apparently some sort of lady’s man.

“Telran, you’re coming to the prom with me, right?”

“I thought you wanted to come with me!”

“No, he wanted to come with me!”

All of the anonymous squabbling over some random dude confused the blonde girl. Perhaps he was rich, as well, or he listened very well, or his dad owned a department store. Something like that had to be what all the squabble was about, right? “So, uh, why’s everyone freaking out over him?”

At first, the black haired girl looked confused before her expression changed to one of knowing. “He has those earrings and his Mohawk looks SO COOL. But I dunno, I’m not into guys like that, though I didn’t think you’d be.”

Idris’ mouth almost turned into an uncomfortable grimace when she said that, wanting immediately to correct her. However, Telran was the one who spoke first, flashing the smile of a politician or royalty to the gaggle of girls, stating in a voice loud enough to be heard (or maybe they all just went silent at the sound of their god), “Calm down, ladies, there’s enough of me to go around.”

It was in these moments that the Destrillian leader realized she really did not like this guy, and secretly hoped that he would be torn to pieces by his fangirls, much like Orpheus. Except hopefully less pedophilia. “Er, let’s just get going, Kai, I think the game is over now.”

Kai’s face puffed up, as if she was a frog attempting to intimidate a predator before she held her hand out in front of Idris, like she was showing off a ring. “DO YOU SEE THIS. DO YOU SEE THIS IDRIS.”

No, she did not see whatever it was she was supposed to be seeing. She didn’t have any rings on, her hands didn’t look strange, there was absolutely nothing notable to look at. At the same time, she didn’t want the other girl to flip out and start punting her head across the soccer field. “U-uh, no, no I don’t.”

“I TOOK MY NAIL ART OFF. FIVE HOURS OF WORK WASTED ALL BECAUSE NO ONE WILL PLAY THE GAME.” Well, this was awesome. Not two, but three of the members of this team apparently had some form of neurosis, and she was expected to fight off weird monsters with them. She wasn’t expecting to live too long after taking this job anyways.

“Girls, let’s head inside. The sun’s pretty bothersome on a hot day like today, isn’t it?” There were several coos of agreement and a couple of girls each on his arms, while she could hear the squeals of several girls complaining about how unfair it was that they weren’t getting to touch their true love. Peals of giggles followed the group as they headed inside and Kai grabbed her duffel.

“Hey! HEY! Aren’t you girls listening to me?!” She shouted, chasing after them. If she wanted to win Kai over as a friend, she’d need to follow her so she’d realize how much she cared. Even if it actually was very little. She jogged after the dark haired girl as she whined and yelled about how they were abandoning her, and how mean they were, and so on and so forth. Once Telran had finally gotten inside Kai stormed up to him, clearly upset. “Hey! What are you doing stealing half the team like that? We happened to be playing a game of soccer, in case you couldn’t tell,” She said, flashing her hand as if it were some sort of universal indicator that she had spent the last half of that day’s class playing the game.

Somehow, he was immediately able to recognize what it was she was complaining about, “Oh, did you get rid of your nail art today so you could play? I’m terribly sorry, is there any way I could make this up to you?” He said, looking genuinely concerned that his… existence may have somehow been causing problems for another. Kai shrugged her shoulders flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“Just don’t bother the team when we are obviously in the middle of the game. ‘Kay?” She looked back at the girls, apparently having forgiven them for running off with the tattooed young man like they had. If this guy was a roleplaying character, his charisma scores would have been so far through the roof that orcs would suddenly start stalking him and writing him love poetry. Idris sighed at how depressingly fast she got over the devastation of her nail art, she’d assumed that she would demand he’d hold a funeral for each of her nails. But if that was all there was to it, then she’d be able to make friends with her easily, right?

“So, uh, did you want to hang out or something?” The blonde asked the soccer player slowly, casting her a sideways glance. Kai smiled as she took Idris’ hand in her own, dragging her along in the direction the school idol was going.

“Thai’s sure to be at the drama club, let’s go make sure he’s doing alright.” She said cheerfully, pulling her along with the crowd. She didn’t need to be acquainted with Thai to know that he was notoriously bullied by the other people in school and tended to spend most of his time in the drama club because the people there didn’t mock him for all of his… issues. She was surprised, to say the least, that Kai wanted to make sure he was doing alright, and wondered if she was somehow friends with him. There was no way they could have been dating, she didn’t think he was ‘there’ enough for it to be possible.

The group entered the auditorium, where the drama club girls quickly began to shoot dirty looks at the girls of the soccer team and looks of pure adoration at Telran. It was vaguely like watching two cats before they started fighting, both sides tensing up and trying to look bigger and more intimidating than they actually did. Well, excluding Kai, who went straight past the girls in the room, dodged behind the curtain to reveal none other than Thai. Funny, she could never remember his last name. She seemed to be quietly interrogating him, to which he shook his head no or nodded it yes. Her expression slowly transformed into something closer to a smile with every nod or shake of the head. “Things looking okay for him?” Idris hazarded a guess. Kai gave her a proud smile and a nod, patting Thai’s fuzzy head.

“Though really, we should get back to the other girls. Or they’ll think I died of sunfever or something,” She said seriously, and Idris questioned if sunfever was even an ailment someone could suffer from. “Anyways, if I need anything else from you I promise to give a jingle, alrighty~?”

The blonde wasn’t sure if she wanted to be given a jingle, or be blown off as she seemed to be, but on the other hand, her attitude seemed to indicate that they were already friends, despite the short amount of time they’d spent together. Well, if that was all it took, she certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Okay, then, uh, you just do that, then.”

Kai smiled and started dragging Thai along in the same manner she’d dragged Idris along earlier. Did this mean it was time to head home already? She left the gaggle of girls who had apparently been placated by Telran, while they continued to cling to him and coo, walking out the door only to find a familiar face rushing up to her. Dao appeared to have been looking for Kai, so Idris pointed in the direction she’d ran off to, “Kai left in a rush to find you guys, I’m sure you can catch up to her if you head that way.”

Dao shook her head, looking into Idris’ eyes. It gave her a creepy feeling, especially since Dao particularly looked like an albino rabbit. “I must speak to you. You are the leader of the beings known as ‘Destrillians’ for this area, are you not?”

The silver-eyed girl froze for a moment, heart rate speeding up like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. No one knew about the Destrillians, only herself and her friends, and while she doubted that the monsters they fought were advanced enough to have someone to spy for them, she was concerned about the motives of the other girl. “Perhaps I am. Why would someone wish to know this, though?”

Dao raised her hands in a surrendering, non-aggressive manner, “I’m not trying to do anything wrong, I just wanted to tell you… that you have allies.” Allies? Huh? The blonde raised a questioning eyebrow at the other girl, and silver haired girl continued. “You’re not the only one of your kind. You know that I come from Xi Qin high, correct? I’m a transfer student being hosted by Miss Fey, you know, the English teacher.” To be honest, Idris had entirely forgotten about Miss Hannah Fey, mostly because she was taking the advanced classes with Mr. de Lioncourt. “Anyways, Miss Fey arranged most of this because she was concerned that something was wrong inside of this school; that something sinister was going on. So she transferred me: Dao Hong, the Destrillian of speed, to do some spying around here between classes. And I’ve found some information that I thought might be of interest to you, Miss Savage.”

The silver eyed girl felt all but buried under this truckload of information that Dao was dumping on her. She didn’t even know her that well, and now she was telling her that she was one of the people who were supposed to be fighting these monsters by her side? Why hadn’t she contacted her earlier about this if she was apparently so easy to find, why had she not offered her services up to the team? She frowned, hoping that this wasn’t somehow some sort of trap, “What sort of information are you talking about?”

“Someone in this school may be helping the Violans. I can’t yet be sure who it is, but I know that someone is, at the very least.” The transfer student told her, Idris’ blood feeling like it was starting to chill in her veins. Why would someone help Violans, they were monsters, weren’t they? And yet, here Dao was, telling her that someone was helping them in this very school, and perhaps they knew about the Destrillians. Perhaps they were even planning to kill each of them, though she had no way of proving it. Still, the very thought was disturbing.

She closed her eyes and nodded, throwing out the idea that they’d be trying to kill her and the others. She’d just need to tell them as she started to get them reassembled to be extra cautious when they walked around outside. “I… thanks, Dao. I’ll certainly keep that in mind during the next meeting.” She patted her on the shoulder with a slow smile, as if nothing was wrong, “If you find out anything else, be sure to keep me posted.” With that, she finally left the building and started to head home, her mind full of heavy thoughts about the safety of her fellow Destrillians.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Principal Vargas was, by all means, an ordinary man. His vice principal, Maya Circe, was a sweet and gentle woman who could be kind to most students, excluding the delinquents of the school. They were both in charge of making sure that Osea High ran as smoothly as possible, but at the same time, they both had a hidden ulterior motive. Circe, for quite some time, had known of the Violan monsters that frequently threatened the student body. After all, she could even be considered a mother to them, as much as Vargas could have been considered a father.

There was a time, years ago, when they were both working with the government, attempting to redesign the perfect soldier. They tested many, though many of them ended up dead, several of them ended up as these strange hybrid creatures that they entitled Violans. Though these creatures were magnificent weapons, they were difficult to control, and the government quickly disposed of most of them and fired the two scientists who were responsible for their creation. Their existence was covered up, and the two scientists found new jobs working as a principal and his vice principal at a distant high school.

At their new job, they decided to continue their work and rebuild the Violan population. For the most part, it wasn’t out of spite that they did this, they just longed to see the creatures they created again. But the more they created, the more children who were attacked, the more embittered they became, covering things up and telling parents of unfortunate instances of their children’s apparent suicides at school. They wanted to do something greater, grander, more spectacular, perhaps something that would destroy the country.

“So how is our project going, Seth?” Circe asked with a smirk and the sense of familiarity that came with working with someone for years.

“I was planning on checking myself. Did you want to come with?” He asked, taking his keys out of his pocket. She nodded and followed behind him, him locking the door behind them as they walked through the empty hallways of the school, making their way to the basement. Vargas took out his key to unlock the door to the boiler room, and took a step inside.
There was something inside of the boiler room, the room unusually large for just holding the circuits and boiler, and stairs within the room to get down to the actual floor of the room. The shape was vaguely humanoid, chained to a single spot in the middle, growling and attempting to lash forward to attack. Vargas looked back and smiled at Circe, who was positively awestruck.

“It’s wonderful to see your own baby flourishing,” She said with a small smirk, eyes flashing in the darkness. This Violan would have its day in the sun, and it would destroy everyone who took away the things that Vargas and herself had worked for. It would just need a little more time before it was complete, and then they would take their revenge.

Idris had been well-informed of her apparent status as Kai’s new friend and possible protégé by the fact that she was now frequently getting texts and phone calls informing her of upcoming games which she often came up with excuses for. After all, she’d been busy trying to get to be friends with Terra, and she may as well been hunting a snipe when it came to finding her. It seemed that every time she spotted the girl, she disappeared into the walls somewhere. If she wasn’t considering being an assassin, she should seriously consider it as a valid career. She must have seemed rather creepy, the way she kept pacing around in front of the library where she was pretty sure Terra hung out. But her half-stalking paid off, and she spotted Terra walking around just outside of the fiction section. She marched over to her quickly, waving over at the girl who apparently hadn’t noticed. “Hi there,” The blonde said quietly to her, “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

The green haired girl tensed noticeably, and a light blush colored her cheeks. “Y-yeah, I don’t have m-many friends, s-so I guess I j-just feel uncomfortable,” She mumbled, taking a book off the shelf and holding it quietly to her chest. Idris believed she recognized it, and nodded at the cover.

“Hey, isn’t that the one where the girl stops talking after being assaulted? It’s a pretty serious book,” The silver eyed girl told her, while the other girl nodded slightly.

“I-I like it. I’ve read it before, but I l-like rereading it,” She said quietly, “B-because when i-it ends, she finally starts t-talking again.” Terra shuffled around in the spot she was standing in rather uncomfortable fashion, and the blonde half wondered if she had that restless legs disease. “S-so, um, di-did you want to, a-ah, um, h-hang out, then?”

Well yes, that was generally how you made friends. The silver eyed girl smiled and nodded at the other girl, who only seemed to turn redder. She must have felt really embarrassed about herself or something, she probably wasn’t used to really hanging out with anyone. She set the book back on the shelf and scurried off to get her backpack, and quickly returned to Idris’ side. Together, they exited the library wordlessly, and when Idris turned to say something to the other girl, she noticed someone jogging behind them (well not jogging perhaps, more like his walking was comparable to her own and Terra’s jogging). His hair was also a greenish color and he had the sort of scruff that she would have typically placed on someone attempting to pass as a 21 year old in order to get alcohol. “Hey, do you know him?”

The green haired girl turned around and looked rather surprised at him, “S-Salem?”

He held out some sort of case—perhaps a sunglasses case?—which she didn’t immediately take. He sighed and finally told her what it was, “It’s your reading glasses.” Though he didn’t really seem like the sort to hang around in the library in the first place, and she had to wonder why he’d even be in there. Terra took them with a look of only the vaguest surprise and started to walk away as fast as her legs could carry her. Salem, as he’d been called, sighed, “’Wow Salem, thanks for bringing me my glasses. I would have been so upset if I hadn’t found them!’ Hey, no problem, Terra, not a problem in the least.”

Idris tilted her head at him, and ended up deciding to just try and catch up to Terra. She’d almost lost her, but she finally caught back up to her near the doors, the green-haired girl looking positively flattered that she cared enough to catch up to her. “S-so you still wanted to hang out, then?”

“Well we didn’t really hang out back there, did we? Come on, we can walk home together or something,” The blonde told her, and the other girl practically radiated with happiness. She smiled, quite possibly for the first time that she’d ever seen, and Idris couldn’t help but smile back. “Oh, by the way, do you know that guy who gave you your glasses? He seemed to know you pretty well.”

Terra looked at her with surprise, wondering why she’d want to know something so random, and generally silly, or so her face seemed to say. “He… sometimes stops by the library. I-I guess we talked a couple of t-times, so I know his name, b-but, um, nothing really remarkable otherwise,” She said awkwardly, doing that shuffle-in-place thing that she’d done earlier. “S-should we start heading out? I-I mean you s-said you wanted to walk home and all…”

Idris nodded and opened up the door, holding it for the other girl, “You can go first.” Terra turned a vivid shade of red (though she had no idea why unless she had gotten some sort of sudden sunburn) and walked out first. The blonde girl followed behind her and they silently walked together to Terra’s house. Idris had never been there before, personally, and she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into. The more they continued to walk, the dingier the roads started to get and the more unkempt the lawns became. Windows to houses were broken in and doors were falling off of their hinges, and Idris half-wondered how it was that Terra was able to go to a nice school like Osea if she lived in an area like this.

She continued to walk until she got to a dull, broken down house, which she seemed to be shamefully pretending wasn’t hers, despite the fact she stopped in front of the house. “I-I can take it from here. T-thanks for walking me home, that was really nice of you,” She said quickly, looking back at Idris but never quite meeting her eyes. The blonde paused for a moment, thinking quickly about how short her last encounter with the other Destrillian had been, but on the other hand, Kai was way more social than Terra was. Five seconds was all it really took for that girl to declare someone her best friend and/or student. The girl in front of her, however, was far more reserved, and she rarely, if ever, hung out with… well, anyone whose name wasn’t ‘Emma’.

Idris finally spoke, asking, “Actually, would it be alright if I came into your house?” If it were possible, the other girl turned even redder, starting to resemble more of a beet with legs than a person. But she quickly stuttered out a yes before she opened the rickety wooden fence to her house. The girl hurried her along the path, opening the door and letting her in quickly, as if her yard was planning on assaulting Idris.

The inside of Terra’s house had a distinct smell of macaroni and cheese as well as cats. It was quite dumpy, and she felt like it wouldn’t have mattered if she had taken off her shoes, since she could see the footprints from everything else that lived in this house on the carpet. The other Destrillian took of her shoes, however, so Idris followed if only in politeness. She regretted this immediately, as she stepped in some dirt (or what she prayed was dirt) that one of Terra’s siblings must have left on the floor from their dirty feet. Terra looked at her apologetically and started to walk to another room, Idris following carefully.

The floor of the kitchen was tiled, but had an uncomfortable sort of stickiness to it. Idris would definitely need a bath once she got home, most definitely. “Oh! They bought some cherries!” Terra said, possibly not stuttering for the first time in the entire day. She smiled as she grabbed one, biting into it and spitting the pit into the trash. “O-oh, uh, y-you could have o-one too. They’re really good!” Idris wasn’t a huge fan of cherries, but she took one politely and ate it, spitting the pit out as the other girl had moments before.

“Yeah, not bad,” She said with a half-smile, discarding the stem. Terra suddenly looked quite excited as she said her next words.

“H-hey, you know that cherry trick?” Idris thought for a moment before she remembered that childish ‘prove you’re a good kisser’ trick that people were so enthusiastic about in middle school. She gave half a nod. “I-I can do that, you know! W-watch!” Terra took one of the cherries and popped the entire thing, stem and all into her mouth. She stood, waiting for the other girl to produce a stem tied with her tongue, and a few moments later, the other Destrillian triumphantly opened her mouth.

It was empty.

Idris was pretty sure this was not the elusive trick that was performed in middle school. “I… I don’t think.. uh…”

“Don’t think what?” Terra asked, apparently deeply proud of herself for being a human trash compacter.

“Pretty sure that’s not the cherry trick I was thinking of.” The green haired girl’s face slowly started to fall. Then, she started to look horrorstruck, and started mumbling something about her brother teaching it to her and she started to turn red with shame. “H-hey, it’s alright, it was, uh, pretty impressive to see you do that.”

Idris was perhaps exaggerating her own emotions at the moment, but Terra seemed to look a good bit relieved by what she said. “M-my big brother taught me, saying I could d-do it like all the other kids in school could… but I guess he didn’t teach me the right way anyways…” She said with a short, hollow laugh. Idris patted her shoulder, which somehow made the other girl feel it was an appropriate time for a hug. Said hug rather shocked and confused the metal Destrillian, but she just patted Terra on the back as the other girl continued to squeeze her.

“Err… there there, Terra, it’s alright. I’m sure you could do the trick if you tried,” She said, continuing to pat Terra.

The other girl looked at Idris in a manner she wasn’t used to and said, “I-I just can’t believe that someone as popular as you w-would… want to actually be friends with me.” She buried her face in the crook of the blonde’s neck, with said blonde starting to feel like the speaker at an awkward convention. She almost felt thankful when a loud screeching noise echoed from the windows from the front yard. It was a ghastly noise that didn’t even sound remotely human. The green haired girl let go, freezing for a moment. “Violans… how did they…” She bolted for the door, running outside and opening the door in one quick motion.

Idris really had no choice but to follow her. She had only ever fought the Violans once before, though she felt that she had done a fine job dispatching the first ones she faced. Those were two of these monsters: outside of Terra’s house, it seemed like a small herd had formed. There had to have been at least ten this time around, and although it seemed they had not attacked yet, it seemed like they were seconds from doing so. She had to act fast, “I implore The Powers That Be, please bestow upon me the powers of 000-000-009!” The blonde was quickly transformed into her Destrillian state, and took a slash at one of the Violans. It crumbled into dust, but the rest of the group lept after her, biting into her armor, hissing and growling.

Idris was forced to the ground, dropping her sword in the process. She was lucky some huge stone spike appeared from the ground, impaling and killing it. Terra must have transformed as well, and her ideas were confirmed as Terra stood over her in a defensive position. Rather futilely, she yelled at the Violans, “You will never harm Idris! Not as long as I’m still standing!” A different Violan lept at her, but she grabbed it and threw it into the air, another one dove for her but she kicked it away, two more jumped at her, and while she was able to deal with one just fine, she let out a cry of pain as the other one sunk its teeth into her shoulder.

There was no way that Terra would be able to take all of these monsters by herself, Idris spotting where she had dropped her sword at. As the other girl continued to try and defend her she grabbed her sword and sank it into the nearest Violan. It yelped, screaming a painfully scratchy noise as it turned into dust, and she could see even more of these monsters bounding down the street. What the hell was going on, there simply seemed to be way too many of these monsters for only two of them to handle. Idris slashed forward and from side to side, taking out a single Violan while the others seemed to have realized her tactics. Stone spikes impaled a couple, but they seemed to realize that Terra couldn’t use this ability when they were on cement. Things weren’t looking very good for either of them, and the serious thought that they might die if this continued crossed Idris’ mind.

And then suddenly a flip-kick through several Violans into the air, disintegrating them as they were hit with some strange slashing attack. “You didn’t come to practice cause you were busy doing this? How come I wasn’t invited!” Shouted the voice of Kai, only mockingly indignant over the fact. She did some strange move that made it seem like she was breakdancing, sweeping the feet of the Violans out from under them. They yelped helplessly as Idris stabbed them, and Kai sent a couple of the monsters that had hidden out on the sidewalk into the air, allowing Terra to more easily impale them onto the stone spikes that she was generating. The final Violan, one that had shown up later than the others, was a colossus as far as size was concerned, and it seemed to be impossibly strong, casually flipping Kai head over heels several times just to get her out of the way. Idris attempted to slash at it, hoping the effect that her sword seemed to be having would work on this monster.

It didn’t, not even scratching the beast, and hit Idris like she’d been hit by a freight truck. The creature slowly started to move for Terra, although she was able to somehow collapse the ground around his front legs, getting it stuck in the ground for the time being. At the moment, it seemed like the Destrillians were safe, until it revealed that it had a gaping mouth capable of swallowing any of the girls as a light snack, which if anyone got close to it, the thing could certainly swallow them. “What the hell IS this thing?!” Idris shouted, having absolutely no idea how anyone would have been able to fight this monster.

“I-it’s an ABADDON-Violan, Ariel told me about them. They’re huge, monstrous, and only a select few Destrillians can kill them, like one of fire or… the metallic Destrillian,” Terra said, struggling to hold her concentration as the monster continued to squirm in her trap. Great, she was the only one who was able to defeat this horrific beast and she had no idea how to do it. “S-she told me the weak spot is just below its mouth! I just don’t know how you can get there without being eaten or anything!”

At least she knew how to kill it now, she reasoned, eyes darting around as Terra attempted to hold the beast in place. “Hey, Kai! You’re fast, aren’t you?”

Kai beamed proudly saying, “I don’t mean to brag but I am the fastest person on the team. I won the fifty meter dash two years in a row,” Idris really didn’t care much about her athletic accomplishments so much as the fact that she could distract this beast.

“Try to keep the Violan distracted! I don’t care how you do it; just keep it off of me!” Idris said, taking an aggressive stance. Kai seemed to have understood her instructions, jumping in front of the creature and dashing around, too fast for it to move and catch her. She giggled as she ran, the monster angrily snorting at her and snapping its ridiculously huge jaws. The blonde took this opportunity to dodge underneath its chin and run, stabbing her sword upward into the monster, and pushing it forward, stabbing it hard. The monster let out a disgusting, gurgling-scream, snapping its jaws wildly as it started to turn into dust.

Idris removed the sword that she had stabbed into the beast, and quite suddenly, a beam of light shot out of the wound. It burned straight through her armor to her shoulder, yelping out in sudden pain as it faded while the creature turned to dust. “IDRIS!” Terra yelled, transforming back into her clothing, though she was bleeding a bit through her shirt. The blonde girl fell to the ground, her armor disappearing and being replaced by her everyday clothes.

“Oh god….” Kai mumbled, picking up the smaller, injured girl and carrying her into Terra’s house. She set her down on the couch while Terra rushed off somewhere, coming back with bandages, antiseptic, and strangely enough some burn cream. Kai got Idris’ shirt off, who was feeling rather dizzy, though she had no idea if that was normal for just getting shot with a laser. “Is that a hole? I think I can see her bone!”

Terra shushed her and started to apply the burn cream to her wound, the blonde grunting in pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” She whispered to Idris, grabbing some gauze and putting it on both sides of the wound. “I’m, I’m, I’m so sorry you got hurt, I didn’t know that it could do that.”

Idris shook her head as Terra moved her arm to wrap bandages around her shoulder. “I believe you, I didn’t foresee that either. I guess I’ll know next time if I ever have to fight some thing like that. Ow,” Terra squeaked out apologizes as she tightened the bandage on her arm, securing it tightly. The blonde took a deep breath and realized that her throat was painfully dry, “Terra, do you think you could grab me some water? My throat’s starting to hurt.”

Evidently, there was no need to ask a second time as she rushed off to get her a glass of water. Kai handed the blonde’s shirt back to her, still looking at her like ‘how had she not just explode again’. Idris carefully shuffled the shirt back on, sighing deeply as Terra rushed back, not caring about how much water she spilled. She gratefully took it anyways, taking several drinks as Kai patted her head like a child. “Next time, don’t get hit with a laser. It seems like a bad idea.”

The green-haired girl gave Kai the look that Idris was feeling as she patted her head. “I-if you need to rest here any longer, you could probably stay for dinner!” She finished the last of the water before she shook her head at Terra.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. That monster’s gone now, at least,” She said with a smile and a shrug. She sat herself up slowly, grabbing onto the arm of the couch to help herself up, standing up with a tired sigh. “I didn’t like this shirt anyways.”

“A… alright. Please be careful!” Terra asked her, her eyes knotting together. Idris laughed and waved at the other two.

“I’ll be just fine. See you!” She said, waving goodbye as she wobbled out of Terra’s door and started her long walk home.

Something in the air had changed. Idris wouldn’t speculate this was merely because fewer and fewer students seemed to be showing up to class, to the point that the only person who seemed to show up regularly was that pale-haired hypochondriac kid who spent all his time in the nurse’s office anyways. Nor was it the fact that the wound Terra had been so careful patching up had started draining something so gross she didn’t even want to try to explain what was happening.



Something in the school was just not right, a scary-story-at-a-slumber-party not right. As if attempting to befriend Fiona wasn’t the only issue she was going to be facing in her immediate future. Fiona’s desire, or more accurately lack thereof, to going to school was also making it difficult for the generally good student to figure out how she could talk to the bitchy redhead. For once in her life, she actually had to skip class to try and hunt the wayward girl down, to no avail. Evidently, if Fiona didn’t want to be found, you’d never be able to find her. If she hadn’t promised Ariel that she would take over her position with the same caring for the girls as Ariel herself had shown them, she’d have just given up.



After wandering the hallways several times and feeling like she was going nowhere, she decided she’d head back to class and tell her professor she just couldn’t find the bathroom, and headed there for a quick break.
And so of course, Fiona would be there, chain smoking next to the mirror. The blonde was not amused, she’d checked the bathroom several times earlier while she had been looking, and evidently the other girl felt just as annoyed as she. “So you here to suck my clit and beg forgiveness or just be a general uptight cunt?”


“And here I was hoping we could discuss this civilly. I wanted to propose that we become friends, actually,” Idris told her, surprised by her own serenity.



She finished her smoke and flicked it into the bathroom sink, exhaling fumes in Idris’ general direction. “Give me a good reason why I should give two shits about you or anything you say, and maybe I’d consider it. Right now, though, you look like a two year old crying cause she pissed her pants.”


This is why nobody likes you, Fiona, Idris thought as she formulated her next sentence. “Here’s the thing. Something is really wrong with the school right now, and you’d have to be an absolute idiot not to notice it. I’m fairly certain it’s the sort of thing that Ariel would have fought and would have wanted us to fight. If you don’t want to be friends with me or even like me as a person, I’m fine with that. What I do want, though, is for us to come to an understanding so we can fight this together.”


There was a silence floating around like the smoke from Fiona’s cigarettes. Fiona snorted, splitting the cloud of smoke in front of her in two. “Pathetic. You think I’d actually give enough of a shit about this school? If it burned down you have no idea how many fucking problems of mine that’d settle.”


“I assumed you’d care about something your friend Ariel cared about,” The blonde stated, annoyed. That heavy silence returned in full force. The orange and red haired girl got another cigarette out and lit it up, staring at her reflection in the mirror.



