"Yeah, because telling her stuff has been working so well."

"Well, at this point its not gonna be easy," Alasea pointed out, gesturing with a finger pointed out from the hand holding her glass. "You've already held some stuff back from her. I'm just saying, she does deserve to know what happened. Even if she won't like what she'll hear. Girls can be a bit irrational like that."

"But we're dealing with a girl who can breathe fire and claw you in the face," Matt said. "God knows that's bad enough. And trust me, I do NOT want to see that on her period."

Alasea sighed at the comment about Helena's cycle. "Not like you have a choice there," she muttered, then spoke up a bit louder. "Its not like you to run away from something like this, Matt. Is it because of your feelings for her?"

He leaned on his elbow and gestured. "Look, that doesn't matter," he cut in. "The thing is that I put her through a lot of stuff, she got killed, and now I'm not so high-flyin' eager to drag all that back in, all right?"

That's what I thought, Alasea thought, frowning slightly. "Its not going to be any easier for you until you fess up to her, you know," she said, propping her head on her arm again.

"Look, she already hates me enough." He pointed at Alasea to make his...well, point. "I don't need to make that worse."

Alasea smiled at Matt. "Does she really hate you, though?" she questioned, her smile becoming a smirk, like she knew something he didn't.

Oh, that was suspicious. "What're you getting at? It'd better not be what I think it is."

"Give me some credit, Matt," she said. "I am a girl and I was her best friend. I still know how to read her."

She leaned back in her seat and took another drink of her water. "She's mad at you, but she doesn't hate you. She wouldn't put up with you as the leader of the group if she did; its not in her to do that."

"Well, you know what I mean," Matt said. "She gets irritated with me too much because I'm withholding info from her that seems to keep getting spilled, no matter what I do."

"Then maybe you shouldn't withhold any more info from her, Matt. Sure, Helena getting angry about what you haven't told her is a given, since you withheld something important the first time around," Alasea said. "There's no getting around that. All you can do is tell her and wait until she accepts your truth."

She sighed a bit, looking at the water settling at the bottom of her glass. "Look, I'm not saying you have to tell her everything tomorrow, but you really should tell her soon," she said, still observing the water. "R.D. told me at Aube that he thinks Magister is having you watched. And that our enemies know more than they should. So she should hear it from you, before she hears it from the wrong person."

Edited by RisingDragon on September 9, 2009 at 1:30:31.

Fass nodded. "Fine. Here's a comm device so we can call you back in case of attack. Feel free to leave whenever. I'd suggest you stay the night though so you can heal your wounds, and so X can find a decent replacement for that piss-poor armor."

"Hey!"

Aram accepted the device, and looked at it with some apprehension. He had no idea how to operate such a thing--this was far beyond his understanding, like most technology. In the Nightmare Realm, some people of eras closer to Earth's current age had attempted to explain some of it... but like the paper money system, it utterly escaped him.

So he did the easy thing, and handed the comm device to X. He'd be able to make sense of it, for sure. "We'll probably need to gather supplies for the journey," Aram said. "My world is dangerous as it is, and even more so if you're ill prepared."

"Meh, I'll have to show you how to use this later. It's actually pretty simple. You know how to push a button? You're halfway there already," X laughed.

Fass led him away to go find a replacement for the armor, but not before motioning over a medic who offered to patch up Aram's wounds.

Aram waved the medic off. "There's no need," he said. "I wasn't injured during the battle."

"Fass... this is just a robe. How is this gonna protect me?"

"Well, it won't slow you down. That's more than I can say for your other armor. Besides, it's not like that heap of scrap ever stopped any blows."

"Fine."

X looked in the mirror. It wasn't too bad, actually. He ruffled his short brown hair. It'd been a while since he'd seen it. He looked at his arm. The Queen's tattoos had gone further than this armor. She'd tattooed his very skin. Though the sigils were black. Fass asked X to make a sketch of the tattoos, for research. So X did so, handing it over to Fass when he'd finished. Slinging Sylvontis onto his back he went back out to meet Aram.

Like X, Aram now lacked his armor--he had stored it away at the house he had been loaned, and now walked about town, clad in a sleeveless, studded red leather shirt, thick blue pants, heavy leather boots and a black glove on his left hand. He had a satchel slung over his shoulder, holding the supplies and potion ingredients he had been purchasing, and he kept both his sword and his shield on his person.

He was at yet another apothecary, searching for the elusive ingredients he'd need to mix up and create ever-useful rejuvenation potions. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't as simple as mixing healing and mana potions together--though that did tend to create an incredibly potent poison. Though one that only worked through consumption, making it useless to assassins because of its absolute foul taste.

Though he had heard rumors of a magical device that could mix such potions together safely, among other objects. He had heard that it was hidden in some tomb in the far-off desert, back in his home world. Of course, that had been hundreds of years ago.

It was at this apothecary that he found X again. He looked over the man's new outfit, frowning. "Is this Fass' idea of better armor?" he asked. "It looks even less effective your armor."

===Ruins of Aube===

"It might be, but I don't recall anything like this causing this much damage before it got shot down," Michael said, puffing on his cigarette. "There's probably more of them here. Maybe other mutant ships as well."

Edited by RisingDragon on September 9, 2009 at 13:08:52.

The last thing he needed was something like that biting him on the ass. But he sure didn't want to do it alone.

"...all right, I'll tell her when things calm down," Matt said. "But you and R.D. get to back me up on this."

"I don't know how much help I can be, but I won't abandon you to her," Alasea said with a grin. "I'm not that cruel."

"Good." Matt drained the glass and stood. "Well, I'm gonna try goin' back to bed again." He opened the dishwasher and hung the cup inside.

Alasea nodded and watched him go. "Good night," she said once more.

When morning rolled around, someone knocked on the guest bedroom door. "Anyone want breakfast?" Holly's voice rang.

After a moment, the door opened, revealing Ileyna. She looked up at the older woman for a moment, blinking a couple times. Then she greeted her with a cheery smile, tilting her head to the side (causing her beret to inevitably slip) and said, "Hello!"

Behind Ileyna, R.D. made an inarticulate mutter and held his over his head tighter, not thrilled with having been woken up. His headache was persisting, too, and not making things better.

Holly bent over, hands on knees. "Well, hello there!" she cooed at Ileyna. "Matt told me all about you. Would you like some pancakes?"

"Sure!" the girl exclaimed, pushing her beret back into place.

X nodded, "Yeah, but my armor wasn't actually stopping any blows. Plus, this won't hamper my speed like the other armor did."

Holly had whipped up an impressive breakfast of pancakes, bacon and eggs, though she kept asking everyone if they wanted anything else she could make for them. Joseph and Matt, already seated at the dining room table, politely declined. Jotaro sat two seats away from Joseph, and washed down his eggs and bacon with a mug of crisp-looking beer.

"Do you want milk or orange juice?" Holly asked Ileyna, taking her by the hand to the counter where the food had been neatly arranged.

"Orange juice, please," Ileyna said politely. A few moments later, R.D. emerged from the guest bedroom, now fully dressed and looking like hell.

===NationStates General===

"I suppose. A shame none of the mages from my time are alive," Aram replied. "They could probably imbue your armor with magic, like they did with mine."

Edited by RisingDragon on September 9, 2009 at 19:28:55.