Just as with Craig's story, thought it was really good. You two are both way better writers than me, ugh T_T

Good luck though, look forward to seeing your stories get to completion

Thank you for your kind words, dear. 😀 And hey, you're a good writer yourself! As I said in your thread, your knack for descriptions is fantastic and inspiring, and I'll definitely be checking out your story whenever I need help on my own. ^^

I'm at 4,047/50,000 today, which is still a good thousand behind Kitty, but much better than just-scraping-by-with-my-word-count like yesterday. Have some more characters, HAHA!

---

"Call me Adam," he said, extending his hand toward the server with renewed assurance.

Jane smirked. "Adam, then." She looked down at his hand, then back up at him as if expecting him to retract it. When he didn't (with a rather confused expression), she clasped her hands in front of her at her waist and lightly bowed, giving him a clear view of the extent of her bandages.

"Some people give their handshakes freely," she continued, bobbing back up and smoothing her apron. "It is the first impression you give to a person, and you show you're perhaps too eager to get to know someone when you introduce yourself with it."

He gaped at her, completely lost for words with her strange behavior. "Ah… huh?"

"Or perhaps I'm simply old fashioned, and prefer bowing to be more… polite," Jane concluded with a light tweak of her eye - maybe it was a wink, maybe it wasn't. He couldn't tell. With one swift, elegant move, she pulled a crisp receipt from her pouch and slid it under two fingers across the counter toward him. "Come back and you might earn it. I expect to hear a story or two about how the well-dressed Adam of somewhere outside of Sega City wowed the crowds with his keen business mind and kind smile."

With that, she turned and marched back to the kitchen, disappearing behind its silent, swinging doors.

"Huh…" Adam breathed, looking down at his receipt and reaching for his wallet.

Jane watched from behind the window of the kitchen, between the odd plate of buttered toast. Adam pulled a single bill from his wallet and set it on the counter before claiming his half of the receipt and heading to the cash register. Great, she grumbled. This is why I should not talk someone's ear off and waste my break… you overwhelmed him for a single dollar. With an irritated sigh, she huffed out and headed toward the register in the back to clock out on break. So much for trying to earn a living in this hole in the wall-

"Hey Jane!" a peppy voice called out from the dining room doors.

She whirled around and glanced over with dark brown blinking eyes. A small, uncomfortable smile crept to the corners of her mouth. "Amanda… it is a pleasure to see you today."

"Jane Matthews, rockstar of the west side, countess of coffee refills and bringer of everything awesome and super fantastic!" the voice continued as its owner, a tall blonde haired woman in dark slacks and a grey sweater over a professional white blouse, made its way into the kitchen. "I didn't know you were working today! You never work Tuesdays!"

"Yes, well, times and income flow change, and so must schedules in response," Jane curtly replied, trying and failing to match her superior's enthusiasm. "And how is our favorite manager?"

"Wonderful, as always!" the bubbly woman replied. Her chipper demeanor quickly changed to concern as she saw sarcasm gleaming at the edge of Jane's eyes. "Didn't make so much money today?"

"My last guest before clocking out left me a dollar on a nine dollar check. I understand things are difficult all around and I cannot expect someone to leave more than fifteen percent, but a single dollar will not pay for my medical bills." She made no attempt this time to hide her disdain for her superior's seemingly shallow pity. "And he was a businessman with enough disposable income to waste three days in the city at a convention listening to fat cats describing the best techniques for corporate brown nosing."

"…at least you're making conversation with your guests?" Amanda offered with a sweet smile. "That's more than I can say for most of your coworkers."

"Yes, talking their ear off for- …you know what, I apologize. I don't mean to naysay, I just…" she breathed in, gripping her fists in front of her her as if tightening them would help her find the correct words, "…I felt as if I was connecting to someone for the first time in a long time."

"Jane, dear… you've got so many regulars here, I wonder how you don't connect with people-"

"That's not the point," Jane interrupted. "Giving efficient service with a friendly smile and actually connecting with someone are two completely different things…."

Amanda sighed out and placed a hand on her colleague's shoulder. "Do you wanna talk in my office?"

"No, no, no…." she quickly replied, releasing her hands to her sides with a futile sigh, having tripped over her sentences long enough. "Just… forget I said anything. It is not that important."

"If it wasn't important, you wouldn't be this worked up…" Amanda tightened her grip around Jane's shoulders and smiled. "Come on now. I may be your manager now, but I'm still your friend, and I know when you're not feeling your best. You're the most proficient word user person-"

"Loquacious."

"-….loquacious person I know and to see you fumbling for words means you're frustrated and not being able to find the right words probably isn't helping."

Jane stared at her friend with a mixture of astonishment and aggravation, perhaps at continuing when she deemed the conversation over.

"Or not, it's totally your call. I just want to make sure everything's okay," Amanda continued defensively, raising up her hands like a mime's barrier between the two of them.

"…thank you for the offer, however I feel I must decline."

"That's totally fine! Just know that I'm here if you need it!" The bubbly smile returned to the manager's face as she flounced toward the office at the back of the kitchen.

Jane sighed as she treaded in the opposite direction back out to the dining room to claim her dollar and diner copy of the receipt.

The light radiating from her burning pink cheeks could be seen across the city as she picked up a heavily scribbled on piece of paper:

"Ms. Jane - make sure you're here on Thursday afternoon. I'm stopping by before I head home. For now, get yourself a nice meal before your break's up."

As she lifted the page, a crisp twenty dollar bill smiled up at her.

And she couldn't help smiling back at it, folding the official note delicately inside the handwritten one before stuffing both in her breast pocket. She strolled back into the kitchen with a renewed bounce in her elegant step, finding her way to the office and leaving two light knocks on the wooden door. It was a miracle the manager even heard it above the typical background noise of a working kitchen.

Amanda greeted the door with a pleasant smile. "Oh! I didn't expect to see you back so soon, what changed your mind?"

Jane pulled the receipt from her pocket and held it out for her manager to read. Giving it a once over, the blonde beamed and pulled her in for a hug. "That's great to hear! So he wasn't just a soulless businessman after all, huh?"

"It would seem even I'm not above prejudice and jumping to conclusions once in awhile," she mumbled with a sheepish grin. "…were you still open for talking?"

"If it means 'establishing a connection' which you seem to be cravingright now more than a hard drink after a long shift?" Amanda smirked, her tone obviously mocking her colleague's in a friendly manner.

Jane couldn't help returning the smirk. "Perhaps."

"Well I'm all ears. Come on in," and she held the door open for the bandaged woman to step inside.

The tiny office had the same lived-in feel the restaurant décor seemed to adopt, except this wasn't artificial. Papers strewn everywhere, folders stuffed to the brim with countless reports, employee files, order forms, and Lord knows what else all stacked on top of equally bursting file cabinets. A computer might be found beneath all the clutter, its monitor meekly displaying payroll for the day. With shelves and cabinets covering every wall, there was only room for a single swivel chair which Amanda plopped herself into. Jane pulled herself up onto the cabinet.

"So what's this about connecting, huh?" Amanda grinned. Even as a manager, she couldn't help indulging in a little gossip between the lower level workers. "Don't tell me you're looking for a hot date."

A dry laugh pulled the smile away from Jane's face. "Certainly not." She rolled her hand vaguely, as if manually brushing away any minor irritation at her friend's behavior. "I don't even know what I was trying to say, but…" she hummed idly. "…have you ever felt like you've lost yourself along the way?"

"Honey, I've been on this planet for thirty four years and I still don't know where I am half the time!" Amanda laughed brightly.

Jane sighed. This wasn't going to work. Still, she took another deep breath in and persisted, like a soldier treading in no man's land as his last resort for peace. "I know exactly why I am still working at this nameless face in this dingy neighborhood, and that's to earn money to survive in a city crumbling under the weight of its people."

"Then why are you still here? You don't have to stay here, you know," her manager interrupted. "I mean, I absolutely love working with you, you're like a sister to me sometimes, and it bums me out that we can't hang out like we used to now that it's considered 'fraternizing with employees', but you really don't have to stay if you don't want to-"

"It's not just that…." Jane rubbed the sides of her forehead, her fingers lingering on the bandages before returning to her lap. "My… family is here. I cannot leave them."

"Ah, one of those situations."

"I know most of the tension has passed, but I still hear whispers once in awhile with guests, talking about things like the tragedy at Double Act, talking about powered citizens, talking about all the violence and everything that occurred…."

"Jane, you're just a server at a little diner on a little block in a really big city," Amanda patted her friend's knee. "Are you afraid of being caught in the crossfire or something? Being a victim of a driveby shooting?"

"Or perhaps a victim in my own workplace. You heard what happened to that doctor last month."

"What, you're talking about Vivian Dawn? That was a powered activist hiding in plain sight and the leader of the Humans for Humanity group. You're not either of them, so you should be fine."

Jane chuckled; the smile had yet to return to her face. "…I guess that does sound a little convoluted and paranoid."

"A little? Jeez, girl. Come on. You sound like you need the night off to enjoy your twenty bucks and get yourself a nice hot dinner."

"Twenty bucks might buy a hot date," Jane mused, allowing a tiny crack of a smile to tease her lips.

This broke a grin across Amanda's face. "There's the snarky Jane I know."

Jane offered a small smile at half her manager's luminosity as she hopped off the cabinet. She didn't feel quite resolved, but it satisfied the conversation and if it was enough for Amanda, it was enough for herself. "Thank you for your listening ear."

"Anytime, girl. Have a good night!"

With that, the waitress clad in pristine pink against battered white headed out of the little office, through the kitchen and dining room and to sweet salvation in the form of double doors leading to the streets of dreary Sega City.

It's not often people get me talking about the events of the past fifteen years in Sega City. Lord knows I lived through it all, probably spent more than half of that time working at this crappy little establishment, listening to the arguments, hearing about the protests, enduring all the hate flung both ways and finding myself unbelievably angry at how… ignorant they all were, yet hopelessly intrigued by where everything would turn. It's true, I do have family living in this city. My allegiance, however, is not to them, but to the constantly unfolding drama that these citizens have to offer. It's like a living, breathing soap opera right outside my home and the actors are all very good at playing terrible, two dimensional roles. Which is fitting entertainment, as none of us have the money to afford basic cable anymore. The papers my patrons read and the public radio fill my spare time, which I seem to have less and less of as the weeks turn into months, and the months to years.

Sometimes I feel guilty, indulging in the schadenfreude that plagues the lives of so many people I read about. But I suppose that's what a drone does. After all, if your life can't be terribly exciting, why wouldn't you gossip about those who burn the papers with their names emblazoned in the headlines.

Isaac Romane, Ethan King, Carson McGregor, and the surnameless Navi… all of them were household names at one point among several others which have faded over the years. People might still breathe their names in some places. Certainly not in my apartment. And only occasionally at my workplace.

If not for that murder a month or so ago, I'd say things were finally starting to even out, and a colorless peace might actually permeate the city. As long as the Humans for Humanity group keeps on their relentless path of spewing hate and apparently turning to murder to get their point across, I can't say for sure. Maybe the 'proud to be normal' bastards aren't as pure hearted as they claim to be.

Sometimes I dream of what it would be like to not be so… normal. Nearly everything about me is invisible to the rest of the world, save for these bandages. I suppose that takes me from being completely transparent to having a hint of color in an otherwise featureless glass against a pleasantly monochrome background. A faded beige sheep in a sea of white who have since cast out their substantial population of black or darker wooled brethren.

It's really not that special.

5,642/50,000 - considering most of this was done at my uncle's funeral, I think I get a pass for not doing so well today.

---

The rest of the evening passed without incident, and Jane woke the next morning to the sound of pattering rain against her dusty window. At nine thirty or so, the sky was unusually dark, and clouds hung their somber heads as they greeted the server in her humble apartment. It took much effort to break that bubble of sleep enough for her to pull herself up and out of her covers, greeting the world with bleary eyes and blotched face.

As she made her slow pace through the dark halls, she glanced toward two closed doors on the left side. The sound of soft breathing reached her ears and she nodded solemnly. Asleep, she breathed out. They would be.

Leaving the lifeless hall and making her way to the kitchen, she sighed once again. Yellowed, aging tiles paved the way to the spotless silver refridgerator, obviously the newest expense in the decades old room. Silver clashed against the yellows and oranges of the remaining décor, from the stained countertops with more scuffs and knife scratches than a cat post, to the battered cabinets in painted wood. The stove was a class of its own - a half full canister of sanitizing wipes sat on a shelf not three feet away, but even that couldn't seem to penetrate the neutralized food residue unified by their blackened carbon cloak, baked into the tiniest of crevices only a chisel could reach or clean. A day old saucepan perched on the back burner like a parrot, staring with hard and mocking eyes at its owner.

It was a mess, and Jane couldn't be bothered at that moment to deal with any of it. She managed to drag herself to the only other clean appliance in the room - the source of life in the morning haze.

"Coffee…" she mumbled, throwing open the cabinet above and reaching for the bright container of grounds and adding enough scoops and water to satisfy her burning tastebuds. Ten minutes, two sugars and a splash of milk later, the fog finally lifted from her eyelids and she was able to gain a better perspective of her surroundings. It still wasn't enough to motivate her to wipe down the kitchen, but moving across the apartment was less of a chore, and she made it to the bathroom in no time.

She took no note of the various makeups and hairsprays littering the counter, or the dye-stained towels hanging limply from the curtain protecting the shower with its flimsy plastic defenses. None of this mattered right now.

Her reflection was the only thing that caught her eye now.

Matted chin-lengh hair flattened against her scalp and framing her delicate face, her pale doppleganger blinking back at herself with contactless eyes, exposing the unusually vibrant irises to the brutally honest glass. The chocolate pencil on her eyebrows from the previous night could still be seen stained across the ridge beneath her forehead where hair no longer grows.

She breathed a heavy sigh. "I suppose I must wake you up now…."

Her eyes fell to a small basket on the ground, where yards of white gauze lay neatly folded with a post it note plastered on top: "I washed it this time. ~T"

With a grim expression, she slowly began wrapping the gauze around her head, pinning her hair up as she went along and confining every vibrant fiber to its pearly white prison.

"Good afternoon - or, well I suppose it is still morning, so good morning, then. My name is Jane, what can I start you off with today?"

The early lunch crowd hit around eleven or so, and the petite server stood rigidly before her first guest of the shift. The diner divided itself into four convenient sections - the windows, where booths lined either wall and faced the smudged glass overlooking the street; the plants, a half-walled off spot in the corner where fake palm trees proudly greeting guests as they entered; the open area in the center affectionately named no mans land ("Very few people want to sit in an area where they are robbed of privacy, brushing shoulders with strangers and eavesdropping on others," she explained to many a bewildered guest).

These days, she often found herself at the counter - a long surface stretching the length of the diner and wrapping around in an L shape to close off the end. Today was no exception. Despite having the fewest available seats, it was quite a desirable section, as the window to the kitchen happened to be four feet behind, serving piping hot food immediately to the guests who perched on the high stools for a quick bite before a meeting or a warm cup of coffee in something other than a cardboard cup. Jane's eyes lingered on the creases of her first guest's jacket, taking note of its make, material, wear and tear-

"Come on, now. You know I know you, and you know what I like."

The man on the other side of the bar chuckled as he leaned over to look into Jane's dark eyes. "Or have I been so much of a stranger these past few months that you've forgotten me already?"

Not a moment later, she snapped her eyes up to meet his, clapping her hand to her mouth to hide an unexpected and delighted smile. "-Logan Stokes!"

"That's the name, little lady," the man replied with a lopsided grin. "Now, in case you've forgotten-"

"One large tomato juice with two lemons and a water with no ice," Jane piped in, pulling two glasses from the rack and filling each one with its desired contents. "And if you're feeling particularly healthy today, a side of cottage cheese."

Logan laughed, leaning against the backrest of the barstool. "Of course. Jane never forgets a face or an order."

"It helps when you came in for six weeks straight between eleven twenty five and eleven thirty in the mornings," she commented with arched eyebrows.

"Hahah… yeah, that probably would help."

"So what kept you from my counter for so long?" She set both glasses in front of him and rocked forward onto the balls of her feet, standing as tall as her tiny frame would allow to get a better look at the man who took his first sip of the water. He was a rather lanky man, tall and slender with slight toning around his arms. He had a very soft face with a solid jawline, like pink pillows on a wooden bed frame. Shaggy dishwater blonde hair tumbled down in front of his nose, their unkept waves occasionally giving her a view of his mossy green eyes which sparkled with the murky shimmer of a silt strewn river.

"Oh, the usual," he casually waved his hand. "Saving the world one motel room at a time with my manly charms and sweet skills."

"Mm… that can be a dangerous habit," Jane warned in a motherly tone, taking up a nearby glass and wiping it down with her spotted dishrag as she spoke. "Not to mention reckless and irresponsible."

"Come on, you know I'm just kidding!"

"Yes, now you are defensive." Her expression relaxed a bit, allowing a tiny smile to creep to the edge of her lips.

"Fine, fine." Logan muttered, adjusting his coat. "I've actually been in and out of the hospital, going through a couple surgeries and lots of physical therapy on my knee. It hasn't been the same since that skateboarding accident when I was, like, sixteen or something. You remember I told you about that?"

"Multiple times," she said with a hint of sarcasm, but the concern in her eyes as she leaned over seemed genuine. "Have you been able to work in between all that?"

"Only stuff which didn't require me to move around too much. I've been on crutches for the past year or so," he nodded to the ground beyond her vision. "It's not that hard, I can still play as long as they give me a chair or something."

"Ah, so you are still performing, then." Jane smiled. "Are they still allowing your ugly mug at the Roundhouse?"

"They are, actually," he puffed up proudly, "not just that, but they've given me your blonde babe's spot while he's on vacation or something."

Jane burst out laughing, perhaps a little too loudly. "My what?"

"What? Your blonde babe! That guitarist Lee Cypher you were always asking me about? If I didn't know you, I'd say you had a hopeless crush on the guy!"

"You are well aware I do not care for relationships at this time, and certainly care less for eye candy, and I am also aware that even if I did have a soft spot for him, he's already spoken for, which you also take great delight in reminding me every time you reference him."

