Fandom Into the fire (1x1 MzHyde/Gallifrog)

[_gallifrog_]

"We won't, don't worry." Cliff promised, taking a massive forkful of her own cake, a look of bliss coming over her face. She couldn't think of a time when she'd ever been disappointed in the cake served at Pars 7. Whoever the chefs were, they were miracle workers in Cliff's mind. Her family were great at making dishes involving meat, but deserts like this were beyond them. Nobody had the knack for anything more complicated than the most basic of cookies and cupcake bun things. Cal meanwhile was taking pictures of the main and desert menus and sending them on to Elliott. "She can find out for herself if she wants us to get her anything from here." She the turned to Cliff "d'you think I should ask the teenager and Jay if they want anything?" "Yeah, I think you should, if anything, Rinaa will want something for tomorrow." "Sounds like a plan."

John knew that as soon as Chas dipped in with his own opinions on the matter, there was very little Kay could say against it. He was the only real parent in the room (not that John didn't consider himself Elliott's father, but Chas had been the only one to raise a child from a newborn to a teenager, and out of them all he had the most experience with all stages of parenthood). Chas was tempted to make some remark about just how alike John and Cheryl when it came to not talking about their emotions, but John was only too aware of the fact, and more than likely John would use it as a tangent to go off on a rant about his niece's scumbag father. Whatever Elliott was going to say in response to Kay was forgotten at the incoming text from Cal. He looked at it, then up at the others. "Cal's sent on the menus, and from a brief skim, it looks amazing. Hold on a sec." He fiddled around with his phone for a minute, muttering to himself, "really hope Kane and AJ actually installed this, or I'll look a right idiot." A few second later a holo-projection of the image on his phone appeared floating in the air above the device. John raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Very Star Trek."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia smiled and continued to demolish what was left of her cake until it was completely gone. She nodded at Cal's words about Kay finding out for herself about how good the cake was here at Pars 7 as she sat back in her chair for a moment, taking in the full feeling of what she just ate as Cal and Cliff continued their food and Cal sent on photos of the menus to Elliott. She knew Kay would want something, if nothing else, to compare to her own baking abilities and to try and point out how it was made.

Kay, even though she was well and truly besfen on the banter with the wisdom from Chas, she still enjoyed the chatter with them all finding that even then they never once spoke to her differently or treated her like a child which she always appreciated. She could give as good as she got but she also knew when she was beat and would admit as such. With the text coming into Elliott's phone, she gla ced at him, expecting him to pass round the phone or let her look whilst he was holding it for translation purposes. So when he made them all wait, she too rose an eyebrow in curiosity before seeing the hologram of the menus pop up.

"understatement" she smirked looking up at the menus. "seeing as I can't understand the menus, if they do anything like a massive cheeseburger I'm really craving that and craving it with hot sauce.. And I'm gonna guess the other is a dessert menu?" she started saying, before continuing, "I'm really craving strawberries in any kind of dessert" she continued. She had no idea where the cravings were coming from, but she was going to roll with them.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Elliott couldn't help but smirk at their reactions, he'd grown up with tech like this, but it was still a long way from commercially available from Earth. Kane had acquired blueprints of such tech (or more precisely he'd nicked it from one of his father's gang contacts during a raid on the mobster's flat) and he and AJ set out trying to replicate it. "Yeah, it's pretty damn cool alright, only works on photos though, no holo videos..... yet. AJ and Kane spent a hell of a lotta time tryin' to get it working and I bet they'll figure out video at some point in the future." He set the phone down on the table before turning to Kay and directing his next remark at her. "It should be on your phone too Kay, since it's one of stock phones." "Still totally Star Trek." John repeated, the League had holo tech aplenty, but he didn't trust any tech they gave him not to be bugged, and they rarely ever trusted him with any of their tech unless it was a last resort.

Chas looked at the holo menus, his eyebrows scrunching together in concentration as he tried to translate it. "If my knowledge of Attili is correct, big massive burgers seem to be the speciality there." "That's exactly what they do." Elliott confirmed, skimming through the menu. "I don't think I was ever in this pace as a kid, judging by the look of the menus it's more of a place that caters to military types. But I trust my sister and her wife know where to get good food." After the others gave their orders, Elliott picked up the phone again and sent on the list to his sister.

When the text came through on Cal's end she read it, then gestured for one of the waiters nearby to come over. Jay declined the offer of food, but as predicted Rinaa was more than happy to have somebody buy food for her and bung it in the fridge. She'd been to Pars 7 a couple of times before and, like Fia, Cal and Cliff absolutely loved the food. By the time the women went to pay, the take away food boxes had been made up. Cal passed two over to Fia while Cliff paid.

