14
In which there is a party at a new garden, Alex makes some new friends, and then Lisa shows up.
Contains: Underage drinking
Alex wanted to say they felt good. Great, even.
They certainly
wanted to feel good.
They didn't, not really, and it was really annoying them.
Like, here they were, eating dinner with a hot statue lady who was also maybe into them and who was definitely into hanging out with them and who they were into hanging out with.
They were used to feeling not much of anything, but damn it, this was supposed to be
nice. Supposed to make people smile, grin even. Like everything else, it was just too
dull. Cool on an intellectual level, sure, but…
Aisha snapped her fingers.
"Earth to Alex?"
They looked up from what passed for gourmet cuisine in a post-Endbringer landscape, which basically consisted of people clustering around an intact kitchen and throwing together whatever they had on hand. Alex had found the cookout, while Aisha had picked up some canned goods from an empty house -
"remembered them, I guess?" she'd said, as though that made sense at all, and weirdly enough, it kind of did.
Also, Aisha liked
way too much salt. The girl was probably going to start eating it straight at this rate.
Anyway. They looked up from their stew, shrugged. "I'm thinking about stuff."
She laughed.
"You, thinking? No way."
Alex pouted, as much to try it on as to actually express their feelings on the subject. "I think all the time, Aisha. You just never pay attention to it."
She grinned.
"True, but I don't pay much attention to thinking in general. Besides, I'm always a sucker for cute faces like that."
"What, the pout?"
"It's fucking adorable."
"Fucking adorable isn't the look I'm going for," Alex whined.
Aisha smirked, reaching over and ruffling their hair.
"Then I guess you'd better work on that, huh?"
"Guess so," they admitted, letting out a resigned sigh. "Anyways, I was thinking, yeah."
"About?"
"About how lame it is being me."
"I didn't know you were into self-pity," Aisha snarked.
"Definitely not a good look on you."
"Hey, you
liked that goth setup. Brooding looks
great on me."
She grinned.
"It made you look like an adorable dork, Alex."
They clutched a hand dramatically to their chest. "Oh no, an accusation of dorkiness! You've discovered my weakness! Oh, I am slain."
Aisha responded with a shameless cackle which carried on for at least a good few seconds.
Alex took a bite of stew while waiting for her to finish laughing.
"No, but seriously. You've probably noticed that I'm kinda fucked up."
"You, a little fucked up? Who could possibly say that?" Aisha chuckled, but her eyes were focused, intense.
"And I'd thought I'd gotten used to it, but now I'm… unhappy about it, I guess? Or maybe I always was, and I just didn't think about it."
She leaned forward, put a hand on their shoulder.
"Hey, I've got nothing against the way you are. Long as you don't stab someone for fun, anyway."
"I'm sure you don't. But like… I don't
feel things right, I think. Everything's kinda boring."
Aisha hummed.
"That does sound lame. What'cha gonna do about it? Ask Riley to root around in your head?"
Alex shook their head. They weren't
that desperate, at least not yet. "I was hoping the whole magical girl plague thing would do something about it, to be honest."
"Magical girl plague-" Aisha blinked, worked her jaw.
"You're talking about the Devil?"
"Devil, magical girl plague, gay bug, whatever." Alex swept their hand dismissively.
Aisha's lips contorted into a faint grin.
"I don't know if I should be offended or if I should admire your continued complete lack of fucks to give."
"
I don't know why you're surprised at all."
"It's not exactly a surprise, but-"
A sound from her pocket cut her off. Aisha blinked, then pulled her phone out, looking over the caller ID while it rang merrily away. Something something aggressive pop music something something 'ain't no hollaback girl'? Alex raised an eyebrow.
Ignoring their reaction, Aisha read the number and grinned ear to ear.
"Aishanator speaking."
Alex thought he could recognize Neptune's voice coming out of the speaker, a certain liquid echo, but maybe he was just imagining it.
Aisha laughed, soft and rich.
"Yeah, I'm having a great time! Just hanging out with prettyboy- well, no, not sure on the boy part. Still pretty though. Yeah, it's cool. Weird, but cool. Sup with you, Nep?"
She paused. Her eyes grew a bit wider as she listened, and so did her smile.
"She did? I knew that was going somewhere. Does she want me to come see it, or…? Oh. Ohhhh! Okay, that I can certainly do. Should I bring my friends? Alright, that sounds good. See ya soon, then."
The phone clicked off, and Aisha looked up at Alex.
"Well?"