Her sharp words seemed to set him back a bit, and he turned to his tomato juice, filling the following awkward silence by squeezing the provided lemons into the opaque red liquid. "…so anyway, he's on vacation and the higher ups are only saying that there were some pressing family issues that needed to be resolved. Meanwhile, they've given me his time slots for the past few weekends, so I'm starting to think maybe something else is going on."

"Well I am certainly not above idle gossip around your workplace, and if you'll be stopping by more often, I would be quite interested in hearing," Jane smirked, giving him the all clear that her offense was short lived.

10,015/50,000 - BIG WARNING RIGHT HERE AND NOW - the second half of this post contains a LOT of swearing. I know we're supposed to keep it PG, 13 at worst, but... there was simply no way to work around it with this character. The rest of the novel will not be like this, and I ask that this please remain untouched. I know there's gonna be a lot of censoring in here, and the uncensored version will be in my writing journal. Thank you in advance 😀

This is gonna be a particularly long post, as I forgot to update here yesterday. THE PLOT CONTINUES!

---

"Well I am certainly not above idle gossip around your workplace, and if you'll be stopping by more often, I would be quite interested in hearing," Jane smirked, giving him the all clear that her offense was short lived.

"Hah, fair enough." He took a test sip of his juice and grinned, as if the tart drink was the key he needed to loosen the rest of him up. "Nobody really knows anything, like I said, and all they're telling us is that it was a family emergency. But you'd think if that's the case, he'd at least come in and check up, right?"

"That would make sense," she replied idly, wiping down a spot on the counter.

Logan stretched his arms over his head and relaxed once again, balancing the stool on its two back legs. "So what about you? Any fun drama going around here I should know about?"

"Unfortunately, this place seems relatively tame compared to the soap opera that is 'the good, the bad, and the Roundhouse'."

"That's catchy, I like that," he laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "But seriously? Nothing at all? No big scandals between which server's sleeping with which kitchen guy or nothing like that?"

"If anything of the sort were to happen, it is unusually well concealed," shrugged Jane as she turned to the window, reaching for a plate of apple pancakes with a side of cottage cheese and setting both dishes in front of her friend, who was more than eager to dig in.

"Thanks!" chirped Logan between healthy bites. "-man, have I missed this. It's been- either hospital food or- my own lousy cooking for the past however many weeks or whatever…."

"Enjoy," Jane whispered with a satisfied smile.

"-so what about you?" he asked with curious eyes, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. It was almost comical to see such a polite gesture after his ravenous demolition of the pancakes on his plate. "I mean, I've been going on and on about drama and hospital visits, and everything else going on in my life. What's new in Miss Waitress' life?"

"Please. You know as well as I do that my job is my life, and some of us are not gifted with musical abilities to practice in the spare time I actually don't have." Her pleasant smile seemed to alleviate most of the sarcasm in her tone.

But it didn't seem to satisfy him, and Logan persisted, rocking his stool back to all fours with a solid clatter, which had Jane jump in surprise. "Come on, girl. You know if that were true, you'd be a hell of a lot unhappier. What've you been doing when you're not in that cute little getup, serving bums like me heaven on a plate?"

She paused, taking in his words with a straight expression. "It would seem you didn't hear me the first time," she continued with a hint of warning laced between her words. "I said I have no spare time."

"Then what is it you do? I know full well you don't work here twenty four hours a day, you've gotta sleep sometime!"

Jane sighed, folding her arms across her body. It was a defense mechanism, and she knew it, but she couldn't stop her body from reflexively working itself into this position, as if shielding herself from his words. If she didn't know him, she probably would have written him off as being too tactless for decent service and walked away right there. "I have doctor's visits, too," she whispered after several moments of awkward silence.

This, of course, didn't satisfy him, but her reaction had him physically back off a bit. "Jaaaane," he playfully whined. "Come on, what are you hiding from me? I thought we were friends!"

"And what is a successful musician such as yourself doing making friends with jaded waitresses recovering from head trauma in shabby establishments such as this?"

The words left her mouth before she had a chance to catch them and she found herself recoiling back, turning toward the windows in silence which neither of them were willing to break for the moment. Time seemed to crawl to a halt, with servers blurring in their peripheral vision and sounds fading out from between them.

"Maybe it's 'cause I care about your well being," he ventured quietly. "Maybe it's that caring that compelled me to come back even though money's really tight right now. To be honest, I was wondering if your scars had healed over enough for you to get rid of those bandages. I've always wanted to know if your natural hair is as pretty as you are."

And Jane couldn't keep the pink from flooding to her cheeks. "You're flattering," she managed after a moment of physically collecting her words. "However, your naturally joking nature keeps me from seeing your sincerity with anything but a cynical eye-"

"You know what I always liked about you?" Logan's face broke out in a grin - his expression told her that he has resigned to his fate of digging a deeper grave for himself, and will make it as homely as possible before her icy glare pierces through him. "How when you get angry, your words get all formal and holier than thou, like you're smarter than the idiots that walk through these doors."

"Are you calling me uneducated?" Her tone was cross, and her dark eyes narrowed in astonishment at her friend's behavior.

"Hahah!" That seemed to be the mood breaker he needed. "Are you kidding me? You're smarter than everyone in this place combined, I bet. Hell, I don't even know why you're not in college or something right now-"

Jane eyes continued their laser like precision, projecting her annoyance straight into his forehead. "Yes, well you aren't the only one with money problems."

"The point is, I love watching servers go off on rude customers-"

"You are rapidly treading that line-"

"And that's just it!" he exclaimed You never go off on them like some people do, and you certainly don't just sit there and take it like the rest of them, then go to the back and cry or whatever. You tell them plain to their face how they're wrong, point out everything that makes them wrong, all with this condescending smile reminding them how freaking stupid they are. And you always make sure to use vocabulary you know they don't understand and making them feel even more retarded while you spell it out for them at a level they'll actually comprehend." Logan's grin stretched from ear to ear as he leaned back in his chair again, taking up his water in his free hand. "And I absolutely love watching you do that."

When she didn't reply (save for staring at him in total shock at his… audacity), he shrugged. "Just calling it as I see it, little lady. And I swear if you change that, I'm never coming back for my tomato juice and cottage cheese."

He allowed her a moment to take it all in with a seething sigh. It's a compliment, she shouted at herself. A poorly veiled one, but a compliment nonetheless. Accept it with a-

"…thanks," she mumbled, whipping the dishrag from her side and wiping down the counter furiously to hide her beet red cheeks.

"No problem!" he cackled, perfectly satisfied with that reaction.

Three minutes of silence followed, as Logan finished his cooled pancakes with that %!$% eating grin of his, and Jane kept her distance, tending to the two other guests who had sat in her section with fire in her eyes. She would occasionally glance back to check on his slowly diminishing water and crumb filled plate.

"You know, they should put you in prison," she finally stated as she strolled back to him with a second tumbler brimming with ice water. The ice tinkled pleasantly against the glass as she set it in front of him.

"-wait, what now?"

"Of course, that's what they are doing to everyone with abilities these days, isn't it?" She smirked, trading her irritation for his amused smirk. "And with an ability like that, you would be thrown in jail and they would make you swallow your key."

"Hold on, what ability?" he spluttered, taking up his glass with… was that a hint of panic in his tone?

Jane flashed him a smile as she leaned in. "The ability to get under servers' skin and enable them to do terrible things to your drinks or something of the sort."

Logan huffed, downing half of his refilled water with a pouting gulp. "I take it back," he mumbled. "You can be real @@+%$ when you're mad. And it's not cool."

Her smile stretched out further. "Oh, pardon me sir," she quickly added, taking his hands in an overly dramatic gesture of theatrical remorse deserving of a place in an award winning show on morning primetime. "I am so terribly sorry for inconveniencing you and hurting your precious feelings, whatever will I be able to do to rectify this situation?"

He couldn't help cracking a grin of his own, delicately pulling his wrists out of her grip while attemping to keep as much of the water in his glass as he could. "Okay, okay! Stop that!"

"As you wish," and she stepped back, raising her hands in front of her to show she's finished teasing him. One glance to either side told her that her patrons didn't seem so amused with the relaxed display with another guest, and she quickly straightened up, smoothing out her skirt and clearing her throat, as if all three motions erased the events of the past few minutes. "…were you finished with that?"

"Yeah, I gotta save room for later. They're having a safety meeting at the Roundhouse later and they said they'd have some appetizers there for anyone going."

"And appetizers would be the most interesting thing the meeting has to offer?"

"Unless you're oh so excited to hear about the benefits of using minimal amount of water for washing hands to prevent drips to ultimately prevent people from killing themselves on our unnecessarily grand décor."

"…I don't think even free food could motivate me to listen to that," she giggled sheepishly. "I suppose I should give you this then."

"Ahh… the bad news, of course…" he feigned surprise as she slid the crisp receipt across the counter to him. He dug into his jeans and pulled out a few beautifully juxtaposed bills who had taken on a three dimensional quality since their introduction to his pocket. "No change for me."

She held up the official notes to the light, straightening them against the edge of the counter and folding them delicately in her own pocket. "Four dollars on an eight dollar check," she smiled to him. "You are too kind."

"Hey, anything to keep a smile on a little lady's face."

This brightened her expression and she extended a hand in his direction. "Take care, Logan Stokes." After a firm handshake, he dragged his crutches back up and hobbled out of the diner to greet the rainy afternoon.

I suppose I should elaborate. I have known Logan for nearly four years, now. He used to bring his parents in for breakfast on Sunday mornings when money was easier to come by. Then he would come in before his performances at various restaurants and coffee shops around the city. He always got the earliest time slot, being the least experienced of their regular performers. Then again, when they have resident musicians who had been there for over ten, fifteen, even twenty years, of course the newbie would get the short straw.

He's been my regular for quite some time, always with one of two orders: apple pancakes with cottage cheese on the side, or if he's feeling particularly indulgent, a mushroom and swiss omelette with two sausages. Always with his tomato juice and two lemons, coupled with two ice waters - one's his refill, of course, when he's finished.

The rest of my regulars aren't quite that predictable. I have a couple who comes in once in awhile who always split strawberry crepes, all the while switching up their side order to whatever they feel like that day. Some people always have an orange juice, others need five creams with their first cup of coffee… however, I'm starting to delve into uninteresting territory. Please forgive me.

I sometimes see people I used to know, who would never recognize me in this state. I often try to get others to pick up those tables, as I would rather not deal with the people who knew me before my… injury. I have better things to do than listen to them whine about how terrible their lives are and occasionally glance at me and tell me "I guess you have it worse than I do, since you're damaged goods and all." "I'm so sorry to see you're not doing so well!" "I hope you feel better soon!"

All of this supporting a simulation of pity which I never want or ask for. I know they show no interest beyond the moment, and a former friend turned waitress is hardly a reason to go out of your way to pray as you all say you will. Forgive me, but if you genuinely care about my well being, an extra three dollars or so on your tips would help.

…I suppose I do not need to ask for forgiveness, as this is all a theoretical conversation, and one I would never actually have with a patron, and I always give those tables away before they become a problem.

And the mid afternoon rush faded as it always did to a crawl by three o'clock, with a guest walking in once every twenty minutes or so. Impatient servers counted their meager wages for their penance and punched out, leaving Jane to man the dining room on her own. Thankfully, with only three extra tickets per hour, this wasn't too difficult a task, and she found herself with more spare time cleaning up her counter than she knew what to do with. After all, the racks of glasses were already washed, dried, spot dried, and arranged to her replacement's immaculate standards.

Of course, her replacement wasn't due for three more hours.

Jane sighed, scoping out her three other tables. All of them have full glasses and enough napkins… all of them are absorbed in their own little conversations… and nobody is looking in my direction.

"I believe I'm ready for my break," she clapped her hands in success, considerably brightened for the brief reprieve from the lifeless dining room.

And then he entered.

A formidable man with thick black hair which tumbled in greasy tufts down his shoulders threw the double doors to the diner open, strutting in with an arrogant, couldn't care less air surrounding him like a thick blanket which had all four or five observers shrink back upon noticing. His umber eyes with equally dark bags beneath them scanned the room before spotting the sole server in the diner and sauntering up to the counter to offer a pleasant greeting:

"Oi, oi, bandage bonnet, what's the special today?"

Jane whirled around, startled back into reality and returning her job. "-I beg your pardon?"

A thick cockney accent accompanied his words as he continued, leaning in with smug arrogance, "Don't these greasy spoons have some kind o' special every day or what?"

She smoothed out her apron, trying to collect herself and… well, finding it rather difficult. As much as her eyes wanted to find the daily special menu which she kept behind her little counter, they found themselves locked on his face, studying every age hardened crease of olive skin beneath that thick mess of hair. He had to be around fifty or so, with a build that told her he was an active individual. A body builder type, or maybe ex-military, maybe a personal trainer? …no, it couldn't be; his lack of decent hygiene had her settle on a former member of the army….

"Oi, head trauma! You listenin' or what?"

Three snaps of his fingers forcibly returned her to the conversation, and she stiffly reached for the laminated list of Wednesday specials, sliding it across the counter toward him. "-forgive me for my… I-I mean… I'm sorry," she managed to mumble loud enough for him to hear.

"Chill out, darlin'," he replied with raised eyebrows, taking up the sheet and giving it a once over. "I ain't out to eat you or nothin', the hell are you so uptight?"

"-long day," she quickly covered, turning to the freshly brewed pot of coffee sitting on the warmer, "…would you like anything to drink?"

"Eh," he waved grumpily. "Coffee'll do."

With one swift movement, Jane pulled a mug from the cleaned rack and placed it in front of him, filling it near the top with the dark, fragrant elixir of life. "Do you take sugar or cream with it?"

"Sweet with a splash of milk…" he offered a small chuckle without cracking a smile as he eyed the height of the coffee, "ah, that'll do just right."

"Just let me know what you want when you're ready, I'm here all day," was all she said before heading out from behind the counter to pester her other guests for refills for the third or fourth time. Everything just to get away from that… face. Of course, since it was only five minutes or so since she last checked on them, they left Jane with little else to do than return to the counter and tidy the already spotless area.

"Y'know, you remind me of a lass I knew way back when," the man spoke up when she came back, studying the rich cocoa colored drink cradled between calloused hands.

She let her eyes linger on the rack of mugs, keeping her back to him. "Many people say that." With that, she straightened her posture and glanced over her shoulder with a tiny smile, hoping to lighten the tension between them. "Mostly referring to former girlfriends, except with more hair upon their heads."

He grimaced, waving his hand idly again and keeping his eyes sunk into his coffee. "Nah, don't mean looks, love. Mean your voice. Way o' talkin'. Reminds me of a stuck up tart I used to know."

Jane cleared her throat, folding her arms across her body. "…I suppose people have said that too, though certainly not as… bluntly as you put it."

He sneered. "Neh. You meet a lot o' people like that in my line o' work."

"Many find I have a decent pair of ears, if you have anything you need to get off your chest to someone you'll probably never meet again."

He finally raised his eyes to hers. She raised her eyebrows in kind.

"…eh, sit down, it's a @!@@#%' long story."

"If you'll excuse me, I just need to close out my remaining checks-" And she quickly pulled each receipt from her pocket and dropped them on their respective tables, returning to the counter and pulling her petite self up to an adjacent stool.

"Right, then. Guys like me, well. There's only one place for us, and that's straight into the military for ya. Right outta high school and right into the ranks, I'm sure you know how it goes."

I suppose that confirmed my theory, she mused as she nodded in his direction.

"Hah, well once we served our time, they were all too happy to kick our asses right out onto the streets with naught more than a cute li'l pat on the head. And after seein' some of that %!$%, way back when…" he whistled, taking a large gulp of his coffee. "Babe, you ain't seen none of it."

"The way you speak of it, it would sound as if a bar would be a more appropriate way to drown those memories," Jane smirked, crossing one leg over the other.

"Eh, bollocks to a bar," he pounded the counter with his free hand, flashing her a nasty smirk. "I'd much rather tell my story to a beauty like yourself than some sweaty old sack behind a bar."

This brought a smirk of her own to her face and she shrugged. "I won't argue with that."

"Damn right you won't," he interrupted, finishing off the rest of his coffee before continuing. "So me and my buddies, ain't got %!$% to do without our camos and our gear, and $*$$$@ if anyone'd trust us to flip burgers or the like after handling thousands of tax dollars worth of heavy artillery. So give or take a few years and I get myself a @!@@#%' sweet merc gig with Kingcorp, of all places."

Jane raised her pencilled eyebrows in interest. "Ethan King had mercenaries?"

"Whole @!@@#%' penthouse full of 'em! 'Course, half of 'em couldn't recognize their own arse if it bit 'em in the knees and cursed their parents, so we got ourselves in a bit o' trouble here and there. 'Cept for one diamond lass," he spoke with a warmer tone than his bitter rant from before.

"A woman?"

"@!@@#%' hardcore as hell, that Bird," he grinned. "Could kick your arse before breakfast and eat the rest for lunch."

"And anyone who could fight alongside you was an asset and a friend?"

"Heh. Yeah." His voice trailed off as he set his mug down, prompting an immediate refill with coffee and cream. "Course, she was more'n just a friend…. First person to know what I been through, to understand me, know what I mean? I mean, she's one smokin' hot babe, but underneath all that…" he reached into the the air, trying to grasp the words he needed, but it yielded nothing and he set his hand back down to his mug. "…eh, but that's about as soft as ol' Irve here's gonna get.

"So we went around gettin' paid the big bucks to blow %!$% up, started to feel the way it used to back then, had ourselves a grand ol' time. Now, Bird…" he rolled his neck back to stare at the ceiling. "She had a lot o' baggage, know what I mean? Lots of $*$$$@ up %!$% that messed her up and made her the @@+%$ I might even say I cared about."

"If I may ask, er… Irve, was it?"

"That's me name, short for Irvine," he shrugged.

Jane nodded, bowing her head "Pleasure to meet you, Irvine. Please continue."

"Eh, no need to do that formal %!$%, we're in a %$!!+%$ diner, for *%$+'s sake," he spat, as if the term was even lower than his crude excuses for manners. "So anyway, there's this plant @@+%$, she comes around to our boss with a plan to off the bastard that $*$$$@ my Bird over. And I mean $*$$$@. The tosser pretty much ripped her hopes and dreams out of her sight and all but killed her there. Wanted to be an actress, y'know? He says he can get her any role she wants - a talent agent, y'know? - and he proceeds to work her like a dog till all she wants to do is die to get away from his %$!!+%$ face.