 

[MzHyde]

Hearing that the tech should be on her phone also, Kay was now highly curious, deciding that she would so try and find it on her phone at some point, when they weren't ordering what they wanted and focusing on the menus from Elliott's phone. "so gonna see if it is later" she smiled. She figured it would be nice to try out the images that she took at Cliff's on it and how they look as a hologram. She also figured it would make for a neat little extra way of bringing up reference photos for any sketching she decided to do, ideas running through her mind instantly about using such a piece of tech to do possibly a mural opposite Elliott's in the room that would end up being Fia's, for Fia. She pulled her feet back up onto the couch as at one point she had put her feet down on the ground and sitting normally.

With the text having arrived, Fia waited with Cal and Cliff before Cal put in the take away orders and eventually helping by taking the two boxes she was handed. "thanks for lunch Cliff, greatly appreciated" she told her, having always been brought up by Kay to say thank you if someone bought or made her a meal. They really had been so welcoming and generous to her when she just dropped into their lives, even more out of the blue than even Jay, Kay, John, Chas, Elliott and Rinaa had. She felt like she really owed them even if they would possibly deny that.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"You have to go into settings and scroll all the way down, practically to the bottom and there should be a section named 'optional extras'. It's in there somewhere. Or at least that's where it is on mine." Elliott told Kay, the idea of using the holo function to project up reference photos and other art inspiration had also occurred to him upon seeing how well it worked. He'd forgotten the setting had even existed until the menus came in and he realised that Cal had only sent them to him. "Maybe I need to 'accidentally' damage my phone so I can get one of those ones." John mused, making his airquote gestures on the word accidentally as big and as noticeable as possible. "Orrr, now here's a novel idea, you could just ask for one. Or sign up to beta test it. Kane wants to go commercial with his tech ideas after he breaks free of his father's shackles, so we're sort of his guinea pigs, though we gave him permission to do so. That's why this phone here is a prototype while Kay's is a slightly older model that has all the kinks and faults ironed out."

"Meh, our pleasure." Cliff waved it off, as Fia predicted she would. The two women were by no means rich, but with the military paying for their travelling expenses, Dan providing deals on weapons and armour and no kids, they were reasonably well off and could afford to splurge out on their guests. They felt even more justified to do so when it became clear that visits from the Earth group would be few and far between. "What she actually means is, we're paying for everything now, so you lot will have to pay for everything if we ever visit you guys on Earth." Ca smirked cheekily, an expression that was identical Elliott's cheeky smirk, distributing the rest of the take-away boxes between herself and er wife, before leaving the courtyard and heading out a side gate (a different one to the one they came in by).

 

[MzHyde]

Kay listened to the instructions from Elliott about how to find where this option was on the phone and nodded. "got it. I'll have a play about with it later" she told him, just as John said he would purposely break his phone to get the same novelty which just made her smirk. She smirked more when Elliott gave him a much less destructive option to get the application for himself. It was during this time that she truly remembered her phone was a replacement given to her by Jay and not her other one that got all but destroyed by the demons who kidnapped her. "Ell's ideas seem much less destructive" she quipped, going from bantering with him to being on his side and going against John.

Fia just smiled at Cliff dismissing her thanks, but she wasn't going to forget her manners either way. She always felt the need to prove herself, even after everything Cal and Cliff said about her. It was just who she was, she had the attitude of 'if you don't like me, fine, screw you' but she also found the ones who accepted her, she had to constantly prove herself to be worthy of knowing. It was a conflicting and complicated way of thinking but it all stemmed from being cooped up for her whole life and not having friends of her own. Just being known as 'Elliott's kid sister' by all of his friends and that was it. She smirked at Cal's 'translation' before chuckling, "and that would be our pleasure to do. Hopefully one day I can show you two the places I have been to and like" she grinned walking back with them both.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John shrugged. "But my way is more fun. Maybe I could get it blown up or something" he mused stretching out on the couch and shifting into a different position. "Rinaa's the one you'd want to ask about exploding tech". Elliott replied. John raised an eyebrow in a 'tell me more I am very interested not for normal legal reasons' kind of way. "Her laptop, the one Jay's bringing back has a memory wipe and an explosive self destruct feature to deal with anybody unauthorised trying to get at her stuff." "Well damn, guess I'll have to stay well away from it." John smirked, but Elliott didn't quite trust him to stick to his word on that, knowing that John was too nosy for his own good sometimes. "You'd better do that." Elliott told him firmly."She made it pretty damn clear that if that laptop gets fucked then the only way to get these kind of programmes again is to go back to her own timeline, and give how 'well' that went last time, it's not worth it." By well he was referring to how, when Rinaa returned she had a lost, haunted look in her eyes, refused to talk to anybody outside of the most basic monosyllables and actively avoided everybody in the apartment for the next few days. Cliff had managed to weasel out a few pieces of information about what happened, but as a doctor she was bound by doctor-patient confidentiality not to say anything, something she took very seriously indeed.

