Fandom Into the fire (1x1 MzHyde/Gallifrog)

[_gallifrog_]

There was a serious kick to the boots, and to only feel the force on his feet was disconcerting at first. The feet controls were far more sensitive than he first expected, which made sense given the tight turns he'd seen the others executing earlier. Balence was easy enough once he learned to ignore the signals coming from his feet saying that he was about to fall over. Like Fia he followed Cliff's advice, she'd never led them wrong before and knew that if it came to advice medical or general, Cliff was well worth listening to. Once he got the hang of it, John started trying out tighter and tighter spiral turns. The rocket boots seemed to give elegance to whoever used them, and John was no exception.

"I'd hesitate a guess and say it doesn't feel like a baby kicking does, I know what that one feels like, and it's a different sensation." More accurately Renee had described what it felt like for her, and it didn't fit Kay's description. "Can you describe anything about these flashes?" He asked. "It might help one of us make some kind of coherant thoughts about it. And I didn't see the stuff from the last time, I was on watch duty." It was an old habit, Elliott's abilities had become volatile after the trauma, so they always had one person not in the MindWalk who could be used to break the link if needed. "And if you can't describe it, we can always get Elliott to see what he can do."

 

[MzHyde]

It took Fia a little while to get the hang of the boots but like John she got the jist of it pretty quickly, having be a naturally quick learner like her parents. She tried all kinds of turnings as she got the hang of the balance, finding it similar to when she learned how to use her wings. It wasn't similar in a lot of ways but she took everything on board in a similar fashion. She couldn't fathom out her balance with her wings for a while as it meant working out her own body balance with the weight and span of her wings. She also applied rollerblade usage to the balancing which helped matters greatly.

Kay couldn't help but smirk at him disagreeing with her baby kicking theory. She wasn't going to protest it as she wouldn't know, having never been pregnant before and never planning on doing it again. When he said he never saw the pictures before, she nodded remembering he wasn't there. "Right..you weren't. Almost forgot" she said, "I can describe it. It's..my environment.. it's changing. Every flash I get, it's going from this arena to a green lush environment. It's the phoenix's world..I know it. Paradise. Large trees are towering over, mountains are in the far distance, there's...birds...flying..no.. phoenix's in both human and bird form" she explained, trying to properly take in what she could see each time her vision was changing. The images were getting faster and harder for her to tell which reality she actually was in. "Chas..?" She began to question when she felt herself wobble and grabbed onto a seat.

 

[_gallifrog_]

For John he didn't have a method of learning, it was more of just trial and error to figure out what method worked and which ones didn't. He'd never found an excuse to learn to rollerblade, nor had he ever had the desire to learn. Instead he used balence tricks he'd learned from parkour and his arms to stabilise. Cliff decided to mix things up and give them directional instructions and make them weave around the others who were doing their own thing. The plasma ball had been put away for safety, so Jay and Cal were using a regular basketball instead. Rinaa had turned back to the punchbag, practicing an array of kicks, her booted foot hitting the bag with a loud crack, Elliott firmly braced behind it to prevent it from flying back. It was a position he'd adopted for Jay and could feel Rinaa's strength through the bag.

"Yeah well, it's no big deal" Chas shrugged off the fact that she'd forgotten, withe everything that had happened since then he didn't blame her. He watched her as she began to describe the place she was seeing. The words resonated with him, and a blinding pain flashed through his head, as an image of the place forced its way out of the locked knowledge causing him to shut his eyes, wince and swear under his breath. "Shit" He muttered, and was about to tell Kay she'd triggered something when she slumped sideways, grabbing onto the seat. "I'm still here, listen to my voice, I'm still here."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia followed the instructions Cliff was giving her and found what she was doing extremely fun. She found it easy enough to weave between the others and passed John. Fia hadn't kept up the rollerblading, it was just something she tried out of boredom as she found a practically new pair left in an alley right near where her secret pet dog Max was. She used them a couple of times to try out in the alley and for when she took Max for a walk or run. In the end she went back to a normal jog when it came to seeing the dog. It didn't take her long to get a little flashy with the turns and instructions but not overly so, and at one point she even flicked Elliott's ponytail with her hand as she went passed.