"So when this plant @@+%$ comes around and says she can kill him, %!$%. I was all over that. My Birdy, not so much, but eh. She wanted the past to stay buried. I say we bury the %!$% for her, know what I mean? So I took the plant @@+%$ up on her offer, she's @!@@#%' crazy… see, we called her the 'plant @@+%$' 'cause she can mess with plants and %!$%, make vines appear out of nowhere… so she makes the ground %$!!+%$ swallow the tosser-"

"Wait, swallow?" Jane stared at him.

"I know, right? The ground %$!!+%$ opened up for her and ate the $@##%@ right there before my eyes! 'Course, the police being the retards they are tried to pin it on us 'cause they ain't got no evidence and like hell would they take no for an answer when we tell them we didn't do %!$%. And the plant @@+%$ conveniently forgets about the whole thing afterward. %$!!+%$ unreliable @@+%$ couldn't even fess up for her own murder. So they locked all of us up, and that wasn't even the start of the problems that @@+%$ gave us.

"Nah, the first thing she does is break into King's pad and try to steal his experiment on some man meat she called her boyfriend, nearly taking us out 'cause we dared stand in her way and tell her to kindly *%$+ off. 'Course, when she's pulling that crazy vine %!$% on us, there ain't nothin' we can do and she carts the man away like nothing happened. And she %$!!+%$ kills him! Her own %$!!+%$ boyfriend!" Irvine shook his head, running his hand through his thick hair. "Oh, man… if anyone's more messed up than my Birdy, it'd be that plant @@+%$, I swear.

"Gotta say, bandage bonnet. Sorry you sound like her."

"I'm honored," she flatly replied.

"Eh. She's a %$!!+%$ lunatic, but she got %!$% done, y'know?" he mused, taking another sip of his coffee. "Had a nasty habit of offing people, though. I mean, her boyfriend, that tosser talent agent, nearly leveled that old powered prison all those years ago-"

"I think I know who you're talking about," Jane straightened up in her chair. "I remember hearing about that all those years ago. All those scandals that made this city the way it is today."

"Heh. Navi's the name," he smirked, staring nostalgically at the wall. "She made a point I get it right all those years ago. She didn't seem to like being called plant @@+%$. Strange, huh?"

"You seem to enjoy calling people by nicknames," Jane smiled. "Mine is right here, and you still call me-"

"Bandage bonnet, 'course. More descriptive than Jane, if y'ask me." He downed the rest of his coffee with a satisfied sigh. "So what's up with the ol' mummy wraps, anyway?"

"It was an accident," she shortly replied, bringing a hand up to the back of her neck. "Trust me, you would much rather see these mummy wraps than what's underneath."

11,437/50,000 - A bit short for today, but a lot of other things consumed my day, like Shining Force II, and hunting for some Hare Hare Yukai. Oh, and work. Tonight was the first night shift I'd worked in literally two months. It completely wore me out. XD I swear to God, Irvine was NOT supposed to hang around this long! So again, I put up a language warning, though this isn't nearly as profane as yesterday's entry. I mean, you can actually READ paragraphs. Again, the original version is preserved in my writing journal.

And finally, PLOT PROGRESSES. The "Confession" part of my title is actually coming into play! 8D 8D 8D

---

"It was an accident," she shortly replied, bringing a hand up to the back of her neck. "Trust me, you would much rather see these mummy wraps than what's underneath."

"Eh," Irvine waved with heavy eyes. "Bet I've seen worse in my days. Still got your whole skull and a pretty face, that's for sure."

"If you insist," she spoke quietly, turning to readjust the racks of glasses.

"I gotcha, don't want to talk about it, 'sall fine in my book. #+!+ knows I'm doing enough talking for the both of us."

A few minutes passed without much between them, save for ringing in an order of biscuits and gravy for the reminiscing man on the receiving end of the counter.

"If I may," Jane ventured. "you speak so fondly of this woman. I would imagine she'd come with you on a day like this."

Irvine lifted his eyes and stared at Jane with a stonelike expression. "Died two years ago," he bluntly stated with a level tone.

Her heart leaped into her throat. "…I'm sorry…" was all she could manage in a hoarse voice.

He scowled, setting the mug down heavily onto the counter, its dull thunk ringing throughout the dining room and turning the heads of everyone present. "Eh. It happens to the best of us. More the shame, though. She was one ace lady, know what I mean? Ain't gonna find another diamond like her in this shithole."

"…I see… then I say once again, I'm sorry."

"Heh, $*%%!% if you mean it," he glowered, taking a bitter sip of his refilled coffee. "Left behind all sorts o' %+@*, %%+$!++ primo house in the north side, a jeep, ton o' cash between the two of us from those glory days with Kingcorp. I mean, I'm set for life!" he laughed without a smile, leaning against the backrest and raising his mug in earnest. "Can't really complain when I ain't got no worries about a roof over my head, wondering where my next meal's coming from, know what I mean?"

He lingered for a moment before sinking down again. "…but it don't mean %+@*, y'know? Not without my Birdy. Boring as #+!+ without her around." His eyes rose from the coffee to meet Jane's own dark irises, then narrowing them in uncertainty. "Oi, oi, what's eatin' you, there?"

Jane turned away, bringing a hand to her reddening face. "-it… it is nothing, forgive me, I-"

He wasn't falling for it and he leaned in, resting his elbows on the counter. "Oi, do you weep like that anytime some old fart comes in with some sob story with dead girlfriends?"

"-y-yes. Yes. I do. Forgive me," she hastily replied, struggling to stand up straight and ignore the waves of emotion crashing down upon her. Get a hold of yourself, she began as a mental mantra. Shake it off, stay strong, why in the world are you doing this? You can't let this happen! You know better than to fall apart in front of your guests….

"-I… I need to go…."

At that moment, the plate of biscuits and gravy clattered in the window and Jane used this opportunity to seize the dish, haphazardly dropping it in front of Irvine and hurrying into the kitchen, letting the latchless doors swing under heavy momentum to an eventual halt.

The mantra continued in her head as she hid in the dry storage closet, wiping the tiny bit of moisture from her eyes with the edge of her apron. Get a hold of yourself, you know better than to fall apart like that! Not in front of guests… not in front of him… you cannot let this happen! Her entire body shuddered with repressed and controlled emotion, as if the tectonic plates inside her body all collided at once and the tremors and aftershock all pounded through her at the same time. She wanted to let it go, to just forget about it and brush it off as if it was nothing, because it was… but… it wasn't.

"It's not," she breathed on a heavy sigh, turning her pink, dried tear streaked face to face the working kitchen. "I am tired of lying to myself… I am sick of repressing all of this…."

Bearing these thoughts in mind, she took a deep, reassuring breath of courage and made her way back out to the dining room, where Irvine remained, raising his eyes from his half finished plate. Upon seeing her, he dropped his flatware to the dish with a clatter.

"All right, look," he began, suspicion radiating from his eyes and boring holes into her forehead. "Something's obviously rubbed you the wrong way. Ain't never seen nobody fall apart like that at a bit o' news about someone they ain't never heard of."

"It's no-" …but the words halted in her throat. All of that bravado she built up in the back began crumbling at its foundations, and all she could manage was a heavy, hissing exhale, audible frustration and emotion steaming out from every pore of her body.

Irvine took a full sip of his fourth coffee and stared at her. "Listen here, bandage bonnet. You look like you've got a lot on that petite little chest of yours. You take ten, pop a squat over here and pour your soul. Forget about all them," he waved vaguely in the direction of the two other tables in the dining room. "Worst they'll do is turn a fiver tip into a two or some %+@* like that. Me?" He opened his battered, dusty trenchcoat and reached into one of the inner pockets, pulling a crisp green note from within and setting it beside his plate.

Jane's eyes widened upon seeing all the zeros. "One… thousand?" she breathed.

A smug look plastered itself on his face. "Heh. Never seen nothin' like it, huh? Believe it or not, King invented the *!$!*+' thousand dollar bill. Said it made his business easier or some %+@*. Says a lot about a guy when reinventing some currency's a small detail on his resume."

"I can only imagine…" was all she could manage.

"That all don't matter, though." He frowned, leaning toward her. "That's conditional, y'hear? You tell me what the hell that was all about back there and this'll be yours."

Her heart pounded in her ears as that sentence forced her into two difficult choices. I either tell him what's going through my mind and risk destroying everything I've worked so hard to achieve… or let this opportunity pass and never feel resolved… and lose out on that money my family and I could use… but can I really sum my worth into a thousand dollars?

"…I need to know I can trust you," she whispered in a trembling voice.

Irvine shrugged, taking another sip of coffee. "Name your terms, I'm easy."

"You… understand this will be strictly confidential. Whatever you hear, see, or say, you won't repeat to anyone else. And believe me. I'll know if you do."

"Easy enough, ain't got nobody to repeat nothin' to."

Words are shallow and hardly worth taking without a grain or two of salt… but despite his crude behavior, Jane found some comfort and reassurance in his promise. She turned to face the window, reaching her fingers up to her eyes out of his sight. He craned his neck to get a better look at what she was doing.

What he saw when she spun back to face him… startled him a bit. Two deep brown contacts rested on her fingertips, uncovering a set of stunning violet eyes, which blinked with simultaneous regret and relief. A sudden dawning realization washed across him as he stared incredulously back at her. "#+!+ me," he gaped. "What the #+!+ are you doing in this shithole?"

"…I had to do something," she whispered, looking away. "With everything going on all those years ago, my family insisted on being the sole providers of income to protect me from myself. I mean… they certainly did not want me to repeat my mistakes and… well, that is why I wear this…." She reached a hand to the top of her head and gave it a delicate scratch with unmanicured fingernails.

He whistled, murmuring low enough to keep his end of the deal. "Sounds rough… didn't think you'd be the one settling down to a normal life."

"Likewise…" her voice trailed off, feeling somewhat unresolved despite having shared that much… speaking much more about the events of the past than to any of her other friends… and here she was, basically pouring her soul to someone who might as well have been a stranger.

15,214/50,000 - This is a combination of a couple days/several sessions of work. I'ma head to a Starbucks in a few minutes, trading access to the internet in for warm coffee and a relaxing atmosphere, and my goal is to bring my word count up to 18,000 by midnight tonight so I can return to my regularly scheduled 2k words a day. As for language warning, Irvine leaves about three paragraphs in, so there's not much to worry about. As always, it's uncensored in my writing journal.

So let us allow the confessions to pour out, shall we? Like, the really big life-changing confessions. Also, I totally want a $1,000 bill now. 8D

---

Irvine whistled, murmuring low enough to keep his end of the deal. "Sounds rough… didn't think you'd be the one settling down to a normal life."

"Likewise…" her voice trailed off, feeling somewhat unresolved despite having shared that much… speaking much more about the events of the past than to any of her other friends… and here she was, basically pouring her soul to someone who might as well have been a stranger ten minutes prior.

"Still plottin' on blondie? Or you finally put that %+!# behind you?" he ventured

She couldn't help smiling a bit. Four hours prior, his mention would have earned the speaker a fist to the jaw, but there was something… nostalgic in the way he spoke. "You will be thankful to note it is far behind me."

"Hah, good riddance at that. %*+!@!' caused us too many problems with that %+!#."

Jane hung her head, turning away to replace the contacts in her eyes, the vulnerable feeling of being exposed to the world starting to take its toll on her. "For that… I sincerely apologize."

"Eh. We all do %+!# we don't mean to sometime."

The air of silence hung heavily around the two of them. Irvine used the brief opportunity to finish off his food, and Jane glanced over the empty dining room, having said everything she needed to and yet still longing for more.

"…please forgive me for falling apart, too. You must understand… you are the first person I've been able to really connect to, if only for ten minutes… in the past several years. And to hear that enough time has passed for things to change so much…." She hooded her eyes, taking a deep breath. "…from what did she die of?"

Without glancing over, he simply stated, "Pneumonia. %*+!@!' *%%+@ was too proud to go to a doctor when she was under the weather. Whole lot o' good it did her, huh?" Irvine shook his head heavily, slamming his open palms against the counter and using the leverage to pull himself to his feet. "#!%$. She was forty nine…." He glowered to the bill beside the plate and waved his hand in its direction, turning toward the door. "Keep the change," he muttered as he picked up his pace.

"-are you absolutely sure?" Jane spoke with concern, fists clenching at her sides in discomfort with what he asked of her.

"The hell am I gonna do with it?" he growled. "Let it rot in a @*%!+$@ bank somewhere? Feh… #!%$ knows you need it more'n I do."

With that, Irvine threw the double doors open and marched out of the establishment without waiting for a reply.

There are three types of people in the world.

The first type can do everything they can to improve the status of their lives, yet find no salvation in anything they do. Fortune ignores them, and they may only find fame through tragedy, regardless of what they do to change their foretold future. They may find it difficult to maintain optimism with such a bleak reality plaguing them, and most likely, death will catch them early.

The second type can do anything they want to themselves and others and still maintain their health and spirit. They are virtually impervious to whatever life throws at them, and they will lead a long, healthy life with minimal effort on their part. It would seem they could survive any trial, disease, with supreme financial luck, and never worry a day in their life.

The third type covers the average folks I see every day walk through those doors. While they might try to categorize themselves into either the first or second category, they are most likely mistaken. These people work for their keep, eat properly and stay active to maintain good health, bounce back at a normal rate when life decides to step in and wound their spirit.

These types transcend gender, race, age, and ability. A study estimated that eighty to eighty-five percent of the population falls under the third category, where the other fifteen to twenty percent are evenly distributed between the first and second categories.

I, Jane Matthews, fall under the third category.

"-Jane? Jane! Hey, what's going on, girl?"

The petite woman snapped to attention, turning her head toward the person speaking.

Amanda's blonde head bounced out from behind the window within the kitchen. "You all right there? You're kinda spacing out a bit, you need any help at all?"

It had been about an hour since Irvine left the premises, and only a couple of guests arrived to fill his place. The rain slowed to a pattering halt, leaving the dull overcast November skies hanging heavily above the city, bathing the sea of grey and brown in an azure hue appropriate for her diminished mood.

"-no, I… I believe I am all right…" Jane sighed. "Thank you for your concern."

"Hey, anytime, girlfriend. I'll be doing inventory in the fridge if you need me!" she replied with a perky bob of the head before disappearing behind the partition.

Jane shuffled her feet, sinking back against the wall with a heavy exhale of despondent boredom. She knew she would be going back to talk to Amanda whether she wanted to or not. She just knew… with an invitation like that and that kind of unparalleled optimism on this dreary Wednesday, which seemed to bring nothing but terrible news, a reluctant visit to her favorite manager may not be what she wanted, but seemed to be what the metaphorical doctor ordered. And who was she to argue with the words of destiny itself?

Minutes dragged on for hours, and after what felt like two weeks, Jane's replacement made her way into the restaurant, clocking in with a plastic sunshine laced smile - a façade to mask the bitter scowl of one who wished she were back home doing Lord knows what to who knows what- …but that all assumption, of course, and with minimal words exchanged between the two of them, the bandaged waitress transferred her tables to her coworker and disappeared into the kitchen.

Just as she expected, she found Amanda perched in the walk in refrigerator, bundled up in a parka, hat and scarf, mittened hands checking and tallying various notes on a clipboard which by some miracle was able to stay gripped between the layers of glove.

"Hey girl!" the manager waved. "Hold on, I'm just about finished."

"Take your time," Jane spoke, just loud enough to be heard over the icy air blowing through vents near the ceiling. She stood for a few moments, before drawing her arms around her body and shivering. "-though, I will be waiting outside."

"Hey, don't even worry about it! I'd have frozen to death if I stood here that long wearing only that!

Thankfully, the burners in the kitchen carried their warmth around the various partitions and equipment to the entrance to the refrigerator, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief upon feeling a burst of hot air against her exposed arms and legs, earning goosebumps from the contrasting temperatures over such a short amount of time.

'Just about finished' translated into about thirty extra minutes of standing around, watching the cook crew toss plate after plate of eggs, pancakes, club sandwiches, and the like into the window where the two servers on the clock transferred the dishes from the hot surface to guests' tables. It seems a little early for the dinner rush, Jane mused, intrigued by how much effort the cook crew expended compared to how few people she saw in the dining room when she left.

"All right, lady!" sang Amanda's voice as she emerged from her chilly, silver prison. "Sorry that took so long, I'm afraid we can't make it too long today, but I think the servers can hold their ground for just a little bit while we talk."

"It's not a problem," Jane shrugged, watching her superior pull layer after layer of winter wear from her slender body. If she wasn't at least fifty pounds and five inches smaller, she might have even made a joke about having next to no meat on her bones as insulation against cold weather, or in Amanda's case, refrigeration.

"So what's going on today?" the manager smiled brightly, leading her friend to the tiny corner office still stuffed to the brim with piles of paperwork regarding who knows what. "Are you still going on about not connecting with people or something silly like that? To be honest, I really think you're kind of exaggerating with all that, and a good few nights of sleep'll fix you right up!"

Jane rolled her eyes - this was going nowhere, fast. "You have never known me to exaggerate," she snapped, perhaps a little more harshly than she intended.

"All right, then what's up? Someone leave you a nasty note or something?"

"…actually…."

With two fingers, she pulled the brand new bill from her pocket and held it up for her superior to see. "…one of my guests left this for me and told me to keep the change," Jane whispered, keeping her voice low and the numbers on the note hidden from everyone's sights but Amanda's.

And her eyes grew to the size of saucers as she snatched the official note from Jane's hand, holding it up to the light and examining the watermarks within. "-you've gotta be kidding me!" she breathed in astonishment. "This… this can't be real, it's just… I don't believe it!" Despite her contradictory statements, the light spoke no lies. The profile of an adult of Asian descent seemed to glow from the fibers between the paper, and a solid shadow of a strip stood out on the opposite side of the bill. "This… really is official… I can't believe it!"

"Apparently it is Ethan King's doing," she explained in a calm voice. "The person who left it explained that King developed it to make his business easier."

"And he just left this for you?!" the manager squeaked.

"He told me to keep the change."