"We'd like that." Cal replied, her words not even beginning to convey the depth of thoughts and emotions that rushed through her when she thought of visiting where her brother spent almost half of his life growing up. As much as she liked Fia, she was far closer to her biological brother, and felt far more of a connection to him than she did to Fia. (Not that there wasn't one present, but because she and Elliott had been through more together than she and Fia). Not to mention that the teenager was a girl out of time, and the things and places she liked may not even be around yet. "Yep, we would, it all sounds kinda alien, yet kind of not, which is probably what Attil is like to all of you guys."

 

[MzHyde]

Kay just shook her head at John, deciding she wasn't even going to entertain that train of thought of his, instead letting Elliott deal with that one. She thought Elliott would try and convince John otherwise, but instead just made him more curious about the idea making Elliott explain that John needed to stay away from the laptop no matter what. "I think we can all agree pissing off Rinaa is not the best plan to ever have, if she's practically booby trapped her laptop for unwanted hands and eyes, then she has her reasons for it. Like you say Ell, the last trip back to her time didn't go well, not worth making her do that trip again" she spoke up eventually. She knew that the moments of seeing Rinaa angry were just a snippet of how angry she could get, that what they had seen was nothing in comparison to how angry Rinaa could get, something she did not want to witness anymore than she already had.

Fia knew Cal didn't feel any kind of kind closeness to her, not like she did with her actual brother, and that was fine by Fia. In her timeline it was slightly different but she didn't expect Cal to just instantly get a bond with her just because of technical terms linking them as family. Truth be told, she just wanted the idea of being able to truly show people around one day to come true. She then nodded at Cliff's words, "got it in one. It is kinda like that for us here. Familiar but alien all at the same time." she confirmed.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Practically booby trapped it?" John repeated, and it was clear from his tone that he disagreed with that statement. "She has booby-trapped it. Anything that blows up when the wrong people going poking around is booby-trapped in my book." John had quite a it of experience with booby traps, but magical and non magical and it was that experience that he felt justified the 'I know what I'm talking about tone' in his voice. "As for her reasons, I'd hazard a guess at the myriad of secrets she keeps in this timeline and her own one related to her vigilante double life, classified research and whatever other illegal and/or classified stuff she does in her spare time that we don't know about." "Let's just leave it at stay the Hells away from the laptop." Elliott cut him, off before John could go on some kind of rant. "Point taken, I'll stay well away from it."

They ambled back slowly, though not too slowly, it was heating up and the food needed to put somewhere cold pretty soon (Cliff wasn't going to run the risk of accidentally giving their guests food poisoning). Soon enough Fia would recognise the sight of the forge (the smoke from the chimney indicating that somebody was hard at work there). It was then that Cliff made an unexpected turn left, heading away from the main door of their block, heading down into the underground parking bay instead. In contrast to the outside, the bay was significantly cooler, cool enough to have a mild amount of goosebumps prickle up on Cal's skin. "As much as I love the garage level, why are we here?" Cal asked, not angry, just mildly confused and curious. Cliff cast an eye over her shoulder warily, but there was nobody else there. "Earlier while we were walking back from Pars, I got the feeling we were being followed, a pretty damn strong one too, but I couldn't see anybody. Diverting down here seemed as good a way as any to figure out if we'd picked up a tail. Evidently not."

 

[MzHyde]

Kay rolled her eyes at John and waved off his little comment with a flick of her hand. She knew it was a definite booby trap that Rinaa had rigged up, but she wasn't going to go on the whole 'you know what I mean' counter with him, and instead just let him go on the 'I know what I'm on about' rant so he could get it out of his system. She was glad though when Elliott cut the conversation dead with his simple statement of 'lets just not go poking round her laptop' which she was glad that John agreed and ended the talk. She glanced at the time on her phone subconsciously, wondering how close by Cal, Cliff and Fia were with the food before going back to her book and finally finishing the chapter she had found herself half way through.