Being in front of Chas she wasn't aware that her words were triggering something on the locked knowledge in his mind, she heard him mutter a curse word, but as she was about to question it, that was when she stumbled into the chair. Hearing he was still by her helped as it was freaking her out she was finding it difficult to differentiate the realities. "It's getting harder to tell what's real...." She said, now finding what she was seeing was a complete overlap of both worlds. Phoenix warriors of both genders armoured up standing tall in front of her, wings spread wide.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Cliff watched them carefully, giving advice where needed, but it generally wasn't. Controlling the shoes was pretty easy once they adjusted to the sensitivity of the feet pads. The real challenge came with calculating ball speeds, keeping track of team members and the opposition along with staying upright while remembering not crashing into the forcefield. It was both a mental and physical workout. To give them a bit of a taste of the true game, she threw in a basketball and told them to keep passing and keep in constant motion. There was a whole set of acceptable passes, but for now the only rule she gave was that the ball could only bounce twice. It was a team exercise not an individual scoring points exercise.

Elliott hadn't expected the flick to the ponytail, it was still disconcerting to have it tied back, but it wasn't enough to distract him from his stance. If it had he would have got a punchbag to the face and flown backwards, skidding across the arena floor from the power of the kick. "Want to swap over? I can do the bag." Rinaa offered, wiping the bandaged hand across her face. The armour was making her sweat and she was greatful that she'd had the forwards planning to shove a spare t-shirt into her backpack. "You sure?" "I'm stronger than I look, and besides, I've done the bag for Jay, and she kicks like a kangaroo." "The cheek." Jay yelled over while Elliott laughed and swapped positions.

Chas only had one idea a on how to deal with this. Kay's unconscious wanted her to see whatever she was seeing, so the best thing he could think of was to let it run its course. His theory being that once it ran its course, she'd be able to snap back to the real world. "Just keep talking" he told her, moving down to the seat beside her. "Tell me what you see, every detail you can remember of it. Might help me to get something out of this brain of mine."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia was thankful for the added challenge that Cliff was throwing in for them, and smirked when she noticed Elliott not expecting the hair flick. If she had an opportunity to mess with him, she would. She made sure to listen to the rules that Cliff gave them both and kept to them strictly, as she threw the ball to John and caught it when it was thrown back, keeping alert to any move that could be made to try and throw her off guard. She was feeling the burn from what was essentially a workout and she was loving every moment. She loved to workout so this was making her very happy.

Kay listened to Chas telling her to just keep talking through the vision or memory...whatever it was she was experiencing. "I'm seeing warriors...my kind...in leather armour..wings spread wide. They're all just...standing there tall in front of me. But they're standing in a cave that opens out to what I think is the Moors. It's like they're guarding the place...or..someone" She explained, with the overlapping of environments it making both worlds almost shake.

(Closest I could find on google to what I imagine in my head of the armour XD)

 

[_gallifrog_]

Elliott watched as Rinaa braced behind the bag. "Ready when you are." Her stance was solid, just like the one Jay had taught him. He could see by the set of her body that she had no intentions of moving and that made him proud of her for some strange reason. He started slow with the punches, but gradually built up speed and power, driving as much force as he could into the bag. It took John a good while to get the hang of diverting his brain to multiple things at once. Putting too much focus on one thing meant he'd forget about the other and he nearly got hit in the face by the ball a couple of times. He found himself enjoying the experience and the exercise, the burn in his muscles making him feel a lot better than he had in a long time.

Kay's explanation would have seemed basic to most, but it was enough for Chas to get something from it. Images, symbols he couldn't understand and words in a language he didn't know. And for the briefest moment he got a hint of something else, something unrelated to what Kay was seeing. A feeling of dreading anticipation for the near future and a glimpse of a glowing expanding wave of blue oblivion that vanished as soon as he focused, the thoughts returning to pheonix warrior nd Kay. "It's a ancestral memory, something locked away for a long time. It's the past, yet timeless. There's something there, out of reach of me. And there's something else too."