"Oh my goodness…." Amanda handed the bill back with astounded eyes. "Girl, if I saw anything like that on my table, I'd be bouncing off the walls! I mean, you just don't get that every day! …so why do you seem so…."

"Unenthused?" Jane finished with a dry chuckle, adjusting her position from her perch on the cabinet. "I feel unenthused, uncomfortable, perhaps even upset because I knew that guest from before this-" She paused as she reached for her gauze wrapped head, letting the words sink in Amanda's ears. "You know how I feel about serving people I used to know."

Her manager's face immediately shifted to concern. She had known Jane for years, and she could count the number of occasions she spoke of her history on one hand, usually jokes in passing. She knew of her discomfort in speaking with people from the past, and had it been anyone else, she probably would have called them out and written them up for refusal to take tables. But for Jane… it seemed to be a genuine fear of being spotted by someone who may or may not recognize her in this state. "Did they recognize you?"

Jane looked away and nodded, rubbing her arm.

"So wait, you used to know someone who had ties to Ethan King? Like, of Kingcorp?!"

"…unfortunately…."

"Honey, what in the world are you doing here, then?" Amanda shoved her friend's shoulder. "You should be there, making a thousand dollars a day in sales and distribution! Lord knows you have the personality for it, anyone would buy anything from you, your commission sales would go through the roof!"

Jane recoiled a bit, drawing her arms in close and hugging them tightly around her body. "You don't understand," the woman meekly protested. "He… he didn't recognize me at first, but…."

"Did you tell him?"

Jane shook her head slowly.

"Then what? Did he just-"

"I showed him."

Something about the way she said that had Amanda immediately shut her mouth, recognizing this as a Very Important Moment that deserved her full attention without interruption.

"I showed him… my true eye color," Jane continued, raising her trembling fingers up to her face. "…and there was something so liberating about doing so, that… I feel I am ready to show you too…."

Amanda stared at her friend with a perplexed expression. "…Jane, I don't understand, I thought… your injury was to the back of your head, not to your eyes-"

"I never told you what my injury was," Jane spoke with a low, stern tone. "People simply assume it, due to the location of the bandages. I never said to anyone what happened to make me this way. I made sure to never tell anyone what happened. The only thing I tell people is that was an accident. Because…" she took a deep breath in, closing her eyes tightly. "…because it was… it was an accident…. Nobody meant for it to happen, and I did not realize it would have impacted my life this much…."

"…so what caused it, then? If you're gonna be this cryptic, at least give me the satisfaction of knowing what it is you're talking about," Amanda continued, starting to feel the itch of impatience nipping at her neck.

The waitress glanced toward the window and reached her fingers up to her eyes, ducking away to remove the contacts, raising her face back up to Amanda upon releasing the brilliant violet irises from their cocoa colored confines.

The blonde haired woman drew a sharp breath in. "Oh my goodness," she breathed in awe. "Is that your natural color? Honey, why in the world do you hide those beauties from the world? I swear, I've known you for how long, and I still feel like I don't even know a thing about you. I mean, if you keep this up, I might learn a fraction of who you are by the time I retire from here…!"

Jane offered a tiny smile, her cheeks flushing to match the coral hue of her uniform. "You are flattering," she timidly whispered.

"So, are you gonna tell me what caused your injury, then? Do your eyes have anything to do with it?"

"…I will tell you one day, I promise," the server smiled a bit more liberally than before, turning away briefly to put the dark brown contacts back in her eyes. "I have a feeling that day will come sooner than either of us expect. I just… am not quite ready to share yet. Please understand."

"No, no, don't even worry about it! I mean, I'm still reeling over the whole eye thing…" Amanda commented with a growing grin of her own. "So since brown isn't really your eye color, is brown really not your hair color either? I mean, I notice you pencil your eyebrows every day, but I thought that was just a side effect where it just doesn't grow there after whatever happened to you."

Jane looked up toward the ceiling, lightly kicking her heels against the metal cabinets beneath her. "There may be a connection," she offered after a few moments' silence.

"Come on," Amanda playfully whined, lightly shaking her friend's knee. "You've gotta tell me something…! You can't just leave me hanging like this!"

"Yes I can," Jane snapped, suddenly staring with cold eyes toward her blonde superior, which had the woman actually recoil back from mood swinging conversation whiplash. "It is highly personal information you should feel privileged to even know a fraction of. It is not pertinent to my job, therefore I have no obligation to tell you anything. It is through my good will and your concern that I have shared this much. I… do not feel safe sharing anything more than that."

With that, the waitress drew herself up, smoothed out her apron, and headed out of the office with long, unrelenting strides, leaving Amanda to wonder who the hell she thought she was, to verbally slap her superior like that.

The sun sank well below the horizon by the time seven o'clock rolled around. The decades-old streets glistened under amber street lights, illuminating stagnant puddles and smelling of damp, rotting garbage. This wasn't to say the streets were dirty - Sega City had a reputation for being comparatively clean - but with dumpsters hanging open during entire afternoons of rain and a slight lack of quality control on the west side, the pungent air made its presence known for blocks around.

Jane quickly became used to this, emerging from the diner and shivering as she greeted the chilly November atmosphere with a bitter grimace. The conversation with her manager left a bad taste in her mouth and combined with the multiple signs of the coming winter, she couldn't make her journey home faster.

Cars packed down every block, honking in impatience as if the harsh noise would speed up their commute. White collared workers brushed shoulders with the blue collared, with the petite and bandaged waitress weaving between them all. Some disappeared into their apartments, others continued to the Altair Train Station, a gigantic railroad complex in the heart of the business district. Hundreds of people pounded the pavement with sneakers, work shoes, steel toed boots and everything in between, bumping into one another in their isolated bubbles, keeping their mouths shut in respectful silence. Nobody paid their neighbor any mind as they traveled under street lamp after decorated street lamp.

They are setting up for Christmas relatively early, Jane mused as her eyes lingered on the sparkling gold garland draped beneath the silhouette of a wreath hanging from the arc of the lamp. The light refracted off the glittering strand of tinsel as the bitter, silent winds jarred it from its stationary position.

After a few moments of admiration, her eyes retreated back down to the sea of commuters slowing to a stream, and then to a trickle as people found their destinations or transferred transportation from their feet to subways, trains, and taxis. Nobody looked to one another. Nobody spoke to one another. Nobody pulled themselves from their personal space to interact with the world around them.

The waitress sighed, shaking her head slowly.

There is a difference between solitude and loneliness. When a person wants solitude, they genuinely wish to be alone. They find comfort in being by themselves, and have the ability to return to civilization and easily find companionship, if they so desired. However, a lonely person may feel uncomfortable or, in extreme cases, even fear being by themselves for too long. These people don't have someone they could call if they wanted company, either through lack of social skills or general introversion or a combination of both.

I can guarantee the vast majority of the people I pass every day are lonely. Many are too wrapped up in their jobs to have a personal life. Some may be searching for a romantic relationship without luck. Some may reach out and contact their friends to suggest a night out, and find they, too, are lacking a certain fortune or personality quirk that would bring them a fun night of excitement and happiness. Which logically brings them unhappiness when they can't achieve that excitement they crave in the company of friends.

If they poke their heads out of their self-absorbed bubble to figure out why they're so unhappy, they turn to the friend who will never let them down: media.

The media tells these people that there are a set of standards they must live up to in order to lead a happy life. Included in most, if not all, lists that radio shows, TV shows, books, newspapers, movies, and everything between pounds into their heads, is the concept of making interpersonal connections. Making friends and finding romance, keeping in touch with family and netting yourself a close enough clique to be able to share anything and everything to.

Even though the media tells them this, they seem to make no effort to change their status as they walk to and from work, to and from their desks at work, enduring hour long train rides to return to that empty apartment miles outside of the city… all without a single word to their neighbor.

After all, if you can't trust your neighbor, and you don't want to trust yourself, who can you trust?

As the commuting crowds thinned out, Jane found it easier to make her own path back to her apartment, only a few blocks away at this point. The skyscrapers in the business district to the north pierced through the heavy stratus clouds, hanging low in the evening sky. It was thick enough to obscure some of the higher floors of many of them, including the one hundred and nine story high Chaos Center. Several blocks to its right, the considerably smaller Kingcorp building stood dwarfed in the Chaos Center's shadow. But what it lacked in height, it made up for in sleek, state of the art architecture both structurally sound without sacrificing aesthetics.

Jane shook her head. "Skyscrapers are for people who need a physical pedestal to put themselves on," she cynically spat toward the ground as she continued walking.

Even the traffic seemed to slow down to the normal city pace, leaving the roads free for taxis and busses to trudge through their normal routes without interruption save for the occasional red light.

Which is why when a black stretch limousine pulled over to the side of the road a few feet in front of Jane, she raised her eyebrows and glanced around, perhaps wondering if some movie star or high ranking official had made a stop in any of the buildings around her. Yet nobody stood outside, nobody slowed their pace, nobody paid it any mind.

The tinted window slowly rolled down and for a brief moment, she wanted to turn around and walk straight away. Curiosity kept her rooted to the ground, and she craned her neck to try to get a glimpse of the man inside.

The lights on the inside of the car illuminated a dark-skinned man with short, well groomed hair and a clean shaven face. Signs of age showed in a few defined creases to the sides of his eyes and at his forehead, but there was a charisma about him that took much of that away and had she been observing from farther back, she probably would have guessed he was in his thirties. She could only see the shoulders from where she stood, but she could tell he wore a deep violet blazer with a crisp tie woven into the perfect knot around his neck.

The window continued rolling down until it disappeared into the door of the limo. Jane's heart pounded in fear as realization began pouring over her.

He leaned out and looked to the woman with a pleasant smile, perfect for a businessman. "Hello, Navi."

20,464/50,000 - ALMOST HALFWAY THERE 8D

Another uber long post, and I'm still trying to catch up. I'm gonna try to get better about this "post every day" thing instead of every other day, so I have easily-digestible chunks instead of LONG WALLS OF WTF TEXT. This post is kind of exposition heavy, and absolutely loaded with spoilers, so if you haven't read up to this point, I suggest you not read this yet, as it'll completely ruin the first 15,000 words of the novel.

---

He leaned out and looked to the woman with a pleasant smile, perfect for a businessman. "Hello, Navi."

The woman drew a heavy breath in and let it out in a hissing exhale. Her heart rate accelerated and despite the temperature outside, she could feel tiny beads of sweat forming at her temples. "Ethan King," she spoke in a low, warning tone, approaching the car and glancing over her shoulder in case anyone overheard. "You must be careful where you throw that name around, and who you address with that name."

"My apologies, it's a chilly night," the man continued, gesturing toward the interior of the limousine. "I simply thought I'd offer a friend a ride home."

This was one of his many business methods. His requests were always phrased in a way where the unspoken alternative is never more desirable than his way of thinking. And to argue with him would certainly end with her feeling like an idiot. And if there was anything she knew about Ethan King, it was the fact that he was always a benefactor in times of need. After all, the sky still threatened rain and even with a jacket with less than forty degree temperatures, the woman would certainly freeze to the bone. As uncomfortable as this predicament was, she couldn't find it in herself to turn down his offer. "As you wish," she reluctantly replied, as she stepped closer to the vehicle.

The sleek black door opened automatically and with one last look to the cold November night, Jane moved into the backseat of the limousine.

The interior was much more spacious than she could guess from just looking at the outside. Tiny white LED lights beneath glass glowed between each tinted window, reflecting off the leather trim. The leather extended into the well-maintained upholstery as the seats extended along either side of the vehicle, facing both the back and the front. A small refrigerator separated both sets of seats, and judging from how classy the rest of the interior was, she guessed it was well stocked with expensive champagnes and premium sparkling water. She had never been inside a limo before, and in her working class situation, could never see that changing. Everything seemed to have a neon sign that bellowed, 'I have money that I will otherwise burn'.

And Ethan King sat on the farthest seat, reclining comfortably in a well guessed sharp violet blazer. "The bandages are very clever," he started the moment the door automatically shut. "Have you been cutting your hair?"

The woman shook her head slowly, lowering her eyes to the plush carpet. The vehicle lurched forward, veering away from the curb and returning to the flow of traffic. "I prefer to keep it down at home…" she spoke in a shy tone. "I despise looking into the mirror and seeing something that is not… myself. But enough about me," she quickly added, raising her dark brown eyes to King. "How have you been faring? I know of your business endeavors… but I wish to know how your life has been since everything regarding the powered citizen ban took effect."

…please forgive me for interrupting. You must be quite confused. I would be too if I stood in your shoes. I beg your forgiveness, as I have been… lying to you until now.

You must understand, of course. If the wrong person heard the wrong information and passed it to the wrong authority, everything I have worked so hard to achieve in the past several years would have gone to waste. Yes, Jane Matthews is a server at a diner on the west side of Sega City. Yes, Jane Matthews is a good and honest woman, working eight hours a day, five days a week, living off of the generosity of others to keep her family in a modest three bedroom apartment on the fifteenth floor of a high rise building toward the center of the city And yes, I am Jane Matthews for these eight hours on these five days, and the hour or so commute each way to my job.

But the moment I enter my apartment, Jane Matthews becomes an outfit that is soon discarded into a laundry basket, where it is washed to maintain its purity and honesty. And it satisfies those requirements rather well. Jane Matthews does not lie when she is at work, and she is a pure individual who strives to earn her keep and go home without hesitation or complaint.

Every time I leave my apartment, I hide behind this façade to keep myself from the guilt and shame of calling myself a liar. You may realize by now, I despise lying, and detest liars even more. Unfortunately for me, I enjoy my freedom more than I enjoy honesty. I now know what it is like to have my freedom forcibly taken from me, and I refuse to have it seized once again. And so, I become Jane Matthews to preserve my liberty, and live that life preserving honesty and integrity, as I should have done all those years ago.

To put it crudely, I screwed up.

As Jane Matthews, I have been humbled into normality, and I have had a chance to observe humanity for what it truly is at its best and worst. As Jane Matthews, I have witnessed selfish individuals make personal attacks to otherwise well meaning people, just to get the free meal they feel they deserve, as they do not believe their satiated appetite without any effort on their part was worth six dollars and change. As Jane Matthews, I have also witnessed genuine acts of kindness where a guest has forgotten their wallet and after all but breaking down in front of everyone, another patron happened to have an extra bill in their wallet that would cover their charge.

Jane Matthews is my attempt at redemption, to make up for all of the mistakes I made, and to honor the lives I took away in my attempt to force justice down the throats of every resident of Sega City.

My heart is full of mixed emotion when I look at my true reflection in the mirror. On one hand, I feel relief when I am reassured that I still exist outside of that façade. On the other hand, I am not someone to be proud of.

My name is Navi, incarnation of the Goddess of Courage, and you have every right to despise me for everything you have heard me say and do. In another time, I would not have cared for your judgment. Here and now, I would be grateful for the tiniest glance of acknowledgment. Asking for judgment would be selfish and overstepping my boundaries.

"Business is going well as usual," Ethan shrugged. " We've had some changes around the office, new public relations, keeping up with the changing world." He rubbed his nose as he glanced out the window. "As for how I've been doing, well. Let's say I've been keeping… busy. If you have a few spare minutes, I'd like to make a stop before I take you home."

She had no reason to disagree, with her identity safely hidden under tinted windows with a man of such powerful influence, and she nodded in his direction. "As you wish," she softly replied.

He offered a knowing smile, and he straightened up to address his driver. "A moment, please. We'll be returning to Kingcorp."

"Very good," came a female voice from the front seat.

Ethan turned to his bandaged guest and glanced down at her pink uniform, coupled with a charcoal grey skirt and her battered apron above it. "I've always favored hiding in plain sight," he commented with a smirk. "If only because it shows how little people actually pay attention to their surroundings."

"You must understand with my appearance, that is quite difficult to effectively execute," she replied dryly, pulling the end of the white fabric and slowly unwinding the cloth from its snug fit around her scalp. The construction beneath the top layer comprised of multiple bobby pins and tiny clips keeping the thinner gauze underneath from unraveling by accident. It took a few minutes of careful unwrapping before she reached the end of the strand, revealing a tightly fitting wig cap where vibrant mint green hair all but glowed from its spandex prison. A set of long, pointed elf ears also emerged from beneath the cap as she nearly threw hideous garment to the ground.

"Of course," Ethan nodded. "I never said it was easy - I simply said it was my preferred method in stealth missions. Come now, you know I enjoy a good challenge, and I know you do too. Which is why we're making a stop at Kingcorp."

While the two of them spoke, the limousine made its way down the streets, where traffic lights seemed to work in their favor, the way they do for ambulances and police cars. It eventually slowed in front of that classy skyscraper, coming to a halt at the curb in front of the grand brass-plated revolving doors. Ethan reached for a small black switch at his side and moved toward the door, revealing a massive black umbrella which could easily fit three or four people beneath.

"Shall we?" he gestured, taking hold of the umbrella's handle. "There are four city owned security cameras monitoring the people who enter and leave this establishment. As much as I'm a fan of hiding in plain sight, there's something to be said about doing things… cautiously."

"If I may, I would certainly prefer staying as small as possible so as not to attract attention from anyone," the woman meekly replied, reaching her hands up in front of her.

"By all means."

She closed her eyes tightly, feeling the emerald pendant of her necklace hidden beneath her pink collar warming with a glow she had not felt in over a decade. As her hands remained in a praying position, the emerald stone glowed a brilliant white with a touch of green sparkling around her. In moments, she felt a rush of warmth across her body, followed by a chill at the small of her back, and suddenly - an uncomfortable pressure like a powerful vacuum simultaneously sweeping her away and compressing her.

The glow didn't fade - it simply shrank to the proportions of her body, which now measured no more than four inches in diameter. This is all without counting the six or seven inch translucent wings that extended from her back, fluttering lightly as she hovered in midair.

Ethan gave a wide mouthed grin at the display. "There's something nostalgic in seeing you in your fairy form," he commented before straightening up in his seat, adopting a more familiar, assertive business tone to his voice. "But enough about that for now. We'll speak in my office. You'll stay as close to the fabric of my umbrella as you can, and the moment we step inside, you will fly inside to the receptionist's desk. She will be expecting you." When he saw the fairy all but recoil back, its wings darting back and forth in what he could only guess was looking around in frantic fear, he added, "I insist you trust me, Navi. My building will always be a safe haven. Security is my biggest priority."