“I miss her,” she said finally, slowly. It made her laugh a little, though Idris had no idea why. She took a slow drag from her smoke and sighed. “You have no idea what she’s like at all, do you? How important she was—is to all of us. There are some things that you just shouldn’t try to replace.”


“I’m not trying to replace Ariel. I mean, granted, I did take over her leadership position and whatnot, but that doesn’t mean I’m even trying to replace what she was in your hearts. I just want to be the sort of leader you guys can trust your backs to. Is that okay?” The short blonde said, slowly approaching Fiona.



Fiona shot an annoyed glare at Idris and easily picked up the smaller girl. “I’m taking this outside.”


Despite the blonde’s disdain for being picked up and carted around like a child, there was very little she could actually do about it considering how ridiculously strong Fiona was. She was cared through the hallways, through the back of the currently abandoned gym, to a rather desolate part outside of the school. The redhead tossed the other girl effortlessly onto the ground, Idris tumbling onto her face.
Fiona finished up her cigarette before tossing it to the ground and grinding it under her foot, stepping only centimeters away from Idris’ face. The shorter girl got to her feet, shaking the dirt out of her hair with a steady gaze towards Fiona, “We shouldn’t be fighting. There’s no reason to, we’re supposed to be fighting together instead of against each other.”


Fiona snorted and shook her head. “For being picked by Ariel, you never have any fucking clue what’s actually going on, do you?” She stepped back, enveloped in a shining light before she was standing in front of Idris in boots and some sort of leather unitard. Why she didn’t have to say the stupid phrase while everyone else had to was beyond her. Though she didn’t want to admit it, she was terrified that Fiona was going to go psycho on her and burn her to a crisp.



“I implore the Powers That Be, bestow upon me the powers of 000-000-009.”She said as evenly as possible, transforming and holding her sword up defensively. “I don’t want to fight you, Fiona, but I will if I have to.”


Fiona flicked her hair out of her eyes, laughing as she took a steady pose. Suddenly, she came at Idris, who didn’t even have enough time to slash her sword at Fiona as she gruffly smashed her back to the ground. The blonde turned off of her stomach and realized that there was some shadowed creature that she hadn’t noticed behind her. Fiona punched the creature, ending in a blazing explosion and the thing squealing as it was engulfed in flames. The redhead cracked her knuckles, spitting on the monster’s corpse. “I hadn’t even… thank you, Fiona.”


“Pfff, you really need to pay more attention to the shit around you. This has been happening way fucking more than you think,” She said, stretching her muscles with boredom.



Idris noticed something was wrong a little too late. The corpse started to disintegrate into dust, but a small black thing escaped from the fire and flung itself onto Fiona. The redhead attempted to tear the thing off of her back but it was abnormally fast crawling up her body. Something on its front end pierced the back of her neck, Fiona screeching for only a moment before her eyelids drooped in a sleepy expression. The armored Destrillian got to her feet and looked warily at the red headed girl. “Fiona…? You there?” She waved a hand in her face, which got no response. Her posture hadn’t changed since she’d been attacked. The blonde desperately hoped that she was okay as she reached behind her neck and touched the black bug-like thing that was embedded in her neck.


Fiona responded immediately, smashing a firey fist hard into the side of Idris’ head. The blonde crumpled back to the ground, her vision swirling. The other girl must have made a grab for her sword, but even with Idris’ head being far less clear than usual she was able to grab it and slash at her attacker. It screamed in an unearthly voice, allowing the girl to tumble back onto her feet and focus onto what was going on with Fiona.



Some sort of insect was embedded in Fiona’s skin, big legs quivering over her cheeks, chitinous spikes covering her shoulders like some sort of twisted armor, and one of her arms looked like it had been taken over by a beetle, being covered with three shining, black fingers. What the hell was that thing that had attacked her? And how the hell was she supposed to be able to fight one of her team mates?
The infected girl lunged forward and struck the blonde with her insectoid arm. It clanked harmlessly against her armor, which only seemed to enrage the bug creature. The thing that had control over Fiona’s body grabbed Idris’ wrist and started to heat the metal to the point that it felt like it was melting her skin. The blonde groaned, shucking the armor off to find her skin boiling underneath. Fiona’s possessed body took no time to wait, striking her arm with one of its abnormally sharp fingers. It dug through her burning skin, cutting deep into her arm. She screamed her throat raw and tried to push the possessed girl away from her, but only succeeded in forcing her own stiff legs to run.


Whatever had taken Fiona over was slow, which allowed Idris to put some distance between the two of them while she tried to think of a way to destroy it without hurting the other girl. Her sword was capable of killing Violans, but she was also fairly certain that if she used it against someone else, they’d be just as grievously injured. The thing that had stuck a stinger or whatever it was seemed to clearly be what was causing all of these problems, but she had no idea how she was supposed to get it out of her. The fact that the cut was leaking a lot more blood than she had expected was not helping her thinking processes.


“Pathetic.” The creature spoke up in a distortion of Fiona’s normal voice, like it had been mixed with someone scraping on a chalkboard as she spoke. “So this will be how the leader of the Destrillians will die.” Idris couldn’t feel her legs anymore, tripping over her own feet and falling down to the ground. Her vision was blurring, but she could see the beastly creature laughing over her. Its claws splayed out over her heart, she half-heartedly wondered why her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes. Its claws pressed into her sternum, breaking past her armor and drilling for the destination of her chest.



A high-powered blast of water appeared from seemingly nowhere and knocked the claw away from Idris’ body. “Fucking Perkins,” Thetis’ voice floated into Idris’ ears but it felt so far off and fuzzy. The blue and white haired girl now appeared in her Destrillians outfit, a rather fluffy and flowing number made of a puffy blue skirt, and flowing turquoise sleeves. If Idris had understood the situation enough, she might have noticed why she had until that moment never seen her outfit: she looked pretty ridiculous in it. The monster growled at her, striking at her stomach with its clawed arm.



Thetis danced carefully around it; she obviously had the advantage of speed over the monster. It yelled at her, jabbing it in the hip with a sharp spike that protruded from its shoulder, though this was only able to slightly slow the girl. She hit the possessed Fiona sharply in the back with water and a knife-shaped hand, careening the redhead to the ground. Its claw dug into the ground, flipping herself over. But the water Destrillian had plans of her own, as she pounced onto the monster and held its claw down with her leg. She brought her arms around the back of the possessed girl’s head, muttering something into her ear as a sudden blast of water issued from her hands. She grabbed hard onto the back of her friends neck and pulled off the bug creature that had attacked Fiona. It started to wither in her hands as soon as she had grabbed it, and she sighed in relief as the chitin on Fiona’s body started to fall off and disintegrate.



“Thetis?” Fiona asked in her normal voice, no longer possessed by any sort of monster.


“What is it, Fiona?”



“Could you get your fat ass off my arm?” Thetis immediately got off of her annoyed friend, blushing a shade somewhere between embarrassed tomato and irate beet. Fiona propped herself up, taking a hand from Thetis to stand up.



She looked around for a moment, prompting Thetis to say, “Don’t worry, there shouldn’t be any other monsters in the area.”


The redhead rolled her eyes and kissed Thetis, who elicited a noise something like a mouse being stepped on, and told her, ”Thanks, dipshit.” She looked back at the now-unconscious body of their leader and realized that more than not, she’d rather if Idris didn’t die. “Hey, go see if Emma’s in class or whatever, we could really use her help right now.”


Her blushing companion nodded and rushed back towards the school, even with her side bleeding as it was. Fiona definitely know very little about treating injuries (especially given she almost never got any herself), but she knew that keeping pressure on a wound was a good thing to do, so she pressed down on Idris’ cut as best she could. What she had faced was one of the most insidious Violans, and she hadn’t even realized it. A PERKINS-type, the sort that could die just as easily in fire as the next, but that had a secret inner being that could take over people’s minds. And of course, that stupid thing died in water for some retarded reason that Fiona never understood, so she really should have been tried finding Thetis before she started this hunting thing.



Thetis came back with Emma in tow, her wound healed by the aforementioned girl, and brought her to Idris. “You’ll be able to fix her again, right?”


Emma nodded and rushed to Idris’ side, “What did this? We need to find the cause of this stuff and destroy it as soon as we can get everyone together.”


“Thank you Captain Obvious. Just patch the bitch up and we can start work on destroying wherever it is these things are coming from.”


“Huh, this one looks older than the one here. Do you guys know where it’s from?”The long-haired girl asked, but the other two shrugged. Emma got her patched up as best she could, although Idris has not yet come to.



“Is she going to be okay?” Thetis asked, finally out of her small Fiona-induced embarrassment coma. Emma nodded quietly, although her face still looked grim.


“I’ll wait back here with her. I think you two should go out and find Terra and Kai, we need to deal with this as soon as Idris wakes back up.” Fiona groaned but nodded and returned to her school clothes. She jerked her head in Thetis’ direction, indicating her to come with, and she followed quickly.

“Gimmie that! Gimmie thaaaat!” screamed a girl who was wearing a pink and white pareo dress and wore a white flower crown on top of her black bob cut.

“…!” said the boy who’s long wavy hair covered both his eyes and wore a huge flower designed teal poncho covering his whole body except for his hands and bare feet.

“That’s my pillow! MY PILLOW!”

“…!!”

“GIVEITGIVEITGIVEIT!”

“…!!!”

And that was just bedtime. Coffee, already in her silk purple pajamas with her long hair let loose of its bun and all ready for bed, had had it up to here with their constant arguing over anything in general, and it was always the same: Thai took a certain spot/toy/item, Kai would get very near him and try to share it/tease him/play with him, Thai would shut up and hold onto the item/area very tightly, and all hell broke loose. For a couple of 13 year olds (or at least, that’s what she tried to guess with Thai. She was still trying to figure out his background to no luck), they sure acted like a bunch of 7 year olds, and she couldn’t take it anymore…

“ALRIGHT, SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! YOU GUYS SHUT THE HELL UP AND SIT DOWN NOW!”

Kai and Thai both stood still and look towards Coffee in a very scared way. Their eyes were wide and their lips were sealed thin.

“Now” coffee said pointing towards Kai “I don’t know why you wanted a sleepover with Thai in our plantation when all you do is bicker and act like 7 year olds”

“HEY! I don’t act like that!” Kai shrieked “I am clearly a mature girl. Ask any man that hangs around my school. They all say I act way more mature than my classmates”

“…huh. Thai, is that true?”

Thai nodded vigorously.

“See? I told you I was mature Auntie Coffee. If my body is, so is my age. All the guys tell me that too.”

“…huh” said Taro while he overheard them and was playing a puzzle game. Wearing his red colored pareo loincloth, a straw hat and a lone shark tooth necklace, he and Coffee exchanged looks in the living room while Kai looked all smug, giving an ‘I told you so’ face to Thai. Thai ignored her and hugged his sofa cushion which Kai gave up a while ago.

“ALRIGHT THEN!” Coffee clapped “Time for a scary story to make this day even better! Since…you know, you’re all mature now right? You can handle something like this right?”

“YAY! You know I’m totally up for that!” Kai squealed “I mean scary stories mean nothing to kids my age. Riiiiight Thai?”

“…” Thai just looked scared and hugged his cushion tighter.

Kai laughed at him, but stopped short when Coffee smacked her across the head and gave her a look.

“Taro-sug! Please turn off the lights!”

As soon as Taro got up from the table, the kids and Coffee stacked pillows in the center of the living room and shaped it as a small cone. Then Coffee put a flash light within the cone hole to make it look like a faux “bonfire” was in the house. As soon as the lights flickered off, both kids grabbed an extra cushion and huddled up close to them. Taro went back to playing with his puzzle in the dark.

“Let’s seeee, I guess I can talk about the famous Kokoleka Chispas!”

“Ugh NO! Nobody wants to hear the same old tale over and over again.” Kai said while rolling her eyes.

Thai just nodded ‘no’ very fast, with his eyes wide with fear.

“Fine brat! I’ll just share something else.” And with that said she leaned over Kai and exclaimed in a deep threatening voice, “I am the main storyteller around here after all, so you’re gonna sit there and LIKE it!”

Kai just sat still, trying to keep her cool while Thai started shivering and preparing for the story.

“Now, here’s something that happened 30 years ago…”

Once upon a time, there was a 13 year old girl that was going to school with another boy her age. Both were wearing red and white pareos; with the boy wearing it at his waist while the girl wearing it around her whole body, with matching colored flower crowns in on tops of their heads and brown sandals on their feet. One day while they walked to school, a pale skinned older teenager they couldn’t recognize, that wore white shorts with the designs of a shark leaping right out of the water towards a small fish, a white open collared shirt, and with a multicolored blue mohawk, started talking to them. He started saying how interesting they looked and asked them if they wore those outfits every day. The girl didn’t say anything, but the boy, being the friendly one, answered him with much gusto. Since then the older teen decided to stop by every weekday on their school hours just to talk to them, mostly to the girl.

Being shy around men, she felt very flattered that someone thought she was so cool to talk to and looked so pretty. He even called her mature one day, saying how she was so much better than the rest of her classmates. Her friend, though, didn’t really like how this older teen was talking to her so much and started to get very worried for her. He then worked up the nerve to tell her upfront about his bad feelings about the whole situation.
“You’re just jealous that I like Ha’i more than I like you!” proclaimed the girl, being angry about her friend trying to tear them apart.

“No I’m not! I just don’t trust that guy… I mean, he looks cool and you’re getting popular by the minute, but you’re gonna have to trust me on this. Please sug, I’m very worried about you. ”

Looking at his eyes filled with hurt, she finally sighed and answered, “…alright”

“Yay!” the boy cheered and hugged his friend tight. “I was so afraid I was gonna tell your papa about this. I didn’t want to do that.”

The girls’ eyes widened and slowly nodded. No need to get her papa into this. He wouldn’t take it too well.

Since the convo, the girl tried finding various ways to go to school without the older teen, Ha’i, noticing. She went through the back, but was found easily by him. She tried wearing a ton of clothing to cover herself, but found it to be extremely uncomfortable thanks to the heat. Finally she decided to go into Pineapple Rainforest, where the school was near, and take a path to where she will not be recognized. Many adults, most frequently her papa and his friends, went to the jungle on occasion for business or food, but urged kids not to enter the area. She knew it was because of the legend of Kokoleka Chispas, but she always thought that that dog probably died, since no dog could last 100 or more years…or she hoped at least.

The girl found the forest path to be the easiest and began to take it every day when school came about, never noticing the mysterious leaf skirted and flower crowned jungle boy up in the trees watching her go. Curiosity got the best of him though, and he suddenly asked her why she was walking on this path. Startled, she said it was none of his business, and kept walking. The next day he asked again and she said no. He then proclaimed he was the protector of his village and he had to know if she was a threat or not. The girl then explained her situation, to which the boy listened. He then offered to be her protector too within the woods, which the girl graciously accepted. For two weeks she has traveled this way with him and they became fast friends.

One day, she walked around a bit towards the local food stand, Pupusa, to which her best friend’s father owned. She was then approached by none other than Ha’i!

“Hey Pareo girl! Where have you been? I’ve really missed you.” He said while hugging her

Shocked, she hugged him back and stuttered her explanation on why she hasn’t met him so much.

“Man, the day’s gonna be over once you stop. Just come with me. I’m with a group of friend over here.”

And with that, he pulled the girl towards three other older teenagers like him sitting at a table, and she could only guess that they were all tourists visiting her home. Two of which were pale looking girls, one wearing capri jeans and purple and black tank top who had long brown hair and various piercings on her ears, while the other had a flower tank top with a matching skirt and had strawberry red hair with a white flower on the right side of her face. The boy with dark black skin and dreadlocks wore nothing but a pair of khaki shorts and a really nice shark tooth chained necklace. He was the first one to notice them and wave them up front.

When they sat down, he introduced each of them to the girl, in the order of Tammy, Belinda, and Ran. The poor young girl felt extremely awkward while they all started talking about various grown topics, and soon after, the brown haired girl, Tammy, went to go get some sweets while the others waited. When she came back, she was furious.

“What the fuck? They have the most crappiest service ever! Did you know that they didn’t have ONE ounce of chocolate in their stand?”

“Are you serious Tammy?” Belinda asked

“Of course I’m fucking serious. These dicks didn’t carry it, and when I asked them, they acted all confused and shit, wondering what the hell I was talking about. I mean what the fuck? No wonder nobody wants to visit this boring ass island!”

The girl in the pareo got confused as well, asking them “…chocolate?”

Ha’i, in amazement, said “Yeah, you seriously never heard of that?”

The girl went into thought, and then asked them to describe it. When they all finished, she recognized the description and shuddered.

“ugh…that sounds like Kokoleka”

“Koko what?”

“Kokoleka. It’s our term for what you crave. We…we don’t carry something so horrible here.” She said looking down and hoping that would end the convo.

“Kokoleka? How is chocolate so horrible?” asked Ran “It tastes very good and goes with anything!”

“…I…I guess if I tell you why, you’ll know not to bother the subject too much.”

“Whatever, just tell it!” Tammy said.

So the young girl told the story about the lonely old man and the dog. How the dog lost the owner, soon started eating children up the top of the mountain, and became a vicious beast in the end.

“And there is the mountain right there” she said while pointing at it

“I have a question” said Belinda “What does Chispas mean?”

“Chips”

“Wait what?! Are you seriously saying the mountain is Chocolate CHIP?!”

“Yes”

And all the teens busted out laughing

“What a fucked up island!”

“Who the hell would take a mountain like that seriously?”

“What a ~cutesy~ name it has. I feel like I have cavities just from saying it!”

“No wonder no-one takes this island seriously. All these weird ass cutesy names and I wouldn’t deal business with you guys either. You should start living in the real world if you want to be taken seriously and not like you’re from some children’s board game.”

The girl just looked at the mountain while they laughed, feeling her pride getting lower. On the side of the food stand stood her best friend looking at her with sadness. His father noticed too and made a phone call right away to a close friend of his. While his dad was occupied, the boy ran straight for the girl, calling out her name and asking if he could walk her home. With that said, they both started to leave, with Ha’i calling out to see her later.

While the young girl was at her plantation trying to get some sleep, a rock banged against her window. She went towards it to see all four of the teenagers waving up to her and asking her to come down.

“Why?”

“We want to go up the mountain!” Ha’i called out

“What? No! Don’t!”

“Come on! It’s not a huge deal. We’re just gonna go up the top, show you there’s nothing to worry about, paint our names on the sides and then come down. It’s not going to take like weeks or anything.”

“…I-I dunno”

“Aw please? I mean you’re mature enough to not take that bullshit seriously are you?”

With her pride confronted, the girl decided that she will come with them to the mountain. She was a mature lady and there shouldn’t be questioning about it. So she told them she’d be out in 15 minutes and got dressed. While getting a first aid kid and some food, she saw her father and all his friends surrounding their large dining room table looking at papers. All of his friends looked as rough as he did, with multiple earrings, multiple scars on their faces or arms, big hulking bodies, all wearing business suits, and all having serious looking eyes on them; with the exception of her father who wore a black eye patch over an empty socket, which he claims he lost in a forgotten war.

“Papa, I’m going out with some friends in the forest, I’ll see you later!”
Her father gruffed “Lemme see your friends.”

She then showed him through a window and her father had a long hard look. “Alright sweetie, just take this pearl handled dagger and this conch shell. If you’re ever in trouble, just blow into the shell and I’ll know when to come looking for you.”

“Oh Papa! Thank you!” she said while giving him a big bear hug. “I promisepromisepromise I’ll be reaaaal good. I am a mature lady after all” she said with a wink, which he winked back at. With that she took the items and went outside. Her father smiled and went back to the table with his friends.

“I was right, they fit the descriptions of the hooligans who trashed the Pupusa food stand just today, along with the ass who’s stalking my daughter. I also spotted one of them wearing a stolen rare necklace from the fishery.”

“And you let your precious girl out with those assholes?”

“Don’t worry” he said while lighting up a cigar “They’re going up the mountain. She’ll be fine and they’ll be taken care of. Two birds with one stone really.” And they all chuckled.

While walking in the middle of the forest, the girl began to be awed by all the beautiful scenery that the moonlight shown through the trees. She also learned the names of the teens she was with. ‘What stupid names.’ she thought ‘They really shouldn’t criticize others when they are the ones who have the silly names.’

“Ooooo! Look! Up there!” proclaimed Belinda

They finally were at the famous volcano, showing in all its glory in the moonlight. For a minute, nobody said a word but looked up and how high it was.

“We are so not gonna go all the way up THERE are we?!” said Tammy

Ha’i nodded no and just said, “Until we’re tired. Hey, you want to get on my back while we go up?” He said winking at the girl in the pareo dress. She blushed but Ran denied.

“We need her for a guide anyways. Who knows better than a local?”

Both girls agreed and they started to walk.

“Screw them, you can hold my hand ok?”

The girl blushed profusely and held on tight while she directed them on the safest route to go.

When they all got tired, they soon stopped and rested. The teens then took out all the paint cans they had and started painting all sorts of lewd pictures and names on top, mainly making fun of the name of the mountain.

The girl, confused and angry started to cry out, “Geez, you didn’t tell me you were gonna do all of that. Just paint your names!”

“God, shut your girl up Ha’i, that whiny brat is getting on my nerves.”

Ha’i just rolled his eyes and resumed his painting.

The girl then felt insulted by him not defending her, and finally waking up to her sense, started leaving all of them at the volcano while she went home. She did NOT need baggage holding her down.

As soon as she entered the jungle, something else began falling from the top of the mountain. The teens paid no attention to it, until multiple rocks started falling off and started hitting the kids.

[FONT=&quot]There was once a lonely old man. He was wandering around the rainforest looking for cacao pods until he found a scrawny blonde haired stray dog near a tree, jumping at the pods. They immediately warmed up to one another and the man took him home up on the mountains.[/FONT]

“Man, I’m going down, I don’t need bumps on my head. I’ll check you guys later.” said Tammy and she took off towards the bottom with her things, while the other kids laughed at her. As soon as her body disappeared in the greenery and was trying to find a good area where the rocks stopped, a rustle started up.

[FONT=&quot]Months later while making the finishing touches on the kokoleka, his dog became very hungry. Thinking nothing of it, he gave his dog the newly processed sweets in small chips and the dog absolutely loved it. No harm came from eating it and the old man thought this dog was very blessed. Because of this, he called him Kokoleka Chispas.[/FONT]

Looking up every now and then, she just figured it was the rocks and kept on looking. Once she stopped and took a rest, a huge black shadow pounced right at her body and crushed her neck.

[FONT=&quot]One day the owner died a horrific death from accidently falling off the top of the mountain. The poor dog waited patiently for the owner but he never came back, leaving him to cry and moan. Not thinking straight from loss of hunger, he began to hunt for his food.[/FONT]

Hearing the scream before her deathly fate, the three teenagers looked up suddenly towards the jungle. Not paying attention at all to the rocks, one very large and sharp one fell right into Ran’s stomach, making him topple and fall with other rocks smacking right onto him.

[FONT=&quot]Being that the only food he ever ate was kokoleka, he begun to hunt small children who had the sweet smell on them. Stealing them from their location, and dragging them towards the top, he would tear open their stomachs to eat his precious sweets.[/FONT]

The two teens then let out terrifying screams and ran right off the mountain, leaving both their dead friends behind. As they both began to run for their lives deep within the jungle, the same black shadow started chasing them down, recognizing the sweet smell of the girls perfume. Remembering the tale of the story the “Pareo girl” told him, he then grabbed a random fallen branch and smacked Belinda towards the creature. The creature then immediately grabbed her mid-section while Ha’i ran fast.

[FONT=&quot]Pretty soon his appetite for kokoleka grew and his whole body began to change into a horrifyingly huge shape, taking up the characteristics of the mountain’s exterior while his breath exuded molten hot breath and flames in the form of liquid.[/FONT]

While almost reaching her destination out of the rainforest, the girl in the pareo met up with her friend the jungle boy. Seeing how angry she was, he gladly offered to take her home to calm her down. She happily accepted and both began to walk towards the exit. While reaching the gate, they began to hear terrified screams off in the distance. Soon the sound came closer and closer until the girl recognized the figure to be Ha’i!

“Ha’i!”

“WAIT! OPEN THE GATE FOR ME PLEASE! OPEN ITOPENIT!”

The jungle boy, not paying attention at all, just looked at his friends’ bag and slowly snuck out a few items for himself.

“We should really get going.” The jungle boy said quietly “Come.” He then took the young girl and shoved the guy away from him.

Ha’i couldn’t believe his eyes and they both ignored him and just tried to exit like nothing was going on.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! HELP ME PLEASE! THERE’S A VICIOUS BEAST...Out..”

And that’s when he slowly realized that the boy shoved a pearl handled dagger right into his groin earlier. In his freaked out state, he didn’t realize the pain until he saw it himself. Once the jungle boy closed and locked the gate, the black shadow rammed right into the bloody man and tore him apart up against the gates.

While the girl in the pareo was walking home, unaware of the carnage behind her, the boy blew into the big conch shell four times and soon six men in suits came toward the gate.

[FONT=&quot]The people, once aware of this vicious beast, all decided to stay far away from the terrible location. As a reminder to them and the precious children to stay away from the monster, they named the mountain, and the newly formed volcano, after it.[/FONT]

“There’s my darling girl!” the girl’s father said while giving her a great bear hug.

“Hi papa! I told you I’d come back soon with no harm on me. Didn’t I tell you how mature I am?”

“You sure showed me little sug! Now let’s get you ready for bed. I would hate for anything to happen to you sweetie”

Giving him a kiss, she went upstairs. A few hours later, two of his friends came back from the forest, both giving him the dagger and the conch shell back, all clean.

“Thank you so much. I just got off the phone with both of your cousins. They’ll be here shortly along with the legal papers for the horrible mess and for the witnesses who’ll claim they saw the kids leave on this night. I assume you got every member?”

“Everyone boss, the rest of the guys are taking care of it as we speak.”

“Good.” He said while making himself a drink “Then that means that you guys can go to work, I can finally work on the local businesses, and my beautiful daughter won’t be hassles by those people anymore. For if anybody even thinks of touching my girl Coffee inappropriately, they really should prepare to be faced by me.”

“And that is how Taro and I first met~! THE END! Doesn’t it sound so romantic~?”

Both Kai and Thai eyes just slowly met each other’s gazes and quirked their left eyebrow.

“Are you SURE that’s what happened?” Kai accused

“Of COURSE that’s how it happened! I’m the fricken storyteller here. You have no choice but to be glad to be in my presence while I share my beautiful tale.”

Kai just rolled her eyes while Thai was still as a stone, too scared out of his mind. He wasn’t even aware of the yellow mess he made in his boxers.

“Thai-honey, are you o-HOLY SHIT DID YOU URINATE ON MY PUCE CARPET?! MY PRECIOUS PUCE CARPET! WHAT THE HELL THAI?!”

Taro quickly turned on the lights while Coffee frantically grabbed the boy and rushed him to the bathroom. Taro then gave some cleaning supplies to Kai and they both began to clean up the area and put up the pillows. Once done, they both grabbed some snacks and went outside looking at the scenery.

“Uncle Taro, is it really so bad of me to be complimented on being mature by those men? It’s not like they hurt me and I KNOW Aunt Coffee made that story up just to say I should stay away from them. She’s not exactly subtle you know.” She said before taking a sip of her mango soda.

“True, but she wasn’t lying either. In a lot of ways, she sees herself a lot in you and she just doesn’t want you to take that kind of crap from anybody, no matter how nice they are. We don’t want you to make a mistake that you can never recover from.” Taro then gave her a one armed hug and kissed her head.

“Sooo, is that how you finally became the gatekeeper of our Rainforest? Cause that is so cool!”

“Yeah, that and I just didn’t want anybody touching your aunt. She was very special to me. I’d always hate it when something bad happened to her. Her father felt the same way, so we became good friends after that.”

“Awwww, you’re very special to me too sugah.” Coffee said suddenly, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek.

“Huh, I got some question though. How did you know how to blow the Conch shell at the precise time the gate closed and blow it just four times? And why did your dad of all people leave you to go to a volcanic mountain where there’s a child eating beast with a pair of no-good hoods and with only a knife?”