(good armour is ridiculously hard to find on the Internet lol)

 

[MzHyde]

The times that John almost got hit in the face made Fia laugh each time. Even if she tried to not laugh at him, it still happened. It was a natural reaction to the action happening, and a very typical thing for a kid to do towards their parent. The whole thing made her not only feel fitter and better for the work out, but also that this was the closest to the stereotypical kid and dad playing catch bonding session she'd ever get. As she was getting a little cocky with handling the multitasking better than he was, she lost balance, started to stumble, skid and then bring herself back up, whilst getting whiplashed in her face by her ponytail and scraping her hands lightly.

Kay listened to Chas explaining what it is she was seeing and she wished he could see it as well to make her feel less insane. The shakiness reminded her of when she got the migraines and the world around her would go fuzzy but shake. "What is the other thing?" She asked him, realising quickly that the locked away knowledge in his kind from the book was getting unlocked slightly. She kept trying to focus through the shaking imagery, finding it was beginning to repeat slightly whilst still moving forward. It was making her head spin.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Elliott and Rinaa were bonding but in a different way. Although no words were exchanged there was something in the air between them that spoke volumes. In Fia's timeline it was frequent that the three would train together, supporting the others punchbag, but for Rinaa, it always just been her and Jay. Cliff was tempted to yell out a warning not to get to cocky and not to loose focus, Fia took her fall. It was a good recovery, she'd give her that, but her and John's eyes widened in horror when it happened. "Bollocks." "I was gonna say don't get cocky with this, as you'll lose concentration somewhere. But more importantly, are you okay?"

Chas hadn't meant to let out that there was something else he'd seen, but it came out anyway. He shrugged an answer, then mentally facepalmed realising that Kay most likely couldn't see the gesture. "I don't know...... I don't think its related to what you're seeing and feeling. It looks different, feels different." He ran a hand up his forehead and through his hair,squeezing it as if it would somehow help him to understand what he had seen better. "This is something else, it doesn't feel related to what you were experiencing. Yours is as far as I can tell, the past. But this is something in the future. And it's got this really bad vibe to it." He sighed slightly. "What about you, better, worse, the same?"

 

[MzHyde]

Hearing John curse at her swift table and recovery sounded all too familiar to the times she did such things in her timeline. She saw them both go wide eyed at her before Cliff asked if she was okay, to which she nodded, smiled and chuckled. "Yeah I'm fine!" She dusted herself off even though she wasn't even dirty and showed her hands, the superficially scrapes already naturally healing up. "See! It's all good. I'm used to it" she said, practically shrugging it off like it was nothing. Though it did hint she put John through that reaction many times.

Kay listened and didn't exactly like the fact that he said it seemed and felt different to what she was experiencing. She kept listening to what he was vaguely describing to her, and she didn't like the the whole bad vibe he was saying it had. "The same.. the vision...it's shaking still, and some bits it's continuing but it's also repeating over." She started saying, as she saw the warriors all nod towards her before turning on their heels and instantly taking flight before her eyes, then the world came back to the arena, and the arena only. "It's gone...it was like they nodded to me to acknowledge me seeing it then took flight before it went" she explained, holding her head feeling dizzy.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John and Cliff were the first to react to Fia's tumble as they were the closest, but hearing the two exclaim everybody else looked up (even Rinaa). None of them doubted that she was fine and that it had all healed up, but it was instinct to check anyway. Once they saw it was nothing, they went back to what they were doing. Cliff had seen bad injuries in her time (from plas-ball) or otherwise and knew this wasn't one of them. "Just checking, it is my job after all." John just nodded, seeing that all was fine. "Thought you said this was your week off?" Elliott and Cal remarked in almost perfect harmony." "You know full well I can't just switch off that part of my brain. I may be 'off work' but I'm not 'off working'." Cliff pulled back the sleeve of her armour. "We got about seven minutes before we gotta get off the playing field, so make the most of it."