"Riley got her tree thing working, and apparently she's decided to have a party to celebrate. And we're invited." Aisha grinned.
"Sounds like a good time, wouldn't you say?"
Alex smiled back. "Oh, does it ever. Does it ever."
"Mommy, look at the statue lady! Can I be a statue when I grow up?"
"Um."
The mother looked helplessly towards Alex and Aisha. Aisha smiled, crouching down until she was eye-level with the starstruck girl.
"Nope, you're going to be something even cooler than a statue."
Her eyes somehow went even wider. "What is it? What is it?!?"
"I can't tell you, kid! You'll have to find out for yourself!"
The child crossed her arms. "Come onnnn," she pouted. "You're no fuuuun."
"I'm serious. Just because I'm a statue doesn't mean you should be one. Maybe you'll be, I dunno, a bird, or a spider, or a car or something."
"Dun wanna be a spider," she whined. "Spiders'r'gross."
"They didn't choose to be spiders, y'know."
The kid looked down at the ground, which Aisha took as permission to keep talking.
"Don't worry. Whatever you end up being, I'm sure it'll be as pretty as I am."
Aisha smiled. The girl nodded frantically, before turning around to her mom. "C'mon! I wanna go grow up and be pretty!"
With that, she grabbed her mother and practically dragged the poor woman away over her protests of "Ruby, please" and "That's not the way to the bus stop" and other things Alex didn't quite catch.
They raised a bemused eyebrow. "Didn't think you were into kids, Aisha. And you didn't even curse."
"They just want to be taken seriously," Aisha mused.
"I can relate."
"Sure, but not a single 'fuck?'"
She barked out a short rumble of a laugh, before grabbing Alex by the shoulder, pointing them towards a familiar mall.
"More trouble than it would have been worth, really. Anyways, I think we're clear of party crashers," she declared.
"Shall we go?"
"Oh yeah," Alex agreed. "Took us long enough to get here."
They led the way, and Aisha followed.
The first thing Alex noticed as they approached the building was something in the back of their head, a pulsing that they could
feel more than hear. A subtle pressure, so slight they probably wouldn't have noticed if they'd been even a bit more distracted.
They stopped. "Do you feel that?"
"Feel what?" Aisha asked, only to come to a stop beside them, her lips curled in a curious frown.
"No, wait, I think I do. The heck is that?"
Alex tilted their head, feeling the pulses pass through them. Pulse, pulse, long pulse, pulse, long pulse, long pulse… "Is that, uh, what's it called, Morris code?"
"Morse code, I think," Aisha agreed.
"Never took that class in Guides, but they offered it. Say, wasn't Venus into radios and shit?"
"Was she? I know I saw a picture of her doing something with a radio tower."
"Sounds right, yeah. Guessing this is her doing something?"
"Or it could, you know, be literally anything else," Alex countered.
"In which case, we're not going to get anything done by yapping about it."
"Could ask Lisa for her opinion."
An odd look flashed over Aisha's face.
"I don't know where she is. Besides, would you really want to bring Lisa into this?"
"That's fair. She's already basically going crazy."
Aisha laughed, once, then it faded when Alex didn't smile along.
"Wait, seriously, you mean like…"
"Apparently she's hearing God yell at her or something. It looks pretty bad, honestly."
"Shit." She pursed her lips.
"That's… there's no way that's supposed to happen. Talk to the girls about it."
Alex raised a finger. "And while we're on the subject, I think Brian's like, having some kind of legit breakdown or something."
"Brian," she began,
"needs to mind his own-"
"And you
did kind of explode at him," they interrupted.
She stared at him for a good few seconds.
"I mean, you never told him
why you flipped the cross, did you?"
She scoffed.
"If he actually gave as much of a shit as he says he does, I wouldn't have to tell him! But to do that, he'd have to see the facts in front of him and not the basic, easy fantasy he wants to see, and that's not happening anytime soon."
"Not if you don't give him a wake-up call, sure."
"Why do I have to be the one to make the first move? It shouldn't be on me. That's way unfair."
"Sure, it isn't fair." They shrugged. "But it's still how it is. You just gotta decide if it's worth letting it be unfair."
Shame rose to the surface of her face, red-hot magma briefly dripping from cracks in her skin.
"I, uh… fuck. Fuck, yeah, you're right. Goddamn it, Alex."
"Well, it's not like any sane person would have every right to be concerned about why their little sister decided to get a full body makeover, or anything-"
"Okay, I get it, I'm a jerk," she grumbled, shaking her head.