With that, he stepped out onto the brightly lit street as the tiny ball of light zoomed underneath the roomy brim of the shelter. Ultimately, it was quite a bit of expended effort for a twenty foot walk, which Ethan's confident stride easily cleared, giving a knowing nod to the unusually still doorman. The CEO remained outside for a minute or so, exchanging a few quiet words with the doorman while he closed his umbrella. This prompted the fairy to beeline inside.

Hidden behind her glow, the woman smiled. It was exactly as she had remembered it, save for some updated decoration and upholstery. Large plants towered in black marble holders the size of bathtubs, shined and polished to perfection, jutting out a bit into the room as places to sit in the lobby. The counter of the receptionist's desk appeared to have been carved by the same manufacturer of the marble seating. And the receptionist herself was the only person who sat in the lobby (she amused herself with the idea that the receptionist was the same as she had seen fifteen years ago), filing paperwork into neat little cabinets. The lobby seemed to be the only room in the building with a glass ceiling, and it found its lighting in sleek, energy efficient spotlights casting their gentle, ambient glow across the subtlely grand décor. There were four elevators to the back of the hall, encased in more marble, tile, and stone.

Once she was out of sight of the general public, she had few reservations about keeping up the fairy façade, and within seconds, she felt herself restoring back to her normal size, allowing the wings to recede back into her spine, and letting that starched uniform reform on her petite frame.

Despite all of the news the day had brought, she couldn't help smiling. It felt nice to be herself again.

"Can I help you?" the receptionist finally spoke up, staring with focused, yet empty eyes at the waitress who had suddenly appeared in her presence.

"Forgive me," she explained, approaching the desk with a nod. "Ethan King is expecting me."

"Ethan King does not have any appointments after five o'clock on Wednesdays," the receptionist quipped almost automatically, continuing to watch the waitress with an eerily piercing gaze.

"I beg your pardon? He will be right in, he can tell you himself-"

"Ethan King does not have any appointments after five o'clock on Wednesdays," she repeated in the same, automatic tone, earning more than a strange look from the guest in her establishment. The receptionist suddenly sat up and blinked twice, before speaking up again, "My apologies. What is your name?"

She blinked in reply, catching the words in her mouth and evaluating them before stating, "My name is Jane Matthews." After all, even with King's promises of acceptance and security, she conceded one can never be too careful.

"Jane Matthews," the receptionist repeated, tilting her head to the side. "Invalid response. Please try again. What is your name?"

It would seem playing it safe wasn't an option, and she sighed out. "My name is Navi," she whispered loud enough for the woman on the other side of the desk to hear.

"Navi. Good evening. Welcome to Kingcorp," the receptionist pleasantly spoke with an artificial smile. "The time is - seven thirty eight on Wednesday, November tenth. Ethan King is expecting you at - as soon as I get inside. He will be expecting you on the - fifty third floor, King's office. Thank you for your patronage and have a wonderful day."

Navi raised her eyebrows. "-thank you," she offered with a small bow of gratitude before heading in the direction of the elevators. She had the feeling before, but the woman's automatic responses and Ethan's discussion with the doorman were not on a human level. After all, Ethan King had inherited Kingcorp from his father, Lucian King - a man obsessed with furthering robotic technology. It made sense that Ethan would have kept the fruits of his father's labor as long as they were practical and kept him from having to hire employees to do the same job for impressive wages.

One of the elevators automatically opened as she approached from the door. Seeing nobody around to push the 'up' button in the first place, she stepped onto the car, logically assuming it was for her. It immediately closed and whisked the green-haired woman to the fifty third floor of the high rise corporate office.

After half a minute's journey, the elevator slowed to a halt, an ambient chime ringing out as the doors pulled themselves open, allowing Navi to step out into yet another lobby.

The ceiling held its head two stories above hers, with a glass office on the opposite side of the room on the second floor. Her eyes took in the similar decoration to the lobby downstairs, noting the addition of a circular sofa presumably for guests, and the overall color scheme radiating a more violet hue than the monochrome (and green) scheme several floors below. A second receptionist sat typing at a computer to her right, so engrossed in her business that she didn't even regard the green haired woman as she entered. It was almost exactly the way she saw it so many years ago, when she visited for various opportunities for stirring controversy and bringing justice to the violent types in Sega City.

There was one very large, glaring difference to her memory that she spotted nearly immediately upon taking in the atmosphere of the lobby.

A boy stood at the top of the stairs in an identical suit to Ethan's, staring down at the green haired guest from his perch. "You must be Navi," he spoke as he made his way down the stairs. "My dad's been waiting for you for a long time."

Navi's eyes widened as she watched this child scale the stairs and approach her with a hand extended in her direction. "-your father?" she gaped, startled enough to give her own hand to the boy and allowing him to give it a surprisingly firm shake.

"My name is Robert King," the boy said with a small smile. "My father owns this company, and he says one day I'll own it too." He squinted his eyes up at her. "He said he'll be up here soon, and that I'm supposed to keep you company until he gets here."

She took this moment to study the child. He couldn't have been older than ten years old, she deduced from his relatively short stature and voice which lingered on the brink of changing over. His skin was a shade lighter than Ethan's, and instead of keeping his textured hair fractions of an inch thick upon his head, she guessed his father allowed him to grow it to an impressive shoulder-length, braided in tiny sweeping lines across his scalp before ending at the base of his neck, each adorned with three black beads. Despite the assertiveness of the mini blazer wrapped around his shoulders, there was something… fragile about this child. Not sickly - his voice and rich chocolate skin tone showed that he was in excellent health. Still, she couldn't help but notice how his surprising charisma and natural talent in business etiquette were a little mismatched compared to his tiny, thin frame.

"Do you want to sit down?" Robert asked, nodding his head to the sofa.

Navi followed his gaze and nodded, feeling the weight of this situation combined with having been on her feet all day really starting to take its toll. "That… would actually be quite nice, thank you." And she moved to the sofa, sinking down into the plush cushions. It was quite interesting to see how one small action could relieve so much stress in a single instant - she could feel her feet throbbing inside her work mandatory shoes, but outside of that, everything felt so… cozy. So warm and perfect for that one moment.

Robert followed suit and sat across from her, lounging a bit more comfortably (probably because he knows one day this couch and everything around it will belong to him). "What kind of outfit is that?" he asked, his dark eyes focused on the stained apron at her waist.

She straightened up a bit, brushing her hair behind her pointed ears. Such a small motion had her heart pound as she realized someone's actually watching her, starting conversation with her in her normal state for the first time in so very long. "I- ah, forgive me… I am a waitress at a diner about fifteen blocks south west of here."

The child raised his eyes to hers. "What's a diner?" he continued curiously.

Navi stared at him. "A diner is a place typically open twenty four hours a day that normally serve quick, homestyle meals to people who can not afford much else."

"So it's kind of like a chef?" Robert asked, smoothing out his pants with a hopeful smile. "Except a chef's a person, not a place."

She couldn't help smiling a bit. "You are close," she spoke softly. "A chef is a person who creates recipes. Diners and most working class restaurants employ cooks, who follow the recipes chefs create."

"Our chef does all our cooking, except sometimes my mom makes breakfast for me in the morning," the child smiled proudly, lowering his voice. "Dad says she makes the best omelettes."

"If I may ask," Navi ventured, adjusting to sit up even taller in her seat. "I knew your father a long time ago, and I have never known him to… um…." She closed her eyes, restructuring her words in her head. "What is your mother's name?"

"My mom's name is Helena King, but dad calls her Eva. He said it's her online name, so she doesn't have to give her real one out. Mom told me all about how dangerous it is to put your real name on the internet."

"Eva King," Navi whispered to herself, looking up toward the expansive ceiling. "The name seems familiar, somehow. But that is neither here nor there." She returned her eyes to the child on the opposite side of the couch. "Forgive me for so many questions, it's just… it has been so long since I have had a conversation like this with people I used to know… and their children, by extension. How old are you?"

Robert sat up with a delighted grin. "I'm nine and a half years old," he proudly stated. "Dad says I'm gonna graduate eighth grade by my tenth birthday!"

"Eighth grade… as in, finish junior high school?"

"Yup!" he chirped. "I can't wait, dad says there's a lot more to learn by the time I get to college, so I'm working as hard as I can to do that. This stuff's kinda boring."

"The fundamentals are important," the woman quietly spoke, lightly shaking her matted hair out. "After all, one cannot learn calculus without having a basic understanding of algebra-"

"But I know calculus," Robert said in a pleading tone bordering on whining. "I mean, I know I have to work on differential equations, but integral is so much easier."

Navi raised her eyebrows, a new sense of respect for this child washing over her vision. "…so it is," she cautiously replied. "Who taught you calculus at that age?"

"My tutor, Mr. Rodney. Dad says I'll be smarter than him one day!"

"Your father seems to say a lot of things," she commented with a smile. "Do you believe every word he says?"

"My dad's the smartest person in the city!" Robert puffed his chest out, beaming with sparkling white teeth. "And he says if I want to run the company, I've gotta grow up to be the smartest person in the city. And I really want to be the boss when I grow up."

"And it's that ambition that has me proud to call him my son and future heir to the Kingcorp throne," came a voice from the back of the room. Both Navi's and Robert's heads turned to watch Ethan King as he stepped out from the elevator, striding with confident steps toward the two of them. "I apologize for my tardiness, but I see Robert's done an excellent job keeping you entertained while I was busy." His eyes turned to Navi's as he straightened up. "All of my employees are aware of your presence and how important it is that this meeting remain confidential. Every one has been password protected to keep inquirers out, and you may relax knowing the two of us and my wife are the only people who know you're here."

A wave of relief coursed through her body - she could feel herself physically letting go of her anxiety, settling against the back of the chair. "You do too much for me," she whispered. "Even in the past, you have always assisted me in my endeavors, and now… this is…" she could feel her voice catching in her throat. "…this is… just… thank you."

"You've brought me business," Ethan smirked as he made his way to the couch and sat beside his son. Navi took note of the fact that Robert seemed to clam up the moment his father appeared in the office, becoming the epitome of children being seen and not heard. "After all, you remember I originally created the power suppressor serum at your sister's request, as the first step to free you from prison."

Her gratitude immediately shifted to regret as she lowered her eyes. "…I am glad it has kept a roof over your head," she spoke in a quieter tone.

Ethan smiled - this tiny action told him he still had some degree of control over this woman, if nothing else, through her emotional states. "You might be wondering why you're here."

"That did cross my mind once or twice."

"There are two things I've wanted to speak to you about for years," Ethan began. "First and foremost, I wanted to introduce you to the heir to Kingcorp, Robert King. I see you two get along well, which brings me to my second point." He straightened up, adjusting his lapels in his seat before continuing.

"Robert is growing up in an… interesting, ever changing political climate. I must admit, I'm a bit concerned with the way things have turned over the past several years. Intolerance, bigoted ideals thrown this way and that, important people speaking without backing up their words with research. I have spared no expense putting him in the best schools under the best tutelage money can buy. After all, if he's going to grow up to be a major player in this political climate, I want him to be informed on these issues and most importantly, I want him to be able to influence positive changes. We both agree this city is… not the kindest place to live right now."

"It is a fine place to live if you are a normal citizen," Navi bitterly spat.

"Exactly my point," Ethan grinned, straightening up a bit. "I'll be honest, I'm actually very surprised to see you still living in this city after everything that's happened in the past several years."

"It was not by my choice," she spoke quietly. "We decided to move out of our original home, as it became a well-known congregation of powered citizens. I wanted to leave Sega City completely, however… we can attribute our staying in this city to the late Dr. Vivian Dawn. You may remember her as Amberleigh Andersen."

"I attended her funeral," Ethan glanced to the side. "She was quite the influential figure, her death was… regretful."

"But it was her desire to stay at Sega City General Hospital that had two of our housemates stay in the city, and since they are my sisters' lovers, they naturally followed our housemates to the ends of the earth, despite my arguments otherwise." She brushed the hair behind her pointed ears and shook her head in frustration. "And my sisters would not allow me to abandon them. They would argue they wish to keep the family together, but you and I both understand they wish to supervise me and make sure I do not attempt anything stupid in these terrible times."

"Which is why I have a request of you," his expression was somber as he looked down to his son, who had been paying full attention to every word the two exchanged. "I can have the most accomplished tutors and teachers teach him everything they know, but few are as well versed in breeding tolerance as yourself-"

The woman all but laughed in his face at that last comment. "You must be joking," she couldn't help exclaiming. "You would do well to remember that it is my actions that made the city what it is today-"

"Navi," Ethan suddenly snapped, staring sternly into her violet eyes and prompting her to immediately shut her mouth. "You are a brilliant woman. You have asked several things of me in the past and I have followed through with few questions asked in return. I've been searching for you for several years and had every one of my original employees keep their eyes open to make sure the moment you stepped onto the radar, I would be able to get in contact with you and ask you for your help teaching my son." His expression darkened. "And now, when I need that mind of yours the most, you choose to mock me and pass my request off as a joke?"

Navi straighened up - with context on the table, she was able to maintain her composure and shake her head. "With all due respect, sir… I simply thought I was a… poor candidate for what you are asking of me."

"You are the only person I could ask to do this," he interjected, adjusting his seat to get a better look at the woman. "You have seen both sides of this conflict and done your best to educate both powered and non powered masses to see reason. You might have gone about it the wrong way in the past-"

"And I have learned my lesson," she stated plainly. "I value my independence too much to allow it to be seized from me again."

Ethan grinned suddenly, leaning against the backrest of the couch. "So there are things which can put fear into the incarnated Goddess of Courage."

"I do not like admitting it," the woman huffed, scratching the bridge of her nose. "But my time in the Enpowered Citizen Facility all those years ago certainly made its impact on my life."

"And now, there are people in prisons all over the metropolitan area simply because they have abilities, not because they tried anything like leveling the prison." Ethan folded his arms across his body, curiously studying Navi's body language.

"Which is more than unjust," she spoke softly, her words laced with an edge of danger. "Each time I hear something new, it fills me with… rage. I want to do something about it, however… I have resigned myself to this new life. I am a waitress in a diner and leading that life will keep me out of prison… which is where I intend to stay, as much it kills me to see there is virtually nothing I can do to improve the conditions of my life." Her eyes sank to the ground, heavy with regret. "Sometimes I feel I have put myself in a new prison, locking myself into a new identity to preserve the what little life I deserve after taking so many others…" she chuckled a bit, though it did nothing to raise her spirits. "…you must forgive me for talking your ear off, it has been so long since I have been able to speak this freely. It has been bottled up for quite some time."

22,769/50,000 - I am very happy with how this went today! Looking back at it though, it's actually a very depressing read. A few posts ago, I wrote about the three types of people in the world - she is definitely the first type. The worst part is, she was originally introduced to our RP cast to be a neutral, maybe even happy person. =/

So! Who wants to read about how killing people is like conducting an orchestra?! 8D 8D 8D

---

"…you must forgive me for talking your ear off, it has been so long since I have been able to speak this freely. It has been bottled up for quite some time."

"Then maybe now would be a good time to stop focusing on what you've done to your life and use this time to make good in someone else's," he said, crossing one leg over another. "We can't change the past, Navi. What's done is done."

Ethan looked down to the boy at his side, who smiled back up at him as he lightly kicked his legs against the seat of the sofa. "What we can do is focus on the future. We can always alter our course to make this city a better, safer, and more tolerant place to live. I plan on carrying out that legacy through my son, and with your guidance, we can make this work for all of us. You and your sisters will be able to return to your old home, and you won't have to wear those tacky bandages to cover your hair and ears.

"Most importantly, my son will be able to run a thriving company in a flourishing city immersed in a new rennaissance."

"You say this as if it will be an easy task," Navi muttered, casting her eyes to the young child.

"I never said it would be. Here at Kingcorp, we don't see problems - only opportunity for advancement and development," Ethan's decisive voice interrupted the woman. "We both know this city is heavily slanted toward normality and keeping powers hidden - anyone who contests this has their abilities removed. Anyone who objects to that faces a lifetime in prison, with their powers forcibly removed-"

"Using your suppressor serum," Navi spoke angrily.

"It's proven to be quite profitable in this political climate," he shrugged. "You remember I also developed a serum to force abilities to manifest."

"Yes, and we both know how well that worked," she bitterly commented.

"I do admit, if I were to go that route, I would be much more careful about whose hands it fell into. After what Isaac Romane did…" he lowered his eyes, running a hand across his head. "We were fighting lawsuits for years. It's not every day powered terrorists break into a government owned building and inject a school full of children."

"Isaac Romane was a psychopath, and I am ashamed to have my name attached to any of his actions, as harmless as my participation would appear to be." Navi quickly added upon seeing Ethan's raised eyebrows, "-you would do well to know I never condoned any of his violent actions and when put between supporting his cause and facing hours on end in agonizing pain, I told him straight out I would help as far as attempting to bring about change in a peaceful manner." Her pointed ears flattened against her head as she averted her eyes once again. "As much as the media would love to exaggerate my participation in his disgusting acts, I insist my hands were not only tied, but twisted behind my back any time I spoke out against him - most of the time, figuratively, though once in a while…."

He gave a knowing nod. "I remember the way you looked that day, when you came to propose the idea of distributing the power manifesting serum. You looked… strained."

"And Carson McGregor was no better," Navi continued, running her fingers delicately through her matted hair. "He may have pursued a noble route in choosing public speaking and rallying instead of utilizing brute strength to erase what he perceived as the enemy… but that does not change the fact that he willingly fed the public lies and felt no shame in slandering thousands of innocent individuals. His campaign pertained to a few individuals, yet he chose to persecute the entire group."

"One of which would be… yourself?"

Navi frowned at the man, which only stretched a bigger smirk across his face. "Unfortunately."

"And I'm sure you've realized at this point, murdering him was only helping his cause?" Ethan leaned back, keeping his gaze locked on Navi's. This also had Robert look over, a new sense of fear rising up in the child's face. The green haired Goddess could only glare back with the fire of contempt burning in her eyes.

"…did you really kill him?" Robert whispered, hugging his arms around his body.