Fia walked back with the two women, keeping ahold of the two boxes she was handed earlier. She soon enough saw the forge and indeed the clue that someone, she guessed Dan, was in there working hard. As they continued walking and saw the apartment come into view, she too got confused as to why Cliff did a detour into the underground parking lot. She listened to what Cliff explained and couldn't resist but to look behind her, a habit she learned a long ago to do. "huh.. Interesting. I didn't sense anything or see anything, but might be worth remaining alert every time we go out. Just incase" she remarked.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Like Fia, Cal also turned to take a look behind her. She trusted Cliff's instincts on this, she always would. just because there wasn't somebody now didn't mean there hadn't been somebody earlier. She wasn't going to just dismiss her wife's theory as paranoia or her seeing things, Cliff would no doubt be doing that to herself already. "Given that we have just broken somebody from jail, it's not impossible that we were being followed. And besides no doubt some government goon or six has been assigned to keep an eye on us ever since my brother came back to make sure it doesn't all go balls up." She paused before adding "And I agree with Fia, we should definitely be more alert next time we go out." "Major Ty would be so disappointed in us." At the mention of one of the officers who'd trained them, Cliff couldn't help but crack a smirk. "He totally would be."

They made their way up the main flight if stairs to the flat, Cal and Cliff, quipping back and forth various words of wisdom in Attili from the various officers that trained them. Once again the door of the apartment was sticking, requiring Cal to bang it with her shoulder to force it out of the jamb. This delay gave Elliott the necessary time to flip the sketchbook to a completely different page (the unfinished boy on the bench sketch) and adjust himself to look completely relaxed."We're back and we've got food." Cliff declared, holding up one of the take-away boxes to illustrate her point.

 

[MzHyde]

Fia nodded in agreement, if she was to be completely truthful she was surprised it had taken this long before something this even started occurring. If Cal or Cliff had disagreed with her about being more on alert, she would have listed a few reasons of why they were wrong and why being on alert better was the right course of action, but luckily for her they didn't disagree and knew it was the right thing to do. She may not have known who Major Ty was exactly, but easily guessing they were one of their commanding officers in the past, but she knew future John and Jay would have been a bit disappointed in her that she didn't notice anyone following them or even get a whiff of someone following them when she was trained so well to be able to notice things. Even the most discreet follower she was able to pick up on back home, but for some reason she couldn't here on Attil.

She followed them up the stairs not really paying attention to anything they were saying as she couldn't fully understand it anyway. Reaching their apartment door, she let them both get the door open before walking in with them, letting Cal declare they have food for them. Fia chuckled at Cal's declaration before walking in properly and putting the boxes she had on the table. "I have no idea whose food I have here so you'll have to check for yourself" she told them, noting that the name of the food was on the box in Attili, "aka Ell you'll have to read it and figure it out" she grinned, before noticing his sketchpad was out and couldn't help but lean over and check out the random sketch he had it on. She could draw but she never inherited the skill like Kay and Elliott had so she was always curious to see their work and admired anything she saw.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Elliott grinned at the sight of his sister, Cliff, and more importantly the food. "I'm fine with that." He replied in response to Fia's comment. Having sent the text earlier he knew whose food was whose, and slid the correct boxes across to each person. The two left over he passed to Cal. "Rinaa? Or Jay?" "The teenager" Cal replied, heading towards the fridge, while Cliff put in her hearing aids. On her own with two people she was fine and able to keep track of everything when deafened, but in a room full of people, it just wasn't possible or practical. "Jay's getting something in town, she found the place in town that does food from the Cns system, apparently you can't get anything like it on Earth and she's been craving it for years apparently." "Makes sense." Elliott nodded. "She tried to make it, or something like it, on Earth once, but quickly gave up. Lack of suitable ingredients, or lack of proper equipment, I can't remember which."

"Plates or no plates?" Cal called out from the kitchen, knowing none of them had ordered any main that warranted proper cutlery. "What she actually means is, will she have to wash dishes or not." Cliff smirked, plopping herself down on one of the kitchen chairs as the couches were all taken. "Well I never bother with a plate if I can help it." John replied, a fact that both Chas and Elliott could confirm. When living on his own John didn't bother with plates, as he didn't want to deal with the inevitable washing up. He wasn't a slob though, his flat was actually pretty clean, albeit rough around the edges like himself. When one had magical artefacts lying around there needed to be some kind of order and cleanliness. "I'll use the box, it looks way better than shitty Earth Styrofoam." "The box is fine for me." Elliott added, before tilting the pad so Fia could get a better look at it. "You probably know of my habit of photographing random people from your time, but if you didn't, this guy is one of those photogenic people."

