Void Guardian 2.8

Approach 2.8

Amy’s line is so strident and full of purpose, but it’s Hannah that cuts in with the voice of reason. “You’re right—don’t get me wrong, I so, completely, super agree… but there’s the problem of all of us running away when this thing uses its freaky fear thing on us.”

She swivels like a tank turret and locks onto Riley next. “And you. You haven’t fought it yet, right?”

“Uh, no.” Riley sits back. The look of building determination on his face slowly falls as Hannah unloads on him, jaw set, and expression grim.

“Right… so what’s to say you don’t run, too, when it happens? We can’t leave Maeve alone again.”

Nice to see that Hannah’s pretty emphatic about avoiding an encore of Magical Mangled Maeve. I nod and chip in. “So far as I could tell, it needed to scream or roar to get us to flee. Not sure if that’s a limitation, or just how it focuses. But while we were fighting afterward, it didn’t do it again, even if a moment of fear could have stopped me. Amy, think you could shoot its throat out or something before it gets to roar?”

When she responds, Amy doesn’t sound very sure of herself, Hannah’s reality check having taken the wind out of her sails. “...Maybe? We didn’t really see it or fight it, so I don’t know how tough it is, but it’s possible. And... knowing what I know now. Knowing what happened to Krystal. I think, I think I’d be better this time around. I don’t think I’d let it get to me, as much.”

The triumphant mood is gone, but it’s not really bleak either. We have options. The room is silent, but a quick glance around seems as if everyone is contemplating said options. I don’t have a lot to contribute here—I’m the one who fought it—I know which of my powers worked and which didn’t, and in the case of my big punch—it’s not that it didn’t work so much as I wasn’t careful with it.

“That’s a good plan,” Riley finally breaks the silence, and then seems to have a moment of realization. “Oh. Uh, I guess it might help to know what my range of powers are. I haven’t had a chance to test them in combat, yet, but, I seem to control flora—vines, plants, earth, the like.”

Hannah throws him a look that just screams ‘Are you serious?’ and Riley starts scrambling to describe plant powers in a combat-useful fashion. “I restrained a… a person, with vines that grew impossibly large and strong from a house plant. I think it’ll be more or less combat effective when we get out there. There’ll be way more for me to work with than just houseplants.”

Riley is very clearly not enthusiastic or familiar with his own powers. He’s trying to build himself up, but I can still see the worry on his face. He built us up; I can’t help but try and return the favor. I step forward to put a hand on his shoulder and try to reassure him. “Hey. I hadn’t done anything more than ‘jump high’ when I faced it the first time, and I managed to hurt it bad. You’ve already gotten ‘jump high.’ I’m sure we’ll manage if we work together.”

The look he gives me is grateful, but less than sure. I’m not positive I’ve actually managed to put any of his worries to rest. I give his shoulder a slight squeeze and try to appear understanding before letting my hand fall away.

The girls don’t really look convinced of his utility, but Amy’s statement from before—‘tonight’—is still hanging in the air. They’d be going through with this even if Riley was useless. He pats himself down, and shakes his head. “What I wouldn't give for a watch,” he laments.

“I can give you one of my old ones tonight or tomorrow.” Amy responds. “Your phone dead or something?”

Riley looks pained as he replies. “Yeah, and I can't exactly waltz back home to grab my charger.”

“Well, depending what kind of phone it is, I can lend you a charger, too.”

“Uh, iPhone 6.”

Amy nods, indicating she has one of those.

Talk of chargers reminds me of my own phone, and the fact that I haven’t gotten any of my stuff back yet. “Ah... speaking of, Hannah. You still have my things.”

Hannah jumps a bit, looking embarrassed to have forgotten. “Oh yeah. I kinda have to be transformed to pull it out—I can store and retrieve things, but nothing as big as your case without being transformed, sorry. I can drop it here before we go.”

A moment later Hannah isn’t contemplative anymore. “Back on track. You trying to plan what time we should do this?”

“Yeah,” Riley looks… a touch fearful as he notes, “There are ups and downs of the cover of dark.”