“…”

“…”

“…?”

“Go to bed Kai.”

Kai grudgingly obeyed and went to bed where Thai was peacefully sleeping.

With Kai gone, Taro walked out towards the bench swing with Coffee in tow and both sat on the swing, viewing the rainforest next door.

“Nice of you not to mention my hit-job”

“Hey, I respect all the men that worked for my father. Plus, I know you weren’t just doing it for my papa.” She said before kissing his neck and snuggling up to him.

“Yeah…How is your pa anyways?”

“Oh he’s enjoying himself. Coca put him up in a luxurious bed and breakfast home and he’s right next to an indoor golf course. He loves golfing with Coca every weekend.”

“Ah, how nice.”

Coffee then found herself drifting off to sleep in Taro’s arms. Taro, not feeling the effects of sleep yet, pulls out a bag of kokoleka chispas and starts munching on them; all the while passing a few of his morsels to his best friend, a humongous black haired canine who was resting right underneath their feet.

How are you meant to feel when someone you’ve known for fourteen years still manages to surprise you? Turns out, the human way of saying ‘thank you’ carries a lot more weight than two simple words. I never expected Fiona to thank me back, and when she did; well, it wasn’t something I’ll forget in a hurry. Anything I had thought about Fiona for the last four years seemed to have deserted me. I was completely lost for words as she spun me round, the surprise of her lips bruising against mine nearly pushing the air from my lungs. It wasn’t anything like what I had seen on TV, and nothing like the thank you I had given her. I was so confused, but at the same time, airy, as if I was floating away on a bunch of balloons that you see those street vendors trying to sell. It was like she had taken all the bad blood between us and just burned it away. This couldn’t have been a thank you, it felt better than that. It felt unbelievable. My cheeks flushed hot and cold. First the shirt, and now this? Fiona couldn’t have been angry with me for kissing her, if she was, she probably would have shoved me backwards or something. I had never expected this. If anyone had told me two weeks ago that this would happen; I would have probably laughed in their face. This couldn’t have been real.

I didn’t really know what to say. In fact, I probably couldn’t have said anything if I wanted to, because as soon as Fiona pulled away, my jaw may as well have been on the floor. I’d never had anyone like Fiona in my life before. In Viola, I didn’t exactly have many friends, hell, I don’t think I spoke to another Destrillian during the two months before the escape. I suppose I had Ariel, but then again, Ariel was friends with everyone. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve never had anyone who’s been there for me, and now I had Fiona. Sure, she wasn’t a master conversationalist; she was violent, aggressive and incredibly intolerant of my alias (me and her both). But at least she had been taking notice of me and paying me a bit of attention. I buried my face into her shoulder, savouring my first taste of intimacy.

The shirt was just the first step. Ever since Fiona and I have started getting close, my powers have been going crazy. The worst part was a month or so after it all started, when I made it rain in the living room while we were kissing and broke the TV. Fiona got so mad at me, though I was pretty angry too; we weren’t able to find a new TV for a couple of weeks. I think Fiona was worse though, especially when she set fire to the couch. Then there were the marks on my neck, oh god, the marks may as well have put on display to the entire Orange Zone, completely oblivious to the implications that they held. I didn’t find out the reason everyone was staring until I went to work with them all over my throat, and Tonio asked if I’d been assaulted by some kind of vampire. I think he must have realised that I had no idea what he was talking about, because he then proceeded to give me a lecture about the social stigma of ‘hickies’. I don’t think I’ve ever been embarrassed in front of a human before, but during this talk, I just wanted a hole in the ground to open and swallow me up. I managed to keep my composure, and made myself feel better later the kitchen seemed to 'accidentally' flood itself, much to Tonio's dismay.

It must have been four months after our first kiss that things really reached a whole new level. I had seen Fiona come out of the shower that morning, and something caught my eye. She had scars, tonnes of them, all over her back. I’d never noticed it before, and it really got me thinking. Maybe this explained why she was so messed up; well, more messed up than the rest of us, anyway. If she had lived through that at Viola, I guess I could appreciate why she’d be so angry all the time. I couldn’t have endured all that, it would have killed me. I wanted to understand her, even if only by a little bit. The sight of her back bugged me all day, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. All the way through work I just sat listlessly on the counter, trying to think of a way to bring it up with her. When I got back to the apartment, I changed into my lazy clothes and sat on the couch, waiting for her to come back so I could ask.

When Fiona bust through the door (at 3am, as usual) she made her way straight to the sofa, hooking her legs on either side of me as she pulled me into a kiss. That was enough to erase my nerves, and after a few minutes, I slowly snaked my hand up her back. Fiona must have had other ideas as she pulled away to grin at me, cocking her eyebrow in that arrogant way she always did. Something new that you learned on TV?
I shook my head as my fingers trailed across the scars on her back. They were rough and deeply set into her skin. I felt my hand tremble as it traced each cut, each silvery scar as I slowly made my way up her back. It’s not that. Her temperature rose as my finger stroked the ridges of her spine. Just curious. It wasn’t exactly a lie, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I was else I would have approached her about it. If I had straight up asked about them, she would have probably stormed off in the dead of the night or something. Fiona seemed to plunge her tongue deeper into my throat as I tried to pluck up the courage to talk about it. However, it seemed Fiona had other ideas. Her voice resonated in my head as she pulled away from my lips.
Well then...

My train of thought seemed to melt away into the heat of her body as Fiona twisted one of her hands in my hair. My eyes widened before fluttering to a close as I tilted back my neck for her to explore. Her tongue ran up the hollow of my throat, and my pulse quivered as I felt her fingers trace up and down the line of my abdomen. Then it happened - that feeling that throws me off guard every time. The way my stomach goes tense for a moment too long, the way my shoulders shudder as Fiona roughly pushes my back against the couch, the way that I fall limp when her palm glides up my ribcage. Then her fingertips brush against my chest and it feels like lightning has shot through my body. I still didn’t understand exactly what was happening; Fiona had never tried anything like this before. I dug my nails into her back, like I’d slip off the sofa if I didn’t hold on.

Whatever she was doing made goose bumps run down my spine. I didn’t quite know how to react. I was a little shaken up by the way Fiona seemed to have exploited my curiosity, but at the same time, it had triggered something that had overwhelmed me completely. I still don’t know which was more puzzling; not knowing what Fiona was doing, or not knowing why she had one of those stupid smirks on her face the entire time.
We’ll save the rest of that for another time. Goodnight, Thetis.

The shock of Fiona’s weight leaving my lap left my mind blank. My lips parted to protest, but after everything that had just happened, I just couldn’t seem to form words. I stood bolt upright as I watched her disappear into our room. I’d never felt like this before, my mouth was bone dry and my hands were trembling. A strange, almost primal desire had awoken within me.
W-wait!
There were so many questions running through my head. I paced back and forth across the living room, gaze continually darting from the floor to the bedroom. What was she doing in there? What was I supposed to do? What did she want me to do? I knew what I wanted; but what about Fiona? What did she mean another time? Fiona wasn’t the type to wait for things. Was I supposed to follow her? Did she know I was going to do this? I fiddled with the hem of my tank-top as I tried to peer around the bedroom door from the other side of the lounge. It was totally silent, which drove me crazy. I took a deep breath. She had probably wanted for this to happen. Fiona had a way of charming me into doing whatever she wanted. I don’t know what it was, but sometimes she could just be so...persuasive. I knew what I had to do. I wanted this.

All the doubt seemed to vanish from my mind as I strode into the room, confidence roaring through me as I spotted Fiona. She was lying on her side, back turned to the door. I could tell she was smiling as my eyes ran over her, silhouetted by the light of a streetlamp from outside. The smooth lines of her legs, her narrow hips, the dip of her waist... I think it was the first time I had actually fully taken in Fiona’s body, or more accurately, how little she was wearing. Her little stunt in the living room had drawn me to her, and she knew it. I can’t tell you what had come over me, but I know I didn’t resist it. Bounding across the room and over the mattress, I pounced on Fiona, planting my knees on either side of her hips. Without hesitation I pushed her onto her back, crushing my mouth against hers while I used all my weight to pin her hands by her head. Fiona’s tongue met mine, and I could feel her lips twitch into a smirk, that smirk that told me she had always known what I would do. I hated that. I hated how she saw me as oh-so-predictable little Lucy Adams, who had no independence whatsoever. It made me feel like such a child. My eyes shot open as I felt her pull ever so slightly away, half annoyed, half worried that I was doing something wrong.

“Someone's finally got the hang of it,”

I glared at her, pouting as she laughed at me. Now wasn’t the time for Fiona to be patronising. Her tongue cut me short before I could yell at her, the taste of her kiss stealing away any rebuke I had planned. Pulling one of my hands from hers, I slipped it up her shirt, leisurely circling my fingers over her taut stomach muscles. Her heart pounded as my hand reached her chest, the rise in temperature beneath the cotton of her shirt nearly becoming uncomfortable. Fiona didn’t move an inch, still wearing that stupid grin that made me feel just a little bit nervous every time I saw it. I planted my lips on her neck, trailing my tongue over the flutter of a pulse I felt there. It took a surprising amount of effort to focus my attention on communicating telepathically.

I think you know who I learnt from.

I smiled coyly at her, my growing self confidence empowering to taunt her as much as she had been taunting me. A realisation hit me, and I froze. For all my sudden self-assurance, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. Unfortunately, Fiona had been grinning wildly for a reason. The predatory look she had in her eyes told me she was had been waiting for this moment, and I was right. In one swift movement she had managed to switch places with me, but not before I had made some strange, startled squeal as I fell on my back. I was practically glowing red in the dark, nearly dying of embarrassment. But then Fiona just did one of those infuriating, dismissive chuckles before biting down on my collarbone. I squirmed ever so slightly as her fingers somehow managed to encircle both my wrists in a gentle, but firm grip, while her other hand lazily slipped over the line of my belly, making my breath catch in my throat. Maybe she had been right. Maybe it would have been better if we’d left this for another time. What if this was all happening too fast? My focus was so skewed that I had to speak vocally.

“I’m not really an expert, though...”

My voice was hoarse and faltering. I could hardly concentrate as Fiona’s hand roamed all over my skin, biting my lip as her nails ran up the inside of my thigh. Her mouth returned to mine, tongue sinking deeper into my throat as her body pressed against mine. I felt the sharp edge of her hips grinding into my stomach, a sudden pain that was offset by the pleasure of her touch. I didn’t want there to be any more space between us as I arched my back, brushing my chest against hers as Fiona’s lips sent me into sensory overload. I was only just conscious of the water vapour in the air crystallising to moisture as my eyes screwed up in the darkness. Her voice in my head was barely audible as she removed her hand from my leg and I uttered a pained whimper. I was drunk with longing and I craved more contact, trying to wriggle free of her grip with little success.

Shut up...

Fiona’s hand began to tangle in my braid, blue hair spilling over my shoulder like ink as she loosed it from its tie. Her breath tickled the side of my cheek, a shiver running through my body as her tongue lightly brushed the shell of my ear. My stomach clenched in apprehensive anticipation as she whispered in a tone I’d never heard from her before.

“...and enjoy it.”

Once upon a time, the destrillians chat room got bored and decided that TerraxSalem would clearly be the best couple ever, so Terra’s creator decided to write a horridly OOC and completely out of place love story between the two. This is that story.

One day, in between kicking Tao in the stomach so that she’d abort whatever demon-spawn she was carrying and being a general asshole, Salem got bored and decided to go outside. While Kram was off probably threatening to kill him or some shit like that, he spotted THE CUTEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. She was horrifically crippled, wore glasses, and seemed to be mostly covered in dirt, and she made weird ‘eep’ noises as she walked. And in this moment the world turned into shoujo bubbles and those retarded floaty hearts that girls squish all over their MySpace pages. Salem was suddenly head over heels in love with this crippled girl, and said as much to her, “YOU, gimp. I love you.”

Wat. Terra thought-communicated, and suddenly fell in love with Salem as well because the plot demanded it. He was very fuzzy, in an attractive sort of way, not in the sort of way that grizzlies are very fuzzy. His look was that of a guy who was really quite a jerk, but he seemed pretty nice at the moment and they were happy. He held out his hand, and after falling like four times because she can’t walk worth a shit, she finally grabbed it and they skipped off into the sunlight. Well, he skipped and dragged her through the ground while she was like ‘whee’ but same thing right.

END

Salem and Terra, as soon as they were pronounced a couple, decided to do awesome and amazing shit. Shit like exploding shit like they were Michael goddamn Bay, catching salmon with their bare hands, beating the shit out of stupid Chuck Norris jokes and first and foremost, wrestling grizzly bears. Well, mind you, it was mostly Salem who did this while Terra stood by and took naps, but things tended to work out better when that happened anyways. But once, while Salem was exploding the goddamn forest and killing bears left and right (including panda bears because what the hell is up with those fuckers, thinking they’re so goddamn cute, they are NOT cute, not at all), Terra suddenly woke up screaming. See like she got her legs fixed and shit so she could talk too, idk how. Anyways, Salem was concerned, so he exploded his last black bear and ran to her side, “What the hell is it?”

“I had a dream that Kram was dancing in a tutu and did a Rider Arabesque and Tao caught him and she had a twirly moustache THAT ATE EVERYONE,” Terra said, still shaking with terror from her nightmare.Salem was going to say that a dream like that was stupid, but the more he thought about it, the more disturbing it became, and he felt sorry that his girlfriend had to see something as mentally scarring as Kram in a tutu.

“Hey, it’s okay. You can beat the shit out of the next polar bear, my treat,” He said, patting her on the head. Terra looked quite pleased with this idea and punched the inexplicable polar bear that came bounding up in the face. And they lived happily ever after.

“Prototype #000-000-003, your assignment for today is to kill the target. Your powers should be evenly matched, we wish you luck.”

Terra nodded, her green bob bouncing just past her ears. She took a defensive stance as she shed the dust from her skin and kept it floating precariously around her. From the other side of the room, a compartment opened and revealed the person she was to fight. He didn’t look like someone who was to be an even match, covered in tattoos and his hair long, his beard unkempt. His training clothes just seemed to be an old pair of jeans and some ratty tank top. He didn’t even attempt to prepare for her strikes; he just stood around like he was bored and waiting for it to be over.

“The battle will begin in 3…”

Suddenly, he seemed to have found a particularly loose piece of string in his shirt and was picking at it. It was annoying her, how little he seemed to care about this fight.

“2….”

“Ah, how cute, a new person to play with,”He said with a cocky grin.

“1… and Salem, no destroying the facility. Fight!”

Terra darted forward, slicing at him with the fine knife of the dust from her skin, but a sudden explosion blew her backwards. She landed on her back, knocking the wind out of her, but no superficial damage besides. Perhaps this fight was going to be harder than she expected. She kicked her way away from a second explosion, changing her direction with every step so that he couldn’t get a clean hit on her. The green-haired girl could feel the air around her heating up around her legs and her arms, but she was lucky to have the training she did: it protected her from strong blows like the first one. With a yawn, he sent a huge explosion in her direction, which somehow propelled her forward into his weak knees. With a quick strike, she punched him in the knee, hard enough that he buckled from the strike. Not that she was able to enjoy her small victory: he somehow caused an explosion under her skin, leaving a heavy black bruise on the arm she had struck him with.

“Not bad,” Salem said, grabbing a handful of her hair, yanking her head backwards. “This should be plenty of fun for both of us.” He grinned as two explosions rang out in her ears, disorienting her. Terra kicked her heel upwards, but she could only barely reach some of the hair on his face. He grabbed her leg, quickly breaking her leg at the knee, a startled choking noise escaping her throat from the sudden pain. He tossed her aside with a sigh. “You broke far more easily than I was hoping. That’s a shame.”

But she could fight with a broken leg, apparently something that he had not realized. She crawled quickly across the ground, ignoring the pain, while Salem went back to the compartment. Terra leapt up, high enough to pull him to the ground, keeping him in a tight chokehold. She dug her knee into his back, smiling as she heard a quiet hissing noise coming from him. She whispered something, something she couldn’t even feel in her breath, as she felt his breathing grow more and more shallow.

He sent an explosion somewhere underneath the skin of her broken knee, but she wasn’t about to be distracted by something as silly as pain. He smiled a bit at the fact she’d ignore something like that. “You’re so resilient, that’s much more entertaining.” Somehow, he sent an explosion down her throat, which was enough distraction to make her let go of him to cough up a spray of blood on the ground. She rolled off of him and onto her back, wheezing from the pain in her throat.

The lack of oxygen for a while had made him tired, and a dark purple welt was forming around his neck from the pressure she’d exerted. Even though she did this, even though she had been moments from knocking him out, she had still failed. Failures deserved to die, after all. With a faintly shaking hand, he touched the welt with the tiniest change of expression, unreadable to Terra. He got to his knees, smiling as he held his hand just above her heart. So was he going to kill her by doing that? It seemed painful end for her, but she had lost, she didn’t get to choose how she was dying today.

But something had changed in the way he looked at her, no longer bored and thinking of how to kill her. It was something she didn’t recognize, something that confused her. The vessels in her heart did not explode, and did not explode for some time, as he instead chose to grab that strange fatty deposit just above her heart and pressed her head into the ground to keep her from moving. He did something she should have recognized as a kiss, but it was far closer to him devouring her, his tongue incessantly prodding the inside of her mouth. His saliva tasted like medicine, and his facial hair scratched against her skin. She felt dizzyingly confused, why was he doing this when they had been told to kill each other?

He let go of her face, realizing that he no longer needed to hold it in place. It was unexplainable, but Terra was enjoying this, even though she knew he’d be killing her sooner or later. Salem pushed her spandex t-shirt up, until the coldness of the air made her realize she was embarrassingly revealing parts she preferred to keep covered up. Terra made half an attempt to pull her shirt back down, stopping when one of his fingers flicked at one of her nipples. She’d never been touched like this before, she was a weapon with no feelings. But what he was doing, whatever he was doing felt so good she simply stopped trying to fix her clothes. Blood was rushing in her head, and she could feel it rushing to the area she never acknowledged, the reproductive parts she would have assumed had long shriveled up. She’d never felt anything like this moment, especially not during the entire period she’d been in Viola. He pulled away from her, leaving her confused and frustrated. “W-why are you doing this? You have to kill me,” She mumbled, her skin flushed and tingling from the touch they never received.

“You looked like you needed a good fuck. Now shut it,” He unbuttoned the shorts she wore and removed them without resistance. He slid a finger into the part of her she didn’t acknowledge, the muscles in her legs clenching and bothering the broken leg she’d almost forgotten about. She groaned in excitement, in confusion, in enjoyment, dizzy from pain and pleasure. He unbuckled his pants, and some carnal part of her brain knew what was supposed to come next, bracing herself for it. She grabbed onto him, anticipating it, until the world started to shake around her. It shook and shook until reality started to come loose and people disappeared, until she was all alone, still confused, still anticipating and now lonely.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“T-Terra, wake up!” Called the insistent voice of her roommate, Emma, shaking her. A blush was tinging the freckles on her face, though Terra had no idea why. “What on earth were you… N-never mind, just please don’t dream about something like that again, p-please.”

Terra blinked, having no idea what she was talking about. Insofar as she was concerned, she’d been having another dream of eating a giant marshmallow, considering she’d woken up with a corner of her lumpy pillow in her mouth. She made a noise that sounded something like ‘haungh’ and flopped back onto her bed, still chewing on her pillow.

Emma honestly hoped she’d paid attention to her request, even though she knew Terra couldn’t really help what she’d dreamed. At least she had enjoyed whatever it was she had dreamed about, she decided as she got up and walked back to her room.

It must be so slow to be a human.

So slow and so clumsy. It was like their stupid little brains couldn’t keep up with their mindless actions. Fiona Myrwind had more than enough time to dwell on these thoughts as she ducked her head back to avoid a wild punch from the large, shambling drunk that was advancing on her, goaded on by the brutish shouts of his equally intoxicated companions.

The man threw another wild punch, yelling incoherently through a face so creased and contorted with rage it only sought to highlight how pitiable the whole sorry human disgrace was. Fiona ducked this next punch and pivoted on her back heel as she was about to fall back, prompting her opponent to overstep his balance in an attempt to press home his perceived advantage.

It must be so slow to be a human, she reiterated. The man hadn’t even caught sight of her obvious tactic till it was too late. Noticing that she wasn’t falling back at all, but instead using that leg to spring forwards, simultaneously ramming her knee into the man’s chest and her open right hand into his throat.
The man was probably unconscious before he hit the ground with the sickening crack of obvious broken bones. His cheering friends had fallen silent now. She smirked and shot a contemptuous glare at them.

“I told you I only needed one hand” she laughed at them, motioning to the still full drink in her left hand. She hadn’t put it down for the length of the fight, and she had not spilled a drop. She raised the glass to her lips and downed the fiery liquid in one swig, completely ignoring the burning of strong liquor in her throat and watching the group of men scurry like rats to scoop their injured companion off the floor.

She cocked her head at her companion waiting by the wall. The alleyway was narrow and with so many people crowding around it, it was starting to get a little bit claustrophobic. Even still it was impossible to miss the form of Thetis Alcesteos leaning against the wall, the attention of her wide amber eyes divided between the drink in her hands and Fiona’s performance in the middle of the street.

“You’re frowning. Why are you frowning?” Fiona asked bluntly as she approached her partner. Thetis cast a glance up at Fiona and shrugged her shoulders, taking a drink to avoid answering the question as her pale cheeks suddenly became tinged with rosy pink.
“This is why you’re annoying to take anywhere new. Let’s go back inside.”

“You aren’t going anywhere!” the loud shout echoed through the alleyway like a gunshot, drowning out the incoherent banter of the crowd.

Fiona felt the large, rough hand grab her by the upper arm and spin her around. She acted on instinct, barely processing the face of the man who had grabbed her as one of the friends of the man she had beaten earlier before her trained reflexes, quicker than a flash of lightning, sent one of her elbows snapping up into this man’s face, fracturing his nose and wetting her elbow on the torrent of warm blood that spilt from his nose.

“Fiona, watch out!”

Another familiar face from before had been attempting to strike her over the head with a glass bottle. A few more seconds and he might have succeeded. But his arm had been stopped mid-swing, caught between the Thetis’ hands, trapping him on the spot.

“Cheers babe.” Fiona said casually, as though Thetis had just opened a car door for her. Spinning on the spot whilst raising her leg to head height, she watched with satisfaction as her heel cracked against his jawbone, almost surely knocking it out of place and causing a few shining white teeth to sail upwards into the night time sky.

The crowd had parted almost completely now, forming a ring as wide as the alleyway would allow around the two girls and the men who were fighting them. Two more had emerged to help up their injured comrades, and now all four of them, each one big and surly stood in a row facing down the two young women.

“This so isn’t going to be a fair fight, ladies.” one of them said, his voice little more than a bestial growl.

“Yeah, you’re right there.” The Destrillian of fire nodded, placing a hand to her chin and screwing her face up as though she was seriously weighing up the odds in her head. “Thetis, would you mind running to the bar and getting me another drink?”

She knew that Thetis wouldn’t go. But watching her screw up her face in a defiant scowl and not move an inch was fun all the same.

“I’m staying! I can fight too you know.”

“Oh alright, I suppose I’ll share the fun this one time.”

Thetis looked good and angry now, and Fiona smirked. This was going to be quite a show.

The first attacker leapt forward, he was the shortest and broadest of the three and charged forward like a bull. Fiona didn’t move one bit. She didn’t need to, the man crumpled to the floor at her feet without any warning. When she was antagonised enough, Thetis Alcesteos was as brutal as she was fast. This great idiot of a man had not even seen her long, lithe leg snap out from the side, cracking into his knee and sending the opponent screaming to the ground.

The water Destrillian didn’t stop there, immediately reading the move of the next man, she leant back to duck under his right hook. A second man was trying to get on her flank, catching sight of him out of the corner of her eye, she spun to the side and caught the leg he had caught to kick her with in between her arm and her side. With an almost casual roll of her body, she threw the man across her, keeping hold of his leg and watching as his momentum carried his body straight into the floor. Her movements were fluid and precise. Every movement of her body, every punch and every kick was done with the express intent of putting an opponent down.

Fiona smiled a predatory smile, uncrossing her arms and jumping backward to avoid the wild swing of the fourth attacker. Her eyes tore away from her partner’s fight to focus on the man in front of her, who had out of nowhere produced a switchblade knife from one of his pants pockets. The move was hardly unexpected, she had time to ponder as the knife flicked upwards towards her face, aiming for her eyes but missing by a mile as she ducked under the blade. Simultaneously driving her arm upwards, connecting her outstretched palm with the underside of the man’s chin. She could have sworn she heard the man’s teeth rattle as his bottom jaw slammed mercilessly against his top one.

“Fuckin’ bitch” the man grunted as he stepped back, though the words sounded thick and slurred through the amount of blood that was filling his mouth.

Fiona raised a hand to her ear and pulled a face contorted in hard concentration. “I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked mockingly.

The man yelled an incomprehensible scream and Fiona’s cocky exterior vanished immediately, her posture tensed up and her face hardened. In battle, Fiona was all business. The knife slashed down again but Fiona’s reflexes telegraphed the man’s move before he probably even knew what he was doing. Her arm moved to counter, her wrist snapping shut around the wrist wielding the knife. The next move came in the blink of an eye, her other arm lashed out with brutal ferocity, slapping the palm of her hand against the flat side of the knife. The force of the blow sent the knife spinning from his hand. The attacker’s face barely had time to register a look of shock before Fiona ploughed a heavy booted foot into his groin. Not having time to pause to smirk, she instantly jumped back to avoid being knocked over as one of the man’s companions barrelled into him, sending both sprawling to the floor in a crumpled mess. Thetis looked especially pleased with herself after that one.

“Are you expecting a well done?” Fiona asked drily, hiding her smirk behind a mask of disapproval.

“Anybody can beat up four stupid humans,” Thetis said in a forced casual voice. Fiona couldn’t help but agree with the point, but was privately a tiny bit annoyed that she hadn’t got to deliver the finishing blow.

As Thetis walked back over to her companion’s side she became aware that the crowd that had gathered in a circle to watch the fight was cheering at them. She caught Fiona’s eye and the fire Destrillian just shrugged, not appearing to notice how Thetis wilted under the gaze of so many humans.

I think we should get out of here. She said telepathically. Fiona’s didn’t even bother sending a message back, instead choosing to roll her eyes at Thetis. It was so aggravating being out with her sometimes. It was like she could never make up her mind whether she wanted to cut loose and have some confidence in herself, or slink out of the spotlight.

“You were the one who wanted to do something tonight, not me,” Fiona shot back at her with a glower. Completely ignoring the throng of people all around them, patting them on the backs and offering their phone numbers and requests to buy them drinks, the Destrillians did not take their eyes of each other, paying about as much attention to them as they would to the wind on a calm day.

“I just want to get out of here, okay?” Thetis said awkwardly. I don’t want us to get into any trouble.

Fiona raised her eyebrows, A bit too late for that isn’t it?

A new sound over the roar of the crowd caused both of them to look to the end of the alleyway. Sirens.

Not even bothering to throw a comment back to Thetis about how she was right to want to get out of there Fiona immediately began to push her way through the crowd away from the sound. Catching glances out of the corner of her eye of the shining red and blue lights of the police cars she increased her pace, fully shoving one panicked drunk party goer flat on his face as he bumbled in front of her and tripped over his own feet.

At least a dozen cops armed with nightsticks had leapt from their cars and charged up the alley. Someone must have seen the fairly large fight and assumed that there was another riot in the Orange Zone starting. Which was just fucking typical, thought Fiona. The first chance she’d gotten to have some fun in weeks and the police sought to break up the party.

Every instinct in Fiona’s battle-hardened body was telling her to stand and kick seven shades of shit out of the humans need to constantly impose their will on her. But if living with Thetis had taught her anything at all it was practicality. Whilst it would have been more fun to stay and fight with the cops, she knew damn well that the chance of her being arrested, exposed, or even becoming just suspicious to the police would be trouble. Neither she nor Thetis were meant to even exist, and even her brain, as hard-wired to spontaneous thinking as it was, had long since been well aware of the potential ramifications of what would happen if a simple blood sample of hers was analysed by the police.