She turned to look at the child. All of that frail vulnerability she noticed before suddenly made itself known under this new, harsh light. His father sitting to his immediate right seemed to be the only thing keeping him in his chair and out from any number of hiding places. He swallowed hard as she took her time collecting her words. "…it is a moment I regret," she finally spoke.

"Why?!" the kid blurted out, startling even his father into staring at him. "That's… that's not right! That's not making things better!"

"You will find there are some things in life you look back on and wonder what possessed you to commit to ideas that are terrible in retrospect," Navi explained in a slow, methodical voice in attempt to calm Robert down. "Mine simply had greater consequences than most others."

"You say it like that makes it okay!" Robert protested. "But you're wrong!"

"I never said it was okay," Navi snapped back, rapidly losing patience for the naivete emanating from the child.

It would seem Ethan felt the same way, as he placed a firm hand on his son's shoulder. "Everything in this world is done for a reason," he calmly explained. "And by extension, everyone has a reason for doing something, no matter how right or wrong it is. The sooner you understand this, the more you'll start to see the city like an orchestra, where you are the conductor to the city's instrumentalists who come in with varying degrees of talent and practice. It'll soon be your job to make sure they work to the best of their abilities to play the songs you want them to play, at the speed and level you want them to be at. It will also be your job to recognize that some people haven't practiced the way you want them to, or continue to play wrong notes and throw off the rest of the group. When this happens, you will be the one steering them in the right direction. You won't gain their respect by putting them down for what they've done wrong.

"Now, I think you owe my friend an apology for snapping at her," he concluded with a stern expression.

Robert reluctantly lowered his eyes and mumbled a "…sorry..." just loud enough for her to hear.

Navi nodded softly, without a smile or a frown. "You are forgiven."

"I would say that's a decent place to leave that today," Ethan said as he stood up from his seat, stretching up and extending a hand toward the woman on the opposite side of the circular sofa. She looked at his hand, then back up at him, before accepting it with a firm nod of her head. "I'll give you a call in the next day or so to set up times to meet with my son. In the meantime, my receptionist see you to the car, and you will be driven home."

He certainly didn't leave room for argument, and Navi felt forced to nod mechanically. "As you wish," was her bitter reply as she released his hand.

Ethan raised his eyebrows at the way she nearly brushed him off. "Please keep in mind the fact I not only paid for the best attorney in the city to represent you in court to have you released from prison, but humored and sponsored your numerous acts of violence toward the many people who crossed you. We have similar goals, Navi. Just remember that."

She shut her eyes tightly. "-fine," she blurted out as she made her way to the elevator, her entire body aching at having been emotionally kicked more than enough times in one evening. Rightfully so; she couldn't argue that. And it was that futility which kept her moving far away from her verbal assailant.

Years ago, I used to cry when putting those bandages on my head, concealing my identity one gauze strip at a time. I could not bear looking in the mirror and seeing what I had done to myself, and that regret caused countless tears to flow from my eyes, and crying over something that could not be changed brought overwhelming feelings of futility and defeat - two things I do everything in my power to avoid. It was a vicious cycle that lasted several months until I begrudgingly resigned to my fate.

You must understand how my mentality drastically changed during those times. I lived for the past three centuries as a Goddess whose sole mission was to protect a relic nobody knows or cares about today. I took it upon myself to extend that mission to protecting the people of whatever land I resided in. Most of the time, it turned into protecting them from themselves, stopping threats using whatever means I could. If that meant bringing justice through death, I would follow through. After all, I am a Goddess. At the time, it was my duty to protect the ordinary people, whether they have powers or not. I carried myself day in and day out as if the world was a place for me to police by my own sense of justice, without fear of consequence.

And it was after my second murder and attempted destruction of the Empowered Citizen Facility for its barbaric practices, that consequence caught up to me, and I found myself rightfully (and ironically) put away in that prison as punishment for taking the law into my own hands. The warden deemed drugging the incarcerated powered citizens as the best option, sedating them twenty four hours a day to keep them from being conscious enough to use their abilities to free themselves. Imagine not being able to think clearly for years on end, and with every guard in the facility angry at you for trying to kill them in their own workplace, you could not even defend yourself from their petty, violent attempts at revenge. It took several articles exposing the abuse occurring within the establishment until the warden deemed it necessary to abolish such practices. Of course, for the one universally despised prisoner, he allowed it to continue. I found myself with constant bruises for over a year and a half, in addition to various other wounds and scars - most of which do not leave a physical mark.

Two psychologists who had seen me at that point knew I was no ordinary person, but refused to speak to me on the level of respect I commanded. Both labeled me as a sociopath due to my lack of empathy in carrying out such heavy tasks, yet neither could judge me as a "bad" person. Of course, I would not have cared for judgment at that point if they chose to give it. The moment I found myself freed from the facility, I set myself on the same course I did before, with less killing, of course.

Of course, that changed with Carson McGregor's murder.

He used my violent attempts at justice to pursue his own bigoted agenda, deeming all powered citizens too dangerous to exist. With his unending charisma and Ethan King's power suppressor serum, Carson earned thousands of dollars in donations and even more signatures on petitions pushing Sega City to legalize the permanent removal of powers first in prisoners, then eventually as a vaccine to children. I could not tell you what possessed me to end his life. All I knew is that I felt unbearable remorse afterward, yet even that did not stop me from taking over twenty others in the same fashion, under the same circumstances, with the same end result in mind.

I thank my lucky stars Isaac Romane took it upon himself to take responsibility for these numerous deaths without my knowledge, promising more if the city follows through with Carson's unfulfilled legacy. Thanks to him, I was able to keep out of prison. But his methods were far more destructive than mine - he wished to completely eliminate the non powered citizens, seeing our abilities as an evolutionary right and we, as the "higher race", will survive as we crush the "lower species" under the foot of revolution, starting with the police force who worked day and night to minimize his damage.

You can probably guess my initial reaction was to eliminate him before he could lay a hand on anyone.

You might have also guessed, from what King and I discussed, that it didn't end so well. Isaac was able to manipulate me like no one had before - using his ability to phase through objects, he would pinch nerves in my neck to paralyze me for hours on end, while triggering pain centers in my brain until I complied. Only when they removed his ability were the police able to execute him in the streets, his martyr blood spilling into the stinking gutters of Sega City where it rightfully belonged. And only when they could be sure he was dead, the city passed ordinance after ordinance first mandating power removal, then imprisonment if they did not comply.

I am not sure how my family were able to forgive me for putting them in such a difficult position, uprooting ourselves from our happy little home on the outskirts of town to an apartment in the middle of all of this uproar. Perhaps they now know I pay my penance each day as I put myself in the shoes of a normal woman, leading a normal life. I had been humiliated and degraded through my foolish attempts at justice, used and abused as I fought against the system with selfish resolve, and just when things couldn't look worse, I am labeled an abomination as a powered citizen, and in order to preserve the little dignity they left me, I had to strip myself of my own identity, just to survive.

Please, Lee… I beg your forgiveness.

27,356/50,000 ~ @_____@;

---

A fitful, restless night of sleep brought an exhausted Jane back to the diner the following day. Her usual smile seemed to have faltered since leaving the establishment the night before, and upon closer inspection, one might notice the use of extra makeup to artificially hide the darker circles surrounding her eyes.

"You look like hell," one of her regulars commented with a small laugh. "Got the brown bottle flu or something?"

"That is hardly appropriate," Jane muttered, straightening her posture and watching the woman with cold eyes. "My- …medication has been giving me some problems, one major side effect being insomnia. Please forgive me, I'm sure you'll understand with these and all." With one gesture up to her head, the guest nodded and looked away with a hint of pink teasing their cheeks, maybe from discomfort, probably not.

Jane offered a small sigh as she refilled their coffee, striding back behind the counter to replace the half empty pot on the warmer. Hiding behind the injury was always such a convenient excuse. She couldn't count the number of times it got her out of awkward situations, writing off a bad day due to a chemical imbalance or something equally plausible but no less fabricated. At the very least, her sincerity everywhere else made her excuses sound genuine, and everyone else's tact kept them from calling her out on it. After all, nobody wants to look like a heartless person for attacking an injured woman and calling her grievances a cry for attention or an excuse for her inadequacies.

Thankfully, she noticed only four raised eyebrow expressions, two people almost questioning her condition, and one actual comment for the majority of the afternoon. It seemed to be a smooth Thursday, the regular guests popping in at their regular times, few snags in the kitchen and even fewer complaints. Everything streamlined perfectly -each server finished their various side work while keeping guests happy - to the point where Jane wondered if she might even get to go home early.

"Maybe get some extra sleep," she laughed at herself as she wiped down the counter for the thirteenth or fourteenth time that day, giving the dining room a once over as she worked.

There were only a dozen or so working tables scattered throughout the diner, each with a plate, a drink, or both. All of them seemed content in their own little worlds, whether their partner was a business colleague, a long lost relative, or a respectfully silent newspaper. Any glance up from their personal bubble received immediate attention by one of the three servers idly watching from behind the counter.

"Some day, huh?" one of the waitresses disdainfully commented, stretching her sticklike arms above her head. She couldn't have been older than twenty years old, with a young, blemish free face and beautifully manicured nails. "I probably didn't even break fifty dollars."

"Me either," the other whispered, running a hand through her hair and lowering her eyes to her stained apron. Her age was a bit more ambiguous, and all Jane knew was that she had two children at home. "Nobody wants to spend money in these hard times."

Jane raised her chocolate pencilled eyebrows at the two of them. "You must be doing something wrong, then. Even on a bad day, I average at least seventy five dollars. And your argument is flawed - if they didn't want to spend money, they wouldn't be here, would they?"

"Hmph," the first waitress scoffed with a cynical smile. "Not all of us can be perfect like you."

"I never said I was perfect," Jane shook her head, "but that is beside the point. You would do well to monitor your tables more carefully and anticipate their needs before they open their mouth and tell you what they want. You'll find it's easy to fall into a rhythm when you realize eighty percent of the time - or more - all people want the same things at about the same time."

"But I do that," the second waitress whined before the first woman could open her irritated mouth again. "But it's like, nobody ever says anything, and everyone just says they're fine when I ask. And then they leave two or three dollars…."

"I have no secrets," Jane shrugged. "I always give guests water either with their drink of choice or with their meal. I always bring extra napkins for their table when I deliver their food. I remove any unused dishes from their tables. I refill their drinks before they want it, so when they consciously think about it, it will already be there for them-"

"Yeah, well some of us don't live here," the first waitress grumbled. "Some of us actually have personal lives and don't want to make a career out of working at some crappy place like this."

"Some of us see this kind of work as opportunity," Jane retorted, darkening her deep brown eyes in the young woman's direction. "Even more find having a job at this point as a privilege and a luxury. And finally, many of us are simply doing what we can to make ends meet in turbulent times, milking everything we can because we don't have Father Safety Net in the suburbs waiting with open arms in case things go sour on our own."

The first waitress glared back, crossing her arms. "Some of us are getting a college education so we have a better job than just being some waitress on the bad side of the city. But if that's what you wanna be for the rest of your life, go ahead, I can't tell you what to do."

Jane rolled her eyes, nodding toward the heart of 'no mans land'. "Some of us would do well to salvage a tip they may or may not deserve, and tend to the table that has been waiting for you for the greater half of this conversation. Perhaps even prepare the two waters and extra butter they need before you get there," she added with a pleasant smile.

This startled the snotty waitress back to attention and it took her a moment to manually regain her footing before striding over to the table to cater to the guests' needs.

The second waitress couldn't help chuckling a bit as they watched the first's face poorly mask an icy glare of humiliated defeat. "I dunno what it is about you," she began with a growing smirk. "You just… you're so good with people and words, and getting the right things across to the right people. I don't know what school she's going to right now and personally I don't care, but no matter how hard she studies, I doubt she'll ever pick up the personal skills you've got down to an art form."

"I have done quite a bit of people watching in my years," Jane offhandishly spoke, flopping the damp towel back against the counter and scrubbing down a couple stubborn spots of greasy residue. "Add that to finding flaws in pathetically structured arguments and dismissing even more laughable personal attacks… it soon becomes very easy to talk to narrow minded individuals like herself."

"My kids ought to take a lesson from you," she laughed brightly. "They're at the phase where calling each other 'stupid' is the best way to win an argument, outside of maternal intervention. But I guess you can't expect too much from a four and seven year old."

Jane offered a small 'hmm' of agreement. "I cannot say the same with such certainty for children. Kids are too unpredictable to be my forte."

"I gotcha," the younger woman smirked, patting her colleague's shoulder. The two of them looked over upon seeing a guest step through the double doors. "I've got this one," she said with some renewed optimism, approaching the man and opening her mouth to speak.

His gaze moved beyond the waitress', however, scanning the different tables before raising his eyes to Jane. The moment brought a gentle smile to his soft face. "Hi there," he waved, walking over to the counter. "Jane, right? It's me-"

"Adam," Jane blinked twice, straightening her posture behind the counter.

"You said you wanted me to come back and tell you how the trade show went," he shrugged with an awkward smile, pulling himself up onto one of the barstools.

"That's right," she laughed, recalling the moment a few days prior. "I thought I scared you off that day and to be honest, I didn't think you would actually come back."

"Well, you sounded like you genuinely wanted to know, and I'm not one to leave a nice lady hanging," he replied, scratching the back of his head with a quick glance away. "I mean, if you're not, that's okay, I'll still sit in your section and we can… maybe talk, if you want."

Jane folded her arms across her body, cocking her head to the side. "And if I refuse?" she chirped with a smirk, lingering for a moment before striding toward the warmers and plucking up a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Without waiting for a reply, she flipped the mug in front of him and poured it out for him.

"Well, I guess you wouldn't get to hear about how I met and shook the hand of one of the most important people in the city, not to mention the business world," Adam grinned, emptying two tubs of creamer into the liquid abyss, swirling through it until the marbled liquids eventually decided to coexist in a rich, milky bath.

"Ethan King?" Jane ventured with raised eyebrows, wiping down the coffee pot and replacing it on its warmer.

"You got it." He took a test sip of his drink before continuing. "He's… kind of intimidating to talk to at first, but I had a friend who worked with him a long time ago on some project or other, so he got us on similar subjects and from there he was pretty easygoing. I mean, we… spoke for all of five minutes, but those five minutes?" He whistled, shaking his head. "That guy knows his stuff, and I'm honored I got to personally ask him the questions I wanted to."

"Which were?"

"Oh, you know, just…" he rolled his hand ambiguously in the air, "how he started in business, how he built his way to the top, how he was able to make some really tough decisions, what motivates him…."

"And did you get any interesting answers?"

"Huh? Oh, um… hah…." Adam chuckled a bit, pulling the wire rimmed glasses from his face and wiping them down as he stalled for words. "Well, it turns out most of his decisions to go into business started from his father, who was the actual guy who started Kingcorp."

"Ah, yes. Lucian King," the woman mused with a smile, turning to look toward the windows at the front of the dining room. "Also known as Professor Bling, creator of havoc and destroyer of many buildings in Sega City, innovator and manufacturer of most robots and robotic technology utilized in this city, and possibly throughout the world… oh, and occasionally a supervillain intent on humiliating, defeating and destroying his long time nemesis, Electrawoman."

Adam gaped at her. "Wait, what?!" he choked out. "You mean to tell me Mr. King's father was a supervillain?"

"Oh yes, it's quite common knowledge throughout the city," Jane shrugged, shifting her eyes instead toward the ceiling. "He was imprisoned for quite awhile, something about trying to frame Electrawoman for trying to kill him or something, but it doesn't really matter, the details are irrelevant. The point is, Electrawoman's true identity ended up being one of the rookie detectives for the Sega City Police Department. She used her legal ties to get him arrested for all the damage he did and for all the times he tried to hurt her. As far as I know, he's still serving out his life sentence deep in the bowels of the nearest maximum security prison. All he gets to talk to are newspapers, which I hear are paid for annually by that detective. Strange, huh?"

"Wow," the man breathed. "You never would guess, talking to Mr. King."

"It is rather surprising, isn't it. He grew up to be quite the gentleman, I've heard," Jane offhandishly commented, wiping down one of the racks of glasses as she let him look over the menu for a few minutes.

"So anyway, I got a lot of job offers from different sales companies and businesses. Some want me to sell food ingredients, which sounds kind of cool, and doesn't seem like it would ever go out of business."

"Everyone needs to eat, after all."

"So I might go for that, but I got another offer from a guy who's looking to transfer his factory to someone who can renovate it and make it more efficient. They… well, they make cans, so it's not exactly that exciting, But it'd launch me straight into a supervisor position, which would net me some pretty serious cash - and, let's face it," he chuckled, shaking his short hair out, "I need everything I can get to pay off my college debts before I'm forty or something."

"Mm… another college graduate," she said with a small, bitter smile, nodding down toward his coffee. "I would imagine you consumed quite a bit of that at that age."

"You have no idea," Adam laughed, downing the rest of the milky tanned liquid in one hearty gulp. "Did you ever go to college?"

"Never," she turned away.

An awkward cloud hung between the two of them, preventing the other from speaking and breaking the silence. "Just… never?" he asked quietly.

"Never," Jane repeated. "I never had money, and certainly never had time. Everything I have ever done with my life has been to support my family."

"You and that family of yours," he shook his head with a smile, attempting to break the uncomfortable barrier that morphed between them. "How are they doing? I remember you mentioned them last time."

"They have not changed since then," she curtly replied, this time without even looking over.

"Oh… I guess that's… okay," he mumbled, turning back to his empty coffee cup and resigning behind his menu.

Jane watched him with a stiff lipped expression. His motives were so poorly veiled, it was almost laughable. She could recall countless others who tried to 'put the moves' on the snarky, bandaged lady who always questions and never answers, some more overtly than others. This man, however, was too reserved to even think of voicing his interest in getting to know her. Any biting comment would be enough to send him running away with his tail between his legs, off to hide and nurse the sting of rejection, regardless of whether or not that's what it was.

Still, she couldn't really blame him for trying, and his inhibitions were too… cute… to attack without mercy. After all, he wasn't the reason that she was in such a foul mood. And she really had no reason not to indulge him, as he seemed to show genuine interest if he came back for a second try. She reached for the coffee pot to refresh his empty mug for the third time that day with the rich, brown elixir of life. "You said you spoke with Ethan King?"