"I'll talk to him later."
"Speaking of things that can easily be solved while talking, you could just call Neptune again about the radio thing."
She blinked, stared at them.
"Why didn't you fucking say that earlier?"
Alex replied without missing a beat. "To mess with you, duh."
Aisha sighed, loudly.
"Alex, most of the time, I like you. But sometimes? I really, really don't."
"That's fair," they agreed, watching Aisha pull out her phone again and dial the number in question. It took a second or two, but they heard Neptune's voice again just fine.
"Hi again. No, not that," Aisha replied.
"What the fuck is this weird pulsing signal thing? It's at the back of my head and it seems vaguely like radio shit but I don't have a radio receiver so… oh, okay. Yeah, I kinda figured. But Alex was worried we might, I dunno, get Mastered or something. Hah! Yeah, that's about right. See ya in a sec, then."
Beep.
"What sounds about right?"
Aisha slipped the phone back into her pocket.
"Apparently Venus is trying to make a signal that keeps random people from walking in on the private party."
"Doesn't seem to be working, does it?"
"Nope," she agreed with a little grin.
"So Neptune was all like, 'Well, I guess she couldn't Master someone if she tried,' and…"
"That
does sound about right," Alex mused, before ducking their head. "No, wait, I take that back. Gotta have at least a Master Zero rating. Too cute not to."
"Cute girls are fucking Masters now?"
"Sure they are. Why wouldn't they be?"
They bantered like that all the way into the mall.
There was no luminescent fog this time. Instead, the mall was dim, illuminated by a single bright, yet somehow soft light from its center.
From a tree, Alex quickly realized.
Aisha followed, but she just couldn't quite keep up with them.
When they'd left, there had been a modest pool with an equally modest clay-tree in the center. There was nothing modest about what had replaced them. The tree's roots sprawled across more or less the entire central plaza. Broad limbs cradled the mall's floor tiles between them to form accessible pathways among the gently sloping web of roots. Shallow pools of water sat between the roots, tiny spouts coming up from the center of each and sending gentle ripples through the waters.
Alex's eyes followed the texture of terracotta-mahogany bark and the lines of glowing sap just beneath it, up along the massive trunk, tracing the lines of slender branches and leaves of gentle greens and vibrant yellows as the 'plant' arced upwards, meeting the open roof and peeking out over it, providing a soft canopy of warmth and light.
In between, fruit sat heavy on lower-hanging branches, large apples of red and green and yellow, along with a few in more exotic colors like blue and violet.
There was also Venus.
The angel was wrapped around a branch of the tree, and something else was there too. Some kind of contraption. Alex saw wires, coils, battery packs, spinning things, tubes, a pentagram or two, pulled together in a mess they couldn't make heads or tails of. They caught a glimpse of fingers fiddling with silver contacts, and then Venus's device whirred to life. Lightning sang across gaps in the machine, producing a steady buzz with an oddly lyrical tone to it, and as Venus flitted away from the Device in the tree, Alex thought they could see energy travel up a single long antennae, pulsing into the night at a pleasant frequency.
As Alex approached, Venus winged her way down to the base of the tree. Jupiter and Riley were already there, leaned against the trunk, the former eagerly chomping away at a blue apple, the latter looking up from her clay tablets and styluses. (Pencil and paper would probably be more practical, but Alex had to admire Riley's commitment to her aesthetic.) Neptune was sprawled in one of the nearby pools, a pyramid of bottles at her side.
She glanced up at the intrusion and grinned. "Hey, girls, the guests are here. Now we can finally get stupid drunk."
"None of you are old enough to drink," Riley pouted.
"Never stopped us before, darling."
"Alcohol makes you stupid, anyways," the clay-girl continued, something welling up in her eyes. "A-and stupid makes you d-dead, so…"
Venus frowned. Jupiter floated over to wrap up the little Biotinker in hands, though it didn't stop the tears in her eyes. And Neptune… Neptune's grin faded to a sad little smile as she rose from the pool, walked over to meet her family.
"That's fair. Only a little drunk, then." She joined Jupiter in the hug, lightly pushing her hand into the girl's hair before turning her attention back to the newcomers. "You kids drink?"
"Sure," Alex said. Even if it was mostly by proxy. They didn't get much feeling from drinking things themselves. Probably too fucked up by what Dad did to them for alcohol to make a difference? Plus, like Riley said, drinking too much makes you stupid and stupid makes you dead. Or worse.