Sometimes it just wasn’t worth the effort for the extra five minutes of pleasure.

Didn’t mean she had to like it though.

She elbowed another drunken partygoer out of the way (accidently sending him headfirst into the wall) and raced out ahead of the panicking crowd. It was obvious that the cops were among them now from the sounds of fighting and shouting. She increased the pace and her sprint and headed towards the other end of the alleyway. If she turned out at the end of the road here, she could throw herself down a series of lesser known alleyways and footpaths that wound their way through the poverty stricken Orange Zone apartment complex that sprawled out across this region of the city like an infectious disease.

She plotted the course in her head as she ran, turning left at the end of this alleyway onto the main road, then across the street and between two of the biggest apartment buildings in the area. Then out the alleyway at the far side, into the underpass and out on the other side of the rail line. The cops wouldn’t be able to keep up with her past there. If they even bothered to give chase at all. They seemed to be far more concerned with those who had stayed behind to trade punches with them.

She followed the curve of the alleyway until she reached the end, illuminated brightly by the glaring headlights of the white police van parked at the end of the alleyway. Fiona halted dead in her tracks as she found herself staring down at least a dozen of a police force, their features obscured by the deep shadows cast from the light of the van’s headlamps.

Well this certainly complicated things, she thought. Not panicking. Never panicking. But hardly pleased either.

These weren’t your every day police officers. Each one’s bulky physique indicated to her that they were wearing full body armour underneath their uniform, and all of them were brandishing a polished black nightstick, capped with metal on one end for bringing down even the most hardy criminals in three swings at most.

“Freeze right where you are!” one of them shouted, his clear authoritative voice rising above the ruckus further down the alleyway.

Fiona’s response was an instantaneous and unsurprising turn on her heel and short sprint back into the alleyway. Her eyes suddenly widening as she put some distance in between in the growing realization that the shock of blue and white hair was nowhere to be seen amongst the brawling crowd.

She was surrounded on all sides, trapped, and Thetis Alcesteos was nowhere in sight.

For the first time since Fiona could remember, she felt the unfamiliar pang of worry in her gut.

.oOo.

Wide, saffron coloured eyes fluttered open. The world around her was a swampy haze of blacks and greens, a single white globe hung above her and it shone bright like the sun. But it wasn’t warm.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t warm.

Everything felt numb. Everything was a blur.

What had happened? Her memory was swimming. The sound of sirens, the feel of people all around her, pushing and jostling to escape the police. Fiona, Fiona stood out amongst the rest. She remembered telling her of her unease about this night, about the fight they had started, about the fact they were making too much of a scene.

Fiona hadn’t listened.

Fiona never listened.

Why was her vision so unfocused? It never usually took this long for her to shake off that sleepy feeling. She felt frustrated, trapped. Alone.

Thetis’ head lolled to one side and she felt the softness of her snowy white fringe brush up against her eyes.

Something was wrong. She was meant to be outside, and this definitely was not outside. The world slowly came into focus, the indistinct swirls and shapes hardened and sharpened. Objects and forms appeared from the chaotic mass. Walls, doorways, chairs and a table. Counters and surfaces, plates and mugs. The dripping water from the tap. She was in a kitchen.

Forcing her tired eyes to stay open was the hardest part, but the more she persevered the more details came to light. The mass of colours that had comprised her vision began to harden and dull, eventually all fading into either the dingy green of the wallpaper or the grimy off-white of the linoleum countertops and furniture in the room.

The details kept pouring on. Layer after layer, like an artist labouring over a painting, more and more of the kitchen came into relief.

So did the panic.

The small room was lit with only one bulb, hanging naked above the kitchen table. But calling the room which it illuminated, a kitchen, was doing a grave disservice to hygiene in general. The whole place stank of rotting food and the stench of decomposing garbage. Dozens of unwashed plates were stacked up by a sink that was filled with brown, filthy water. The cupboard doors were all either missing, or barely hanging on by their rusted hinges.

Wherever she was it was in even worse shape than her and Fiona’s apartment. Thetis suddenly felt a rush of gratitude and respect for Mrs. Petrowski. She had no idea that some of the Orange Zone dwellings had been reduced to this.

Slowly. Very, very slowly. Thetis rose to her feet, pressing her hand to the wall (and subsequently feeling the mould green wallpaper flake off on her fingers) suddenly acutely aware of the throbbing, unrelenting pain resonating from the back of her skull. The back of her head was wet, but not with water. She could almost picture it in her mind, the gash on the back of her head, the stream of blood that had spilled down her neck and wet the collar of her shirt.

Questions began mounting in her mind, and not just the immediate ones like where was Fiona, where was she now, and how did she get here. But also the little ones, the interconnecting details, who had brought her here? Why? For what purpose? All the little details that wove their way in and out of her mind, creating the big picture. Thetis Alcesteos was totally lost.

“You’re awake then?”

Thetis whirled around in confusion, which was probably a bad move considering the blow to the back of the head had left her dizzy and disorientated. The act of turning around to look at her saviour nearly sent her falling to the floor in agony.

Her unfocused eyes fixed on the image of her girl who had appeared in the doorway (which was conspicuously missing a door), she was small, small and waif thin. Large, dark eyes took centre stage on a face that might have been so pretty once if it had not been so sunken and hollow, half hidden amongst a thatch of messy coffee brown hair.

“Y-Y-You were in the club with us.” Thetis said. The blow from the impact had not damaged her long term memory, she easily remembered this girl’s slight figure from the time they had spent in the club before Fiona’s boasting had led the fight to spill out onto the street.

The girl shrugged as if to say ‘what of it’, her aggressive features apprehensive and weary of Thetis at her full height, which was considerably more than her.

“What happened?” Thetis asked clumsily. She felt so dumb. There was something so tragic about asking questions, being ignorant, being at a disadvantage, she hated it. There was something so powerless about it and Thetis instantly disliked. But she disliked not knowing even more.

“You don’t remember?” the girl replied with in an unpleasant drawl.

“No. I don’t” Thetis snapped back testily. “I remember the cops, and the people scattering everywhere.” She remembered Fiona sprinting off without her into the crowd and losing sight of her amongst the jostling bodies. “Where am I anyway?” she asked quickly, firing off the first question that came to mind in order to keep her mind resting on the uncomfortable memories.

The girl shrugged again, Thetis noticed for the first time how shabby the small black dress she was wearing was. How worn and threadbare it looked in places. It didn’t look stolen, like Thetis’ clothes, it looked bought in one of the numerous human clothes stores in the Orange Zone, the rundown ones that sold second and third hand clothes.

“I come here sometimes” her voice sounded far away.

Thetis narrowed her eyes in annoyance. This human wasn’t very helpful.

“Well how did I get here then?” Thetis asked again, her tone of voice rising ever so slightly in annoyance.

“You really don’t remember anything do you?” the girl asked with a smile that conveyed no happiness whatsoever. She seemed to have produced a cigarette out of nowhere and proceeded to try and get it lit using a lighter. A silly little human device that they used for making flames, she’d never seen one this up close before.

“No. I don’t.” Thetis said grumpily, folding her arms and scowling. Admitting this to the girl felt like a signalling a defeat.

“You took a police baton upside the head, sweetheart.” The woman said smugly, her cruel smile only widened with Thetis’ admission of helplessness. “You went down faster than a 5th street whore.”

“The cops hit me?” The notion of a human managing to land a blow on her was the icing on the cake of tonight’s humiliation. This is what she got for wanting to spend time with Fiona in the world outside of their apartment.

“If it makes you feel better they hit me too.” She grabbed the hem of her dress and pulled upwards, revealing a grapefruit sized purple bruise on her stomach (Thetis also noticed that the girl wasn’t wearing any underwear). “The Orange Zone cops will hit you if you so much as look at them the wrong way. Don’t take it the wrong way, there were a lot of people out there in worse shape than you.”

“There were?” Thetis sounded incredulous. How much time had she missed? How much time had passed since she had lost sight of Fiona? “So how did I get here?”

“I carried you.” The girl replied simply, ignoring the look of shock on Thetis’ face. “It was hard work though, you’re much heavier than I thought you would be. Maybe I’m just weaker than I used to be.” The girl ended it bitterly.

“Why?” Thetis asked sharply, her abrupt tone taking her apparent saviour by surprise. But her mind was swimming with suspicion now. She had been taken to some unknown place, she was injured. Not too injured to fend off this young girl if she tried to attack, but after that? She could fall unconscious, and then Fiona would never be able to find her. Could Fiona even find her now? What if she was out of range of their psychic connection? Thetis tried to concentrate but the very act made her head feel as though it were about to split in two. She wasn’t going to try it again in a hurry. Wherever she was, she wasn’t going to be getting Fiona’s help anytime soon. She was on her own now.

“Well I could have just left you there on the street if you were going to be so ungrateful,” the girl fired back, making Thetis check her words. “You can check your pockets if you want, I didn’t even rob you or nothing.”

If the girl had been expecting an apology, she wasn’t going to get one. Thetis remained silent and tight-lipped, though her vicious gaze softened considerably.

“So what’s your name then?” the girl in the black dress asked coolly.

“Lucy.” Thetis responded. The bruise on the back of her head wasn’t bad enough that she’d forget to use her alias when talking to a human. “Yours?”

The girl smiled her cruel smile again, “You’re lying, I can tell.” Thetis’ eyes marginally widened, but otherwise her icy exterior did not crack under the girl’s powers of perception. “But that’s okay, this is the Orange Zone, you’d be hard done by to find anyone here that isn’t lying about something, or everything.” She paused to take a drag on the cigarette. “The name is Miranda.”

Thetis shuffled uncomfortably. She didn’t like how easily this girl had seen through her lie. She was like Fiona, without the advantage of having known her for years. This woman just seemed so perceptive. Her wide eyes so searching, they seemed to read Thetis like a book.

“So, where are we, again?” Thetis repeated. Her anxious mind still full to the brim with questions that exacerbated the blow to the back of her head, everything seemed so unnatural. Where the hell was Fiona? Why was everything so muddled? Too much was happening too fast. Thetis didn’t like new places. Or people.

Or humans.

Nothing was stopping her from just leaving, maybe it was the agonising headache, or the uncertainty of her present location, or the lack of Fiona to depend on in such a desperately unknown situation.

“Do you live here?” she pressed the matter.

Miranda shook her head fast. “No, I don’t live here. I just come here sometimes. When the cops are out you know? It’s a good place to hide.” She paused and disappeared back through the doorway without any warning or explanation, urging Thetis to follow.

She just walked away, just like that. Why were people always just leaving her? Miranda’s mouse-like features flashed through her mind, the image melted into Fiona. Strong and confident, turning and leaving her as she broke into a run. The picture in her mind went blank and the back of her head hurt again.

Moving slowly, and placing her footsteps carefully Thetis followed her through the doorway and into the next room. The movement was making her vision hazy and sluggish. The thought of how powerless she felt made her stomach turn. The memory of Fiona abandoning her in the alleyway was haunting her memory. Wasn’t it enough that she had made Thetis feel little more than a petty accessory all evening? It wasn’t fair, Thetis decided. None of it was fair. Not a single thing about tonight had been fair to her. Not the club, not the fight, not the fact that the humans had managed to wound her so easily, and especially not the fact that Fiona had abandoned her just to be saved by some weak human.

It took a moment for her brain to catch up with her eyes to process the state of the room she had just entered. Much like the kitchen she had found herself in, the apartment’s lounge was in a poor state. The grungy dark carpet had worn completely through in places, exposing floorboards that were riddled with damp and rot. What little furniture was left in the room was so stripped down and worn through that the spongy interior was exposed, and the wallpaper appeared to be peppered by what appeared to bullet holes along one wall.

But the pathetic state of the interior was not what was striking about this room. It wasn’t what actually startled the Destrillian who had already seen so much that she considered herself very hard to shock.

What she saw in this room took her breath away.

Covering nearly every free inch of floor space in this small little room were painting easels, each one adorned with a painting. A landscape, a face, a figure, every last one was of a different scene and composed of a different colour palette. The artist, whoever he or she was, had certainly not liked to linger for too long with one idea or one set of colours. Every moment seemed to be something different, unique and special. Some were of things that Thetis recognised like the skyline of the Osean Acropolis at night, or a particular busy street in the Orange Zone, some of them were jut woefully abstract vortexes of colour and shapes that defied conventional description, or beautifully detailed illustrations of faces that Thetis did not know or recognise.

Now, Thetis had never understood humans, and never understood why they did some of the things they did. She never claimed to have a good understanding of what the word beauty meant either. It was a concept that humans seemed to understand a good deal more than any Destrillian. She had always assumed that whenever Tonio had said that she looked pretty, that it was a solely superficial creation, something that looked pleasing to the eye but was ultimately not reflective of anything on in the inside. However Thetis looked did not change the fact that she was Destrillian Prototype #006, Thetis Alcesteos, roommate of Fiona Myrwind, the one person who mattered to her.

But if this concept, this abstract and superficial notion of beauty that was so innately human, why did Thetis feel so awestruck by the sight before her? She didn’t understand. It was so human. But why did she feel such an appreciation for it?

“Did you do this?” Thetis asked, any trace of aggression in her voice seemed to have been swept away from the sight that lay spread out before her.

Miranda simply shook her head in response.

“No. All this was here when I first started coming here. It must have been the original owner’s work. Maybe.” She paused to throw the stub of the cigarette out of the open window out onto the street below and smiled. “But I like coming here though. This stuff is the only beautiful thing in this city, and nobody even knows that it’s here, “

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Thetis said quietly, bending down to examine the nearest painting of a man walking through a maze shaped like a sphere, falling through a star filled sky.

“Obviously, but that’s not surprising. I don’t imagine anyone in the Orange Zone even knows what the word means.” Miranda said bitterly. “I don’t live here, but I come here a lot. It reminds me that even in this crapsack of a world there’s still some good in it. Even if it is in an apartment so riddled with bullet holes that I don’t imagine there was enough left of the original artist left to put in a coffin.”

Thetis was slowly walking around the room, examining each painting in turn and letting the depth and complexity of each one break over her like a waves upon the beach. “Why did you bring me here?” Thetis asked for the second time.

The girl, Miranda, had taken a seat on one of the worn out seats and was now staring at nowhere in particular. Her expression was so vacant and unresponsive that Thetis found her absolutely impossible to read.

She sighed, “I brought you here, no, I rescued you from down there because it was the right thing to do. You never see anybody do the right thing here in the Orange Zone, not when there’s so many chances put in front of everyone very day, and they always pick the wrong ones. They always lead to someone getting killed, or hurt, or left alone.” She paused, her quiet voice all too telling and trailing off into oblivion, “I saved you and brought you somewhere safe because I had the chance to do the right thing for once in my stupid, pathetic life. I had the chance to do the right thing in a city that’s forgotten what those words mean.”

The silence hung heavy in the room as Miranda finished her rant, it didn’t even sound as though as she had been talking directly to Thetis. It was more like she had been talking to herself, about issues so deep and personal to her. Or maybe she was just lonely, having somebody around to talk to like this so open and honestly for the first time in so long had just let all her feelings spill out all in one go.

Thetis didn’t know what to say. She wanted to say ‘thank you’ but the words seemed to catch in her throat. It didn’t make sense to her, why would any human save her and pull her off the streets like that. Was it really for the reasons that Miranda had said? Whilst it was true that you rarely saw any good deed in the Orange Zone, did it really make sense for this one girl to do something like this just because there weren’t enough good things happening to people in the Orange Zone. Were humans really capable of being so selfless?

“Do you have, like, somebody you can call or something to come pick you up?” Miranda asked quickly, trying to change the subject. Her bony cheeks flushed with the slightest tinges of pink, seemingly embarrassed by her admission to the stranger.

“Y-Yeah. They should be on their way now.” Thetis said quietly, still finding it difficult to put her gratitude into words.

Miranda gave her a confused look at Thetis and looked as though she was about to ask how that was possible when she hadn’t even made a call, but them seemed to think better of it and just nodded her head.

“The cops should be all but gone by now. You should be able to get back to wherever safely.” Miranda said casually, with Thetis saved; she seemed to have reverted back to being her usual cold, hard self. With her one good deed done she had crawled back inside her shell of bitterness and solitude.

“Thank you.” Thetis said, just barely above a whisper. Miranda didn’t seem to care, and Thetis understood, it wasn’t her thanks that Miranda desired. She had saved her from the police purely because she was a woman who needed help. One good deed to take the weight off her mind.

“Will you be okay, after my friend comes to get me?” Thetis asked quietly, not quite realizing until this moment that the strange sensation in the pit of her stomach was concern. Concern for a human. Miranda responded with a mirthless chuckle.

“Probably not.” She cast her dark eyes towards Thetis. “The Orange Zone takes everything from you, you know? Until you’re left with nothing and no one but yourself. If you want my advice, get the hell out of this place, and get out of this city. Whatever is keeping you here isn’t going to be worth the price of everything it’s going to take from you.”

“The door’s that way” she jerked her thumb towards a door hidden behind that largest easel in the room, a picture of a sprawling rose garden, spread out beneath a sky that seemed composed of waves and currents.

Miranda fell completely silent now, her head bowed deep in thought. Or maybe in memories.

Thetis knew that it was no longer her place to be here, it was time to leave. She cast one last look over the treasure trove of beautiful works of art, and Miranda, who sat as still as a statue, her head bowed and unwilling of watching as the last significant company she had had in so long made her quiet exit out of the apartment building.

Stepping out into the corridor, Thetis was surprised to see that the hallway of the building was not in as rough a state as the apartment. However it still looked to be in a pretty bad way, with wallpaper and carpet torn up and exposing the bare wooden walls and floorboards. Now the question remained, how best to find Fiona? She bit her lip as the problem turned itself over and over in her mind. She still couldn’t use her psychic connection to call out for Fiona, or try and give herself that sense of security that came with knowing that she was nearby.

Panic began to creep into her mind. What if Miranda had taken her out of range of Fiona’s sense? She might have just been a small girl, and incapable of carrying Thetis more than just a little way away from the alleyway, but what if she had loaded Thetis into a taxi to escape the police, or had a friend help her carry her further away? Thetis nearly brought herself close to swearing out loud with frustration at her own lack of judgement, why hadn’t she thought to ask Miranda for an address, or how she had gotten home? Had she been so struck dumb by the act of good faith on the human’s part that she had clear taken leave of her senses?

She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had not even heard the loud heavy footsteps of somebody running in very heavy shoes down the corridor.

Thetis let out a little squeal as two long, slender but muscular arms threaded themselves under her shoulders and around her waist. Picking her up and squeezing her tight. Instinctively Thetis readied herself to use her control over water to beat the stranger away with no problem.

Then she realised that it was no stranger. She felt the warm body pressed up against her from behind, and the warmth radiating from the bare arms that wrapped themselves around her.

“What the hell happened to you!? I couldn’t talk to you in your head or anything!”

She had never heard the peculiar tone in Fiona’s voice. It trembled, just a tiny bit, like a chink in its usually flawless armour. Had she been worried?

The strong arms put Thetis down and she was finally free to turn and face Fiona, who looked out of breath and was trying to hide her deep panting breaths with the most composure that she could manage.

“Wipe that damn smile off your face! It’s not funny,” Fiona nearly shouted.

Thetis hadn’t even been aware that her features had been adorned with a wide smile at Fiona’s arrival.

“I mean it, Thetis,” Fiona growled, though the softness of her expression told Thetis that Fiona was the furthest thing from angry right now. “What happened?”

“I don’t know” Thetis lied quickly. She wasn’t even aware of why she did it. She never lied to Fiona. She’d never had to before. Perhaps a part of her knew that if she had been rescued by a human then that human’s life would be in danger. Perhaps she was worried about the beautiful paintings that would almost certainly be burnt to cinders in Fiona’s fury. Perhaps she just wanted to savour this moment as Fiona wrapped her arms around Thetis again, and suddenly she felt so tired, a combination of the slow throbbing pain in the back of her head and the act of staying up so late. She let her head fall gently into Fiona’s shoulder and closed her eyes. It was more comfortable than any bed she had ever slept on.

“You’re hurt.” Fiona said quietly. She seemed to know how close to sleep Thetis was and kept her voice appropriately slow so as to not startle her.

“I know.” Thetis said numbly. She felt the soothing heat of Fiona’s hand stroke the back of her head. “Did you worry about me?”

The question seemed to take even Fiona by surprise, Thetis felt the fire Destrillian’s whole body tense up momentarily. Again, she didn’t know why she asked it. Fiona wasn’t the kind of person to worry about Thetis or anyone else, she was always so assured and self-confident in everything from her manner of speaking to every movement she made.

It was no surprise that Fiona didn’t answer; she was hardly the kind of person to admit the truth, whatever it may be. It didn’t matter to Thetis. All that mattered was that Fiona had come for her, she had found her and now all the panic and uncertainty, even the agonising headache seemed to slip away into nothingness as Thetis closed her eyes and felt herself drift off into a peaceful sleep.

Fiona smiled once she saw Thetis’ form go limp in her arms. Her memories of the hours of sprinting all over the Orange Zone, searching building after building, and beating down more than one person for information as the panic of her companion’s sudden disappearance clawed its way through her mind. It had all been worth it though, just to find her safe and alive.

“Of course I worried,” Fiona whispered, four words that were barely audible over the absolute silence of the decrepit apartment hallway.

She kept one arm supporting Thetis’ back and swept her other arm underneath to grab hold of the underside of the water Destrillian’s knees. In one swift motion she pulled the sleeping prototype into her arms, making sure to support her neck in the crook of her elbow.

“Now let’s go home.”

Terra needed some help. Well, besides the fact she had a useless leg and a just as useless arm, she’d managed to somehow twist her ankle on her good foot. And while she had gotten herself off of the street, she didn’t much feel like dragging herself home. The fact she couldn’t communicate with passerbys made her situation all the more frustrating, and she kept sending out telepathic thoughts that she had hurt herself, though none of her friends seemed to be close enough to hear. Perhaps she could limp her way back on two bad feet? Which didn’t sound like a very thrilling prospect, but if everyone else was too far away, she didn’t have much of a choice, did she. She hoisted herself back to her feet, chewing on her lip so she wouldn’t need to focus on how much her good foot was protesting any sort of movement. Come on, she could do this, she could most definitely get home on her own.

“Terra?” A voice said behind her, sounding concerned. It was that Telran guy, she knew, the one who had a clinic and stuff. Had he heard her? “You okay?” Apparently he had not. She lifted up her skirt to assess the damage done to her foot, which effectively looked like someone had transplanted a grapefruit into her ankle. Seeing it reminded her that her foot was screaming in pain, even if she gnawed through her lip trying to ignore it oh and by the way it was time to fall on the ground and make a screaming noise.

Twistedmaianklanditrlyhurtshlpplzowowowowowow Her thoughts came out in a jumbled rush, tears leaking suddenly from her eyes. Her foot was throbbing, be it from pain or blood rushing to it, and she’d much rather it just stopped feeling for the moment. It didn’t take him long to pick her up and start walking to his own clinic.

“H-hey, could you hold on or something, at least?” Oh, right, she’d forgotten about that. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on like she was scared he was going to suddenly attempt to throw her as far as possible. To be entirely honest, she had no idea how they’d gotten to the clinic as quickly as they did, but she was grateful to get some help. He set her down on an unused examination table before he stood, apparently trying to remember what to do. He grabbed an ice pack, wrapped it in a washcloth and set it on her ankle. He stood up, grumbling to himself, “Where the heck are the bandages in this place again…”

He stood, apparently hunting down wherever they were in the place while Terra frowned and tried to remember what you were supposed to do when you sprained your ankle. Eating soft foods sounded incorrect, as did blowing one’s nose. At least the ice seemed to be helping with the pain a little, even if it was throbbing ridiculously. Telran came back with bandages and a pillow, though she had no idea what the pillow was for. Were you supposed to sleep off twisted ankles? He wrapped her ankle carefully and set the pillow underneath it. Her eyebrows knotted together in confusion for a moment before he explained why he was doing that.

“You know you need to keep it elevated. It makes it heal faster. You shouldn’t put weight on it either, just try and rest,” He told her, patting her hand. Despite this attempt to comfort her, she frowned, she needed to get back to Emma. She might worry if she didn’t know where she went, and that was the last thing Terra wanted to do.

Eye got 2 go, ema mite get wurryd abot mi, she told him with a frown, attempting to sit up. Telran jumped up and shook his head, Terra laying back down as he did. Hao long shuld eye stay here?

“Uh… at least a couple of hours. Please? I mean, I don’t want you to have to try walking with a leg brace because of this,” He said, genuinely concerned about her health. Her face felt unexplainably warm, people had shown concern for her in the past. So why would she be feeling weird about it now? She squirmed around and nodded, getting herself comfortable on the cold metal of the examination table. “Did you want a blanket or anything to keep yourself warm?”

Eyem okay. Let’s tok about somethin 2 keep mi occupyd. She asked him, propping her head up with an elbow to look at him.

Apparently talking out loud was starting to bother him, so he telepathically talked to her. What did you want to talk about? Anything in particular?

She tapped her chin absentmindedly, trying to think of an interesting topic. Jus watevr u feel lyk eye gess. She looked him in the eyes, and she was surprised to realize she’d never really done so prior. They were a strange sort of yellow, and he didn’t really appear to have any pupils, and while this might have bothered her at any other time, it seemed kind of pretty at the moment. Ugh, why did she keep thinking things like that, she was being weird, her face feeling warm again.

He scratched the back of his head, clearly trying to think of something for them to talk about. So, uh, how’d you twist your ankle like that? Terra frowned, as this was not the sort of conversation she wanted to get into.

Eye woz tryin to wok faster butt eye slipped and hurt maiselv insted. She told him, ashamed of her own incapability. The doctor frowned, apparently realizing it wasn’t the right question to ask and waved it away.

Forget I asked, sorry. Are you doing alright otherwise? He said, changing the subject. Terra answered with a quick nod and a smile. His frown quickly turned into a reflection of her own smile, and once again she could feel herself blushing. Why did being near him make her act so strangely? That’s good. Is it too hot in here or anything?

Why would it be hot in—oh, right. N-nothin is rong don worry, She thought to him. He picked the ice pack off of her ankle, walking off to take it somewhere. It couldn’t possibly be that she was attracted to him, could it? She got a strange, fluttery feeling in her stomach thinking about it. Terra had absolutely no idea on what to think, she’d never experienced anything like this. Clearly Emma had before, that was why she brought boys like Sammi and Chris home, but there was never anything Terra did like that. She’d gotten so lost in her own thoughts that she jumped when someone touched her foot: it was Telran.

“Hey, it’s looking better now,” He said, looking over her foot. It was no longer nearly as swollen as it had been, and it was almost back down to a normal size. She sat back up again, wanting to get back to Emma and feeling generally confused about her feelings. But he frowned at her, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you that you’d need at least a couple of hours of rest. Lay back down for a little while longer at least, please?”

She flopped back down onto the table, resting her head on her arms. Maybe she should have taken a nap, then she wouldn’t have to think about… well, any of this, certainly not any sort of weird feelings she might have started to develop for Telran.

Are you sure you didn’t want a blanket or anything? He asked her, but his thoughtfulness just made the strange feeling in her stomach return, full force. She shook her head and closed her eyes, determined that she was going to fall asleep, wake up and walk home to Emma.

He seemed to have understood what she intended to do, as she heard him stand up and leave the room. She sighed and laid in the room for several minutes, hoping that she’d fall asleep and not have to be concerned about the weird feeling in the pit of her stomach that Telran gave her. She heard his footsteps walking back and pretended to be asleep, trying to breathe quietly and evenly. Her foot was chilled by what she assumed was another cold press on it. She waited for his footsteps to leave the room. And waited. And continued to wait. Finally she heard his footsteps and she was certain that he was starting to leave, even opening one of her eyes to make certain.