Chas definitely did not like that whatever else had been unlocked for a brief moment seemed to be about something else entirely. He took that as there was a trigger somewhere in what he'd seen that had gave him access to it. He'd seen nothing only a blinding blue light, but it had been the wave of emotion that really caught his attention. He breathed a slight sigh of relief when Kay said it was the same, the vision jus looping back. He saw her eyes snap back into focus and knew that it was over. He nodded when her words confirmed it. "I was wondering if that might happen, that if you saw it through it would go completly. For some reason, you needed to see this through completly."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia noticed all the others turn around to look at her when both John and Cliff exclaimed, feeling glad she just answers the questions instead of making a big deal out of it. She knew they wouldn't doubt her being able to heal but she out of habit, showed anyway as a way of putting extra ease on their minds. She would always do it in her timeline as Kay and John wouldn't ever let her go until they saw she was indeed okay. "It's habit to prove I'm okay, I don't mind the checking though" she replied to Cliff after Elliott and Cal said about Cliff's day off. When she checked her watch, Fia nodded. "Okay, lets!" She smiled, just wanting to go again, her tone acting like she never even had the near tumble.

Kay tried to ride the dizziness out as Chas continued to talk to her, nodding at his words. "I'm never going to get used to that whole thing..it just makes me so dizzy after, makes me miss the migraines and that's saying something" she commented back to him, which was one hell of a statement for her as her migraines were always incredibly bad. She never wanted that triggered again but knew with her bloodline it would trigger. "You said it triggered flashes of things in your head? What things? Other than the bad vibes bit I mean..maybe I could help?" She said to him, it was a long shot but after everything she had gone through and with her bloodline, maybe she could help and she wanted to try.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John noticed the tone, knowing it was no big deal really and nodded. "Here catch!" To hear they had only seven minutes left came as a shock for all. They'd been stuck in their bubbles and hadn't noticed the time passing. While Cliff kept an eye on John and Fia as they restarted their game, Cal made her way up to the control deck to close the roof and ensure that everything was returned to standard settings. It was just good courtesy to return everything to base settings, different people and teams had different lighting preferences. Jay leaned against the wall and was watching Elliott and Rinaa having their moment together. She found herself noting the similarities between them, in the way they moved and gestured, wondering why she hadn't picked up on this earlier. Denial that anything could ever happen between them probably.

"Sounds like it sucks,but you look better." At Kay's remark Chas nodded and tried his best to explain what he'd seen. "There were images, scenes which matched up to what you were describing, the armoured Pheonixes in some kind of green place, a sanctuary of sorts I guess, there was a feeling of safety to the place. But there was also words and symbols in a language I didn't understand mixed in there too. It wasn't very coherant, but it was something in the book being triggered by what you said. It was only when you started talking that I started getting it in my head. The other thing was more of an interruption, I think it came from somewhere else entirely."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia smiled widely again when John agreed to continue for the little time they had left. She grabbed the ball as he threw it to her and her balance was all back to normal again, it would be difficult to even realise she even had a stumble only moments ago. She never let things hold her back, she was brought up to just dust herself off and try again. She threw the ball back to him, and again it felt like a normal daughter father bonding session for her. Like she wasn't this important descendant of a rare race, and just a normal 17 year old girl.

To hear she was looking better was a relief to Kay. The dizziness was starting to subside luckily, and she nodded with a smirk when he said it sounds like it sucks. "Take an average migraine and amp it up to 100 and you got a slight insight to what they were like for me. I've passed out from them after vomiting before" she explained. She then listened to what he saw and it definitely matched up with what she was describing of her sight. "The moors of Paradise...where all Phoenix kind came from, that's what you would have seen. The cave reminded me of the one from the mindwalk. I'm sure it was the same one. As for the words and symbols? I think you may have seen the ones we saw on the cave walls. It's the ancient language of my kind. A dead language I guess you can describe it as" she explained to him. "I couldn't read the symbols, but Jay could translate them. I still don't know what was said in the one that shook her up" she added.

"Was any of the words spoken?" She asked, looking up at him now she could focus on him with no problems. She was curious because it seemed like the warriors that were looking at her were talking but it was like someone hit the mute button for her. Yet she remembered from the last dream she had so many cries in the old language as her kind died out, and her mother talking in English and the old language to her.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John felt that was a binding session too, a very strange one happening utterly out of order, but bonding none the less. Idly he wondered if his future self would remember all this, or would they have it wiped to avoid spoilers. It was yet another question to add to the ever growing pile. The seven minutes passed by far too quick for his liking and then Cal came down, slinging an arm around Cliff. "Okay everyone times up." There was a sigh of disappointment. Rinaa hauled the punchbag over her shoulder and brought it back to where she found it, while the others filtered towards the armour and boot rooms. "Chas, Kay, times up. Well be changing out of the gear, so just wait outside for us, yeah?"