"A little. Never had a place I felt comfortable getting drunk off my ass before," Aisha mused, a small smile on her face as she joined Alex in front of the other Devils.
Riley squirmed and wriggled her way free of the hugs. "I
guess you can have some alcohol, but
I'm going to be in charge of it," she grumbled, stomping over to Neptune's pile of booze and sweeping it away before anyone could reprimand her. "
Someone has to make sure you don't poison yourselves."
"I dunno how to feel about having my drinking monitored by a preteen. Sounds kinda fucking dumb."
The Biotinker reddened. "Shut up," she eloquently countered. "Doctor's orders."
Aisha just smirked in response, ignoring the burning glare Riley shot her.
She pulled on a root, some deep reservoir of clay welling up from beneath, a little mountain pushing upwards and then breaking off a chunk that she shaped between her fingers until it was a modestly-sized mug, fortunately lumber-textured rather than bark-textured. The three devils dutifully passed the mug around as Riley repeated the process four more times, until everyone but her had a mug.
"Make sure to have something to eat, if you haven't already," Riley added. She was definitely looking at Aisha and Alex when she said it.
"You want me to start shaking that tree?" they asked. "Could be fun."
She giggled, but shook her head. "Just reach up for them and they should fall into your hand. Here, watch!"
Riley demonstrated by reaching an arm upwards, towards the towering canopy. A green apple promptly broke off from its branch and fell into her hand, a perfect fit for the little girl's palm. Then another one fell and bonked her on the head, the girl letting out an undignified squeak as the fruit bounced off of her.
Aisha caught the stray apple, holding it up to examine it.
Alex just smirked. "Just reach up for them, huh?"
"O-okay, so maybe it needs a little tweaking! It should still work, j-just watch out for any uh, enthusiastic apples!"
Alex shrugged. Why the hell not. They lifted their hand skywards, tilting their head back to see any oncoming missiles. This time, only one fruit fell from the tree, and it landed almost perfectly in their hand.
Almost perfectly, because it bounced
out of their hand, gently smacked against their chest, and came to a stop at the floor by their feet.
Close enough, really.
They sat down, picked it up. White was an
odd color for a fruit to have, magical Tinker fruit or no. But it looked like a normal enough apple otherwise. Smelled like one, too.
Aisha took a bite of the apple she'd picked up.
"Mmm," she spoke through her loud chewing.
"Lesh clay-y than I eshpected."
"Hey! No talking with your mouth full!"
Riley's pout only intensified when Aisha kept on chewing with her mouth open. She looked to her mothers for support, but…
"If she wants to wants to be disgusting, who am I to say no?" Neptune joked, and Venus giggled a little. Jupiter just shook her head sadly.
That probably didn't count as support. Or maybe it did, since Aisha shut her mouth after that.
Alex tried a bite of it themselves, even as a grumpy-faced Riley finally started pouring drinks in each of the mugs, working from a bottle of beer they didn't recognize the brand of.
The apple was a little sweet for Alex's tastes, but had a lovely texture and consistency, even though it'd come from a tree made of clay.
They could definitely get used to food like this.
Aisha finished off her bite, downed it with a gulp of beer as she settled in besides Alex, opposite the three main devils who had sort of huddled together, with Riley darting between them to fill the glasses and keep a few eyes on all of them at all times.
"So," the statue began.
"What'cha think of Brockton fucking Bay so far, anywho?"
"It's pretty shitty," Neptune stated, voice flat.
Alex snorted. "You don't say."
"The people here are strong, though," Jupiter added. "Not always good people, but… they're tough."
"They're tough because they have to be," Venus countered, a frown on her face. "And it's not like the environment is particularly dangerous, Leviathan aside. Most of the reasons why they have to be tough are because of each other."
Neptune gulped her drink, let out a heavy, delighted sigh before she spoke. "It's not really like you to blame society's ills on the members of the society, Ve."
Eyes closed. "I don't… I don't blame them. No, that's not true, I blame some of them. But the rest… there are a lot of people here doing awful things to get by, I think. And I don't know if I can blame them, but I can't support them, either?"
"Isn't it like that in all the big cities? With gangs and crap."
"We're small town girls," Neptune replied. "Less crime there, for what it's worth."
"I've done the research. Brockton Bay has one of the highest crime rates in the United States, per capita," Venus mused darkly. "One of the highest numbers of capes per capita, too."