He wasn’t leaving. In fact, he was about two inches away from her face. She wasn’t entirely sure who went red first, herself or him, though he quickly stood straight again and started to stammer out an excuse, “I, I, uh, thought you were breathing abnormally so—“

She pushed herself up as he spoke, grabbed him from around the neck, and kissed him. Probably not very well, since she’d never done it before, but he just stood there, dumbfounded, as Terra laid back down, rolled onto her stomach, and finally did take a nap.

Removed for editing

“Catch ya later.”
Terra bobbed her head up and down in acknowledgement as Salem sped off down the road and out of sight. She had been going to wave, but he hadn’t given her time. It was no big deal though; Salem was always like that. Terra turned her deep green eyes to the front entrance of the apartment and made her way in.

The lobby had a distinctly lived-in quality—not quite clean enough to give it the welcoming attribute that higher-class apartment buildings had, but not quite dirty enough to avoid seeing business. Through the fingerprinted windows shone the strong sun and the pale blue sky of a warm, early afternoon in autumn.
Terra smiled a little lopsided smile as she shuffled carefully into the elevator. She’d always liked autumn in Osea: her street would be covered in a carpet of red and orange and brown soon, and she loved the crunching noise of the leaves and the feeling they left on her bare feet. The soil gave off that clear, damp smell that was so refreshing, and the cooler weather meant she could wear long sleeves without getting all hot and sweaty.

The elevator doors opened – the left one stuck a little – and Terra stepped out onto her floor. She walked down the short hallway to her and Emma’s apartment, withdrew a key, and with much deliberateness unlocked the door and entered.

She hadn’t been in three seconds before the phone rang.
“Terra?” called Emma’s gentle voice from somewhere in the kitchen. The phone rang a second time. “That’s you, right? Can you get the phone, I’m a little busy!”
Terra took ‘busy’ to mean ‘elbow-deep in flour’ and rushed to the phone in the hallway, stumbling over herself a bit in the process. She picked up halfway through the fourth ring.
“H-hello?” the brunette said, as politely as she could manage while catching her breath.
“Terra, hey! Just the girl I wanted to talk to," Telran replied, his calm demeanour not quite managing to mask the excitement she could hear in his voice. “How are you?"
“Me? I-I’m doing alright,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at the front door where she’d come from. “Just got home. How are you?”
“Oh I'm fine," the man on the other line replied breezily – Telran had never cared much for talking about himself. “Where did you go?"
“…well, I went for lunch with Salem,” Terra said, making a grimace at her own words. She knew that Telran had never liked Salem much—and that the dislike had only intensified once she’d become his girlfriend. Since Salem had claimed her as his girlfriend. Not that she minded too much.

“Ah." Terra winced again. "Did you have fun?"
“Oh, yes! T-the place was really nice; the food was great.”
"Good, that's good." The earth Destrillian just barely caught the tiny sigh Telran let escape him."And I'd wanted to take you out today, too. That's me thwarted." He chuckled, but Terra could feel the genuine disappointment underneath.
Poor Telran, she thought, frowning. He tries. She liked Telran a lot – sometimes, she thought with a little thrill of uneasiness, she liked him more than Salem.
“M-maybe we could go tomorrow? What did you have in mind?” she asked, cautiously—her efforts were rewarded as the edge disappeared entirely from her friend’s voice.
"Whatever you want to do," he said, a little bit too quickly to fool her into thinking it was no big deal. "Go for dinner maybe, see a movie - is there anything on that you wanna see?"
“I’m not sure,” she replied, a smile quirking her lips. Telran’s enthusiasm, when it showed through, was always catching—and it always showed through when Terra was involved.
"I could check for you; I know your tastes pretty well." Was that just a tiny hint of pride in his voice? Terra was pretty sure it was.
“T-tell you what,” the brunette replied, her cheeriness bringing out her stutter again. “We can decide when we g-get there. It’ll be more fun like that.”
"Sounds like a plan to me. Seven alright for you?"
“Seven it is,”Terra said. Her smile was in her voice now. “See you then Telran.”
"Bye, Terra."

Terra carefully placed the phone back and turned around—only to face a towering Emma, looking at her with the stern disappointment that Terra has come to associate with her choice of friends.
“What was that?” Emma asked, brandishing a wooden spoon at the phone, now lying innocent and quiet. Terra blushed pink.
“Telran a-and I are going out tomorrow a-at seven.” She shifted her gaze back and forth underneath the scrutiny of her redheaded roommate. “We’re g-going to see a movie.”
“Hmph.” Emma pursed her lips. “Didn’t you just come back from lunch with that Salem boy?”
“Yes…?” It sounded like a question in itself. Terra cursed herself for her weakness in the face of her friend. “It’s not like I’m seeing them behind each other’s backs,” she added, her voice much stronger now. “Salem’s my boyfriend. Telran’s j-just a friend.”
“A really good friend, it looks like,” Emma replied, pointing the spoon now at Terra. Terra started back as a bit of whatever was on the spoon flew off. “Terra, I worry about you. I don’t like these boys you’re spending all your time with. That Salem, he looks like quite the… unsavoury sort,” she said, clicking her teeth derisively.
“Emma!”
“But look at him Terra! I mean, what is with all the tattoos? He hasn’t been a prison convict, has he? Do you know? It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said darkly. Before the brunette could even get a word in defense-wise, Emma kept on going. “And look at all that facial hair! Would it kill him to use a razor? I mean really!”
Terra looked carefully at Emma, wondering whether the girl had some sort of prejudice against facial hair. The blue-eyed girl harrumphed, which gave Terra the quick opening she needed.
“Emma, Salem’s really nice!” Okay, the words ‘really nice’ were sort of overdoing it a little, but they served their purpose in quieting Emma’s words for a moment. “And so what if he’s got facial hair? Lots of guys have it.”
“If all the other guys jumped off a bridge, would he do it too?” Emma countered, waving her spoon around her head. Terra really wished she’d just put it down already.

“No! You’re being unfair – he’s better than you give him c-credit for.” Not a whole lot better, but better nonetheless. “And if he ever did do something to me, Telran would protect me.”
Whoa. Where did that come from? Terra blinked as Emma pounced on another argument.
“Well Telran isn’t much better! I simply wouldn’t allow you to date him,” she said, waving away Terra’s protests with her spoon. “Do you know how many people he’s had sex with, Terra? Way more than Chris, I’ll tell you what.”
“Emma!”
“And just look at all those tattoos and the piercings,” the nature Destrillian continued, tilting her nose up in disdain at the word. “And the leather jacket. Absolute ruffian. He’s probably in a biker gang.”
Terra forced down the rising urge to go ‘NO MOM’: “He’s not in a biker gang,” she said exasperatedly, snatching the waving wooden spoon out of the air and putting it down on the table with the phone on it. “He’s a perfect gentleman, you know.”
“Hah!” Emma snorted at the thought. “I don’t believe a word of it, Terra. He’s a ladies’ man is what he is – if he can’t get you, he’ll just move onto the next girl on the list.
“There’s got to be someone else you’re interested in,” the redhead said, trying to appeal to a visibly annoyed Terra. “Someone practical. Sensible!”
“Well…” Terra cringed in on herself, hardly able to believe she was about to say what she was about to say. “There is I-Idris.”

Terra didn’t see Idris too often, but it was always a treat when she did. Her visits were quick, fleeting and warm, like the breezes that blew up in the rooftops where the girl resided. Terra wasn’t even sure if Idris got that Terra had a bit of a crush on her, but sometimes the way she told stories or dragged Terra around excitedly on their outings, or the way she kissed the brunette on the top of the head whenever she had to say goodbye (but Idris always did that sort of thing, so maybe it was nothing) felt distinctly girlfriendish.

“Idris?” Emma repeated, incredulous. Her face closed into one of parental disappointment again. “You know what I’ve heard about her, I hope you realize,” she said, shaking her head slowly.
“Emma,” Terra began, sighing roughly, only to get cut off.
“The girl lives on rooftops! Is that hooliganism any way to live your life Terra?” Emma put her hands on her hips, motherly and menacing all at once. “And that hair.”
“Don’t s-start on her hair!”
“Why not? I mean god—is that a wig? Is must be some sort of wig.” Something about the way she said it made it clear to Terra that wigs were, in Emma’s opinion, something to be shunned and ashamed of. She sighed again.
“So what if it’s a wig, she’s very sweet.”
“Sweet won’t give you a roof over your head, and it won’t give you three square meals a day!” the blue-eyed Destrillian chided. “And that goes for Thetis, too. Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you two cuddle together,” she added at Terra’s shocked look. She was clearly taken aback.
“Emma, Thetis isn’t even—“
“Terra are you listening to me? That girl’s slept with Fiona! Just imagine what she could be carrying!” Terra really didn’t want to do that, so she settled for coming up with the most reproachfully resigned face she could and pointing it straight at Emma.
“And why must she use a pedal bike,” Emma was saying, entirely oblivious to Terra’s body language. “Do you really want to be picked up every day on a pedal bike? Do you Terra? You can barely pedal—it’s so unsafe!” She looked back at Terra and the girls’ unamused green eyes.

“Oh don’t you go giving me that look,” she started again, grabbing the wooden spoon back up from the table. Terra eyed it warily. “You know I only say these things because I worry about you. I don’t want you to get hurt Terra!”
“Emma, I’m not going to get h—“
“I’m doing it because I love you! And all these rakehells you associate with aren’t any good for you.” Terra didn’t even have time to ask precisely what a rakehell was, nor where Emma had learned the word. “You know, Chris has a friend who’s studying to be a lawyer. Very charming gentleman; quite full of sense. I thought I could set you two up. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“No Emma, i-it wouldn’t be—“
“You could go out for lunch tomorrow! It would be good for you,”Emma said, clearly not even talking to Terra anymore, but acknowledging a decision she’d made.
“Emma, I told you I’m going out with Telran tomorrow!” Terra said, the words feeling strange – but good – coming off her tongue in that order. Emma waved the spoon at her in a ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ sort of way, before picking up the phone and dialing Chris’ number.

Terra slowly backed up from the redhead and the phone, sighing deeply. No matter what Emma did, she wasn’t going to give up tomorrow. She smiled a little at the thought of the fun she was going to have—and then she jumped a little at the light knock on the door.
Today certainly is full of people, Terra thought as she opened the door. Lo and behold, there stood Idris, her pale, spritely body clad in a summer dress that Terra thought, blushing, made her look quite nice.
“Hello Terra!” Idris chimed, bright grey eyes taking in the sight of her friend. “I was wondering whether you wanted to come to my place for the afternoon?” That was Idris alright, coming all the way here to ask instead of just phoning.
Well, Idris didn’t have a phone, Terra reasoned. And also, the girl in her black wig probably knew that the answer would never have been no.
“S-sure,” the earth Destrillian agreed, throwing a look over at Emma. The redhead was too busy chatting with Chris to notice what was happening behind her.
“Everything okay?” Idris asked. With absolutely no effort, the girl was always able to convey that she genuinely cared about other people – Terra loved that about her.
“Yeah, everything’s f-fine,” she replied, taking Idris’ spidery, outstretched hand and stepping carefully across the threshold. “Emma’s just being a little… a-a little…”
Idris took a sidelong look into the apartment, where words like “sensible” and “lawyer” and “hooligans” were being thrown around.
“A little Jewish?” she commented, smiling her impish smile as she gently shut the door. Terra smiled back and nodded. “Well don’t worry about her; she can go and boss Chris around ‘for his own good.’ Isn’t that why she got a boyfriend in the first place?”
The metal Destrillian delighted in the giggle that her blushing companion allowed to escape. “Now come on. I’ve got this huge pot of soup on the boil, and…”


FIN

The nighttime cityscape of Osea splayed before her, a jagged horizon line lit by millions of windows, streetlights, and neon shop signs. Far off in the distance, it seemed to make a little bit of sense – the layout was more ordered. Clean. The area she was currently in the midst of, however, was a tangled mess of brick and beam and glass.
At least it looks better at night, Thetis thought, flicking her white fringe from her eyes as she stared out across the city. The Orange Zone did indeed almost resemble any regular part of the city when you couldn’t see most of it. A cold wind blew across the roof of the building she sat on the edge of, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She shivered.
“Pussy,” remarked Fiona from beside her. She’d seen the shudder. Thetis didn’t bother trying to defend herself – Fiona was too stubborn to take it back, and the water Destrillian wasn’t in the mood to fight over a little namecalling. Still, though, Fiona was a human furnace; she had no place telling normal people that being cold was weak.

Thetis scoffed at having called herself normal, and then returned to gazing into the far distance. “Today was the day, you know,” she said to the fire Destrillian. All she got in return was more snark.
“So?” Fiona sneered. “As if it matters.”
“It should.”
“Well it doesn’t – I don’t care about the bitch.” Fiona rolled her shoulders to release the tension in them, looking for all the world as if she really couldn’t be concerned about the subject at hand.
Thetis couldn’t stop the childish tone from creeping into her voice. “You wouldn’t.”
“You would,” was the accusing answer. Thetis grumbled softly under her breath. She was about to say something back when a cloud of smoke was blown over the rooftop from the smokestack of a factory a while away. Fiona didn’t make any fuss about it, but Thetis had been in the process of drawing in a breath and the smoke went straight down into her lungs.
She spent the next minute hacking it out, with an amused redhead sitting beside her, watching with the mildly amused sort of face that Fiona always wore whenever Thetis’ life went wrong. The water Destrillian finally settled down.
Of course I would,she said to Fiona, using their telepathic link to keep herself from any other misfortune. She matters a lot to me.
That’s only ‘cause you can’t do jack shit without her.
The fact that we’re having this conversation seems to be proving you wrong,Thetis bristled, before giving a sigh and shifting her position to be more comfortable.

The silence eventually dissolved the tension and became companionable again. Almost embarrassed to look back at Fiona, but determined to, Thetis tore her eyes away from the cityscape and set them on her fire counterpart. Fiona had gone back to making little sparks dance on her fingertips. She was clearly quite bored.
Maybe if she were in a bar with some random human ready to take her home, she would be happier, Thetis thought with a stab of anger, but quickly forced it down. Fiona had agreed to come with her up to the rooftops, after all – she could have just said no. The Blazing Fury wasn’t the type to do something she didn’t want to do. So she had to be enjoying herself a little… right?
“They had an okay day, I think,” Thetis ventured again, forcing down the urge to cringe at Fiona’s annoyed sigh. “But I heard she got sick.”
“Serves her right for being such a stupid conversation topic,” said Fiona. She smirked.
“Fiona! It isn’t funny!”
“I think it’s fucking hilarious,” the fire prototype countered, although her voice was starting to sound less amused and more just angry. Thetis refused to change the subject out of fear.
“How would you feel if it were you? If you got sick on—”
“I wouldn’t care.” Thetis blinked her yellow eyes. That time, Fiona had definitely sounded unamused.
“That is such a lie,” the water Destrillian said, eyeing Fiona for her reaction. “You can’t tell me that—”
“I can, actually,”Fiona interrupted. Thetis was surprised at the snarl in her voice. “So stop talking about it before I push you off this goddamned roof!”

Once more, an uncomfortable – on Thetis’ part – silence fell. The blue-haired girl had some idea where this was coming from, but it might also have just been Fiona being in a mood. She did that sometimes.
“But…” she started, choosing her words carefully. “Today was special for her.” Something about the way her voice had sounded seemed to finally make a tiny little chink in Fiona’s armour.
“Well it never was for me, so she can deal. There’ll be another for her.” Fiona had stopped being outright angry, which was the unnerving part. She was much more contained – her anger was much more quiet. Bitter. Thetis didn’t like hearing it in her partner’s voice.
“Yours is coming up soon enough…” the water Destrillian tried.
“Well we aren’t doing shit for it.”
“Why not?” the blue-haired girl asked, but Fiona wouldn’t answer. She just angled herself away from Thetis, wearing that determinedly uncaring face that told Thetis she cared much more than she wanted.

Why not, Fiona?She asked again, this time telepathically. For some reason, speaking seriously was always made easier in their minds; Thetis couldn’t place why, but she always had a better chance of getting a real, honest answer from Fiona when their communication was unspoken.
Because it means nothing to me, the fire Destrillian replied flatly.
But it should. Why doesn’t it?
It’s never meant anything to me. Fiona stared carelessly up at the smog-filled sky. Her facial expression was oddly juxtaposed with her words. It was the same as any other day – just more hell. The only thing I got was a ‘be happy you haven’t been kicked onto the streets yet,’ and that was it. Real special,she said, one corner of her mouth lifting in a snarl. She hadn’t quite been able to contain herself near the end – little blackened spots on the concrete of the roof had appeared beneath her hands.

Thetis was quiet. She didn’t quite know how to react to this information without angering the fire prototype. She’d always known that Fiona had had a miserable past, but Fiona rarely bothered to detail it, and Thetis wasn’t usually one to ask.
I remember when…Thetis struggled to recall the name of the wind Destrillian who had died during the Viola escape, Eydin had his. He had a training session against you that day – you completely creamed him.
The slightest glimmer of pleasant recollection appeared in Fiona’s eyes. Bastard had it coming, she responded. She chuckled a little at the memory, but her face quickly sobered up. And Ariel’s.
Thetis stiffened at the mention of the sound Destrillian. Yeah. She wouldn’t go to any of her training – she just sat in the rec room and sang all day. She got Idris to join in with that one song—
—and Baldy’s voice cracked, yeah. Didn’t let it go for a week. The flame-haired woman cracked a little savage grin. She hated me.
Didn’t she get a message on one of hers? Thetis wondered, an image of the slight blonde in her head.
What, in Viola? Hell if I remember. Fiona shrugged her shoulders.
I think I remember her telling me about it – there wasn’t much to it.
Well good for her.Thetis winced at the edge creeping back into Fiona’s voice. It was always like this whenever the fire Destrillian’s past was brought up: Thetis would accidentally hit upon a nerve and have to either backpedal, or on rare occasion, traverse the minefield to glean a little bit of insight. This was one of those times. And now that she’d gleaned her insight, she needed to get out before she was blown up.

She couldn’t think of anything to say. Fiona was looking at her now, and Thetis was sure if she looked back properly, she’d see behind the strong, fiery eyes that her fellow Destrillian was expecting – maybe almost hoping – for Thetis to find some way to distract her from the topic. But nothing came to mind. She’d run out of words. Ideas. She was stuck and in a few seconds Fiona’s mind would close up on her and she’d leave the water prototype alone on the roof for her stupidity.
So, in her desperation, Thetis did the only thing she could think of to distract.
She scooted right up close to Fiona, tilted the woman’s head towards her own, and kissed her.
Fiona’s lips, burning with their usual heat, parted in mild surprise at Thetis’ move; the blue-haired girl took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. She felt her partner’s hands find their way to her neck, then to the curve of her jaw, then tangling their strong fingers in her hair. The breath was sucked from Thetis’ lungs—taken by surprise she broke away, gasping in a breath. She opened her eyes to see Fiona licking her lips, a mischievous smirk on her face.
Thetis just sighed, half-exasperated, half-content, and snuggled up to Fiona’s side, relishing the warmth she found there. The redheaded woman wound an arm around the water Destrillian; Thetis in turn laid her head gently against Fiona’s shoulder, her blue hair spilling over the woman’s olive skin.

They stayed locked like that for what felt like hours. In truth, it could only have been a few minutes. But they didn’t care.
“Won’t you just say it to her?” Thetis said after a while. She felt rather than saw Fiona’s eyes roll.
“Do I absolutely have to.”
“Yes! It’s only once a year – it’s not like you need to make a habit of it.”
“Once a year is a habit,” Fiona grumbled, but Thetis heard the argument going out of her voice. “And what about the rest of them? Can’t be playing favourites.”
“You can with her.”
“You mean with you.”
Thetis looked up at her red-haired counterpart. “Something like that. Can’t you just say it and we can move on?”
“Whatever happened to keeping the fourth wall?”
“Fiona!”

The fire Destrillian chuckled. “Fine. Happy birthday, Bex.”

Happy birthday, Bex.


FIN

"This flight will shortly be landing at Ventus International Airport. Please ensure you have all of your personal belongings before exiting the plane. Thank you for flying with Audoulan airways!"


"WE'RE HERE!!" Stolz shouted, managing to wake up all of the sleeping Destrillians.


Terra rubbed her eyes as she sat up, regretting sitting next to the hyperactive child. The earth Destrillian peered out of the window seat, leaning across a very sleepy Emma to get a decent view. The island was right below them now, and she could see the structures that made up the airport quite easily. As she looked in front of her she could see Kram walking back from the bathroom, fully clad in his armor. How he had managed to do his business like that, she would never know.


________________


The first cab pulled up outside the very luxurious beach house. Fiona and Idris were the first ones out of the doors, with Thetis close behind. Telran made sure that the cab driver was paid for his service before also exiting the vehicle, shutting the door behind him. The house was quite something to look at - three stories high, with an amazing-looking front garden and an extremely large pool beside it. Around it were many comfortable-looking deck chairs, one of which already had Fiona sprawled out across. She had wasted no time in jumping the fence and making herself comfortable. The other three walked through the main gate carrying all of their luggage.


"Hey Baldy! Why dont you come and enjoy the sun?" Fiona shouted out, grinning at the pale-skinned girl.


"I'm fine, thanks. I'd rather my skin didn't look like your hair."


Thetis let out a little chuckle but stopped almost immediately after receiving a glare from her partner. Telran ignored the females and dragged his bag through the front door of the beautiful building.


Meanwhile the rest of the group were bundled into an SUV that Lokka had rented to help everybody get around the island. Even though he had paid for the vehicle, it seemed Kerr instead had claimed the driver's seat. It didn't bother Lokka, it just seemed kind of odd. Stolz was asleep in the middle seat with Emma and Terra on either side of them. The girls were trying not too move too much, lest they wake up the sleeping child. Kram was sat on the very back seat, looking out of the rear window of the car. Everything seemed far too quiet in comparison to the loud antics of the plane, but it was most likely that the aforementioned sleeping child had played a big part in this.


The day lagged on a bit; everybody was very tired from the long plane journey and hadn't really slept much. They spent the majority of the day unpacking and getting used to the house. Fiona had been on the same sun bed for most of the day - her skin, however, had not burnt. Everybody else had been busy settling into their rooms.


The house had four bedrooms. Fiona and Thetis were in the uppermost bedroom on the top floor. On the next floor were the next two extra large bedrooms. In the first of these, Emma, Terra and Idris had unpacked their stuff. Just opposite the Girls' room was the Boys' room: in this one, facility two's Kram, Lokka and Telran had settled in. These eight Destrillians had been very lucky, mainly because they had been paying attention during the room choosing phase of the day. Kerr, on the other hand, had not been so lucky, and was on the first floor bedroom with Stolz. He would have taken Fiona's place had it not meant getting between her and Thetis. He'd also considered taking the couch, but then realised that it was probably best that Stolz not be unsupervised.


As the day settled into the evening, all of the Destrillians were sat at the main dining room table, trying to decide what to do for food.


"Why don't we go out for a nice cooked meal?" Emma said in a cheery tone.


"I'm not going out tonight," came Kerr's simple response.


Emma slumped back down, realising that this was the sentiment felt by most at the table.


"We could always just stay in and cook?" Thetis suggested.


"Yeah? And who's going to do that?" Fiona yelled.


There was a brief pause. Idris had been the first one to slowly turn her head and face Kram, who had been sat at the other end of the table. Slowly but surely, every other Destrillian fell into the same wavelength. If there had been such a thing as a simultaneous, telepathic sigh, then this is when it would have happened.


Kram merely grinned.

"Okay guys, I've got Xi Qinese steamed shark with Skelp lemons, or stirfried Damascan Buffalo. Which will it be?" he called out in a giddy-happy sense to each and every one of them while departing for the kitchen.


Kram had brought with him the stocks of both recipes anyway - regardless of whatever was choosen, he wished to test himself and impress the others with one of the cuisines he had learned recently. His pride as a chef was at stake. Taking all of the ingredients out, he began preparing for the group's dinner. Wrapping his red scarf around his hair to prevent any from falling in his face, he drew two knives dramatically, similar to a ninja's pose.

"Let's get to work," he grinned.


Thetis hung her head. That was the last time she'd ever make a suggestion again.


Time passed and most of the Destrillians found themselves doing other things while waiting to try Kram's meal. Fiona had dragged Thetis up to the top floor for some reason or other - nobody really wanted to ask. Telran and Lokka had been having a discussion on the sofas for a while, while Idris listened on from the other side of the room. Terra had got in the shower upstairs, and Emma had been trying to converse with Stolz about their life--but hadn't yet got very far. Stolz had run outside and jumped in the pool.
Nobody had seen Kerr in a while, but most of the others assumed he had just been spending some time alone in his room. Emma decided to take some time to get to know Kram, and so headed for the kitchen, intending on helping him with his meal.


Kram was idly listening to Xi Qinese pop music with his MP5 player, a reminder of his girlfriend, who was not with the group at the moment. The Damascan stew took longer to prepare due to its complexity, and so Kram would have to wait half an hour until it was ready for adding the other ingredients.


"Man... Talk about boring," he whined quietly, using the music to amuse himself.


"Ummm...excuse me?" Emma said, not speaking loudly enough for Kram to hear over his headphones. "...Kram?"


Kram carried on stirring the stew, unaware that Emma was behind him. He stopped stirring for a second and turned to grab the salt and pepper. As he bumped into Emma he let out a surprised squeal, not expecting a person to be standing right behind him. Quickly, he collected himself and turned off his music.


"I'm sorry Emma, I didn't expect you to be there!" he addressed her with a smile.


She politely returned the favour and smiled back. "I was just wondering if you wanted any help with the salad?"


"Heh, I almost forgot that." He grinned awkwardly. "Thanks very much!"


On the other side of the room, Lokka and Telran's discussion was brought to a halt when Thetis came and plonked herself next to Idris. The two simply stared at her. Thetis developed a perplexed look.


"Whats the matter?"


"Thetis?" Idris said, casually resting a palm on her shoulder.


"Yeah...?"


"Your T-shirt is inside out."


About forty minutes later the Destrillians, and even Stolz who at this point was unusually calm, were all sat at the table. Kram had finished serving up the food and had instructed everyone to try their meal. Although hesitant at first, Emma's eagerness to start eating gave the rest of the group hope that this was going to be a good meal. Destrillians aren't surprised easily. This is mainly because they always expect the worst.


After some of the group had finished eating, a few having even complimented Kram on his hard work, the evening wound down and everyone began to go to bed. Stolz had been asleep for a while at this point, and Kerr had brought it upon himself to carry the child to their room. As he lugged the still-smiling blonde kid up the stairs, many of the others began to follow suit. Eventually everyone was atleast in their own rooms, exhausted from the long restless flight, and conserving energy for the next fun-filled day.


In Fiona's room, Thetis had just finished getting into bed. Fiona stripped down to the necessities and joined her.


"So," the redhead said quietly. "What did the others say about your T-shirt being wrong side out?"


Thetis turned in her bed so that she could face her partner. Fiona was now smirking. "You knew?"


Fiona let out a small laugh, and then grabbed the girl by her shoulders.




Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Kerr felt like he had hit a stroke of luck. Stolz had been out for the count since after dinner--and to think, the dark-eyed Destrillian had been expecting a long night of incessant rambling. A little bit of sleep would do him good, even though he had tried to get some earlier on in the day.
But things are never that simple.


Stolz stirred on the bed, their arm twitching a little to the side. Then a pause. And then a similar action with the legs. Kerr watched, silently hoping that they were only having a bad dream or something, and that it would pass.


Suddenly the child stood up, their eyes clearly showing that they were still, in fact, asleep. Stolz wandered around the room for a little while, all the while being followed by Kerr's eyes, watching to make sure that the child didn't do any serious damage to themselves.


"Ughhh..." Came the muffled sound from their mouth.


"Go back to bed kid," Kerr said, hoping on some level that they would understand him.


"I'm going to eat your soul!" Stolz shouted without warning. Kerr simply turned over in his bed, pulled his duvet over him and quietly responded.


"Okay."




"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a heavy sleeper," Lokka said to his friend.