They turn to me, and I’m not really sure what to say. “I don’t think it matters much what time we do it so long as we can still communicate. Half the reason it all went bad last time was that you,” I give Amy a nod, “were trying to warn us without actually shouting, but had no way to make us understand.”

I look to each of the others in turn, concern on my face. I don’t want a repeat of last time, and I don’t want any of them to get hurt like I was. My tone is deadly serious. “I don’t care if it hears us, or if other people hear us, just go ahead and shout. If we had more setup time, and money, I’d suggest getting radios, or learning hand signals or something. But I’d rather have it not get the drop on us like last time. If you don’t want to shout a warning, just hit it as soon as you see it.”

My plan… it’s not really much of a plan. Go in as one group, so we don’t have to worry about distance communication. If we have to, maybe only pairs. Amy is the only one of us with a ranged weapon, so I figured we should try to spot it first, let her take the first shot, hopefully take out its voicebox or at least shoot down its mouth, and then the rest of us could dogpile it. I’m positive if I get a clean hit on it with the attack I used last night, it’ll go down. Relaying that to the others doesn’t take long. We’ll head there, aiming to be at the compound at seven.

When all is said and done, there’s a brief lull, before Amy turns to Hannah and nods. “Let’s give Maeve her things.”

“Huh?” Hannah looks at Riley, uncomprehending for a moment before looking back at Amy, who’s giving her a goggle eyed look of incredulousness before pointedly looking at Riley. “Oh! Yeah. Riley, you mind if I use your bathroom for this, since it’s not just us girls anymore?”

Riley’s confused grunt makes it clear he’s not sure what she’s talking about. C’mon man. We just transformed in front of each other a while back, you know what the transformations do. It takes him a moment, but he gets it. “Oh! Yeah, by all means.”

It doesn’t take too long, a bit of crimson light spilling from under the door before Hannah exits the bathroom. With a gesture, the familiar boxy case appears in one hand and my brown shoulder bag in the other. “Sorry, if that was a little awkward,” she almost flounces as she hands them over. “But it’s really the only safe place I could think to keep, y’know, a gun.”

I gladly take them from her, briefly checking my bag to make sure my phone, its charger and the rest of my bag’s contents are still there. I move to put them in the closet near the bathroom but stop as I start to put the case inside. I’ve got something in that case that doesn’t really belong to me.

“Hannah.” My tone is hesitant and soft, and I don’t turn to look at her, my eyes still focused on the case. “Would you like to keep Krystal’s sword? I wasn’t really her friend...”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, and then a sigh. “I… Sure. ”

I crack the case open, drawing out the length of silver-blue steel before offering it to her, supporting it from the crossguard and flat. She takes hold of the hilt almost tentatively before lifting it out of my hands and striking a salute, the crossguard right over her heart, and she murmurs something to herself, too quiet for me to hear, before she opens her eyes and the blade vanishes.

Riley swallows audibly in the quiet apartment, though Amy and Hannah are engaged in sharing an unreadable look and don’t seem to notice.

“Want to kill time together before we go?” Hannah asks, breaking the silent conversation with her partner.

“I’m good with that,” Riley also seems to have gotten over whatever set his heart in his throat. “Um. Well, I don’t know what you had in mind, but, I’m guessing your parents might not be keen on you bringing a guy around?”

“You can wait in the car while we run in and drop off our crap from school,” Hannah snorts, waving a hand. “From there we can go get dinner somewhere.”

“We parked the car at the shopping center before heading here, so we have plenty of options,” I volunteer.

We zap back to the Jeep, and Amy lets out a little complaint as we pile in. “I’m, uh starving. And if we’re gonna do this, we’ll need to be fed.”

I furrow my brow. Money was supposed to be part of my package… but how would I access… Oh. I almost laugh. It’s kind of obvious, now that I think about it, what with the clothing summoning powers. I concentrate on holding a purse, and it appears. I check it and there’s a wallet in there. There’s nothing in it but some cash and a black credit card… but it’s money.