"But capes are the result of suffering, not just the cause of it," Riley interjected. "And parahumans seem to naturally cluster together-"
A startled gasp cut through Riley's words. Quiet, but it was obvious it hadn't come from any of them.
Six faces turned at once, finding nothing but a dark-haired girl, her eyes wide as she stood, shock still, in the middle of the hallway. She must have frozen up at the sight of them.
Venus blinked, then smiled. "Hey there," she called, beckoning over with a wingtip. "Wanna join us?"
"Um." The girl stammered. "That's not- I don't t-think-"
Alex rolled their eyes. "They're literally just a bunch of awkward lesbians, stranger. Not gonna hurt you."
Aisha promptly punched them in the side.
"Goddamn it, Alex, do I look awkward to you?"
"And I'm not a lesbian!" Riley added. "I'm, uh, well actually I haven't conducted a thorough experiment on my sexuality I'll get back to you on that maybe in a few years!"
The other three giggled, with varying degrees of awkwardness.
The newcomer quickly glanced back and forth. "I, that is, um…"
After a moment's pause, she finally let out a breath. "So, uh, who are you?"
"Neptune, at your service."
"Jupiter."
"Venus!"
The girl's eyes widened in recognition. "You're the Devils."
"Eden," Riley corrected.
"Eden?"
"Just made it official the other day. I still like Polyamorous Lesbian Funhouse and Also Riley," Neptune mused, "but this one is growing on me."
"I'm Aisha, bee tee dubs." She brushed her hair back, grinned at the girl.
"Nice to meetcha."
"Just call me Alex," they said, more to prevent anyone from calling them Alec than anything.
Neptune blinked.
"Oh my Satan that is literally just Alec with an X. You had the opportunity to choose your own name and you went with
that? For
shame."
"Shut uuuuuuup," they grumbled. "It's not like I'm really different, okay?"
"Charlotte," the newcomer suddenly said. "My name is Charlotte."
She cautiously walked over the swirling roots, stopping just outside of arm's reach of the group, shivering a little as Jupiter's hands nonetheless laced fingers with her own. Still, she smiled, nervous and brittle though it was. "It's… nice to meet you."
"You too," Jupiter agreed.
"So, you've heard of us, huh?" Neptune asked, a curious smile on her face, not to mention bubbling in her body.
"J-just a little. I've heard the names, and not much else. You did some Tinkery stuff? But I thought there were four members, not six," Charlotte rambled, eyeing Aisha and Alex.
Aisha chuckled.
"Nah, I'm just a friend of theirs. And Alex isn't even a cape," she said. (Technically trueish, they weren't a cape
right now.)
"She's just my girltoy."
A vague sense of irritation washed over them. Not anything major, but enough that they figured they ought to speak up. "
They're just your girltoy, Aisha. Until further notice."
She blinked, turned to look them over another couple of times. Come to think of it, the skirt they were wearing felt a little out of place too, now. Annoying.
"Hmmm." Then she nodded.
"Alright, but what are you then, my boygirltoy? Girlboytoy?"
It was a very important question. They spent several long seconds thinking it over before they came up with an answer. "Toytoy?"
"
Toytoy," Aisha mused.
"Alex is just my toytoy. Yeah, I like that. Got a nice flow to it."
Charlotte scratched her head, drawing Aisha's attention back to her.
"So what brings ya here, anyways?"
"I uh… got lost," she admitted. "On the way back from checking on my grandfather." She made her way to the loose seating circle, took her place among them. Riley wordlessly offered her a mug and an apple, both of which she took, though not without hesitation. "This place had a light on, so… still, I don't remember seeing it earlier, so I'm not sure how I actually got here…"
"Ah… that might be my fault."
Everyone stared at Venus. She smiled sheepishly, her own eyes turning upwards the Device still humming away amongst the tree's branches.
"It's a psychic signal," she explained. "Resonates within the soul. Depending on the kind of person you are, it can draw you in-"
Hurried footsteps interrupted Venus's voice. She paused as a pair of boys ran into view, panting and struggling for breath.
"T-think we lost them?" one of them managed. A black boy, about Alex's age, whose eyes seemed full of nerves and doubt, even for the situation they imagined he must be in. His tank top and shorts had clearly seen far better days.
"Even if we haven't," the other replied, a young man wearing a broad red jacket, a bit older than them with his faintly accented voice an odd pitch, spoken slowly and methodically, "I think we found some help…. The Devils would be happy to beat up some Nazis, wouldn't they?"
He'd obviously seen the group. His friend looked up, saw them too.