"Well thats good; he deserves some rest after that meal," Telran replied from his bed on the farther side of the room. Kram was sleeping in the middle bed, snoring very lightly.


"Anyway...goodnight friend," Lokka said, closing his eyes. The two men watched the back of their eyelids roll over as they let their minds wander and their limbs rest. But once again, things are never that simple.


Kram sprang bolt upright and almost screamed "I AM THE DARK RIDER!" Lokka and Telran just as suddenly bolted up in their own beds, a look of utter surprise and shock on their faces. Telran, for some reason, felt obligated to answer Kram.

"Yes, yes you are."


Almost upon hearing this confirmation, Kram felt back on his bed starting to snore again. His two comrades fell back on their own. Without saying a word to each other they rolled on their sides and pulled their duvets over their heads.




The girls had heard all of the shouting. They still were not sure why it had happened, but Terra figured that it was nothing their housemates couldn't handle. Emma had already gotten ready and crept into bed, and Idris was just now lying down. She was smiling, something she did often when talking to her fellow Destrillians, but quite rarely at any other time. The pale girl stretched her legs and arms out, feeling the real comfort of a mattress underneath her - it was heaven compared against the stone and concrete of city rooftops.


Terra switched the light off and got undressed, ready to hop into the bed beside her where she had unpacked her things. She took a blind step forwards and slightly misjudged her footing, hitting the ground quickly and making a loud THUMP noise, which sounded a good dozen times louder in the silence of the room.


Both of her friends sprang up on their beds, squinting their eyes to see her. "Terra! Are you okay?!" Emma shouted.

Eye am fyne emma, i just tripd. Eye am fyne.


She hauled herself up onto her bed and crawled up to rest her head on the pillow. The other two girls laid back down, letting quiet sighs of relief escape their lips, before entering a warm slumber.


Terra lay in her bed and looked up at the ceiling, barely making out the light in the middle.


Its goeng to be a guud weak, she thought to herself.

Telran awoke to the blinding light of the morning sun. None of the boys had remembered to close the blinds when they settled down to sleep the night before. He yawned and stretched outwards, checking the clock in the middle of the room.


8am, he thought. Early enough for breakfast.


He opened up the large cupboard that he had unpacked his stuff into, all the while being careful not to disturb either Lokka or Kram from their slumber. He quickly got dressed into a yellow tee and a pair of dark shorts. He had never been one for wearing shorts, but then back at home there was never much call for it. The door creaked open as he crept out of the room, making his way down the two flights of stairs. He could smell something being made in the kitchen before he had even got there, although he wasn't too sure what it was that was being made. He had managed to have this question answered for him as he got into the kitchen and saw Stolz running about clumsily with all kinds of ingredients. Kerr had obviously been awoken by the child as he was sat on one of the kitchen stools, head rested on his arm in a very fatigued fashion.

"Guess who's making waffles!" Stolz screamed.


Telran realised then that his efforts to creep silently downstairs had been wasted, as the child's shriek echoed throughout the house.


An hour later, all of the Destrillians were awake and downstairs. Most of them were seated in either the kitchen, or the eating area. Kram was now rushing around the kitchen after Stolz, who seemed to be making a mess wherever they went. Lokka, Emma and Terra were sitting down eating their 'waffles', although the shape and nature of the food suggested that it was not yet a known recipe. Without warning, Fiona lept up onto the very table the were eating at and placed her hands on her hips.


"Listen up, chumps!" her voice boomed, getting the attention of everyone. "I better see everyone's ass on the beach in an hour, or I'll make you wish you only had to deal with the heat of that sun out there!" She then seemed to stare right at Lokka who had barely looked up from his plate. "Some of you might burn either way." Lokka glared at the girl before returning to his food.


"Theres no way I'm going to the beach," Kerr said from his arm chair in the lounge area. "Not going to happen."


An hour and ten minutes later, the Destrillians arrived at the beach - Kerr included. Most were in some kind of swimwear, although Terra and Kerr seemed not to be, the latter likely trying to hold some kind of dignity. Kram had gone off to the local mall on his own to get some picnic food for the group, and secretly hoped to purchase some kind of inflatable boat for the sea. They set down most of their stuff on a very secluded part of the beach, almost hidden away from the rest of it by large rocks and huge palm trees.

"Are you sure you don't want to come in just a little bit, get your feet wet?" Emma said, her palm resting on Terra's shoulder.


Its ohkay emma, you haf fun, the girl told her, a grateful smile on her face.


Emma nodded and made her way to the water, with Thetis not far behind her. Some of the others also got into the water, leaving Fiona, Kerr and Terra behind.


"You're not coming in?" Thetis yelled at her partner.


"No way! I can get a great tan from right over here!"


"You big wimp," Thetis commented, knowing that Fiona could be quite easily provoked. The red babe stood up almost immediately and made a mad dash for the sea, intent on tackling Thetis. The blue-haired girl was thrown face-first under water by the contact. Emma, nearby, had been partially caught in the splash, and was not enjoying the fact that half of her hair was now wet.


Kram had been shopping in the supermarket next to the beach for about twenty minutes now. He had picked up a lot of groceries for the house, as well as some food and drink for the beach. He was now standing looking at two items, trying to decide between them. One of them was a large, green, inflatable crocodile. The other was an equally large inflatable boat. He cursed himself for not being able to decide between the two. On the one hand, the boat could fit multiple people inside it, and would be a great way to travel their portion of the ocean. On the other hand, if he had the crocodile, he would be very popular among the others and they would all be dying to have a turn on it. As he tried to make his decision he noticed a certain person who had been standing looking at him. He turned around to this person and grinned.


"Um hey uh--" He started but was cut off by his sheer surprise, dropping his bags of groceries. "Oh.."


Back on the beach, Thetis had been swimming underwater, testing just how deep the ocean was in this particular area. A movement, glimpsed out of the corner of her left eye, startled her; she motioned around to look that way and saw a rather large electric blue fish. It hadn't moved since she had been looking at it--it was almost motionless in the water, staring at her. A few moments passed by, Thetis staying almost glued to the spot as well as the mysterious fish, competing in what could only be known as the first cross-species staring contest. Then just like that, the fish swam away. Thetis blinked a few times to try and make out whether she was conscious or not, and then swam to the surface.


Kerr, meanwhile, had set up a rather large umbrella to keep his portion of the beach in the shade. He sat down on his towel and momentarily glanced at Terra who had been playing with a small albino mouse.Kerr had certainly seen the mouse before, but he couldn't quite place where from. Either way he ignored it and closed his eyes, happy to get a quiet moment.


"Hola Señor."


Kerr opened his eyes, only to be disappointed with the apparent return of Kram. The boy also had someone with him, a female who he did not recognise.


"Kerr, Terra; I want you to meet my uh- close friend, Tao!" Kram said motioning towards her as if illustrating the words 'Ta-dah!'.


In response, the gravity Destrillian just closed his eyes as they had been before. Terra greeted her with a warm smile and, before long, so did the others as they returned to the sand. Stolz had climbed atop Telran's shoulders and was now navigating him in the direction of the new person, eager to say hello.


Lokka and Idris had been the only ones left in the water, having not yet seen Tao's arrival on the beach. They had been idly floating by, letting the current sweep them further down the coast. Before long they were on a completely different portion of the beach, still equally deserted though.


Well, almost deserted.


"CANONBALL!" There was a massive splash next to them instantly after the words had been shouted. Idris and Lokka just looked at each other, both of them knowing full-well the source of the noise. Before long, the 'source' had risen to the surface.


"Ha! You kids have gotta lotta catchin' up to do to beat this tan!"


The two pale-skinned Destrillians smiled in response, watching as Nova returned to the beach. Both of them then looked away, almost flinching from the sight of his bright orange speedos. Deciding a time they deemed safe to look back, they did so, now seeing Jettison also on the beach with him.


"We're set up just over there," Idris shouted, pointing in the general direction of the other Destrillians, before giving a friendly smile. Lokka nodded at the two as they grabbed their stuff and moved along. It was turning out to be quite the gathering here.




"Okay!" yelled Fiona, once again addressing the entire group, who were at this point all out of the water and drying off. "Lets get all you assholes up - it's volleyball time and I'm not getting the lazy team." The girl looked around the group. "Which one of you is gonna captain the team I beat to a pulp?"


There was a long pause, almost as if nobody wanted to directly compete with Fiona's leadership skills. However, somebody did feel up to the challenge.


"Alright then, I'll make sure my team wins. But I'm getting the pretty ones yo'," Nova boomed.


Kerr wasn't exactly sure why Nova would consider him pretty, but he was for some reason picked to be on the large mans team; alongside Tao, Emma, Terra and Thetis. He was naturally going to not get involved in the game, but a run in with the two boisterous personalities had ensured that it wouldn't be that easy. Fiona had on her team Lokka, Telran (who had Stolz still mounted on his shoulders,) Kram, Jettison and Idris.


"Okay then," Lokka announced. "Normal volleyball rules, no powers allowed. First team to 25 points wins, losing team buys the drinks."

"Lets play some volleyball bitches!" Nova shouted as the first ball was hit by Tao on his team.


Telran had been having a hard time keeping up with the game so far. Stolz had stayed on his shoulders, keeping the teams even, but it also meant that he had a lot of trouble manoeuvering around on the sand. It didn't help that Stolz was leaning whichever way they felt like, with no concern for the poor person underneath them.


"Mine!" Stolz squeeled as the ball came right toward them. The child almost jumped off of Telran's shoulders as they hit the ball, causing the tattooed man to stumble a little afterward. He wondered just how long he could keep it up.


Terra, meanwhile, was having her own difficulty keeping up with the flow of the game. Often though, she was being picked up by Nova in order to hit the ball. Whilst he did this with no warning, Terra was very thankful that he was keeping her well-included. Nova unknowingly received a glare from a certain blue-haired Destrillian on the opposing team because of this.


Idris had got really into the spirit of the competition without realising it. Afterall, nobody else on their team was eager enough to compete with Fiona's enthusiasm for the game, mainly because they didn't want to get an elbow to the face. She jumped up and whacked the ball clean into the other area, earning a point, much to Thetis' annoyance as she had just missed it.


"Nice job Baldy, but you've got a lot of catching up to do!" Fiona called out, making faces at Thetis from the other side of the net.


Tao hit the ball hard from her side of the net--harder than she'd intended. It soared through the air and hit Kram square in the face while his attention was elsewhere. He fell to his knees, his face now in the sand. He looked up and laughed as Tao began to apologize;
Fiona, meanwhile, only turned her nose up.

"Jeez, why'd I pick the weaker one?"


Lokka barely managed to send back the ball after another massive blow from Nova. The man had arms like steel it seemed, and it was wearing them down. The white-haired man turned around to one of his less enthusiastic teammates.


"How'd he get to be so strong anyway?" he asked, slightly panting for breath.


Jettison smiled, something so far unseen. "The man is what he is."


The score was 18-14 to Nova's team, and the entire atmosphere was heating up - although it was entirely possible that this was due to Fiona's anger at so far losing the game. She smacked the ball toward Emma who returned it, but not before recoiling slightly as she touched it.


"That ball is scalding hot! Fiona, are you using your powers?" she said angrily.


The girl laughed. "Ha, come on. It's not THAT bad!"


From that point on the game changed a fair amount. Lokka's rule of not using powers seemed to have worn off, which meant each member contributing whatever they could. At this point nobody wanted to be on the losing team. It wasn't about points anymore, it was about survival.


The game continued but before long the Destrillians were distracted by a large wave sweeping over one side of the playing field, knocking Telran off his balance with Stolz falling down into the wet sand. Coincidently the side of the field affected was the opposite side to the one which Thetis was on. She smiled a little as she scored a point while the team was distracted. The joy only lasted up untill Jettison scored her own point by hitting the ball, managing to split it into 3 identical balls with her own powers. Tao fell for the trick as she leapt for one of the balls only for it to disappear before her, with the real one touching down beside her.


Kerr picked up the ball and sent it flying skyward, enhancing its speed to hurtle down particularly fast on the other side of the net. Lokka had realised this, however, and as the ball was almost about to hit the sand, it bounced off a partially transparent sheet that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. The ball was sent back into the air and Stolz used this moment to leap up and send the ball flying down.


The game finally got to 24 points each. Tension was at its all time high and absolutely everyone was determined to win the game. Lokka and Idris were formulating a plan for the winning point while Terra was preparing to serve the final shot from on top of Nova's back. As the ball went up the small girl sent the ball hurtling toward the metal Destrillian. Idris, ready to carry out the plan and bring the game to an end, rushed toward the ball.


Suddenly Fiona jumped in front of her, grinning with determination. She pulled back her fist, which had turned an unusual shade of red, and punched the ball away. Fiona had obviously got way to into the game because the ball simply exploded, what with all the heat that had been built up. A look of shock on her face, the redhead's features suddenly turned to anger as she realised she had nobody near enough to her to blame.


"BOOYAH!" Nova exclaimed, picking up Thetis and Tao with each arm and jumping in the air, the tiny Terra still on his back struggling to hold on. A smile had even reached Kerr's lips.


"Nice job Sparky," Idris said as she began to walk away. Lokka and Telran grinned at each other, both feeling a little embarrased for having got into the game too much. Jettison just smiled, shook her head, and walked away. Kram, meanwhile, had been trying to dispute the obvious victory and carry on with the game.


"Come on, we can go to 50 can't we?" he shouted, eager to keep playing.


"It's getting dark, Kram. We need to go have dinner," Emma replied, laughing as she helped Terra get down from the huge man's back. Kram hung his head, disappointed. Tao approached him, however, and put her arm around him - he cheered up and got his stuff packed up to leave the beach.


"Lose your cool there?" Thetis said to Fiona as the others walked away.


"Shut up," came the repy.


Thetis threw her arms around the redhead, knowing that she'd be back to her usual self in no time.


The gang found their way to a nearby bar after they had finished their dinner at a Xi Qinese restaurant. Fiona's volleyball team all approached the bartender, meaning to buy a drink each for a member of the other team, as was arranged.


"What can I get for you?" the man behind the bar asked. The man looked to be in his early thirties, was bald and was wearing a brown trenchcoat; unusual attire for bar staff, especially in this part of the world.


The undercover Donovan Early took each of the group's drink orders and presented it to them straight away. He studied them a little, noting that they didn't seem like normal people. He stopped after a while, remembering that he was undercover and didn't want to draw attention to himself. If his clothes hadn't have been in the wash this morning he wouldn't have stood out so much. Grabbing a glass for the next drink, he began to pour, keeping an eye out for the Animus he'd been sent to track down.


The Destrillians only had a couple of drinks each, not wanting to intoxicate themselves too much after expelling so much energy playing volleyball.


Well. Not everyone was satisfied with only having a couple. Fiona was on her 5th shot and still going, not moving very far away from the bar itself at any point. Nova was also holding a large jug of beer in celebration, of which Ms. Brand refused to drink from.


Kram had only had two beers, not wanting to make a fool of himself in front of the newly arrived Tao. This didn't change much however, as for some reason he had become somewhat intolerant of alcohol, feeling ill not long after its consumption. Terra, meanwhile, had been drinking out of a large, elaborately designed glass with a bendy straw. Telran had bought the girl some kind of fruit cocktail. She wasn't certain of the contents, but she knew she liked it.


Emma approached Tao as she looked after a slurring Kram.


"So where are you staying, Tao?"


"Umm, I'm supposed to be staying at a hotel with my brothers, but they're at a conference this evening."


"Well would you like to come back and stay with us tonight? I'm sure theres room!" Emma said, sipping from her fizzy orange drink.

"Umm...I dont want to be a...a bother," Tao said shyly.


"Nonsense, it's fine! Isn't it, Kram?"


Kram barely made out his name as he stumbled trying to stand up. "Ughhhh yes! Wait...I'm sorry what did you say again?"


"Tao can stay with us?"


"Yes yes!" he shouted, a lot happier after hearing Emma's suggestion. "Yes we can make room for her, definitely!"


Tao smiled and gave the pair of them a hug. Nova chugged down the rest of his beer and put his hand on Jettison, indicating that he had finished.


"Right, it's been lovely hangin' with ya'll, but me and Brand gotta mosey back to our place. Guess we'll catch up to you later on. Always a pleasure ladies!" Nova announced as he grabbed his coat and made his way to the exit with Jettison beside him.


Lokka, Thetis and Idris had been sitting at a smaller table aside from them. A clock beside them indicated that it was nearly midnight and it was probably a good time to stumble back to the house.


"You better get your friend over there so we can all leave," Idris said to Thetis, motioning toward Fiona, who was still at the bar. The blue-haired girl nodded and proceeded to try and convince Fiona that it was home time.


"Hey Kerr, will you be carrying this one back to the house?" Lokka shouted at Kerr who was sat elsewhere, pointing toward Stolz who had long since fallen asleep on a couple of chairs next to him.


Kerr only sighed in response, knowing that this was now his duty for the rest of the trip. He finished his beverage and carefully picked up the child, lugging them over his shoulder. Lokka and Idris laughed as he headed out, getting an early start on the walk home.


"And what about you?" Lokka turned to the pale girl. "Do I need to carry you out as well?"


"Hmm. Somehow I doubt it." Idris grinned as she, too, finished her drink.


"It was...just a suggestion," Lokka finished, smiling as he stood up.


The Destrillians all left the building and headed home, Telran and Lokka supporting Kram as they walked. The house was only half a mile away and so they didn't have to walk long. All in all, they knew they'd be getting a good night's sleep.


Well, most of them would be. With the mood Fiona was now in, Thetis might not've been so lucky. Or maybe she would be, depending on the interpretation.


Telran sighed, absolutely exhausted from the day's events, not to mention the added strain of having to carry Kram. Still, it was a refreshing break from everything back home, and it was definitely nice to be among his own kind. He glanced over at Terra, who had been walking beside Emma, and smiled. She smiled back, and then looked away suddenly. He laughed to himself and looked toward the Beach House, now in plain sight.


Through a pair of binoculars, the Destrillians were seen entering their home, and not long after turning the lights off. The man on the other side of the binoculars grinned as he brushed a portion of his green hair to the side.


"Found ya."

Nine Days After the Escape from Viola

“How much longer?”

No reply. Standard.

Thetis was getting nervous now; the wait had never been this long before. She stood a little way from Fiona, shivering from the biting cold on her exposed skin and thin clothes. The storm outside had drenched the Destrillian, still clad in the training gear from Viola, though the days and nights sleeping rough and in the ceaseless rain had robbed the former vest and loose jogging pants of their former colour and left them so threadbare and dirty that they could barely be considered rags. Keeping her skin and clothes dry had been simple enough: she'd only had to siphon the water droplets from them both and transform them to water vapour. If she hadn’t, then it was likely that the experience would have probably given her hypothermia, or pneumonia, or some other human disease. Or something.

Fiona seemed dry enough at any rate, but that had never not been an option when she could control her body temperature. She always seemed to dry off faster. Or maybe she just didn’t let it show when she was uncomfortable. Thetis always reckoned that that was the most likely scenario. Fiona was a machine.

“So, are there any cops out there?” Thetis tried again; her voice wasn’t much above a whisper.

Fiona said nothing - she was crouched by the boarded-up window, squinting between the darkened, ancient wooden planks out at the street below. Truthfully, Fiona had admitted to herself, even if there were policemen running around they would have been impossible to see until they were nearly on top of the abandoned building that she and Thetis had taken refuge in. Visibility was at the lowest it had been since the pair of Destrillians had broken out of the Violan facility nine days ago. The rain was coming down in thick sheets, broken up occasionally by sporadic bombardments of bullet-like hail. Only the telltale sirens would act as a warning. That was then things would get tricky. At least Thetis had stopped asking annoying questions, though.

“Fiona?”

Or not.

“Are there any cops out there, Fiona?”

“If you want to know, go out and check for yourself, Thetis,” Fiona spat back. Thetis was annoying at the best of times. Babysitting her when an entire town’s worth of police were on the hunt for them had made Thetis bypass annoying, and go straight to genuinely dangerous distraction. Humans weren’t a problem, even armed ones, even lots of armed ones. But she wouldn’t be able to focus on them if her attention was constantly going to be on the weakling in the corner.

Thetis kept her mouth shut from then on. Fiona was in an edgy mood, and she knew it wasn’t a good idea to bother Fiona when she was so focused on other things. But she needed to know. They weren’t going to be safe unless they could kill these humans, or hide away until they could continue going south. Fiona was the one who had decided on going south, towards the capital city of Osea. Thetis had dutifully agreed. The noise of the rain on the rattling roof told her just how ferocious the storm was outside. It made sense, what Fiona was asking of her, because of the rain coming down outside, she would probably have better luck looking outside for signs of the searching police than Fiona would. Setting her face as determined as it could be she took a few bold steps towards where Fiona was standing at the window.

Sensing the movement behind her, Fiona swivelled her head around, and looked incredulously at her partner. “Are you serious?” she asked scathingly, her tone of voice checking Thetis’ advance.

Thetis set her eyebrows into a frown and twisted her mouth into a scowl.

“I’m going to look,” she insisted.

Fiona turned her head and made a small scoffing noise. She stood up to her full height and walked away from the window, not even bothering to look back at Thetis or to double check that the coast was clear outside.

“Do what you want,” she said dismissively, stalking through the empty doorway and into the only other room in the hovel.

Thetis bit her lip in frustration. In spending so much time with Fiona, she had spent a lot of time growing accustomed to the constant haughty superiority that Fiona seemed to command at all times. Despite their equal status as Destrillians, it was hard not to feel pushed aside by Fiona’s sheer presence. She radiated self-assured confidence in a way that never failed to awe the Destrillian of water; even when Fiona’s impatience with her ran fully over into blatant disrespect, it was hard to stand up to her when every move she made and every word she spoke gave the impression of someone in total control of every situation. Thetis didn’t bother to go look out of the window. If Fiona hadn’t seen anything, then she wasn’t likely to either. She’d always been better at this kind of thing anyway.

She followed the fire Destrillian’s example and walked into the other room to find Fiona sitting on the sole chair in the room, unpacking the rucksack full of stolen food onto the table. These two wooden items were the only pieces of furniture in the room; everything else looked like it had long since been stripped out.

“I thought you were going to go check for cops, Crybaby,” Fiona said testily, watching Thetis with a knowing smirk.

“Yeah, I did. There’s nobody out there,” Thetis lied.

“Good job, Thetis. I’ll definitely sleep easier now,” Fiona said sarcastically, her keen intuition easily seeing through her partner’s transparent attempt to measure up to her. Her smirk widened as she watched Thetis awkwardly attempt to avoid her gaze.

“So, what do we do now?” she replied quickly, attempting to lead the conversation away from any potential embarrassment in front of Fiona.

“I’m eating,” Fiona said in a bored voice, reaching for one of the apples they had stolen and taking a rather large bite out of it. Choosing to ignore the fact that Thetis was still looking at her expectedly with the pouting, unsure face of a child, she sighed impatiently. “I’m going to Osea, remember?”

“Yeah, but I meant what are we going to do next?” Thetis asked, Fiona’s keen ears detecting just the slightest tremble in her voice. Was she afraid? Afraid of what? Whatever the answer was, the very idea of it only served to make the ater Destrillian’s presence more grating.

“After getting to Osea?” Fiona asked incredulously, taking another bite out her apple, something she seemed far more concerned with than her conversation with the other Destrillian.

“No I mean right now!” Thetis’ shrill voice raised enough to snap Fiona’s attention to her partner, her gaze instantly hardening in the face of Thetis’ complaining.

“How the hell should I know what to do next!?” Fiona suddenly roared back, not standing up, but sitting up more seriously in the chair, the apple in her hand bursting into flames. “You expect to decide everything for you? You’re like a damn child.” She paused for breath, letting her harsh words sink in. “A human child.” That did the trick; she saw Thetis’ eyes watering up under her insult, but the fire Destrillian didn’t care. Remorse just rolled off her seemingly impenetrable hide like water off the hull of a ship.

Rather than let herself go in front of Fiona, Thetis stormed out and back into the larger room. Given the small space of the dingy little condemned house they were occupying, though, the gasping audible sobs resonated loudly to where Fiona was sitting.

“Oh shut up!” she shouted back, before digging another piece of fruit out of the bag to continue her meal.

.oOo.

Thetis didn’t know how long she sat there in the corner of the room. She just knew that by the time she dared to lift her head out of her arms, dusk had fallen outside, and that her sobbing had stopped. The tears still trickled down her cheeks, and formed damp patches on her knees where she had drawn them up to her face. She had clamped her eyes shut for so long that it almost felt as though she had drifted off into the embrace of sleep. But she hadn’t, she had remained painfully awake and aware the entire time. She had gradually gotten used to Fiona yelling at her to shut up from the other room, to the point where she had almost tuned her out completely, which had just given her more time to think. Or more appropriately, to worry.

There was a lot to be worried about. Not just their current situation with the police, but what they were going to do once they got to the city of Osea. What were they going to do then? Even Fiona had no idea what to do once she got there, and that thought was terrifying to Thetis. Like some unknown monster, lurking in her future, vast, unforgiving and unavoidable. Taunting her, reminding her with an all-knowing smirk that there was no place for Destrillians in the busy, mundane world of humans; for all her power, all of the hardships she had been through at Viola, she was ultimately left impotent and trapped. Trapped in a world she had no knowledge of, and no knowledge of how to live in.

She shuddered again as she felt the fear take over. The fear that she would have to do all of this alone. Fiona’s strength, Fiona’s charisma, and the simple fact that Fiona was there was the only tangible thing she felt she could hold onto in a world that seemed so rife with things she didn’t understand. Fiona was her only lifeline in this storm.

She felt the rain falling before she heard it splash against the ground outside.

Thetis tightened her arms around her knees and clamped her eyes shut again. Visions of herself, proud and confident, blending in with the humans in their own environment flashed before her eyes momentarily before being ripped away to be replaced with the stark truth; the image of a girl, scared and exhausted, curled up into a ball and crying in the corner of a condemned building.

Thetis looked up and gave a great sniff, wiping the tears from her eyes with the cuff of her wrist. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the darkness; the interior of the room was only lit by the ambient light shining through the boarded-up windows from the street lamps outside. The dark didn’t bother her, not nearly as much as the silence did. Not the silence in the building, the silence inside her mind. It took a few moments for it to really hit home, and then the panic set in. She wasn’t aware of when it had happened, or how long ago it must have happened. But it came as plain as day to her. At some point in the night, Fiona had vanished. Thetis wasn’t able to sense her at all.

"Good riddance," Thetis said with a confidence she in no way, shape or form felt, but the thought of Fiona's humiliation was still raw and burning in her memory. Her voice trembled from what she would tell herself was the biting cold from the wild storm outside the building. She turned and looked around at the empty room and thought how large it seemed now she was on her own. It was then that the thought came to her; she was on her own now.

Completely and totally on her own for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. There were no scientists telling her what to do, no Dr. Perkins chastising her, no other Destrillians harassing her, no Fiona telling her what to do anymore or putting her down for the slightest reason. Despite the initial overwhelming idea, it didn't feel good to her.

.oOo.

It was times like this, Fiona thought to herself, that she should have really bothered teaching herself to read. Her blazing orange eyes narrowed at the list of bus times written on the signpost inside this bus stop, trying to make heads or tails of the bizarre ensemble of squiggles and dots. The plastic canopy protected her from the nighttime rain that relentlessly thundered down around her, but still she had been forced to steal a dark hooded top to cover her bare shoulders and exposed head. The weather was just starting to piss her off now; too much rain put her in a bad mood. Water in general seemed to put her in a bad mood, really.

“Hey,” she called to the only other person waiting at the bus stop, a haggard looking man who seemed to be doing his best to avoid having to acknowledge Fiona’s presence.

“What?” he grumbled back reluctantly, not bothering to turn his head to make eye contact with Fiona. This didn’t faze the fire Destrillian in the slightest.

“Does the next bus go to Osea?”

The man turned to stare goggle-eyed at Fiona, his weathered features taut in disbelief. “Look for yourself. Can’t you read?” He chortled slightly at his own ‘wit’.