It sounded truly dreadful, and Chas was grateful that he hadn't experienced such a migraine with the unlocking knowledge. Chas considered everything carefully, propping his chin on his interlocked hands before speaking. "Makes sense. I only saw the symbols swirl around me, they weren't written on any surfac,and I didn't get a proper look at them. There were words spoken, I think in the same tongue, but it was like a large rush of sounds coming all at once. An overload of stuff. Like I said, it wasn't very coherant to me, it was flicking in and around showing different views and vantages." He raised an eyebrow when Kay said Jay could translate them. "I wonder how she did that, she does know a lot of languages? But an extinct language of a mythological race? There's a story there, and if something freaked her out, then she probably knows something."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia hearing it was time up, joined the sigh of disappointment, but she understood why. Breaking and putting the safety back on the boots, remembering where it was when Cliff showed them both, she walked over to her and John before walking towards the room to de-kit with everyone, and she did something she hadn't done for a long time, even in her timeline. She snaked her arms through and round one of John's, in a teenage equivalent of holding their parent's hand. "That was fun" she commented.

Kay listened to the more information Chas was giving her and it definitely seemed to match up with what she was saying. She also couldn't explain it, but she felt like if Chas could have made out certain words and could have said them, she may have been able to translate them. "If anything like that happens again and you catch any phrases, let me know, I got a feeling with Fee's help I might be able to by now to translate spoken words" she told him. "I don't understand how she could understand the symbols and stuff either, but she definitely recognised them from her reactions. Might be worth talking to her about it, as like you say, there's definitely a story there that she's even keeping me in the dark over" she replied. When Cliff called up saying time was up, she looked down and threw up a thumbs up, "sure!" She called back down, then headed back to their original seats to grab her jacket and slung it over her shoulder. She didn't walk too fast incase she went dizzy again as she didn't want to risk it. "You think it's worth telling John or not?" She asked.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Yeah, it was." John nodded, not going into details, that simply wasn't his style. The arm from Fia was a surprise, but he firguerd it was something worth getting used to. Elliott had been very guarded the first few months and refused to let people touch him, particularly his face and hair. But over time that left and he relaxed. Rinaa and Cal both had their own gear, having teleported to the apartment to get it. The rest of the armour and boots were put neatly away, those that needed fuel drained were hooked up by Cliff. Pulling off the armour revealed just how much of a workout it had been and various cans of deodorant were tossed around in an attempt to cover up the smell. "If anybody they're gonna stink up my apartment, think again. We have a very sophisticated device for getting rid of sweaty smells called a shower, so you're all using it when we get back." Cal called out as a general warning, addressing it at nobody in particular.

"Thanks Cliff!" He called down, watching the other retreat into the underbelly of the arena to where he assumed the changing rooms were. He then got up and followed Kay, remembering the way out of the stadium seats from earlier. "I'll pay better attention next time." Part of the problem was that he hadn't been expecting any knowledge to unlock and had found himself thrown in the deep end taking in everything and nothing all at once. "Well none of us ever actually thought to ask what she found after that day. I'm guessing her mind was more focused on other people than whatever those symbols said. I doubt she's going to say anything unless somebody asks, that's just her style." He considered the question and knew there was only one right answer. "He has a right to know, after all he was there the first time this happened, and not saying anything about it will only make it worse in the long term."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia in her timeline used to do the whole grabbing onto her parents arm, particularly John's a lot, then with one or another she had stopped for a long time. It was just something she liked doing at the time if she was in a good mood and wanted hug her parents. It was her way of showing she loves them without being exactly soppy with it. She was a daddy's girl and actions like such showed it. Reaching the changing area, she let go of John but not before she gave his arm a squeeze smiling, then changed out of the armour. Like the others she was indeed sweaty and not in the best shape, but it made her glad she was wearing a lose vest underneath as if she wasnt, she could have looked and smelled a lot worse. "Oh I'm definitely hitting the shower! I like being clean" Fia smirked back at Cal's remark, as she took one of the deodorant spray as one reached her, using it for the time being.