They looked back, paused awkwardly.
"Hey!" Riley suddenly interjected. "I just worked on you like yesterday and you're already injured!"
"Don't worry about me, you should see the other-"
"No bragging, Jake! Get over here!"
Thoroughly chastised, the boy in question (the accented one; Asian, Alex guessed, and honestly he looked the part a bit more than he sounded it) scurried across the hall, meeting the energetic Tinker halfway and stumbling down as she pulled him into an impromptu medical bed of clay drawn out of the floor, her hands pressing lightly into a gash at his side. "With wounds like these, you shouldn't be doing any fighting!"
"...or it drives them away," Venus finally finished. "Y'know, if they're Nazis."
"And here I was told you couldn't Master someone if you tried," Alex snarked.
"I-it's for a good cause!"
The black boy joined his friend, ignoring the byplay for the moment. "Is he… is he gonna be okay?"
"Of course," Riley snapped. "What kind of doctor would I be if I couldn't take care of a half dozen knife wounds?"
"Good," he mumbled, glancing at the floor before looking back at the little doctor. " M'name's Elliot. You know Jake?"
"I did some work on him, like he said. Hormone and masculinization treatments, mostly. Though maybe I went a little heavy on the testosterone? "
Ah. Those shoulders
did look a little narrow under the jacket.
"I think this is all him, honestly. Wait, masculi-"
Venus cut off Elliot's wide-eyed words. "Riley! Aren't you supposed to follow doctor-patient confidentiality?"
"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I just assumed-"
"It's okay," Jake grunted, even as Riley's fingers blurred over his wounds. "He would have found out eventually."
It didn't sound okay, Alex noted. They were reminded of Brian, bravado over open wounds. Literally, in this case.
Elliot was still for a moment, pensive. Then: "...it doesn't matter. You're still my friend."
Something passed between the two boys as their eyes met, though Alex didn't catch the nuances of it.
"Mistakes were made," Neptune cut in, "but everyone's lived and learned, yeah?"
Venus flitted up from her perch, came over to Riley. The girl still looked ready to cry as the angel patted her shoulder.
"It's okay. We can have a talk about privacy later," Venus reassured. "Right now, it's still your party, remember?"
"Oh! Oh, right." She finished her work quickly, putting pressure on knife wounds with just as many hands and little adhesive bandages made of clay that seemed to sink into Jake's very skin. "Alright, Jake, you should be fine to stand up. Don't get into any more fights; these should hold up well enough to physical activity, but another good stab and they'll be bleeding all over the place."
"I don't need help standing up. Walked here fine, didn't I?" he protested, even as Riley's numerous arms helped him to his feet, whether he liked it or not.
There was a brittle smile on her face as she led him towards the party, Elliot following a polite distance away. "C'mon, none of that. Have an apple, have a drink! Ooh, I should see if I can get them to taste like other things…"
There was an awkward pause as the two boys were shepherded into their places. Jake eyed the mug of beer poured for him with a vague suspicion, while his friend just kind of shrunk in on himself.
It was Charlotte, of all people, who spoke up, having touched neither apple nor beverage. "So, uh, why are we here, exactly?"
Jupiter smiled, working her hands in circles on her family's shoulders. "Well, we're having a party because Riley made a breakthrough."
"I made this tree!" the girl agreed, her cheer slowly becoming more genuine. "It makes magic apples and it powers Venus's transmitter and it does a bunch of other cool stuff but most importantly it's
alive and that's a big deal. So, we're celebrating!"
"With what, Truth or Dare?" Alex groused, making a show of yawning. "Anything's better than sitting around
not drinking all this booze."
"I-I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Charlotte mumbled. "We just met, after all."
"Hey now!" Neptune disagreed, grinning bright. "Truth or Dare is a
great way to get to know people."
"Also," Aisha pointed out,
"you could just drink your fucking booze, nobody's stopping you except maybe Riley."
"No dehydration allowed!" she confirmed. "But I can just make you drink enough water so that's fine, I guess."
Alex smiled and lifted their mug.
When they said they loved food as much as sex, they hadn't really been lying: taste and sex were about the only things that still felt vivid enough to enjoy.
The beer wasn't half bad.
While Alex drank, people kept talking.
"I ain't afraid of no truth or dare," Jake bragged, a too-wide grin on his face. "Bring it on!"
"No," Venus replied, quieter and softer. "It wouldn't have the right impact. Some of us haven't even been introduced."