 

[MzHyde]

When Elliott started handing out the boxes, Kay took hers with a thanks opening the box and smelling the food happily, as Elliott continued handing them out and checking who the remaining ones belonged to. "I'm good with the box too" she replied to the question by Cal, knowing she'd eaten out of worse things than these boxes, something she was never proud of admitting or remembering. She noticed Fia looking over Elliott's shoulder and smiled seeing what a typical younger sibling she looked like in that moment.

Fia nodded at his assumption, as she did indeed know of his habit of photographing random people if he thought they'd make a good shot photography wise or future sketch. "yeah, I know of it, wondered who the guy was and now it makes sense" she smiled, squiding herself in between Kay and Elliott so she could look at his sketch more and for once actually be a little close to her big brother whilst she could as Rinaa wasn't around. "I've always envied yours and mum's drawing skills. I can draw if I put my mind to it but I cant do portraits to save my life and I'm nowhere near as good as you two" she admitted, explaining at the same time. "you can't be good at everything kiddo" Kay commented between mouthfuls of the burger she ordered.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"What guy?" Ca couldn't help but ask, and in response, Elliott held up the sketchpad so Cal could see it. "I would pass it over, but there's all kinds of lose pages in this and I'd rather not have them spill all over the floor." Elliott told his sister, an apologetic edge to his tone, it wasn't the full truth, but he did have quite a few sheets hanging out of the pad, so he hoped that would be enough to stop Cal questioning it further. "Fair enough, Deke has a similar thing going on with his own project books." She walked forwards looking over his other shoulder to get a close up look at the source photo. "I can see why you picked this guy out, he's distinctive alright, in a quirky way, and good looking too."

"Can't speak for Kay's style, but I'm very people focused when it comes to drawing." Elliott replied in response to Fia's words, carefully closing the pad and placing it to one side. He knew that Fia would have seen all kinds of his sketched pieces, so his words were more for Kays's benefit than his adopted sister's. "Even when I do impressive landscape stuff there has to be a person in it, whether it's big and obvious the one of John on a rootop or more subtle and hidden like the tiny figures on the next roof over in the Attili skyline. It's rare I'd do anything without some kind of person it in. personally I find people more interesting to sketch than landscapes, landscapes can get kinda boring after a while."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia made sure her head was out of the way when Cal came over to see the sketch in question for herself. She nodded at everything that Cal said, agreeing with her that the guy was kinda good looking and had an air about him in a quirky manner. She then looked at Elliott when he replied to her comment, knowing that every single sketch she had ever seen of his, there had been a person in it. She listened to him continue his explanation and chat, always enjoying listening to him talk art, even when she was super young, she'd be completely hypnotised by him when he spoke of his art. Kay hadn't really thought about the fact that we're people in every single piece of art he did until he pointed it out now. Which made her think back and realise that yes, he did indeed have a preferred style of life drawing.

"I wish I could draw people. I'm not awful but not great at all either. One time I drew a person when I was..." she looked up as she tried to remember her age at the story in question before looking back down "I think 5 or 6 and I cant remember who said it but they told me it looked like a pig in a dress. I was SO upset but looking back, they weren't wrong" she chuckled. Kay laughed thinking it sounded like something either Elliott or John would say to her, rather than her. "I prefer life drawing as well, mostly original designs rather than of actual people, but I do agree, landscape can get boring sometimes. Think one of my favourite landscape piece I ever did for uni was of a woman stepping out of a tree in a forest. We had the theme of mother nature and its what I just randomly came up with." she thought back.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Kay wasn't the only one who thought that the comment sounded like the kind of teasing quip Elliott would give or the far more blunt opinion John would give (even when Fia was at a very young age, he only gave praise if he meant it, John wasn't the kind of person who could give fake praise to a kid. Something Trish, Elliott and Gemma (and later Fia) were all too familiar with growing up. Which pushed them all to work even harder to impress John, making the praise feel even better when they did eventually earn it). John skilfully disguised his snort of laughter by taking a massive bite out of the burger, the mouthful of delicious meat, relish and toppings muffling the laughter (which was quickly replaced by an appreciative noise that was almost a moan). "On a side note, this burger is bloody amazing." John declared. "The stuff from Pars 7 always is. They do catering for events too, but the main base is passing pilots, officers who can afford to splurge on the fancy stuff and they do a less expensive menu for the cadets. Covering all market really. None of our gang know anybody who works there, but I guarantee you that if we did, we'd be milking that source for all we possibly could." "And for good reason, I know this is going to be a great burger and I haven't even taken a bite of it yet."