I look up and smile. “I guess I’m buying. And since I’m buying, I say Mexican.”

Hannah looks over at me quizzically. “I thought we had all your stuff, and you didn’t have any money with it?”

I flick my hair over my shoulder in a gesture I hadn’t used since I was actually in high school. “Well, getting paid was one of the conditions for this gig… and I just figured out how to get my magic money.” I wave a few bills from my wallet at them. “So I guess I’m buying.”

I glance into the backseat and catch Riley giving me a broad grin. “Thanks, sugar momma,” he jokes, and waggles his eyebrows at me.

I can’t school my expression fast enough. I feel a pang of longing for what’s been lost as he flirts in a way that’s too familiar and the smile drops from my face momentarily. I cover it back up with a more brittle smile. I’m sure he sees it, but his line has the other girls rolling their eyes, and I think I’ve at least kept it under wraps from them.

Amy whines. “Lucky! My allowance hardly pays for anything. Mexican’s fine.”

I regain my composure as Hannah and Amy fall to bickering over just how generous her allowance is or isn’t, and we get into the car.

I’m a bit pensive as we pull out, and I stick an arm out the window, hand shaped to catch and feel the air as we drive. My hand rises and falls, and I let myself go a little. I’m cheating, using an old childhood game as a meditative tool to center myself. The eyebrow thing was how Sandra and I used to flirt. I know my loss is new and raw, but little things like that that remind me of my old life… they’re not going to stop and I’m probably not going to be able to anticipate them. It’s hard to just… be a new person and drop my old life. I’m not sure I can really do it.

I’m brought out of my reverie by the Jeep slowing to a stop in front of Hannah’s house, and I hop out to let Amy out of the back. I’m still… aching at the earlier reminder of loss, but I think I’ve gotten hold of myself. Riley and I wait in the car while Amy and Hannah bring their things in. I glance at Riley, who’s not quite staring at me. I guess he must have noticed something was off.

“Hey,” I start, speaking softly. “Sorry if I came off cold back there, you just reminded me of someone I… lost recently.” Just saying that, I’ve lost my center again, and I can hear Sandra yelling, fresh in my mind. I can’t keep the pain off my face, but I can minimize it.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says, voice soft and gentle.

I hear his seatbelt click open, and he slides over, a hand coming down on my left shoulder in a mirror of the supportive gesture I made for him earlier. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just… being there. Finally he speaks again, and it’s not the unsure, fumbling tones from when he talks about his powers or fighting, not the goofy persona he’s put on when he thinks he can forget for a minute. It’s quiet and sincere.

“I can’t promise I won’t stumble into something like that again, but… well. We’re in the same boat and, if you need to just, deal with the fallout of all of this, I’m here. Dunno if you prefer to talk about it or just work through it on your own, but… it won’t be alone, whatever you decide.”

It’s odd, but his voice is comforting. I don’t generally open up about my problems to guys, but his manner of speaking gets under my automatic responses, especially if I’m not looking right at him. I’m aware that we’re in nominally the same sort of situation, and I glance at the house where the girls could pop out of at any moment.

I shake my head and look into the back seat, catching his sea-green gaze. “I expect it’ll happen again. I’ll probably do it to you at some point. Sorry in advance.”

I give him a sad smile, before quirking my lips a bit and speaking again. “Maybe we’ll talk—actually talk about what we’ve lost and what we need to avoid bringing up later. You know, when we’re not about to jump into possibly lethal battle.”

He laughs softly. Not mean, not bitter, maybe a touch wistful. It’s a nice sound. “That might be good,” he nods, and slides back to his seat. I glance over and the girls are already headed down the walkway.

Hannah and Amy have both changed clothes, and I can hear Hannah’s stomach growl as she climbs into the car. “I’m officially starving now,” she grouses as she wheels us off her street and back to the shopping center.

Riley says something else about enchiladas, but he’s back into joking. I don’t pay it any mind, and Hannah raspberries at him. Enchiladas are just pre-show. Not even the opening act. The real meat of the night is going to be black and chitinous.