The light snapped on in Jupiter's head, or maybe it was just Venus' glow.. "Introductions! Let's go around and do some introductions.
Then we can play truth or dare."
"So who's going first?" Aisha wondered.
There was an awkward pause as everyone looked back and forth. (Everyone except Alex, who took another sip of beer.)
Finally, Jupiter threw up her hands. (Not all of them. But a lot of them.) "Every time, I swear. Fine, fine. My name's Jupiter. I like soccer and uh…" she took a moment, before grinning. "I'm really good at arm wrestling."
Venus giggled.
Neptune chuckled.
Aisha cackled.
Charlotte blinked and stared.
Elliot raised a (single) hand. "Is that cheating?"
"Use it if you got it, right?" Alex mused between bites of apple.
"I'll go next. My name's Venus," the girl in question announced, her smile literally radiant. "I like watching the sky and singing!"
"Really? I do too," Elliot said, quiet but firm.
"Have an old guitar I like to bang out a chord on sometimes," Jake added.
"Woodwind," Charlotte agreed.
"Put Jupes on drums and we'd just about have a band," Neptune joked.
"So what'd you be doing? Cuz there's no way you wouldn't be a part of it," Aisha wondered.
"Maybe playing a synth or something," she responded. "Anyways! I'm Neptune. Go by RestingWitchFace on PHO, you might have heard of me. I've watched
Matilda like twenty times."
"She makes us all watch it again, too," Venus confirmed.
"You can't tell me you didn't like it."
"I didn't say
that…"
Charlotte, of all people, interrupted the two's good-natured bickering. "Um, can I introduce myself now?"
"Duh?" Neptune responded.
The younger girl flushed. "Okay, uh. I'm Charlotte. I babysit, when I'm not visiting my
zayde."
"Your…"
Riley happily filled in Jake's confusion. "It's Yiddish!"
"My grandpa," Charlotte added, looking a little nervous before a phantom hand squeezed her shoulder.
"Okay. So. I'm Elliot. Yeah, I know, it's kind of a white name. And, uh, I…" he glanced around, as if seeing if anyone was listening in. "I have an autograph from Miss Militia."
Riley immediately stood up with a squeak. "You do?!?"
"Keep it framed at home," he responded proudly.
"I talked to her and I didn't even get her autograph! What was I thinking?!"
"What
were you thinking?"
"There, there." Jupiter patted Riley's head softly. "I'm sure you'll get plenty of chances to get autographs later."
Things went a bit more quickly after that.
"I'm Jake! Like to go dirt biking on the outside of town, when I get the chance."
"My name is Riley! And uh, I like Tinkering, obviously, but I also like playing with Legos! Since we can't keep a collection around, I just make my own."
"Aisha's the name. I like to eat. Like, whenever I get the chance. Salty chips are just the best, y'know?"
"You eat entire packages and somehow you only get fat in the places you want," Alex murmured.
She preened shamelessly.
"It's just one of my many, many talents."
That just left…
They paused.
Sure enough, eyes turned their way, leaving them with little choice but to speak.
"I'm Alex. I'm new to this whole thing, but I'm a they for right now. And I can run Perfect Cell 2 in four hours flat."
"You can run what now?" Charlotte asked, blinking.
"Some dumb video game they're into," Aisha explained.
"Some dumb video game? Aisha, I'm shocked,
shocked that you would call a masterpiece like PC2 a 'dumb video game'."
"I've seen you play it," she sniffed.
"All you do is spam the fucking grenade. Not even all the grenades, just the one fucking grenade. It looks boring as hell. I really don't get what you get out of it."
Alex sighed. "It's postmodern art, Aisha. Clearly far too sophisticated for a plebian like you to understand."
"Is that the new code for 'I like it because it's shit,' Alex?"
They closed an eye. "Postmodern art. I mean, yeah, it's shit, but that's what makes it a masterpiece."
"I may not know anything about art, but I don't think that's how art works."
"You've never watched
The Room? Horrible movie. Total masterpiece of a trainwreck."
"...no, but now I really want to."
"And there you have it, folks. "
Alex smirked, while Aisha let out a defeated sigh.
Then they noticed the way Jake was looking at them. Something widening his eyes ever so slightly.
Recognition?
And he clearly noticed them noticing.
"Hey, can I talk with Alex for a minute?"
Aisha glared playfully at the boy.
"Mess with my toy and I will fuck you up, you got that?"
"Crystal clear. It's just some personal stuff," he responded, a little too quickly for his brave facade.