“No, I can’t, actually,” Fiona said testily, much more annoyed by the mockery of a human than by her own inability to read. “Prick.” She said it rather more loudly than would be deemed appropriate as she turned to gaze incomprehensibly at the alien language on the sign in front of her.

“So, does it go to Osea or not?” she said after a moment of stubborn silence, whereupon it dawned on her that she actually needed this information.

“Yeah it does,” the man said with a tone of finality that indicated he wanted nothing more to do with the Destrillian. This didn’t faze Fiona in the slightest either.

Fiona grunted in acknowledgement, not wanting to waste any more time talking to the human...though truthfully, it had been starting to weigh on her mind. Now that she was out in the human world and out of the cold confines and dingy corridors of Viola, she had always known that in order to actually survive in this world she would have had to interact with human beings. But she hadn’t expected them to be this annoying. They seemed so frail, and whiny. She remembered she had watched them scamper into their houses from the streets after it had started to rain. As though a bit of water was some unimaginable hardship to run away and hide from.

Subconsciously, she scratched at one of the old scars on her shoulder.

Thetis was always much better at dealing with the humans than she was - she went and talked to them, and asked for directions (passers-by were often reluctant to exchange information with Fiona). Everything about them, from their appearance to their scent, seemed designed to piss her off. Then again, nearly everything about Thetis made her feel the same way. With her constant complaining and an attitude reluctant to take any decisive action, hell, she was nearly as bad as the damn humans. (Though Fiona couldn’t quite find the resolve to dismiss the claim that if it wasn’t for Thetis, then she never would have made it this far.)

At least Thetis would be fine on her own, she concluded. As annoying as the dumb bitch was, it was still a bit grating to Fiona to leave a fellow Destrillian behind. But she was always slowing her down, stopping whatever Fiona was doing to go back and double-check that Thetis was okay and keeping up.

She scratched at her old scar again, pausing momentarily to wonder whether or not Thetis’ psychic senses were attuned enough to wake her up if the police did come barging through the condemned house looking for her. Something that a regular human being might have recognised as a pang of guilt stabbed Fiona in the subconscious. The last she had seen of her former companion had been just before she had left her behind, curled up sleeping in the corner of the room.

Fiona dismissed the concern. Thetis was more than capable of taking down the few dozen humans that might come to arrest her.

Probably.

If she didn’t burst into tears.

She was a Destrillian, she could manage.

.oOo.

Thetis had lost track of the time since she had woken up to find herself alone and cold. It felt like it had been hours, but it was really impossible to tell. The sky was still dark and overcast, the only indication that any time had passed at all was the strengthening of intensity in the rain that was hammering down outside with unmatched ferocity. It was one of the biggest differences, she had found, from being in Viola to being on the outside. Inside the carefully monitored and controlled environment of Facility #1, the temperature was always just warm enough to be comfortable. The atmosphere was warm, sterile, and so far removed from the chaos of the outside world. She shivered slightly.

The fleeting thought that this was the first time she had been truly alone. Even when she had been alone in her stasis tube in Viola, there had been the constant sense of being watched by guards and doctors. In some ways it had given her a sense of security, that there was always somebody looking out for her. That no matter what happened, there would always be the sense of knowing that her future would be assured. That there would always be a plan for her and a definite way forward. Now that she was on her own, there was no comfort to be found when she turned her mind to the immediate future. There was no immediate future for her.

She tried to force down a small sob and control the vigorous shaking that had seized control of her body. A constant stream of water droplets cascaded down from the gaps between the swollen and crooked slats in the roof.

Thetis’ bright saffron eyes looked up from the table she had been watching the water pool into the various dents and cracks of.

Without even realising it, she had been making water spin in tumultuous whirlpools. It had been the first time she’d ever let her power wander like this. It had always been so swiftly regulated - this had been the first time that she had even realised that her powers had been acting on their own without any conscious impulse on her part. Without even realizing, she watched her stare trace ripples in the unnaturally swirling water.

Everything was hopeless.

Thetis felt the tears threaten to break free yet again.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve just been sitting here fucking crying. That’s just sad .” The familiar sarcastic drawl caused the blue-haired Destrillian to whip her head around to see the form of Fiona leaning on the window sill, her familiar fiery hair stubbornly refusing to lie flat against the downpour and the scowl of disapproval that seemed to cross her features whenever her gaze fell upon Thetis.

“Y-You came back?” Thetis asked, trying her hardest not to let her voice break whilst in Fiona’s scrutinising presence.

“Surprised you even noticed that I left,” the fire Destrillian said as she clambered awkwardly through the open window and out of the rain, which was beginning to turn to steam on contact with her head and shoulders.

“Why did you come back?” Thetis asked her quickly, encouraged by the slight prickling knowledge that forcing this kind of response would put Fiona on the spot.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Fiona snarled coolly back at her companion. “I didn’t come because I care about what happens to you.”

“Then why?” Thetis had found herself standing up now, empowered by the sense of confidence that she had so rarely experienced in her travels with Fiona. So often she had found herself under her partner’s thumb, but now she was actually able to press the conversation in a way that was making Fiona look visibly awkward. But also angry.

“Because,” Fiona grunted, signalling an end to the conversation by turning her shoulder to the other Destrillian and stalking moodily into the other room.

“Why did you come back, Fiona!?” Thetis shouted back as she followed her. She was now only dimly aware of the tear streaks running down her cheeks that had not even dried yet. She didn’t care by this point. Her voice raised higher and higher, spurred louder by the fresh vent for all the frustration and anxiety.

All Thetis’ courage was robbed from her as Fiona turned to face her wearing a look that was nothing short of murderous. Her nostrils flared and her eyes widened in a look that told the Destrillian of water that her partner was seriously considering burning down the entire building.

Thetis opened her mouth to begin forming a shambling, awkward apology but was cut off by Fiona’s uncharacteristically chillingly calm voice.

“Raise your voice to me again and you’re dead. Understand?” Fiona didn’t wait for a response. “I came back because I don’t stand a chance of getting to Osea without help. Unfortunately for me, that means you.”

“Fiona, I-“

“You’re going to help me get to Osea,” Fiona repeated. There was no room for argument here and Thetis saw it as she slumped her shoulders, visibly broken beneath a fury so barely contained that she swore she could feel the air around the fire Destrillian distorting into a heat haze.

“Okay, Fiona,” Thetis said glumly, all traces of fighting spirit now long since absent from her voice. “So, what are you going to do?”

“What, right now? Right now I was planning on going to sleep, Thetis.” Fiona spat, the anger in her voice flaring up once again. Thetis was still asking the same questions even after the drama of the night’s events.

“No, I mean when you get to Osea?” the water Destrillian asked quietly, her voice nearly drowned out by the increasing volume of the rain.

“Fuck knows. I just know I want to do it as far away from you as I can possibly get.”

Castiel watched from his office door as the club bouncers took care of the remaining stragglers at the bar. Between mixed grumbles and the infrequent scuffle the humans slowly began pouring out. “Boss were ready to lock up, Reggie checked everything and were all secure.” Said his head bouncer who appeared from the darkness like some kind of ninja. “Thanks Joe, take whatever the bar made in tips tonight and go have a good time. You guys worked well tonight and I appreciate all the help” Castiel said with a wicked smile. Joe merely nodded in response and disappeared like the ninja bastard he was. Castiel always liked Joe, calm cool and collected with the physical power that snapping a man’s neck would be like swatting a fly. An ideal employee.

As the last of his staff left the club, Castiel vaulted the handrail in front of him and dropped to the floor of the club below. The music was no longer booming and his head no longer throbbed as a result, as he neared the door all he could think about was locking up quick, grabbing a bottle from the bar then passing out downstairs in bed.
As he began fumbling with his keys and the locks of the right hand door, Castiel swore he could hear people outside talking. “Of course he is going to be in, where the fuck else would that rat bastard be” The voice was irritated and loud quickly followed by another timid voice “Maybe we should have called first, it looks like it’s closed” the third voice was easy enough to pinpoint “Nah man, my bro Castiel will still be awake. YO CASS OPEN UP!!!”

Castiel wrenched the other door open to see Fiona, Thetis and Kram in the door’s alcove. Fiona looking like usual her usual attractive annoyed self, Thetis looking worried at what Fiona might do next and finally Kram. With a quick right hook Castiel sent his friend flying backwards with little to no effort. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? YOU WANNA WAKE EVERY GOD DAMN HUMAN IN A MILES RADIUS!!!.” Trying to compose himself he flicked the dead bolt of the door he had just tried to lock and opened it wider. “Hey Fiona, Thetis. Come on in before the moron out there wakes up the entire city.” Castiel watched as Fiona’s ill-tempered mood soon switched to a grin. Thetis however began switching her worried look between Fiona and Kram.

As Fiona and Thetis made their way inside, Castiel leaned against the doorframe and watched as Kram thrashed on the ground in annoyance. “What the hell man! Why did you have to go and hit me so hard, I was just trying to make sure you were up is all!” Castiel merely grinned in response as he watched his friend get back on his feet. As Kram neared he could see how hard he was trying to keep a scowl on his face, when eventually he was face-to-face with him however Castiel merely looped his arm around his friends neck and dragged him inside laughing.

The door’s swung shut with a deafening thud as he and Kram made their way inside, Fiona and Thetis had already made themselves at home with Fiona behind the bar drinking from one of the most expensive bottles of champagne the club had on offer while Thetis sat with a soft drink. “No no no, please I insist, make yourselves at home. Have a drink from the bar, put your feet up and relax” Castiel muttered with a note of sarcasm. Fiona didn’t even pause as she necked the bottle but instead flipped him off and appeared to grin while doing so. “So what brings you guys to my end of the woods, not that im complaining mind you. Gets pretty boring being surrounded by humans all day long.” Castiel asked inquisitively to the group. Kram took the opportunity to break out the headlock and jump onto the bar. “Were having a party!” was the answer Kram gave. “A party huh? With just the four of us?” Castiel laughed as he spoke but was quickly interrupted by Fiona who, looking slightly more flushed than normal had finished the champagne and was ready to speak “Tch yeah like im that fucking lucky. Thetis called Kerr and he said he would get everyone else and meet us here. Fucking dark eyed bastard can’t let me enjoy my buzz in peace….Hiccup!” Castiel couldn’t help but laugh again watching Fiona’s face become more and more scarlet as she tried to speak. Even Thetis nearly choked on her soft drink while watching Fiona hiccup away. As Castiel watched Fiona fumble through the remaining bottles of champagne he made his way around the bar and grabbed four glasses. “Maybe we should try drinking from glasses huh Fiona?” expecting a backlash of insults thrown at him Castiel was taken aback when Fiona actually smiled and nodded.

An hour passed and both Thetis and Kram were rolling on the floor with laughter as Fiona swayed back and forth trying to convince everyone that she was graceful enough to dance like the scantily dressed humans who usually came to the club. All the while Castiel was behind the DJ booth looking for something that might make the night more fun.
“Yes, found it!” Castiel emerged from the booth triumphantly holding two microphones in his hand as the monitors above the booth erupted into life with the words KARAOKE MAGIC. Thetis who was on her fourth glass of champagne literally squealed with delight as the drunken Fiona fell to the floor with a large thud.

As Castiel grinned at his friends he noted that they weren’t the only ones in the club, looking to the door he watched as Lokka and Kerr sauntered in quickly followed by the remaining Destrillians. Nodding in acknowledgement to Lokka, Castiel smiled as he watched the Destrillians enter the club one after another. “KERR YOU BASTARD!!” was the only audible greeting Fiona chose to give as she staggered her way towards the door only to be stopped and held up by Thetis. “Glad you guys could make it, party is just about to begin” Castiel smiled happily as one by one his friends made their way inside.

Castiel couldn’t help but notice that Idris, Emma and Terra all seemed somewhat different in appearance, looking at them carefully it took a few seconds for his semi-drunk mind to properly note that each of them had turned up wearing makeup and new clothing. It was easy to say that more than just a few of the male Destrillians had taken note of this and were passing occasionally glances in their directions. “I need a drink” was the only greeting Kerr gived and soon marched by Castiel and copied Fiona’s example by helping himself to whatever was behind the bar. Lokka however made his way over and shook hands with Castiel before giving his own greeting “Hey, thanks for inviting us. It’s good to wind down like this once and a while.” Staring at a half asleep Kram who had only drank a glass and a half of champagne Lokka merely laughed “Take it we have a bit of catching up to do?”

Castiel braved Kerr’s ever present bad mood and entered the bar behind him “Hey if you wanna take a seat with the everyone else I’ll bring over a case of champagne and some glasses” Kerr only gave a loud gruff and walked away choosing to take Castiel’s words as instructions to take the furthest away seat from everyone else while securing himself a large bottle of champagne. The group all began talking loudly and in-between Fiona’s stumbling and Kram’s snoring Castiel managed to make sure everyone had a drink before making his way back up to the DJ booth. “Ladies and Gentleman, Destrillians of all ages! Thank you all for invading my club and drinking all my booze, now for your entertainment tonight I give you KARAOKE!!” Castiel’s voice boomed over the speakers in the club and woke Kram with a start. “So who’s first?” Castiel watched as Lokka turned away pretending not to have heard him while the others merely gave looks ranging from excitement to pure fear. “I-I-IM gONNMA DO ET!” Fiona stammered as she tried to push away from Thetis and make her way to the DJ booth. Castiel helped her climb the stairs and handed her the mike “So what do you wanna sing?” Fiona laughed loudly and whispered into Castiel’s ear before he too laughed out loudly.

As Castiel entered the song into the system Fiona propped herself against the booth and cleared her throat, obviously her inebriation made her a little less violent. Very slowly she got into the groove of the song and was soon belting out “Love is a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring bound by wild desire I fell into a ring of fire. I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down and the flames went higher and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire the ring of fire. I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down and the flames went higher and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire the ring of fire. The taste of love is sweet when hearts like ours meet I fell for you like a child oh, but the fire went wild. I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down and the flames went higher and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire the ring of fire. I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down and the flames went higher and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire the ring of fire. And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire the ring of fire the ring of fire the ring of fire”one by one Castiel watched as each of the Destrillians got the joke and in turn started laughing. All except Thetis of course who seemed to have a love struck look across her face the entire song.

As the song ended, Fiona did a final salute to her Destrillian brethren by face planting while descending the steps. Between muffled laughs and venomous glares from Thetis, Castiel watched as the water Destrillian made sure Fiona was ok before taking the mike herself. Whispering her song choice to Castiel he couldn’t help but blush and hold back a large snort of laughter. The other Destrillians all seemed eager to find out what song the semi-timid Thetis would pick and as Castiel began to play the song Thetis shocked everyone by pointing to Fiona and singing “I'm saying all the things that I know you'll like making good conversation I gotta handle you just right You know what I mean I took you to an intimate restaurant then to a suggestive movie there's nothing left to talk about unless it's horizontally. Let's get physical, physical I wanna get physical Let's get into physical Let me hear your body talk, your body talk Let me hear your body talk” It seemed every Destrillian present was in shock, no-one expected this from Thetis let alone her being so good at singing it. “I've been patient, I've been good tried to keep my hands on the table It's gettin' hard this holdin' back If you know what I mean. I'm sure you'll understand my point of view we know each other mentally you gotta know that you're bringin' out the animal in me. Let's get physical, physical I wanna get physical let's get into physical let me hear your body talk, your body talk let me hear your body talk. Let's get physical, physical I wanna get physical let's get into physical let me hear your body talk, your body talk let me hear your body talk. Let's get physical, physical I wanna get physical let's get into physical let me hear your body talk, your body talk let me hear your body talk. Let's get animal, animal I wanna get animal let's get into animal let me hear your body talk let me hear your body talk.” Thetis put the mike down on the DJ booth tabletop and nodded her thanks to Castiel, the moment she turned to face the remaining Destrillians they all erupted in cheers (all except Kerr) with her face flushed and Fiona leering at her, Thetis made her way back to the table and proceeded to chug three glasses of bubbly.

Castiel laughed and waited to see if anyone else would make their way to sing, however none came. Not wanting to end the hilarity for the night he picked the mike up himself and began his own choice in song “Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try no hell below us above us only sky imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there's no countries it isn't hard to do nothing to kill or die for and no religion too imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say that I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one. Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can no need for greed or hunger a brotherhood of man imagine all the people sharing all the world. You may say that I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one.” Castiel stopped singing and looked to his friends for their reactions. Most had blank looks across their faces and Emma even had tears in her eyes. Very slowly he placed the microphone down and followed Thetis by grabbing a bottle of champagne and proceeding to drown his sorrows.

Kram was the first to break the silence “What the hell, that really mellowed my mood Cass! Come on you got to have Eurasia on that thing?” Castiel just let his friend bound towards the DJ booth and find a song. He sat down on the couch next to Fiona and was impressed when the fire Destrillian rolled her head and patted him on the shoulder “Nice song, fucking depressing but nice song” Cass merely smiled back and took the compliment, Fiona rarely gave any so he would take anything he got. The tender moment was quickly ruined however as Kram begin his own interpretation of a classic “I can show you the world Shining, shimmering, splendid Tell me, princess, now when did You last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes Take you wonder by wonder Over, sideways and under On a magic carpet ride A whole new world A new fantastic point of view No one to tell us no Or where to go Or say we're only dreaming” That was as far as Kram got, without even seeing her move Fiona had managed to grab Kram by the neck and was in the process of beating his head off the wall when Lokka took the mike from him.As Fiona continued to beat Kram’s head against the wall Lokka merely walked behind them both in his usual non chalant manner and began fiddling with the controls. Castiel watched as the white heaired Destrillian took his time to peruse every song the machine had on offer. Castiel had always known Lokka as being a quiet and reserved individual, joining the party late castiel thought his friend would have to be a drunken mess before he would ever sing. Low and behold though, the guitar started playing and the sound of drums began to beat, everyone there knew the song and each grinned in turn (except Kerr) “Just a small town girl living in a lonely world she took the midnight train going anywhere just a city boy born and raised in south detroit he took the midnight train going anywhere. A singer in a smoky room a smell of wine and cheap perfume for a smile they can share the night it goes on and on and on and on. Strangers, waiting, up and down the boulevard their shadows searching in the night streetlight people, living just to find emotion hiding somewhere in the night. Working hard to get my fill everybody wants a thrill paying anything to roll the dice just one more time some will win, some will lose some were born to sing the blues oh the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on. Don't stop believing hold on to that feeling streetlight people!” Once again the group began to applaud Lokka, he did the song justice and caused everyone to start talking about what they too were going to sing.Castiel looked over his friends faces, each seemed to be having a good time and even though it hadn’t been him who had the idea originally he was glad they all had came. As the mix of alcohol and singing filled the night each Destrillian laughed until tears fell from their faces until finally the sun began to rise. With the rising sun Emma was the first to announce her departure, Terra followed suit soon after and Castiel thanked everyone for coming. One by one the Destrillians all began leaving the club, both Lokka and Kerr had their hands full carrying Kram who after being thrown across the club by Fiona for his song choice had chosen to drinking more than singing. “Hi-Hi-Hiccup! Cass! Ma-Man! Yeah that was awesome, lets sing a duet!” Kram began stammering as Lokka and Kerr dragged him from his seat to the door. “I think the only place you should be heading is bed.” Lokka despite drinking heavily still seemed as straight edged as always. “Just let him sleep it off here, I’ll let him take the couch when I head down to sleep.” Castiel replied. That was all Kerr needed to hear and with a thud he dropped the darkness Destrillian and made his way to the doorway turning only for a second to mumble “Thanks for the party” before making his way out. Lokka merely shrugged and nodded to Castiel who in turn nodded back and smiled. Now all that remained in the club was him and Kram, picking up the gibbering Destrillian he carried his friend over his shoulder and up through his office till he reached the staircase down to his private quarters. Through the drunken mumblings of Kram, Castiel could swear he was hearing something. Kicking open the doorway to the stairs the noise became more pronounced, cautiously taking his steps he slowly descended and looked around the open floored living quarters to find the source of the noise. “Put me down man I can hi-cup walk” was the only thing Kram could say as he was carried downward. As Castiel placed his foot on the cold concrete floor of his home he finally realised the noise. Looking towards his bed he could see the covers in disarray with two sets of legs writhing under it. Thinking back to who had left Castiel did a mental “Oh Shit!” before turning back around and carrying Kram back upstairs. Before the door separating his office and home closed Castiel could only bite his lip as Thetis erupted in ecstacy filling both his downstairs home and office and as a result grabbing Kram’s attention. “Huh!? Theti-s Cous huh what’s gouin on huh!” Castiel swore under his breath as the next sound that erupted from downstairs was Fiona’s “WHO THE FUCK IS THERE!!!” Castiel merely shut the door and ran as fast as he could hoping to catch up with Lokka before Fiona got a hold of him or Kram. As he kicked door after door open trying to escape his own home Castiel resorted to biting his lip to stop himself from laughing hysterically at what had occurred. They might not be related by blood but these people were his family and he was glad to have them close by…even if he now needed to buy new sheets.

*The Following takes place between 6:00pm and 11:00pm*


Drip....drip....drip...drip....drip

...Slip. Hip. Nip. Zip-

“Will you stop that already!”

“But it just makes no sense!”

“What doesn't?”

“The tap! It's leaking and the sound goes 'drip drip drip'. But why does it have to be drip? Why not Mip or Flip?” The small pink-eyed child asked as they looked intently at the leaking tap, their eyes following every drip of water that fell from the facet.

The other person simply sighed then added “The only thing that doesn't make sense in this room is you. Now forget about what noise the tap makes and get over here to prepare the Turkey!”

Stolz just poked their tongue out and replied “Why can't you do itttttt.”

“Because I can't interact with anything physical, that's why!” Virtue snapped in rebuttal.

Stolz just folded their arms and made an unhappy expression “Well I still don't get why I have to go through all this trouble! It's not like you eat or anything so why can't I just order a pizz-” Stolz's words were cut short as Virtue was now hovering over them with a terrifying doom vibe.

“BECAUSE!...needless you forget it's been established I reside in your mind aswell, therefore what effects you also effects me, and thus I feel the need to correct your choice in food to accommodate a more healthy menu in order to provide you with the best lifestyle that will work to both our advantages. Also it's the holiday season and you're just supposed to eat nice stuff like this!”

Stolz was speechless at Virtue's ability to quickly change expressions so suddenly.

“Uh...uh okay. I'll go do that thing now then.” And scurried towards the kitchen.

Virtue felt the need to sign once more. “Oh boy, whatever am I going to do with them...”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SOMEWHERE SHADOWY IN THE CITY


The calm night air had settled over Osea and the city was now busy with it's assortment of night life. On one particular rooftop, bathing in the moonlight, an Orange-haired girl in a long flowing cape gazed out over the expanse of buildings with a clear look of disgust on her face.

“Colourful lights everywhere, people coming together to celebrate, and an overall sense of goodwill in the city. How revolting I find this time of year.” Vanagloria scoffed aloud.

A girl wearing a silver visor over her eyes appeared to Vana's left “It's just some pointless holiday, let the little worms have their fun.”

Vana's eyes widened at the words “Fun? FUN?! Why should those ignorant creatures be allowed to have sort of fun? We are superior and they are scum, therefore the only thing they should be allowed to do is suffer!”

“You dragged us all the way out here for another pointless rant? Fuck Vana lighten up, it's the holidays or something...” The voice of Vollerei sounded from Vana's right.

“SILENCE! I am in charge, and therefore you will do as I say! And I say that these fools do not deserve such a joyous occasion so it must be brought to an end!”

“Jeez someone got their panties in a knot today...” Inveja taunted.

“I'm really not in the mood for this shit today, let's just bail, she won't even notice.” Vollerei added casually then turned to leave, followed shortly by Inveja.

“Oh yes, I shall make them all suffer. The entire city shall tremble at my power, AND ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE ME!” She then turned to face her subordinates.

“Now it's time to execute my ingenious pla- …...hey where'd everyone go?” She said to herself in a confused manner.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACK AT STOLZ'S PLACE


“There! All done! Can I go now?” Stolz exclaimed as they slumped back in the chair after finishing their meal.

“Well...I guess so, watching the way you eat was quite disgusting and I don't think I could take any more.” Virtue replied calmly.

Stolz jumped out of their seat and bolted for the door.

“Hey...HEY! Where do you think you're going!?” Virtue yelled.

“I'm going to see those computery people down the hallway, they always have interesting things going on!”

“Oh alright then, just don’t be gone too long, you still have to clean up okay?”

“Okay!” Stolz replied and scurried off.

“Well at least now I can get a little peace and quiet.” Virtue said to herself then looked around for a moment “Now where's the TV remote....oh wait, I can't touch things, dammit.”


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DOWN THE HALL...


“OH COMPUTER GUUUUUYS! STOLZ IS HERE TO PLAY WITH ALL THE BUTTONS AND DEEDLIES!” Stolz shouted as they burst in the door. The two occupants of the apartment didn't even flinch at the spectacle, but were staring at the TV with mellow expressions.

“...Hi Stolz.” One of them said.

“What's the matter computer guys? You look sleepy, have you both been napping?!”

“No....no that's not it. We're just....chillin, yeah thats it.”

“Chilling? Is it cold in here? Maybe you should turn on the heater.”

“Not that kind of chilling, you know, 'chillin' as in kickin back and stuff.”

“Ohhhh I getcha now!” Stolz replied then began snooping around all the computers and equipment strewn throughout the apartment until something with a lot of buttons and dials caught their attention.

“Ooooo pretty, I wonder what this does?” And pressed a large button on the machine, which then began to make noises and shake until the sides fell off and the whole thing sparked before going completely silent.

“Hey don't touch tha- oh never mind then.” A voiced called to her from the couch. Stolz wasn't really paying attention and just continued to fiddle with the machinery in the room. The two guys didn't really pay the kid too much mind either as they were only capable of focusing on one thing at a time, and that current one thing was the TV. It at this time that something else had grabbed Stolz's attention.

“Ooooo Mushrooms! I know I just ate but I reallllly love mushrooms!” Stolz said aloud as they hovered over a plate of conspicuous looking mushrooms on the kitchen counter.

“Hey...did the kid just say something?”

“Dunno...”

Unbeknown to the two individuals, Stolz was behind them at the counter stuffing their face with the contents on the plate.

“Mmm those mushrooms were yummy.” Stolz said as they patted their tummy before slumping over the top of the couch's back to observe the TV.

“Here in the city square, we are just moments away from lighting up the feature piece of the holiday decorations which will showca- wait what was that?” The news reporter said before being interrupted by something. In the background behind the reporter the lights in the buildings began going out before finally the whole city square was in darkness.

“Hey what's up with that?” One of the guys said, then a few moments after the power in the apartment went out.

“Huh? A power outage?” The other remarked.

“No....” Stolz said softly. “This is no simple power outage....THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE WORK OF FANCESCA VON HEIDELBERG, HERE TO RUIN THE HOLIDAYS!” Then lept up from their spot and bolted towards the door, only due to the darkness they ran flat into it, and after stumbling around for a minute, finally opened the door and charged down the hallway.

“Uhh...what was with the kid all of a sudden?”

“No idea, they're always acting crazy like that.”


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BACK AT STOLZ'S...


“VIRTUE! MY FRIEND IT'S TERRIBLE!”

“Eh?”

“OH IT'S TERRIBLE.....It's a disaster.”

“What is?”

“The city is without power!”

“Yes I can see that.”

“But it's no ordinary blackout! This has the signs of a more sinister force at work!”

“Come again?”

“The evil Francesca Von Heidelberg is intending on ruining the holidays, and she's doing it by turning out all the power in the city so that no one can shop and enjoy the pretty sights!”

“Right....and you know this how?”

“I have magical ability deedlies! Remember I like can do Ice stuff and see you!”

“Oh well if you put it that way, it makes peeerrrrfect sense.” Virtue replied sarcastically.

“Exactly! Now let's go save the city!” Stolz exclaimed then headed out the door.

“Great now I have to go follow and make sure Stolz doesn't get hurt....all I wanted was one quiet night...”