Kay nodded, finding Chas made a valid point. They didn't ever really ask Jay about it as when they came back from the mindwalk they went straight into the cards and such instead along with other things. She sighed knowing he was right also about telling John about the next lot of...whatever that was she just went through. "Okay, I'll add it to the list of important things I have to tell him" she said, feeling like all of a sudden this list was starting to grow rapidly. She wanted to give John a break but it felt like she was destined to always stress him out which she never wanted to do. "We seriously need to catch a break, I'm getting real tired of stressing John out with things out of my control." she said, reaching the exit where they were to meet up with the others again.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"We're gonna need a bigger shower" Cliff smirked in, purposefully referencing Jaws and not making suggestions that anybody was fat. That was a rabbit hole not worth going down. Cal just rolled her eyes in agreement, while the others snickered at the well worn joke. They'd heard so many variationa of that one line in Jaws, yet somehow it was still funny. "You got Jaws here, how does that even work?" "There's a whole business in exporting movies off world, that's why we can find a lot of Ertah stuff here, and if Id actually bothered to look, I could have found Attili stuff in Earth, or somebody who knows how to get it." "Its like smuggling things from the Downworld, except more alien." Rinaa explained.

Chas couldn't help but nod, Kay hadn't been around long enough to know, but John's life was alwsy like this. Months would pass with only minor blips and things of interest, and then the motherlode of shit would be dumped all at once. This was one of the latter where everything was happening at once and the best thing to do was juts go with the flow and not resist. Fighting it only made things a million times worse. "Yeah, life gets like this, everything happening at once. This is gonna sound like a contradiction of sorts, but don't tell him today unless he asks, he's in a pretty good mood by his own standards and it'd do him some good to be like that for a whole y'know."

(I'll be on less frequently now as my teachers have finally set up a system for giving us work)

 

[MzHyde]

Fia with the others sniggered at the reference. The one good thing about being homeschooled was she was around all the time to be 'educated on classic films you need to know about or you're not our kid'. She listened to how they got Jaw here and it made sense to her after Rinaa compared to the smuggling downworlder items but on an alien scale. Smuggling things within the downworld she knew about well.

Chas may not have thought that Kay had been long to know this sort of thing happens with John a lot, but she had been warned about it before and she felt like she had been around him long enough to get that idea. It didn't mean she couldn't feel bad about being the cause of this latest lot of chaos being brought down on him. She nodded in agreement about not telling John today unless he asked. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin this good mood he was in, as even she could see how much of a good mood he was in in John standards. Even seeing him seeming to enjoy bonding with his daughter seemed like such a big deal to Kay, she didn't want to destroy that. "Wasn't planning on it. He deserves to have this good mood" she replied.

(That's fine thanks for the heads up)

 

[_gallifrog_]

"That he does" Chas nodded. John deserved a holiday probably even more than Chas himself did, but John's goldiays never stayed as holidays for long. He was a sort of magnet for the supernatural and down right weird and more often than not ended up in the middle of something stupidly dangerous by complete accident. His reputation proceeded him wherever he went, so even if John didn't go looking for trouble, trouble went looking for John Constantine. Chas pushed open the door to the outside, it had darkened significantly since the rooftop lunch, night having properly fallen. The temperature had dropped slightly, but it wasn't exactly cold.

To hear that Rinaa knew about the smuggling came as no surprise to Elliott and Jay. It was going on in their timeline after all, and Jay particularly knew far too many people involved in smuggling when compared to the national average. She'd been involved in smuggling herself, it paid well and as a pilot it just made sense to bring some additional things for friends or even smuggle out said friends when they were in shit. It wasn't necessarily illegal, it was in that grey area between illegal and legal. Rinaa was first out of the changing rooms slinging her bags over her shoulders and making her way to the outside, looking side to side, until she picked up the figures of Chas and Kay. She leaned against the wall, and began rooting through the gear bag as she waited for the others to emerge. The rest took longer, deciding to wait for whoever was slowest, then exit as a group.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay felt like if it wasn't for the fact that vacations never stayed as such with John, she would have liked to done something nice for him and take him somewhere but she knew better than that. Instead, she wondered if there was something she could do to give him a break properly in some other way, before Fia was born when their lives would become constantly hectic. Though she did think if it came to it, she'd get Chas to babysit, even for just a night if she could find a live punk band or something to take him to see or similar. So she made it her mission to think of something. She walked outside into the cool air and welcomed it after everything she experienced. For once it didn't make her feel cold.