"Sounds interesting." Elliott nodded, sort of able to visualise form the very sparse description what kind of painting Kay had created. "I can't work without a source image, I prefer a physical image, but when I was younger, I used to retreat into my head and MindWalk through my own memories and sketch those, with pretty awful results at first. But I got there in the end. Though drawing people isn't for everybody, people are damn hard." Elliott put particular emphasis on the word 'hard', wanting to drive home the point that even though he'd been drawing for years, there were still parts he found tricky in his specialist area. "Regardless of whether they're alien, human, Downworlder or a cloud of sentient gas." He then cracked a smirk, anticipating what either Fia or John's question would be."I haven't actually drawn the last one, they do exist, but the other three I have done, on quite a few occasions. Though I suppose the sheer variety of options is what entices me". He removed the pencils from behind his ears and set them on the table beside his sketchbook and reached for the takeaway. "Jay said once that if I ever met her.... the exact word used was 'ally' .... typical Jay" he rolled his eyes before giving a name."Dakkkon, all I'd want to do is draw him as he's so distinctive," Fia wouldn't have ever met Dakkon, nobody in her timeline had, but the name would be vaguely familiar, a single word underlined in the corner of one of the pages of the leather-bound notebook.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay smirked glancing at John at the pig in a dress comment from Fia, because she just knew John would find it highly amusing. She could just tell he was disguising his amusement by eating his burger before glancing bsck at Fia and Elliott, finding it nice that Elliott was so open to talking with Fia and in a way, herself about art. It made her think about how far they had come from that first joint drawing moment at AJ's place and how neither were particularly open with their opinions on each other's pieces. Though she did seem to remember to being a bit more open with her compliment than Elliott was to her. It was nice to see that level of trust had grown from that day to the here and now. "it was probably one of my favourite pieces I ever did, no idea what ever happened to it though. Like most of my work I guess" she shrugged. She really was still annoyed at not having the piece with her, even after all this time and was certain she probably wouldn't be able to recreate it quite the same way.

She listened to what Elliott was saying about his attempts to draw what he saw in his mind walks as she continued to eat, whereas Fia caught a hold of the last thing he mentioned and sniggered, "sentient gas?! What?" Fia had to ask, refraining from being utterly childish and making a fart joke. As Elliott continued to speak, seeming to know she was going to ask such a thing, nodding as he spoke like she always did when the name seemed to ring a bell to her. "that name seems familiar for some reason" she said, trying desperately to remember why it felt like she had heard it before. Then it dawned on her, making her get up and headed to the room she had taken up, grabbing the leather bound notebook she used to get to this time and walked bsck, sitting between Kay and Elliott once again. She opened it up and flicked through it, scanning each page as she went when the name appeared. "knew I'd heard the name from somewhere. Never knew the point to it but now it makes slight sense if it's an ally of Jay's" she commented, tapping the name on the page.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Don't be racist about the sentient gas." John called over from his position on the couch, a sentence he didn't think he'd ever say in his life. He too was intrigued by the idea of such a creature existing, wondering how the could do..... well anything really. "If they wanna exist and gain consciousness, then good for them." "They're pretty fascinating. I did learn about them in medical school, not that I could even begin to treat one, but for doctor-pilots like me a good grounding in zenobiology- alien biology- is vital. Sentient gas species are, for a lack of a better word, a case study." "That sounds like something out of Doctor Who, but if I've learned anything hangin' around with John is that the spectrum of life is weirder than any of us can imagine."

Elliott knew that Kay wouldn't ever be able to replicate that particular piece. It was one of things about artists, a piece was a one off. So much effort, soul and emotion was put into one piece, meaning that that exact mixture of emotions and time could never again be replicated, thus the piece could never be truly replicated. Elliott had tried to replicate an old piece, but it never turned out the same, he usually ended up changing the piece into something completely different. That day in the cafe he was both suspicious of the newcomer and annoyed that he'd been the one left with Kay while John and Chas fucked off to who knows where. It had been John who'd called him back after all and he had been looking forwards to some quality time with Trish who was like a sister to him and instead ended up on glorified babysitting duty. It didn't hep matters that it was usually the women who screwed John's life over for their own gain, no matter how harmless they looked at first glance.