----------------------------------------------------------------------
SOMEWHERE IN DOWNTOWN OSEA


“Senior Zwei, I still do not understand the point of all this.” The blond-haired girl said as the two girls walked down the busy street line with stores.

“It's very simple.” Zwei replied calmly as she gazed in the windows she walked by. “This time of the year is celebrated by humans for reasons that have to do with sharing and kindness and so forth, but what I do care about is what partakes during this occasion – That being the exchange of gifts between one another.”

Drei looked down at the large amount of bags she was carrying. “So, all of these items you have bought are gifts for people?”

The words made Zwei laugh. “Hell no. These are all for me. You see Drei, despite what the humans might say, that whole sharing and caring business is a load of crap. The true spirit of this season is greed! People gorging on large amounts of food and making excessing quantities of money from people buying stupid gifts for as equally stupid people. Therefore the way I see it is to screw everything else and just spoil myself, much easier this way.”

Drei just nodded with a puzzled look on her face.

“Furthermore, I believe it is important to note that the buildings in the distance are going out, and that the effect seems to be making it's way here at an alarming pace, so standby in 3, 2, 1....and there we go.” Zwei said and now the duo were standing in a completely dark street with only a trace amount of luminance from the moon.

“Senior Zwei, what happened?” Drei asked, looking around in the still darkness.

“It would seem the entire city's power is out, however this doesn't look like a regular one. I smell something fishy.”

“But we're in the middle of the city, there's no fish here.”

“Turn of phrase Drei, I've told you about those.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTSIDE STOLZ'S APARTMENT BLOCK


“Hey Stolz wait! You can't just go running around in all this dark, you'll run into something!”

“THAT'S NOT TRUEEEEEE! I CAN SEE EVERYTHING FINE! THE WHOLE CITY IS LIT UP WITH BRIGHT NEON COLOURS! ITS SO PREEEEETTTYYYY!” Stolz shouted as they skipped joyously down the road.

“What are you talking about Stolz?!” Virtue was used to Stolz acting weird but this was really starting to cross the line.

“SO PRETTY! SO PRETTY! SO PRE-OUCH!” Stolz in their ignorant skipping had run straight into a pedestrian who'd been fumbling their way around in the dark.

“Ah! What was that? Felt like I was hit by a truck.” The man said as he rubbed his head.

“oooo...owwww..oww...woaaa....Stolz is not a truck...” The child replied hazily as they lay on their back.

“You see what happens when you start acting batshit all of a sudden?” Virtue said as she stood looking down at the hyperactive dimwit on the ground below her.

“...bats come out at night, it all still makes sense...” Stolz retorted, still in a daze.

“What'd you just say kid?” The man Stolz had ploughed down asked. Virtue observed the man Stolz had potentially hurt. He had short blond hair and underneath his jacket appeared to be a military uniform, some form of low rank officer type.

Great now Stolz is going to be in trouble with the army...“Be nice to him Stolz, he's from the military.”

“I'm sorry Mr. Guy-I-just-met. I thought you were made of jello.” Stolz said as they sat up.

“Oh of course, it's easy to make that mistake.” The man replied. “Any way who are you and what were you doing running around like mad at a time like this?”

“Oh right...me am Stolz.”

“What a charming introduction kid. My name's Marshall.”

“Hello Marshall person.” Stolz replied, the daze in their voice still apparent.

“Now then...”

“Then now?”

“About what are you doing here?”

Stolz immediately popped out of their daze. “Oh that's right! I have to stop Francesca Von Heidelberg from ruining the holidays!”

“You who wha?”

“She is the one behind all this! I've searched my feelings and know this to be true!”

“ummm....right.”

“So we need to hurry before it's too late Mr. Marshall-Army-Guy.”

“Okay just let me....hey wait a minute! Since when was I going with you anywhere?”

“Becaauuuusee! You're an army guy and it's your duty to protect and serve!”

“Errr...I think you're getting me confused with a police officer.”

“Same thing! Now let's gooooooo!” Stolz exclaimed as they grabbed Marshall's hand and changed down the street towards the down town.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
DOWNTOWN AGAIN...


After running for quite some time, Stolz finally halted at a street corner, looking left and right for the correct way to head.

“Hey now. *HUFF* do you.....*PUFF* even know.....where you're going?” Marshall asked as he tried to catch his breath.

“Well up until now I was following the magic pixies, but they seemed to have gotten away from me.” Stolz said plainly, then looked around some more. “Although now I guess we should ask for some directions.” At which Stolz spotted two girls on the other side of the street.

“HEY YOU TWO OVER THERE! WE NEED DIRECTIONS.”

The two girls were immediately startled by the sudden outcry.

“Senior Zwei, that peculiar child is shouting at us.”

“Indeed they are. Perhaps we should see what it wants.”

The two girls casually strolled across the street to the child, who was standing next to a man who was notably older than her.

“Can I help you little....child.”

“Yeah, can you tell us which way it is to the 'Route 69 Pleasure Dome'?”

The words caused Marshall, Zwei and Virtue to all react in sudden surprise and simultaneously let out a loud “WHAT?!?”

Drei on the other hand and didn't understand and assumed the child was simply after directions. “I believe the establishment you're looking for is eight blocks south, then four blocks west.”

“Drei! Don't tell them that!”

“Why not senior? I was simply providing an answer to this small person's inquiry.”

“Alright, alright. I think this whole thing has gone right over your head.” Zwei said, then turned back to face Stolz.

“Hey now, why would someone such as yourself want to go to a place like that?”

Stolz responded by pointing at Marshall and saying. “I met this guy on the Internet and he said he's going to take me there to have some fun. Also he promised candy.”

Marshall's face went bright red. Virtue's was doing something similar if anyone else was able to see her, however hers was some form on doomsday level rage.

“No! No that's not true! I was just heading home earlier when this crazy kid just rand straight into me and then the next thing I know they've grabbed my hand and led me here. I swear that's it!”

“Oh come on now, don't be all pretending. I'll even call you sugar daddy like you asked!.”

Marshall was starting to really freak out, all the meantime Zwei was glaring at him with a look of skepticism.

“Oh I think I get it now Senior!” Drei suddenly butted in as she raised her right hand in the air with her index finger pointing upwards. “This man intents to have sexual intercourse with this young child of indeterminable gender. And according to Artolian law that is considered an Illegal act and therefore classifying this gentleman as what is known as a Pedophile.”

“What?! No! I'm not! Really you have to believe me.”

“I'm not sure what to believe, Mr. Running-around-during-a-blackout-with-a-child.”

“C'mon kid! Stop playing around and tell them what's really going on!”

Stolz just shrugged, making it look worse in the eyes of the two girls who looked like they could probably hurt Marshall very badly. Of course at this point Stolz had failed to notice the form of Virtue behind them, who's form had changed from a glowing white figure to that of blood red with pitch black eyes. Stolz slowly turned around to come face to face with the demonic figure behind them.

“STOLZ! YOU CEASE THIS TRAVESTY AT ONCE AND TELL THESE GIRLS THE TRUTH BEFORE SOMEONE GETS BEATEN TO A PULP, AND MARK MY WORDS I MIGHT NOT BE PSYCHICAL BUT I WILL FIND A WAY TO GIVE YOU HELL!”

“Eep! I'm sorry! I'm sorry big scary devil lady! The pixies told me to say it otherwise they wouldn't tell me where I needed to go next!”

The sudden outburst from the child caused the other three people to stop and look at them rather puzzled.

“Wait so what's going on now?”

“Pixies?”

“...my god finally.”

“Umm yeah, that whole internet thing wasn't true. I really did just run into this guy.”

Zwei simply let out a sigh. “Gee kid, don't say things like that. I was about ten seconds away from causing a severe amount of pain to this gentleman.”

“You were?!?” Marshall exclaimed in shock.

“Well I am an ISS officer. And we do have the authority to use lethal force according to our best judgment.”

“Alright now! If everyone is all settled again, we need to keep moving to save the city from Francesca Von Heidelberg who has taken the power out!”

“The what?” Zwei said. Before Stolz could reply a sudden outburst of laughter came from atop one of the nearby buildings.

“KYAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! FOOLS THE LOT OF YOU!”

Standing up there was a figure in a long, flowing cape with Orange hair that was lit up by the moon.

“Who the hell is that?” Marshall asked.

Stolz's eyes narrowed. “That is the most profound evil in all of existence - The sinister Francesca Von Heidelberg.”

“So...that individual is the one responsible for the blackout?”

“OF COURSE IT WAS ME YOU MERE MORTALS! I HAVE TAKEN AWAY YOUR PRECIOUS POWER SO THAT NONE OF YOU CAN ENJOY YOUR MISABLE LITTLE HOLIDAY! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Wow, what a bitch.” Zwei remarked.

“SILENCE FOOLS! YOU WILL ALL TREMBLE BEFORE MY SUPERIOR POWER!” The caped figure shouted before extending her hands forward and emitting a purple energy that shot in the direction of Stolz and company.

“Holy shit take cover!” Marshall yelled then dove out of the way as the others did the same.

“YES THAT'S IT! TASTE MY WRATH!”

The four psychical individuals were now sheltering around the corner of a building as the crazed woman continued to shoot the bizarre purple energy in all directions.

“For being my first experience of the holiday season, my processors come to the conclusion that this one really sucks.” Zwei grumbled.

“This is indeed an unpleasant predicament. It would appear that the one known as Von Heidelberg intents to annihilate all of us and possible the rest of the city while she is at it.”

Marshall just sat there with his arms over his head. “This is all Jelanda's fault. 'You should go out and get the Major a present. On the outside she might seem as cold as ice but deep down she has feelings too and would be hurt if her longest serving subordinate didn't give her something for the holidays'. Geh, the Major probably wouldn't even understand the premise of people giving each other presents...”

Stolz then decided to end Marshall's little dialogue but whomping him on the head.

“Now is not the time for this! During that necessary rambling I got an idea!”

“Excellent, what did you have in mind?” Zwei asked keenly.

“My super magical senses inform me that you and blond lady are robots! Which means you two can go out there and get blown up as a distraction while I sneak up on Francesca and take her out!”

Zwei's eyes went narrow and dull.

“That is a terrible plan and I'm not doing it”

“Oh come on! I'm sure someone in a brown suit with aviator glasses can rebuild you!”

“Perhaps so and I'm rather disturbed about the level of accuracy in your description just then, however I've just gotten this body to how I like it and don't wish to part with it any time soon.”

“I too like my current vessel.” Drei added.

Marshall was just sitting there dumbfounded at the news the two girls were robots.

“Well...how about we use Mr. Marshall as a human shield and run for it?”

“I like that idea.” Zwei replied

“This course of action is acceptable.” Drei once again added.

“Hey now! Don't I get a say in this?”

“Sorry Mr. Marshall! It's three against one!”

“By the Gods I have had enough of this already!” Virtue shouted and charged towards Stolz.

“Ahh! Glowing lady is coming aft-” Stolz shouted before being cut off. The other three just stared at yet another unusual display from the child. Stolz just stayed silent for a moment before a serious expression swept over their face.

“Alright. You three just stand aside. I'll take care of the lunatic.” Stolz said in what sounded like an entirely different voice.

“Sure why not?”

“Hey sounds good to me, go get 'em kid!”

“Affirmative”

Virtue, now in charge of Stolz's body, stepped out from the corner and looked up at the mad woman who continued to shower the city with her purple doom energy.

“Alright you sick weirdo! It's time for all this to stop!”

“YOU DARE INSULT ME? THE ALMIGHTY VANAGLORIA?”

“First of all, I'm pretty sure your name is Francesca Von Heidelberg. And second, yeah I do you eccentric harpy!”

“HARPY? HARPY? YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THIS INSO-”

“OH SHUT THE HELL UP!” Virtue shouted back then raised her hand in the air, at which a large collection of ice began to form around it and rapidly grow in size. She then made her hand into a fist and punched forward, sending the ice hurtling forward and as it moved, formed into the shape of a giant fist which was now enormous and heading right for Vanagloria. With no possible means of dodging the attack, the Orange-haired woman simply said. “...slag.” Before the giant fist sent her flying off into the night sky.

“And THAT is how I solve my problems.” Virtue shouted in victory.

“Well looks like everything is in order here.” Zwei remarked.

“But senior the power is stil-” Drei went to add before Zwei interrupted by saying “...and 3, 2, 1. There we go”. And with those words the power began to flicker back on and once again the city was bathing in the artificial lights.

“Okay, since the city has been saved and all, I really need to get going before any more weird shit happens, so later everyone.”

“Very well, see you later.”

“Farewell, Sir.”

“Bye Bye Mr. Marshall Army Guy!” Stolz shouted, now back to their irregular self.

“And with that, we should be taking out leave also Drei. I'm sure Director Vargas has plenty of presents waiting for me~”

“....”

“What's wrong Drei?”

“Will there be presents for me also?”

Zwei let out a small smile “I'm sure there will be”

In a small moment, Drei had the look of excitement, then returned to her neutral expression and replied with “Affirmative.” And the two gave Stolz a wave before being on their way, at which Drei paused, turned back to Stolz and called out.

“By the way. My scanners showed that you have consumed a large quantity of Psilocybin mushrooms, which are known to have mind-altering effects in most organic beings.” Then turned back to follow her Senior down the road.

Virtue was speechless at the news, while Stolz just gave her a big grim.

“Well....I guess those mushrooms at the computery guys place weren't ordinary after all.”

Virtue responded with a facepalm.

“Let's just get you home and to bed.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOLZ'S APARTMENT...


Finally back at the apartment, Stolz walked in the doorway then completely froze.

“What is it?” Virtue asked.

“It's him. I never thought he really existed but there he is.” Stolz whispered.

“What? I see nothing.”

“Look.” Stolz said as they pointed to what appeared to be a empty living room, but in Stolz's eyes there was a man standing there with short, dark brown hair.

“IT'S CHRISTIAN BALE!” Stolz shouted, which caused the man to turn around, and he sure didn't look happy.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing sneaking up on me like that?!”

“Sorry I didn't mean to!”

“No don't just be sorry. THINK for one fucking minute! I'm just minding my own business when some little dipshit comes in and starts making noises.”

“Hey now just settle down an-'

“NO! NO! DON'T YOU DARE SHUT ME UP! I HAVE TO GO TO EVERY LITTLE FUCKER'S HOUSE EVERY YEAR, AND THE LAST THING I WANT IS TO HAVE SOME BRAT BOTHERING ME! ITS DISTRACTING! I MEAN WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!”

“....”

“....”

“....This holiday is stupid.”


La Fin.

Lil’ Dessies​

In a far away world live some special people called Dessies. The Dessies are special because they can command some of the basic elements of all worlds: things like water, ice, fire, metal and shadows.

The Dessies are not alone in being special. Amongst the other groups who are also special are the Lyverius, who can also command the elements, and the Animus, who have animal-like senses.

These special groups of people live peacefully alongside humans who do not have special abilities. There are sometimes some arguments, but everyone apologises and makes friends again.


One of the people without special abilities is a man called Donnie Early. Donnie is something of an odd job man. He has no fixed career, but takes on work where he finds it. On occasion, he is offered a job by his friends.

This story is about one of these jobs.

One morning, shortly after he had woken up, Donnie received a telephone call from a friend of his called Eddie Creed. Eddie worked for the people in charge of Chulainn, a place in the country of Damascus.

Eddie asked Donnie if he would be able to come and see him, as he needed Donnie’s help. Donnie happily agreed, and set off for Eddie’s office.

“Hello, Donnie,” Eddie said as Donnie arrived. “My goodness, it has been a while since I last saw you! I do hope you are well.”

“Hello, Eddie,” Donnie replied. “I am very well, thank you. How are you?”

“Why, I am fine myself, thank you. But, I do have a problem,” Eddie said.

“Gracious! Of course, you said you needed my help when we spoke on the telephone earlier! I am sorry, Eddie, I did not think!” Donnie exclaimed. “What is the problem you need my help with?”

“Someone has gone missing!” Eddie exclaimed.

“Oh, goodness, this is not good!” Donnie gasped. “Who is the person who has gone missing?”

“He is an Animus,” Eddie explained. “His name is Kade. His girlfriend Lani told us he was missing two days ago. So far, we have been unable to find him!”

“Deary me, that is awful!” Donnie said. “Well, I shall look for him, too. I shall look high and low!”

“Hurray! How wonderful!” Eddie smiled. “Here is a picture of Kade. This should help you find him! Also, here is where Lani lives. You should talk to her.”

“I shall do so,” Donnie said. And so, Donnie said goodbye to Eddie and went to find Lani.

Lani was sat on the steps outside her house when Donnie arrived.

“Hello, are you Lani?” he asked her.

Lani looked at him in surprise. She then sniffed at Donnie.

“Oh! You must be Eddie’s friend!” she smiled.

“Why, yes! My name is Donnie,” Donnie said. “But how did you know?”

“I am an Animus,” Lani explained. “Like all Animus, I have a very good sense of smell. And I can smell that you have recently met with Eddie.”

“Gracious!” Donnie said, impressed. “I knew that Animus have a very good sense of smell, but I did not realise it was that good! Anyway,” he explained, “Eddie has asked me to help look for Kade. When was the last time you saw him?”

“Why, a few days ago!” Lani said. “He only lives a few doors away, so we usually see each other every day. When I did not see him, I was worried. So, I knocked on his door, but there is no-one home!”

“Oh dear!” Donnie said. “Did he not say anything about going away?”

Lani frowned. “Goodness, no!” she said. “If he had, I would not have told Eddie he was missing!”

“I am sorry if I upset you,” Donnie said (because he was). “But I have to ask these questions, despite them being fairly silly.”

Lani nodded. “I know. I am sorry. I over-reacted. Please find him.”

Donnie nodded, and promised Lani that he would do everything he could.

Donnie wondered where he should begin looking for Kade. As he walked around town, he passed the house of his friend Vier. Vier was very smart, and she had an ability for finding things out. Donnie wondered if she might know something about Kade, so he went and knocked on her door.

“Konnichiwa Early-san!” Vier said as she answered the door.

“Um, hello Vier. And, I do beg your pardon?” Donnie asked, confused.

Vier giggled. “I am learning another language,” she explained. “What I said before means, ‘hello Mr. Early’!” Vier ALWAYS called Donnie ‘Mr. Early’.

“My word, you are clever, Vier,” Donnie said, impressed. “I came to see you because I need your help. I am looking for an Animus called Kade. Here is a picture of him. Have you heard anything about him?”

“Oh dear! This person has gone missing? How sad!” Vier said, looking at the picture. “I am sorry, Mr. Early, but I am afraid I have not heard anything about Kade. I have not seen him before either.”

“I see. Oh well. Thank you for your help regardless, Vier,” Donnie said.

“You are welcome,” Vier said. “I am very sorry that it was so little.”

Donnie continued with his search for Kade. Before too long, he came across Stolz’s house.

“HA-LLOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANTI!” Stolz cried out when they saw Donnie. Stolz was always calling people strange names. No-one really understood why they did it. But they were not doing it to be mean, so most people did not mind.

“Hello Stolz. How do you do?” Donnie asked. He hoped they did not invite him inside. From what he had heard, the inside of Stolz’s house was very confusing. A window would look at the outside of a completely different part of the house, for one thing.

“How do you do?” Stolz said happily. Donnie remembered that it was considered bad manners to answer the question ‘how do you do’ in any other way.

“How are you?” Donnie asked.

“I am supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, thank you,” Stolz replied. Donnie was unsure what the word meant, but from their behaviour, he guessed that Stolz was feeling their usual lively self.

“I am glad to hear it. I wonder if you could help me? I am looking for someone. He is called Kade and he is an Animus,” Donnie said, and showed Stolz the picture of Kade. Stolz studied the picture intently.

“He has a ponytail like Kram!” Stolz exclaimed. They then handed the picture back to Donnie. “I think I may have seen him near Thetis’s’s’s’s drinks stand! You should try looking there.”

“Oh! Thank you for your help, Stolz,” Donnie said, and tucked the picture away.

After waving goodbye to Stolz, Donnie continued along his way. Before too long, he reached Thetis’s drinks stand.

“Hey Donnie,” Thetis said as he walked up to her. “Would you like a drink?”

“Hello Thetis,” Donnie said. As the blue-haired girl asked the question, he realised he was very thirsty. “Yes, I would like a drink, thank you. May I have some lemonade?”

“Of course you may,” Thetis said with a slight shrug. She poured Donnie some lemonade and passed it to him.

“Thank you,” Donnie said, taking his drink. “Thetis, I was wondering if you could help me. A person has gone missing, and Stolz thinks they may have seen him near here. Here is a picture. His name is Kade and he is an Animus.”

“Stolz is not always very accurate,” the water Dessie said politely. “But I shall help if I can.” She took the picture from Donnie and looked at it while Donnie drank his lemonade.

“He has very unusual eyes,” Thetis said, inspecting the picture of Kade. She passed it back to Donnie. “I am not sure, but I may have seen him yesterday. If it was him, he was wearing sunglasses.”

“Oh! That is very helpful Thetis, thank you,” Donnie said. “Do you know which way he went?”

Thetis looked uncertain for a few minutes before pointing down a road. “I believe he went that way,” she said.

“Well!, that is the only lead I have, so that is the direction I shall walk. Thank you very much for your help, Thetis,” Donnie said in response.

After exchanging a few words of farewell with Thetis, Donnie continued along his way. As he walked down the road, he passed Emma and Terra’s house. The earth and nature Dessies were sitting in the front yard watching the world go by.

“Oh! Hello Donnie,” Emma said as she saw him.

“Hai,” Terra said.

“Hello, Emma. Hello, Terra,” Donnie said. “I hope you are both well.”

“Yeh,” Terra said.

“Yes, thank you, Donnie,” Emma said. “How are you?”

“I am well in myself, thank you,” Donnie said. “But I am looking for a missing person.”

“Oh my gracious!” Emma exclaimed.

“Not gud,” Terra said.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Emma asked.

“Oh! Yes, I have a picture of him,” Donnie said. He passed the picture to the two girls. “His name is Kade, and he is an Animus.” Donnie felt he was getting very good at telling people Kade’s name, and that he was an Animus.

The girls looked at the picture in puzzlement.

“Dun’t no heem,” Terra said.

“I am sorry, Donnie, but I do not think I have seen this person,” Emma said, handing the picture back.

“I see. Oh dear,” Donnie sighed. “Thank you for your help, anyway.”

After wishing farewell to the two girls, Donnie continued along his path. Before too long, he heard a stone skipping along the road. As he looked up, he saw Fiona the fire Dessie kicking it along. She looked very bored.

Donnie and Fiona did not get on very well, as Donnie was very afraid of fire. Also, Fiona was very anti-social. However, Donnie decided to ask for her help regardless.

“Hello, Fiona,” Donnie said.

“Get lost, Donnie,” Fiona said.

“I am looking for a missing person. His name is--” Donnie began to say, before Fiona interrupted him.

“I am sorry, but you appear to have confused me with someone who gives a shit,” she said. Fiona knew some very coarse language. There was a brief pause.

“I am afraid I do not like you very much,” Donnie said. Fiona scowled at him.

“I hate you,” she said.

“I will not take that personally, as you do not like many people,” Donnie said.

“I hate everyone,” Fiona said.

This confused Donnie, as he knew she was very good friends with Thetis. And if she was not actually friends with the rest of the Dessies in town, she was at least more tolerant of them than she was of anyone else.

“Even Thetis?” he asked.

At the mention of the water Dessie, Fiona’s face softened. A faint flush formed across her cheeks. She seemed unaware of the world around her. At least, until a small cupid began to fly around her head. With merely a scowl in the direction of the winged cherub, she incinerated it. The next gust of wind dispersed the hovering cloud of dust.

“STFU, Donnie,” Fiona said angrily.

“I am sorry you feel that way, Fiona,” Donnie said. “And I am sorry for bothering you. I shall go now.”

“I am letting you off easy this time, Donnie,” Fiona said, pointing her finger at him threateningly. “But next time, I shall be deadly serious next time.”

Donnie noticed that Fiona had repeated herself, but was smart enough not to comment on it. He quickly moved along.

Much to Donnie’s surprise, the next building he passed was the Spencer Mansion. He decided to try asking if anyone there had seen Kade. He thought it was unlikely, but he felt he should ask. However, when he knocked on the main door, a servant opened it. When the servant asked him to go and knock at the tradesmen’s entrance, he was too discouraged to try there again.

Before he had gone too much further down the street, he passed Idris’s house. The metal Dessie had set out a table in her front yard, and had placed a row of manikin heads with wigs on them on it. As Donnie watched, she came out of the house carrying another one.

“Hello, Idris,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, hello, Donnie,” Idris said. “I am cleaning my house today. Unfortunately, I kept knocking my wigs on the floor. I could not find anywhere to put them out of the way, so I decided to bring them out here.”

Idris’s gaze focused on Donnie’s shaved head for a moment. “…Would you like to borrow one of them?” she asked politely.

“No, thank you,” Donnie said. “I have a few wigs at home. Also, those are all wigs for girls. I do not think any of them would suit me.”

Idris giggled. “Oh yes! I had not thought of that!”

“Oh dear!” Donnie laughed. “Oh, yes! Idris, I am looking for a missing person. His name is Kade, and he is an Animus. Have you seen him? Here is a picture of him.”

Idris took the picture from Donnie and looked at it for a while.

“Might he be wearing sunglasses?” she asked.

“He might be,” Donnie said. “When I spoke to Thetis earlier, she said she thought she had seen him yesterday. She also said she thought he was wearing sunglasses.”

“Oh! In that case, I believe I have seen him, Donnie!” Idris exclaimed. “He went past not too long ago.”

“Oh! That is very good news! Thank you very much, Idris!” Donnie said.

Idris returned the picture of Kade to Donnie, and they said their goodbyes. Donnie then hurried along, hoping to catch up with Kade before it became night-time.

Before too long, Donnie saw a person with ginger hair pulled back in a ponytail. This matched the picture he had of Kade. He walked up to the person. They were wearing sunglasses.

“Excuse me! Hello! Are you Kade?” Donnie asked.

The person looked surprised. “Why, yes I am! How do you know my name?”

“My name is Donnie. I am a friend of Eddie’s. He and Lani asked me to look for you,” Donnie explained. “You had gone missing!”

Kade seemed shocked by this. “I did not go missing. I was exploring the town for a few days, and… Oh no! I forgot to tell Lani I was going exploring!”

“Oh dear! That is a bit silly of you, Kade,” Donnie groaned.

“She must be very worried,” Kade said. “I will go straight home. I am sorry for the trouble I caused everyone, Donnie. But thank you for trying to find me!”

“You are welcome,” Donnie said. “But you had best go home.”

“I will do so,” Kade nodded, and began to run back home. Donnie headed back to Eddie’s office, and told him all that had happened.

“Oh dear!” Eddie groaned. “Thank you for your help, Donnie. It was very much appreciated.”

“You are very welcome,” Donnie said, and went home.

The next day, he received an invitation from Lani. She had organised a party to celebrate Kade’s return. When Donnie went to the party, he saw that many people had turned up. It was a very fun party, with cake and balloons.

So one day Jettison was all tired of like no one shipping her with anyone else. But then she saw lokka and was all like ‘shit that guy is fuckin bishie kawaii I want to marry him’. Lokka was all leik ‘im so albino oh god imma swish my coat’ and then he swished it and so jettison kissed him and was like ‘we are getting married like right now’ and then she did this magical girl swish thing and she was in a pretty white dress and it was so utsukushy. Then he was wearing the tux and they went to a church and jettison was tallin the priest her vows and she was like ‘I love lokka forever he is so kakkoi and cool and other bullshit like that can we get married yet’. Lokka was like ‘okay I guess I love jettison she seems like a pretty cool dude I dunno how this works swoosh’. But then jettison got really mad and started flippin tables!!! Because actually the priest was not a priest at all so they could not get married because he was a turkey. But then he grabbed lokka and was like ‘no we are leaving forever now because lokka is mine’ and jettison was flippin out all crazy like and was like ‘who are you’. And it was telran in a turkey suit and he was like ‘you fool I was the turkey all along!!!!!’