"-huh?" Adam looked up, blinking rapidly. He didn't seem to expect such an amiable reply.

"Ethan King of Kingcorp," Jane repeated with a small smile. "Was he attending the trade show, or participating?"

"Oh!" he straightened up and looked down to his refilled cup, gathering the appropriate fixings to prepare it to his liking as he spoke. "He was there until six o'clock or so yesterday participating in all sorts of panels, leading a few pep talks and holding question and answer sessions all afternoon. He was supposed to do some job interviews in the evening, but he had to cancel due to a personal emergency."

Jane averted her eyes. "A personal emergency…" she mused. "Sounds… important."

"You should've seen the way he walked out of the exhibition hall," Adam leaned in with eyes glittering with the excitement of unconfirmed gossip. "You'd think his father had a heart attack or something… not that I want that to be true or anything," he quickly corrected himself, "I mean, I genuinely hope everything's okay with the guy… he's too benevolent and kind to have bad things happen to him…."

"So you're saying he was there all day, otherwise?"

"Yep! Hold on," he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a packet of crisply folded pieces of paper neatly stapled at one corner, opening it up for her to see. It was a spreadsheet, organized with times and days on one axis, rooms and halls on the other. Adam pulled a pen from the same pocket and pressed the tip to the middle of the page. "He was in this room all day, so his first panel must have been at nine in the morning, all the way up until he left at six or so."

Jane frowned as several plates of food clattered in the window. So he was at a convention all day, interrupted only by a personal emergency in the evening. If my assumptions are correct, Irvine must have called him at about that time, which would make me the reason he left early. I suppose I should be flattered. She reached over and began loading up her arms with plates of eggs and hash browns, toast, more eggs, and more toast, striding over to the table they belonged to. He abandoned important business opportunities because of me, and is going out of his way to make special arrangements in this city for me… for his son, of course.

Her eyes narrowed as she set the dishes in front of the waiting customers, who looked to her as their savior from hunger. But- wait! Why is he trusting me like this, putting his son in the hands of a known powered citizen and sociopathic killer? He should not be putting his son in that kind of danger! Not that… I am like that anymore - I mean, I have certainly learned my lesson - but with a reputation like that following me, even I wouldn't trust me around me!

She pulled the empty dishes from the same table, approaching another and bussing theirs as well. And why is he expecting me to do what he should be doing as a father? I can teach any subject he asks, but tolerance of powered citizens? That's not my job, and I certainly cannot make somebody accepting of other races, species, and cultures.

"He must be out of his mind," Jane conceded, striding to the kitchen to drop off the dirty dishes before returning to her post at the counter.

By the time she came back, a second face appeared beside Adam, waving with a beaming smile. "Hey there, Miss Waitress!" he called out.

Jane chuckled, prompting Adam to look over out of curiosity. "-oh, good afternoon, Logan. Feeling healthy today?"

"Yup! Gotta keep this trim little waist of mine since I can't go to the gym until my doctor gives me the green light," he smirked, propping a set of crutches against the barstool beside him.

"Well, give me two seconds to set up another pot of coffee and I'll get your tomato juice," Jane replied, emptying a packet of grounds into the machine and flipping the switch to turn it on once again.

"So what've you been up to in the twenty four hours since I last saw you?"

"Well," she began, tallying on her fingers with an overly dramatic and whimsical gesture, "I worked, and… I worked some more… and… I went home to sleep. Only to wake up the next morning, and come back to work!" It wasn't true, of course, but for some reason, it didn't feel too wrong or out of place to lie to Logan. Maybe it was his relaxing, carefree presence that brought some warmth to her otherwise impersonal job, temporarily dispelling her distant mood. "What about you?"

"Eh, I had a normal night at the Roundhouse," Logan waved, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. "Everyone's asking where your blonde babe is, though. I mean, I like to think I'm a good musician, and so does everyone else, but they want folk songs in that weird language of his, not some gimp with a guitar."

Jane's restored mood quickly ran cold once again. "What did I tell you?" she huffed. "His name is Lee Cypher, and he is not my 'blonde babe'."

Logan grinned at her. "Sure," he all but sang at her, which prompted a fierce glare in his direction.

She noticed Adam's eyes watching the other man with an equally uncomfortable expression. "-oh, forgive me," she quickly interjected in attempt to dispel her own irritation. "Adam, this is my friend Logan. Logan, this is Adam. Logan is a musician, Adam is a businessman."

"Pleasure to meet you," Adam offered with a stiff smile, extending his hand in Logan's direction.

Logan accepted the hand with a grin. "Hey, any friend of Miss Waitress is a friend of mine," he chirped, turning his eyes back to Jane. "So you found yourself a replacement?"

Jane blinked at him, setting a tomato juice and water in front of him as she spoke. "A replacement?"

"Replacement eye candy, come on!" he joked, nodding toward Adam. "I mean, since you don't have that guitarist anymore-"

His statement quickly came to a halt as both Adam and Jane simply stared at him.

"I cannot believe you really just said that!" Jane breathed out in astonishment. "That is so… I do not even know where to begin with how absolutely rude that was!"

Logan's grin remained untarnished as he raised his hands in defense. "Just calling it as I see it! I saw the way he looked at you when I came in, and I know he won't say anything, and you won't either! I mean, at least you have a chance with this one-"

"Logan, what the hell are you talking about?" Jane interrupted, her voice raising a little big higher than she would have liked, prompting a couple turned heads. "Are you even paying attention to the ignorant drivel pouring from your mouth? I can tolerate your banter when it is just the two of us talking, but not only are you speaking completely unfounded idle gossip as if it were fact, you are saying this in front of and regarding a guest you didn't even know until a few seconds ago, and still know next to nothing about besides his name and occupation! How can you be so… stupid?"

Logan leaned forward, taking a long sip from his tomato juice. "Look. Maybe I'm just trying to help the two of you," he said in a sharp voice a little out of place for the lighthearted man. "I know you, Jane. I've known you for a long time. You always get mad at me if I even say anything about the possibility of a man in your life. I'm starting to think, maybe it's because you have too much of a work life to even think about finding someone. And working the way you do is just not healthy. You need an outlet besides work, and someone to freely talk to besides some kid on crutches while you're on the clock."

"And who put you in charge of deciding what I need and when?" she snapped, shuddering in building rage at his audacity. "You are embarrassing my guest, and making an ass of yourself. Please, Logan. Shut your mouth to preserve what little respect I'm holding for you."

He shrugged, downing the rest of his tomato juice. "Jeez, sorry for trying to help you out," he said.

"You are missing the point!" Jane shouted.

Every head in the diner turned to look at the bandaged waitress behind the counter.

"You are missing the point and you are not helping," she lowered her voice to an icy whisper. "You are throwing assumptions where they do not belong, and I am not in the mood to deal with it. The fact you are dragging Adam into this is unforgivable, and you just… you just don't get it! And you are completely missing the mark on what I want and need!"

"Or maybe you're just not admitting it to yourself," Logan sneered, starting to lose his own blasé attitude.

"How dare you!" she spat angrily. "Even if I did, I would not do anything about it in my place of work!" She heaved a heavy, trembling sigh, opening and closing her tightly clenched fists. All it would take was one cast of her hand in his direction, and she could shut his mouth for him in more ways than she cared to count. The thought was so tempting… ready to rip out of her body, possessed by her own deafening wrath that burned through her very soul…

…but to allow herself to give in to such temptation… would completely destroy every effort she's made for the past decade and a half. After several painful moments of fumbling for the right course of action, Jane finally released her hands in a huff and turned away from her guests. "Just- …you know what, just forget it. I cannot deal with this today-"

With that, she marched to the back and grabbed her jacket, punching her login code into the computer and clocking out. With one last look of disdain toward Logan, she immediately averted her eyes to the space directly in front of her as she stormed past the rest of the patrons, shoving her way out of the double doors.

Rage fueled her brisk pace into the cold November afternoon, and pride kept her from even thinking about returning to that diner. Part of her felt bad for abandoning the other two tables she had, but she knew there was no way she would be able to provide them with decent service in this state.

Worst of all, there was a small part of her that knew he was right.

"-No," she growled to the air, shaking her head furiously. I am a self sufficient woman who has no need for a romantic partner, and there is no way I could even indulge such a thought in my current situation! I am in hiding! I cannot maintain a relationship stronger than acquaintances with someone who could report me to the police without hesitation if they even had a hint of who I am!

She averted her eyes to the ground as she continued her angry path down street after street, block after block with no destination except peace with herself. And one cannot maintain a relationship while keeping secrets.

The smell of smoke reached her flared nostrils, startling her out of her foul mood if only for a moment. She quickly glanced around to find the source.

It didn't take long at all. An empty car sat stalled in the middle of the road, thick clouds of black smoke seeping out from beneath the hood. Water or something similar poured from beneath, trickling like spilled blood along the ground.

Jane's eyes narrowed as they scanned the area for the owner of the car. It didn't feel right to just abandon it, as nobody else seemed to pull themselves from their personal bubble to help remedy the situation. A few inquiries to passers by yielded nothing, and she found herself leaning against a parking meter, watching and waiting. She had nothing better to do, after all - work would only reinvigorate that anger and there was nobody waiting for her at her apartment.

Not five minutes later, she felt her pointed ears perk from beneath the bandages as a shrill female voice shrieked, "Hell no! There is no way I am going near that car! It might explode or some +%%% like that!"

32,323/50,000 - I WAS ONLY 34 WORDS AWAY FROM BREAKING 5K IN A DAY @_____@ WAAAAGH.

I have five or six more major scenes to cram into 18k words. I don't know how well the cramming will go, considering a scene that was only supposed to be 1,000 turned into like 4,000 - and what was supposed to be a simple good deed turned into nearly 2,000 words of kindness. Whatever ends up happening, it can only benefit my word count. 8D

---

Not five minutes later, she felt her pointed ears perk from beneath the bandages as a shrill female voice shrieked, "Hell no! There is no way I am going near that car! It might explode or some ++!+ like that!"

"Well you gotta, you can't just let it sit there in the middle of the street like that!" a second woman shouted her reply.

"Sure I can! 'Cause I am not touching it!"

"Maybe we can get some hot guys to push it to the side of the road or something."

"Oh, right. Like those are just gonna appear out of thin air! You can't even get a decent guy to stop and talk to you at school, what makes you think one's just gonna come out and-"

"Excuse me," Jane cleared her throat to address the two women approaching. "I couldn't help overhearing, but… is this your car?"

Neither of them looked like they were much older than college age, and their matching hair color told the waitress they might even be sisters. Both wore thick coats over relatively nice blouses. One sported ripped jeans, the other wore leggings beneath a miniskirt. Both paid Jane little mind as they stared at the smoldering, smoking car.

"Damn," the woman in jeans commented. "You're probably better off just getting a new car, 'cause that looks bad…."

"What, and you're gonna pay for it, right?" the second woman scoffed, shaking her head. "I just got this fixed, too…."

"Excuse me," Jane spoke up again, craning her neck to try to appear in their field of vision.

At last, one of them looked over and straightened up, giving the woman a strange look (Presumably at the bandages, Jane thought, trying so hard not to roll her eyes at how superficial people could be. She couldn't help it, of course, but still… it could be annoying). "You came over to help?" the woman in the skirt asked with a hopeful gleam in her eye.

"Forgive me for eavesdropping," Jane began, gesturing to the car, "but it would seem you're having a problem with the coolant in your car... Would you be able to open the hood?"

"Are you some kind of mechanic or something?" the woman in jeans gave Jane a wary look. "Cause we don't have the money for any kind of repairs-"

Jane held up a hand to interrupt her and shook her head. "First off, I am not a mechanic, however I have done extensive study on their construct, and if fortune is on our side, you may not need any repair beyond repairing a broken cap or refreshing your coolant level, which is all of mixing antifreeze and water. Perhaps both," she added, nodding down to the liquid pouring from beneath the car. "Before we can do anything, however, we need to let this cool down and take it off the road."

The women looked at each other with an identical pained expression.

"You wanna open it?" the woman in jeans asked, dangling the keys in front of her face. "I already told you I'm not going anywhere near it…."

Jane fought a chuckle as she folded her arms across her body. "You would do well to know that as long as the car is shut off, it won't explode or otherwise harm you in any way."

The woman in the skirt shot the other a dirty look, snatching the keys from her hands with a sharp jingle. "Wuss," she snapped as she unlocked the doors. Smoke billowed out from being trapped inside, causing the woman to dart back and double over from coughing. After fumbling around with stinging eyes from all the smoke, she must have hit the right button at some point as the latch popped open and the hood rose a few inches on its hinge from the rest of the car.

"Holy-!" the woman in jeans gaped with wide eyes at the black clouds puffing out from beneath.

Jane stepped up alongside the other woman, tilting her head to the side. "I would give this about twenty minutes or so to cool down before you even consider messing with the internal configurations. I would imagine this would burn your hand off if you came close to it."

"Don't need to tell me twice," she shook her head slowly.

"We seem to be in luck," Jane continued. As the smoke began to disperse, she leaned in to get a better look at the inner workings of the car. "There is a leak through the cap of your coolant tank, which has made your coolant run low, which in turn overheated your car. The cap and coolant will need replacing, but it shouldn't run you more than twenty to thirty dollars."

"Oh man… did you hear that?" the woman breathed a heavy sigh of relief to her friend. "She says it won't be that much to fix it!"

"Are you for real?" the woman in the skirt poked her head out from behind the car door. "You serious?"

Jane nodded in reply, a tiny smile creeping to the edge of her mouth. It had been so long since she was able to help someone and give them good news outside of work. Maybe she was overthinking it a bit, perhaps overblowing such a small event, but… any good deed, no matter how small, would do wonders for my karma, she eventually decided.

"We still gotta get this off the street," the woman in jeans whined, her eyes despondently scanning the streets for another good soul in the human traffic to step out and help the damsels in distress.

Jane shook her head, walking to the back of the car. "It will not require much effort. If you would," she pointed to the woman in the skirt, "please put the car in neutral. You will be in charge of steering. And you," she turned her head to the woman in jeans, "you will assist me in pushing this car."

"Are you kidding me?" she protested. "I can't even lift my bag sometimes, I really don't think I can push a freaking car-"

"Then I suppose we will find out," Jane simply replied. "If you want to repair your car into a drivable state, you will help me push."

"Yeah, girl! Shut up and push!" the woman in the skirt smirked to her friend, bobbing her head as she crawled into the sufficiently aired out car. Her friend grumbled and made her way toward Jane, bracing herself with a heavy breath as she waited for the signal to begin pushing.

Meanwhile, Jane closed her eyes, resting her hands on the matte metal of the beat up vehicle. She could feel the pendant of her necklace beginning to glow, warming against her skin, and she thanked her lucky stars her heavy winter coat would prevent any of the glow from escaping and effectively ruining her disguise. I know I have not called upon your power in a very long time, she thought, concentrating all of her thoughts and energy into her feet. However, these girls are in need of assistance, and I have very little physical strength on my own. Please help me as I move their car to a safe location.

"You sure you can handle it, girl?" the woman in jeans glanced down at Jane. "I mean, I'm not that strong, but you look like you should be in the hospital with that head thing! Are you sure you should be pushing a car like that?"

"I will be fine," Jane said with a reassuring smile.

"If you're sure, I don't want this to end up hurting you is all. Last thing we need is for a car problem to turn into a health one, and I sure as hell won't be responsible-"

"I said, I will be fine, and I assure you, you do not need to worry about whose responsibility it is if things did turn out for the worse," Jane snapped, perhaps a little too harshly than she wanted. She quickly recovered her words and forced the smile back on her face. "I have learned a lot about responsibility in the past few years. Right now, your main focus is-"

"All right, I got it!" came a voice from the inside of the car. A choked clacking emitted from the engine, signaling for the two women to brace themselves from behind the vehicle. "Go ahead and push!"

Both women nodded and pressed their hands to the car, giving it a firm shove.

Despite the extra assistance of a Goddess, the car still weighed more than two thousand pounds than all three women combined and the two strained to move it to the nearest available curb approximately fifty yards away. Jane kept her eyes shut, focusing all of her channeled energy into her hands and feet, while loud curses shrieked from the other woman's mouth to her side. The expended effort seemed to be worth it, as it didn't take more than a few minutes to not only get it to the curb, but parallel park it in a passable manner - nobody except pedestrians watching at the moment would even guess something was wrong with the car.

"All right!" the woman in jeans cheered through gasps of sweet, beautiful air, sinking to the curb and leaning back in attempt to properly catch her breath. The other girl turned the car off and joined her friend, both excitedly chattering at one another.

It took them a few moments to remember that Jane still stood beside the car, massaging her arms and feeling the Goddess' extra help receding and returning to the pendant of her necklace, leaving her aching and exhausted, but satisfied for the effort. The women combined their smiles in a radiant glow of gratitude as they squealed in delight, rushing over and grabbing her hand in a firm shake.

"Thank you so much!" the woman in the skirt exclaimed. "I swear to the Lord in Heaven you just saved our asses from the chopping block! My mom would have killed me if she heard what happened to my car…."

"You never know when you will need that kindness repaid," Jane replied with a soft smile, a hint of pink teasing her cheeks.

"Oh, girl - you're gonna get so much good fortune from the big man above," the woman in jeans laughed brightly - it seemed she didn't need too long to recover. She gave the woman a once over, her eyes shifting to nearly horrified concern. "Wait - why the hell are you out here only in that?!"

It didn't occur to her until that moment, but Jane was still in uniform. The cold November winds chilled her exposed knees all the way down to her ankles - it would seem she was too focused on the task at hand to realize how the temperatures plummeted since she became involved with the car troubles these women faced. "Oh…" she began, looking away. "I… just got off of work, actually. This is my work outfit. I'm a waitress."

"Girl, where are you a waitress at?" the woman in the skirt asked, placing her hands on her hips and bobbing her head to the side. "Me and my friend here'll definitely come sit in your section and girl, we make it worth your while!"