Elliott hadn't been expecting Fia to recognise the name, Jay had only brought up the name three times, and every time in passing in the time that Elliott had known her. "Well given that it's Jay 'ally' probably has a very fluid definition, if Quin's anything to go by this guy's probably an enemy by now." He looked at the notebook, noting how about a fifth of the pages had been torn out of it, while the outer leather had was looked like an acid burn on it. He recognised Rinaa's handwriting in the book, she had a very distinctive angular tails on letters like 'j' and 'y' as well as slanting her lines on letters like 't' and 'f' upwards to the right. But it was something else that really caught his attention. He flipped the book back a few pages to one that contained something written in Attili-English code. "That's my code."

 

[MzHyde]

When John told them not to be racist against sentient gas, Fia rose an eyebrow as she didn't think anything that was said was considered racist in the slightest. Then she guessed that somehow he just knew she could have made an immature joke but chose not to, which both impressed and freaked her out (not that she showed it on the outside) a little. "wouldn't think of it" was her genuine reply. She listened to Cliff when she spoke up confirming they do exist and that she had studied them even if she hadn't ever treated one, thinking it was cool that such species are out there. She then nodded at Chas' reply, knowing that never has a truer word been spoken. "true that!" she smirked.

Fia had never met the ally in question, or heard Jay in her timeline speak of them in the slightest, so she couldn't say if they were still an ally or enemy. She just knew it was familiar and the book proved she wasn't going crazy in thinking the name felt familiar. She let Elliott take a look at the book, sitting right bsck so he could flip the pages back a little way before pointing out his code on one of the other pages, further back. "it is? What's the code for? If you dont mind me asking." she asked Elliott. "I used this book so I could come back here without affecting the anti magic barriers. So done quite a bit of flicking through it to find the right one, but never fully figured the code out. Not that I really tried because it wasn't what I was looking for at the time" she explained.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Yeah it is." Elliott tapped the page, running his fingertips over the symbols while Fia explained what she used the book for. It surprised both him and John that this notebook was the source of Fia's success, both having seen the notebook among the contents of Rinaa's backpack the day she pulled out the luminous yellow bobble hat. She said it was a sort of brainstorming book/journal/place to jot down random ideas. Fia's copy was older, but the acid stain on the cover was unmistakable. Rinaa had made it quite clear that she possessed no magical abilities whatsoever and her involvement with the world of magic went as far as the occasional hunt with John or Chas and her various Downworlder friends. "How the Hells did somebody figure out a way around them?" John asked, clearly talking to himself. John hadn't tried anything major against the planet's barriers, but he had given them some small magical 'pushes' out of curiosity to no effect. The walls remained solid. He knew logically that the barriers couldn't be impenetrable, with magic there was always a way around.

"There's a bit of a story to it though. Back when I was younger, and very much not fluent, I'd both talk and write in this mad Attili English combo and neither John nor Chas would have a clue what I was trying to say most of the time. Back then it was just frustrating, like you not being able to speak the language here, but a million times worse as nobody could translate what was going on for me. But once I was fluent enough, I realised that an Attili-English combo makes a pretty damn good code, so I spent the bones of a month and a half making my own. Partly out of fun and partly because I wanted a way of keeping things secret, like every teenager ever." He gave a rueful shrug before continuing. "The notebook it's in is somewhere back in John's place. I guess Rinaa found it and adapted it to her own purposes." There was both a sadness in his tone that he never had the opportunity to actually teach it to her and a sort of pride that the teenager had found it and used it.

 

[MzHyde]

Hearing that it was the book that Fia used which got her to time travel back to here got Kay curious and surprised also. She knew deep down that Fia must have found a non magical way to get here because of the barriers but hearing more of how she accomplished it just got her more curious. Her own thoughts were echoing John's own question but didn't say anything as she wanted Fia to be able to fully listen to Elliott and what he was explaining to her. The last thing Kay wanted was to interrupt them as they've rarely had this sort of opportunity since Fia had come back to get help and help out.

Fia listened intently and nodded every now and then to show that she was understanding what Elliott was saying to her. She herself had her own little codes and secrets in her own journal that as still very much in her bag, so she did understand where Elliott was coming from on a lot of what he was explaining. "I get that, I got my own diary for that purpose. When I came across this book it was under the floorboards of the library in The House. I guess The House lead me to it as I had spent days in there trying to find a way to get here without setting off the whole magic barriers" she said to him. "I guessed it was Rinaa who hid there but we're--" she gestured att herself, Cal and Cliff "are thinking its a third party who can write in both English and Spanish" she said, flipping through the pages and eventually finding a prime example of what she said. Just like in the other journal, there was a page with the same handwriting and in the same two languages.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"That figures." John remarked when explained that it had been The House that had directed her to the hidden book. "The House knows what it's doing, so I can easily believe that this book could be important for one than one reason." Seeing that Fia was going for full disclosure Cal felt the others deserved to know the true origin of the book. "We found out this morning that the book wasn't originally Rinaa's." John raised an eyebrow while Chas and Elliott turned to face Cal, curiosity written all over their faces. "It's had a pretty colourful life in order to get to here." "How interesting?" "Interesting enough that currently there are three copies of the book wall within a couple of miles of each other at this present moment."