She noticed Rinaa be the first to appear and stand nearby against the wall. "The others still sorting themselves out kiddo?" She asked. Fia waited with the others bas she grabbed her jacket and unknowingly slung it over her shoulder like Kay did just moments ago, it hanging off one finger via the hook loop. When everyone was ready, she exited with them all, walking in between John and Elliott by sheer fluke.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Yep, they're doing a full make over of each other in there, not my scene" she remarked with a roll of her eyes and a sarcastic twinge to her tone that sounded more like John than Elliott or Jay. "Whatever they're doing it's bound to be an improvement." Chas bantered back, earning a half smile from the teenager, who pulled out her phone and began texting with one hand, while untangling her earphone cables with the other. "Ambidextrous I take it?" "Kinda, It depends on the situation really. I'm right hand dominant for fighting, left hand dominant for biking and guitar and ambidextrous when working on a vehicle that requires two hands." She explained.

Chas found himself about to say something along the lines of 'that's handy', but realised the pun and stopped himself. The rest emerged at that time providing, Elliott sporting a beanie they'd found in Rinaa's bag as a sort of makeshift disguise. The darkness hid the scar well, but the beanie was an added extra, better safe than sorry. They made their way back towards the apartment, taking their time with walking, nobody in any real rush to get back. John and Elliott were discussing plas-ball or more precisely what Elliott's childhood experiences had been. He'd played with mates at school on lunch breaks but that was glorified basketball as they were too young for proper boots and plasma. Ten was the agreed age for being allowed with plasma and proper rockets, but even then it was greatly reduced. At one point he'd wanted to play for the school team, but didn't make the cut. Cal being Cal let him use her good gear illegally when they snuck out at night as they were the same shoe size.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay smirked at the response and noticed the familiarity to John in that moment which internally threw her off guard for a split second. She noticed how Rinaa could do both at the same time, something she found slightly impressive as most people couldn't untangled headphone cables two handed, let alone one handed like Rinaa was doing. She let her just talk with Chas whilst she waited. When she did see the rest come out and head towards them, she noticed how Fia was carrying her jacket the same way as she was which made her smirk to herself.

As Kay noticed it, so did Fia from where she was making her put her jacket on, realising that it was probably for the best anyway considering how covered in runes she was. She listened to the conversation being had about Elliott's childhood memories of how he got into plas-ball and found them interesting to listen to as it was a side of him she didn't know about.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Rinaa listened to the stories too. She only knew what Jay had told her, which meant there were many large gaping holes in her knowledge about her father. It was evident from Elliott's willingness to talk that coming back had given him enough closure on various aspects of his past. At the main street turn everybody except Rinaa turned right towards the apartment, she took the left fork. "Let me guess, you're still gonna go to the lab?" Elliott spoke first, and Rinaa nodded. "I doubt I'd get any sleep anyway, I'm too wired and besides, I like working at night. The lab'll be quieter." Rinaa then added "It's not like Deke won't be burning the midnight oil or pulling an all-nighters himself and he sort of counts as responsible supervision." "Sort of?" Jay knew three was a story in here. "He's basically a mad scientist- crazy hair, genius level intellect, weird sense of humour, has a lab filled with insanely awesome projects and he should not be let explode anything. Ever." In the background Cal and Cliff nodded in agreement.

"Sounds like an interesting guy." Elliott remarked, fitting the pieces together in his mind. "And also a shape changer and has been acting as my double in prison. Or is that a different Deke?" "Nope, that's him. There's only one Deke who fits that description." Cal nodded. "Tell him I say thanks for covering for me and sorry that he got stuck in there for twice the time he signed up for, will'ya kiddo." "Will do" she smiled. "Tell him the same from me." Jay added. Rinaa nodded. "And I'll either be back at four in the morning or seven depending on whether I sleep there or not." With that she turned and headed down the street, plugging in the earphones and selecting a playlist. Once they were out of earshot Elliott and Jay turned to each other. "Insomnia?" "I was thinking it was the bite, making her more nocturnal."