Hm.
Was Jake one of Dad's agents? No, that was ridiculous. Nikos Vasil wasn't exactly progressive in his views. A Mastered patsy?
Maybe? If Nikos had personally mindfucked Jake, sure, but he seemed like a local, not someone sent down from Canada. Maybe one of the kids had triggered with a power that could do that and had been sent out, but if they'd just triggered, Heartbreaker wouldn't trust them to go on a mission like this.
So Jake probably wasn't using this as a pretext to murder them.
Probably.
Alex shrugged, more casually than they felt as they stood up. "Sure, whatever. We can use one of the rooms."
They gestured towards the room where they'd slept last night. Good a place as any to have awkward conversations and maybe fight for their life.
Jake nodded, standing himself, stretching out for a moment (maybe to show off his muscles?) before he turned and headed to the indicated room.
Alex took one last look around at the mystified, concerned, and in Neptune's case, vaguely amused crowd.
Then they followed Jake in.
The ground was soft beneath their feet, and warmth once again floated into their body from below. It was a comfortable feeling.
Jake stood in the middle of the room as Alex walked in.
Then he turned.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but… you're Regent, right?"
They blinked owlishly. For an instant, their hand clenched around an invisible sceptre.
Alex forced themselves to relax. This wasn't actually as bad as it could have been.
"Bold claim," they said casually. Too casually, they knew.
"I was… in Brockton Central." Jake's voice went low, lower than a moment ago. "You hold yourself the same way, act the same."
"Well, I don't remember seeing you before, at a bank or otherwise," Alex countered.
"You wouldn't have. After all, it was before I was…"
He gestured vaguely at his entire form. Alex thought back to the mention of hormones, of masculinization treatments, and understood, more or less.
"Whatever. So, what, are you trying to get a supervillain to beat you up? Is this some kind of cape nerd thing?"
Jake threw up his hands, looking at once disturbed and just plain confused.
"No, no! It's not like that! I just… I wanted to thank you."
Alex's thoughts screeched to a screaming halt.
"What."
The boy nodded firmly. "Yeah. My… I wasn't part of the ABB, but when Bakuda took over, she sent people after my family. I thought if I wore the colors, joined up with them, they'd ease up, but…"
He was shaking. There were hints of tears in his eyes. Alex knew that they ought to touch him, hold him.
"They took my big sister," he continued. "Put a… a bomb in her head. If you guys hadn't taken Bakuda down… s-she would have…"
She would have died, he was saying.
Alex awkwardly reached out, pressed a hand into Jake's shoulder.
"So… thank you. T-thank you for saving my sister."
Something warm welled up inside them, something small and choked and struggling to breathe.
They felt it, felt that little flicker of something, and wondered.
And pulled a napkin or something out of their pocket, because Jake was totally crying.
For a microsecond, he glared at the piece of cloth. But when Alex stared him down, he gave up and took the tissue, wiping the tears from his eyes.
"Thank you," he repeated, and Alex found themself backing away a little. "What?"
"It's… it's nothing," they muttered. "Really."
A hint of suspicion passed over Jake's eyes, but it drowned among the tears. "Well… whatever. Thank you," he said again.
"Quit saying that."
"Fine." With a sigh, he stuffed the dirty napkin into his pocket and started to walk out.
Slowly, almost feeling dazed, Alex followed suit.
They exited the impromptu bedroom to find Jake standing before the circle again, giving them a small smile.
"You didn't steal their purity while I wasn't looking, did you?"
"...Aisha, why are you saying I have purity?"
Aisha just grinned at that, and Alex shook their head.
Jake sighed, loudly. "Nothing like that. Way more serious. And personal. Seriously, ease off."
"Okay, whatever," Neptune dismissed. "Let's do Truth or Dare already-"
Naturally, that was when footsteps interrupted them, and Alex turned to see Lisa, looking like shit, Rachel, looking pissed, and a man they'd never seen, looking utterly lost.
That about figured.
A/N: Superwhitey/Roxy is responsible for Aisha's ringtone. You know what you did.
I have not watched
Matilda so don't make references to it at me. Or do, I guess. (I haven't watched
The Room either, but I at least know some of the memes.)
Big thank to
@Dusky ,
@RDavidson,
@Subrosian_Smithy for betawork!!!
You could imagine Venus's Device as sounding like some kind of cross between a spark-gap radio transmitter and a singing Tesla coil, with added angelic overtones for good measure.