John let out an impressed whistle. "How's that not causing some kind of paradox that rips the fabric of the universe?" "No idea, but just be glad that isn't." Cliff replied before Cal took over the story again. "It's actually Deke's notebook. It started it's life on Attil as his ideas book, and right now it's sitting on his desk at the lab, pretty much empty, with none of the pages torn out." She carefully took the notebook from Fia, flicking it open to one of the sketches near the start. "That there is his handwriting, the messy illegible scrawl." She then flipped the book fowards to another page, continuing to tell what they knew to be the story of the book."Somewhere along the way it was given to Rinaa, presumably when she lived here, and grew close Deke. Her copy is currently with Deke, she wants his opinions on an upgrade for her custom bike." She found the drawing Deke had showed them earlier, the motorbike panel with the concealed blade holster, the drawing surrounded by various measurements and possible materials.

"And here we come to the mystery person." Cal flipped back to the page Fia had selected earlier. "The handwriting doesn't match Fia's or anybody else's, and none of us speak Spanish." "I speak a little bit actually, picked it up here and there." John interjected, before adding with a shrug "but it's mainly insults and I always mix it up with Portuguese." "It would have to be somebody we know, or that The House knows in order for the book to be hidden there." Chas mused. "And I can say for a fact that Rinaa never let any of her friends or girlfriends meet us in her timeline." "Quelle surprise." John agreed, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Rinaa did her damndest to keep family and friends apart. "My point being that makes it pretty dang hard for any of them to get into or even near The House."

 

[MzHyde]

Fia nodded, knowing that for the most part The House really could be trusted with pretty much anything. Especially when it came to storing certain important things for certain people to find. Fia let Cal take over with the explanation of the origins of the book which would eventually explain who figured out how to bypass the magic barriers when it came to time travelling. As Cal came for the book, she handed it over to her so she could show what she needed to to the others. She watched on as Cal got to the page with the mysterious person and the languages used in said pages. She knew John knew Spanish, but only a smattering of it and she knew John's handwriting well enough to know it wasn't his in the book.

Letting the other all chip in with their little bit of knowledge, Fia nodded to every single bit of it. "that's what we summarised. It's either someone we know or who we don't, and from the little ues we have, my money is on someone we don't know. Which is just downright worrying that they could get into The House without none of our family's knowledge" she said. "but Ell is right when it comes to Rinaa's friends. In her timeline there's no way she'd let anyone near the place, and as it was found by me in my timeline then it still doesn't really make sense that even my Leah would bring any of her friends anywhere the place, because as much as I get on with my Leah, she wouldn't want me seeing most of what is in there, but someone wanted me to find it other than The House and wanted to make sure I would come back here" she added.

 

[_gallifrog_]

The more the others talked the less John liked where it was heading. The idea that somebody was manipulating Fia into coming back to this timeline was more than just worrying, and it set his mind of wondering if somebody could have deliberately given away Kay's location and movements to ensure she got caught, knowing full well that future John would either self destruct and go into a Downwards spiral or get so enraged that he would torture any Downworlder necessary to find out exactly what happened and where Kay was. The idea of anybody using Kay (or anybody else in their group for that matter) as bait in some kind of grand plan did not sit well with John in the slightest.

"Which leaves the question of why." Cal summarised."Why are we all being gathered here this city and to this exact time? Why is this not penning in the future where the teenagers are adults, or close to adults, and complicated time travel won't be required? I think it's safe to say we're all here on Attil for a reason, that somebody is pulling the strings, yeah?" "Agreed." "Yeah." "Yes." "Unfortunately, yes." A round of positive affirmations followed, all said in tones with similar amounts of solemnity. "As much as I hate to say it, I think once again, the answer might be that I decided to come back to Attil and make a stand. It's already having consequences in the form of the artist's movement, and whose to say there aren't others we don't know about?" Elliott asked though it was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. "If this is building up to something, and it is related to me, then the logical assumption would be that it's going to happen during or near this trial thingy."