Jane's blush blossomed a deeper red as a smile crept onto her face. "It's… a diner down that way. Nothing too exciting about it, I'm afraid. We are open twenty four hours a day, and I tend to work in the afternoons, approximately eleven to seven. But you really don't have to-"

"Girl, if that place hires good people like you, there's no way we won't go there! I mean, our college is right down that way," the woman in jeans pointed down the road to a large, glass faced establishment with artwork blown up to gigantic proportions to be seen throughout the city. "We're art majors, which basically translates to poor college students, y'know?"

"We don't know nothing about cars," the other woman chimed in.

"So now we'll have a car and have a great place to stop in and do our homework while getting a bite to eat," the woman in the jeans beamed as they turned to shake Jane's hand once again. The waitress seemed too startled to reject the motion and simply followed their lead.

"…I… I suppose you are welcome," Jane meekly replied, withdrawing her arms around her body. It still felt… strange… to get this kind of positive response while she wasn't in work mode.

"Well hey, we've gotta get that coolant or whatever! I've got class in an hour and I can't miss it!" the woman in the skirt hurried her friend along down the road, locking the car up before taking off down the road. "We'll see you around, Miss Waitress!"

Before long, the two disappeared around the corner, leaving Jane behind in the sea of people.

Miss Waitress, she thought as she continued down her own path. That's what Logan calls me. It was as if a boulder dropped in the pit of her stomach and took any remnant of that otherwise decent mood with it. She found herself glancing back toward the diner with a bitter taste in her mouth, guilt nipping at her heels as she walked further away, looking around the overcast city for something, anything, to purge that stunt earlier from her mind.

She really shouldn't have snapped at him. She should have just let it go, taken it as a joking comment in stride from a person she considers a friend. But… at the same time, he did drag someone completely uninvolved unknowingly into that joke, and Adam really didn't seem to appreciate the gesture. Especially since I am confident that was his intention, she groaned. Way to single him out and embarrass him when he seemed to be putting in genuine effort for that outcome. I just hope… they're… both doing all right.

Jane heaved a sigh, burying herself in her heavy coat as she walked. "I really shouldn't have gotten mad at him in front of everyone," she conceded, her heart sinking further. "How… unprofessional it must have looked. And now-"

At that moment, her cell phone buzzed in her apron pocket. Jane raised her eyebrows, a renewed sense of dread washing across her body as she pulled the device from her pocket and flipped it open. My family would never call at this hour, therefore it must be…

"Hello?" she cautiously answered.

"…Jane? Hi there, this is Amanda from work!" a familiar voice buzzed from the speaker.

She groaned, rolling her eyes and tightening her grip around her body. It would be her manager. "Hello Amanda… how are you?"

"Well I'm okay, but I must say, I'm a little concerned about you," the voice chirped from the other end. "Both my other servers and a couple of your regulars said you stormed out of work pretty upset earlier. Is everything okay?"

She closed her eyes tightly, clenching her fist at her side. Of course, it would be about that too. "Everything is… yes. It is fine now. I just… I lost my temper, it was terrible of me, I… I am sorry. It will not happen again."

For several moments, a static filled silence permeated the air waves between the two of them. "…you lost your temper?" Amanda's voice asked in an unusually quiet, somber tone.

"As I said, it will not happen again, it was just…" Jane fumbled for words, opening and closing her trembling fist and growling out from the effort. "Amanda, it's been a very long, troubling few days. I… I wish I could explain it properly, I just…."

"…you can't," the manager's voice finished her sentence.

Jane could feel her heart pounding in her chest. "I can't," she repeated, her voice hoarse and entire body tensing up for the impending onslaught that was bound to happen.

"…you do realize this gives me grounds to release you," Amanda spoke after another several seconds of silence.

"I would understand and condone your actions," Jane whispered. She could hear how far her tone sank since the beginning of the conversation, drowned out only by her manager's firm words echoing in her ears.

"But I won't," Amanda interrupted.

This prompted Jane to actually stare at her phone, contemplating the words that escaped her manager's mouth. "-excuse me?" she stammered.

"I won't, because I know and trust you. I know you've had a really tough few days and I'll be honest, you've got me incredibly curious as to what's going on. You've never talked about your history before your injury and before you started working here… and suddenly, in the past couple days, you not only bring it up twice, but talk to me pretty extensively about it with the promise for more. And I know how much it bothers you to talk about it. I don't care what you exploded about and I'll be very frank - if it was anyone else, I would have fired them in an instant."

"Thank you for letting me know your bias in managerial duties," Jane muttered.

"I also know how hard it was for you to get a job with your injury, and I can't let you go in good conscience, knowing you're gonna have to go through the hell of job hunting again with all the baggage of medical release forms and peoples' prejudice," Amanda continued in a stern tone.

"Thank you…."

"This is what we're gonna do," her manager took a deep breath in before continuing, "you get everything sorted out in your life and you give me a call when you're ready to come back to work. It'll go in the book as a suspension, so you're not just getting off easy. Once you've got everything taken care of, I'll consider the suspension over and you'll be able to come back to your normal shifts - if that's what you think you can handle."

"Amanda, I appreciate everything you're doing for my situation… but with all due respect, you should not leave such decisions up to me," Jane shook her head slowly, her heart pounding from the adrenaline rush of watching her job on the line and nearly seeing that line cut by the sheer force of words.

"You're only gonna get this chance once," the manager warned. "I do this because you're a hard worker and I genuinely care about you. You're a good person, and I'd hate to let a good person go for a temporary lapse of judgment and emotional outburst."

Jane could feel hot tears burning the edge of her eyes, stinging under the pressure of the icy wind. "…thank you," she whispered. She could feel her voice cracking, despite her best effort to conceal her emotions. "Just… thank you so much. You are… a very good friend."

"Just please promise me that you'll take this time to sort through your problems, mmkay?"

"I will. I… I promise."

"Then that's all I wanted to hear!" Amanda said, the peppy energy returning to the woman's voice. "And hey. Jane?"

"…yes?" the waitress swallowed hard in attempt to release a growing lump in her throat.

"Will you at least think about letting me in on whatever it is?"

Jane felt a small smile return to the corners of her lips. "I will consider it. You have let me know on multiple occasions that I can trust you, and this… I will not take this second chance lightly."

"Excellent!" the manager chirped. "Well with all that said, I'd better get back. Dinner rush will be starting soon and I want to make sure my lovely ladies have the front end stocked and ready to go. You know how some of them can be," she joked.

"Hah… yes…" she smirked. "Please give them my regards and apologies."

"Will do. Take care!" And with a click, the connection severed and Jane found herself able to close her phone and replace it in her pocket.

The sun poked its way through the clouds, showing its watery face through the thin veil to the soaked streets of the city. Its light couldn't penetrate the bitter, icy wind that whipped its way through the streets, and Jane pulled her heavy coat further around her tiny frame. The adrenaline rush through the conversation only temporarily provided warmth, and it left her once again shivering on the streets, completely alone.

…at least I still have a job, she mumbled, hurrying through the crowd, hoping their combined friction through the air and physical shields would not only block out the wind but also bring about a bit of warmth on the brightening afternoon.

She rounded a corner and found the ambient orange glow of a nearby coffee shop too enticing to pass up. With a few tables' worth of tip money in her pocket, she figured she could at least get a small hot chocolate to bring the color back into her frighteningly pale skin. She caught her reflection in the window as she made her way over and winced. I look just like my sister with this sickly skin tone….

The heat made itself apparent the moment she stepped inside the coffee house, blasting her body with a burst of warm air. Jane breathed a sigh of relief as the air washed over her, bathing her burning face and exposed legs in the warmth only her shoulders and arms felt for the past half hour. The inviting smell of a different house blend seemed to soothe her soul even more than the temperature and ambience of the room - she almost couldn't take the anticipation of tasting something other than the diner's coffee on her tongue, and she even found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet while waiting in line.

By the time she made her way up to the register, she felt her phone buzz at her side again. She glanced down at her apron with a strange expression as she fished the device out from between the odd straw or napkin.

Her expression hardened upon reading UNKNOWN in the caller identification window. Curiosity compelled her to open the phone and speak into the receiver. "Hello?" she asked, turning to mouth sorry! to the waiting cashier.

There was a small pause, before a deep voice rang through the speaker into her ear. "Hello, Navi - this is Ethan King."

Jane felt her blood course icily through her veins, completely negating any warmth the coffee shop brought her. "Forgive me, but I cannot trust confidential business to an unsecured phone line," she sharply spoke into the phone before snapping it shut and replacing it in her pocket.

"Forgive me," she straightened up and breathed to the cashier behind the counter. "I despise it when people tell me to wait at my own job for a device in their hand. If I may have a medium coffee with plenty of room for cream?"

"Certainly," the barista smiled, keying a few numbers into the register. Minimal words and money exchanged hands, coupled with a 'thank you' from each person as they each received what they wanted. Jane found herself huddled in a cozy corner of the shop, watching the red and white lights of cars lazily passing outside. She supposed they were probably on the edge of their seats, paying attention to every little light, pedestrian, and mark on the road, but that didn't stop them from appearing to travel at a leisurely pace down the city streets, and that certainly didn't stop her from watching them, thankful for the temporary shelter from the harsh early winter air.

She could feel the cell phone vibrating against her leg once again. One quick glance showed the word UNKNOWN once again, and she couldn't contain an aggravated groan. With one swift motion, she stuffed the phone into the deepest pocket inside her coat, hoping the layers and layers of insulation would keep her from feeling the distracting buzz. Maybe he would even take the hint at that point and just give up calling after the third or fourth redirect to her voice mail, but that might be holding out too much hope.

"Ethan never gives up," she grumbled into her fingers as she propped her head in her hand.

It took ten minutes for the vibrations to stop, and a high pitched beeping told the waitress at least one message sat in her voice mailbox. She admired his persistence, if nothing else, and decided to honor that persistence with giving the message a quick listen:

Good afternoon, Navi - this is Ethan King calling regarding the tutoring sessions we said we'd discuss. First off, as you well know, security is my number one priority and I can assure you this is a safe connection. Apparently you're not interested in discussion, so I'll simply tell you to be here at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow morning and assume you're available. If you don't show up, you understand there will be consequences. Give your family my regards, and we'll see you tomorrow.

Jane hissed, taking a bitter sip of her coffee and setting the cardboard cup down with a hollow thunk against the table. "…I suppose there is no room for argument," she huffed to the air, dragging her warmed bones up from her seat and trudging once again into the bitter November afternoon. With coffee in her system and a slew of people traveling in the same direction, Jane found it much easier to march her way back to her apartment, passing the doorman with little more than a nod and approaching the elevator with fire in her eyes as the reality of being suspended from work began dawning on her.

I shouldn't be home this early.

Let me repeat that. I should not be home this early.

I am a good, hard worker who busts her butt day in and day out, living on the generosity of the general population. And with a few sharp words to the wrong person and a slew of rage fueling those words, I find myself home early, not busting my butt, not earning money, and not feeling proud of letting that emotion take control.

I never used to give in to emotion.

I never used to let it control me, and I never used to let it affect my judgment. Everything in my world used to revolve around fact and logic, and emotion transcends both, making the person affected irrational and incapable of straight decisions. I had a duty to support my creators and follow their orders, and I could not let my emotions get the best of me. Feelings take the clean cut of black and white morality and mix the two together into indistinguishable shades of grey that swirl and blend into a mess that even I cannot sort out. My creators gave me the duty to find my escaped family and return them to the sacred realm from which I came from. It was an easy enough task, though it took me nearly three centuries to execute.

It is important to note that I had a very different appearance at this time. My current five foot two was an aspiration I had yet to reach - at an unimpressive four feet and nine inches, people often mistook me for a twelve year old, and the fact my body hadn't developed the features found in an adult woman did not help one bit. It did, however, make it easy to detatch myself from the emotional ties that plagued my family. By the time I found them, they had established so many relationships within the world they lived in that they refused to return. It made no sense to me why they would stay, when our creators gave us the very clear order to return when our deeds had been carried out, and when that did not happen, our creators told me to bring them back, using force if necessary.

It was an easy task.

It was easy, of course, until he came around.

A blonde haired, blue eyed man standing six feet and two inches off the ground, smiling as he danced across the room to meet me. He introduced himself as Lee Cypher, and he told me I could not take my sister, his lover, back to our creators, and he would do everything in his power to protect her.

I could not even comprehend what he told me. I just… could not believe it. I had to listen the words of some man I had never met before that moment and allow them to take precedence over the orders my creators gave me? It made no sense! And when I attempted to explain this to him, he simply laughed and told me he was sorry I could not carry out my duties.

"But I can be your friend," he told me.

And he was.

He saw every barrier I held for nearly three centuries and in a week, broke them all down with his charm and exposed the raw girl underneath all of that. He introduced that girl to the concepts of life, love, and loving life. That girl latched onto the first true emotions of her life, and she followed them to the ends of the earth. That girl took the concept of love and stretched it beyond the means of obsession. That girl saw the pursuit of happiness as sealing her sister away in order to keep that man and bring him the same joy he introduced to her. That girl did everything she could to keep that man in her life.

That girl, possessed by the power of love, grew up to be a frightening woman capable of terrible things in order to keep that man in her life in hopes he would see her as more than a friend. And when he never did, she settled for "second best".

What she considered "second best", everyone else considered "absolute worst" and morally "wrong". As you and I both know, two "wrongs" do not make a "right", but something even more twisted than one could ever be alone.

34,961/50,000 - o.o; oh snap. that stretching might be a bit more effort than I thought.

---

The elevator made it to its destination on the fifteenth floor and softly sounded, pulling its heavy metal doors open for Jane to walk out and trudge her way back to the familiar door at the end of the hall. Each step felt heavier as she thought of the backlash her family were bound to dish out. Her eyes never faltered, however - they maintained a steady gaze straight ahead, locked on her apartment door, hoping it would help keep up her dedicated stride.

She keyed in her pin number and twisted the doorknob, only allowing her eyes to squeeze shut while she pushed the door open.

Jane sharply inhaled as she heard movement from deeper inside, coming closer.

The first person to appear stood well over six feet off the ground. Her jet black hair tumbled down to the middle of her back, with a few inches of bangs brushed to the side of her face. This directly contrasted against her creamy white complexion extending to her pointed ears, like an elven yin yang. A set of brilliant blue eyes would have completed the fair Snow White look if she wasn't wearing pajama pants and a loose tank top haphazardly draped over her curved frame. It seemed as if a smile also belonged on this face.

For right now, the face reflected concern - and relief. "-Jane?" she breathed a heavy sigh as she threw her arms around the waitress' shoulders. "Oh thank goodness, it's only you, I was so worried for a second that-"

"That what?" Jane asked, placing her hands on the woman's shoulders and politely removing her from her body.

The jet black haired woman shut the door and led Jane deeper inside. "When we heard the door open, Tamara's first thought was it was the police here to take us away for hiding…" She straightened up and called out, "Hey, Tam! It's okay! It's just Jane!"

"Forgive me for scaring you both," Jane mumbled. "I will be in my room-"

"Wait, Jane!"

The waitress stopped in her tracks and closed her eyes tightly, feeling the rage harmonizing with guilt and reluctantly letting both bubble back up in her chest. "Yes, Cari?" she spoke in a low voice.

"You're never home this early… is something wrong?"

Jane remained silent, keeping her eyes locked down the hall. Her door was only ten steps away, she could easily escape the conversation if she just says she's fine… but that would be lying, and I am tired of lying….

After not hearing a response, Cari stepped closer, her voice more cautious than concerned. "…Jane…?" she tried again, "…what's going on? You know you can talk to me, or to Tamara even…."

Of course, I can always talk to my sisters about how close I came to losing my job and exposing to someone that not only I still live here, but my siblings do too. But that does not change the fact I am tired of lying, even to my own family! The waitress remained stoic and silent, tension swelling up to her throat now - even if she were to say anything at this point, she was fairly sure nothing would sound except a terrible, desperate choke that vaguely resembled words.

"Are you even listening to me?" Cari asked once again, placing a hand on the petite woman's shoulder. She might have detected a hint of annoyance in her tone at being ignored. "Jane-"

"My name is Navi!"

The outburst seemed to take both women by surprise, as Cari backed away with her hands raised like an invisible barrier between the two. "Fine," she whispered after several seconds of stunned silence. "Navi. What in the world is bothering you?"

Their scene attracted the attention of a third woman of average height with long, well maintained deep coffee colored hair. Unlike the other two, this one bore striking green eyes against warm, bronzed skin, as if she had spent years on sandy beaches. A set of long, pointed ears seemed to be the only connection between the three of them. She appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, leaning against the wooden frame with folded arms and a scowl on that beautiful face. "Oh this is wonderful," she hissed. "She's having her first identity crisis. This ought to be fun."

Cari shot the woman a dark look, taking the dark edge away from her scowl and prompting her to withdraw a bit. "Navi," she continued, softening her tone. "What happened today to make you so… snappy?"

She offered only a glare in response, before lowering her guilt-ridden eyes.

This didn't seem to be going anywhere fast, and rather than press the issue, Cari rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh, resting her palm against her sister's back and using it to lead her toward the living room. "Come on, let's get you some tea or something. I just bought some fresh stuff the other day if you want to try it."

"I just had coffee, I am quite fine in that regard," she mumbled, but found herself lacking any resistance this time around. After all, Cari was always like that. Tension waas her enemy, and the tiniest hint of discomfort would send the gentle giant of a woman on a crusade to purge any and every unhappy thought from the person's mind, all while warming their soul with hugs and hot chocolate. To tell Cari to stop fussing and obsessing over the people she cares about would be like trying to tell the wind to never give into the temptation of barometric pressure and form into a tornado. Her gentle, giving, and kind nature in even the darkest times, all neatly packaged in a free spirited flower child… never ceased to aggravate the waitress. But she could never find it in herself to tell the gentle giant to change her behavior.

She lowered her eyes. Of course, that same behavior that irritated her to no end, attracted the attention and affection of Lee Cypher and kept them together for upwards of eighteen years.

Cari sat the waitress down on the couch and strolled back to the kitchen to boil water - it seemed she didn't hear the suggestion turned down a few moments before. She took this time to pull the edge of the gauze from the back of her head and slowly unwind, exposing the obscene amount of bobby pins and gauze supporting a wig cap and a mess of matted green hair.

Tamara followed her sisters and leaned against the back of one of the chairs. "Okay, look," she started in a business like tone. "Something's obviously wrong, and Cari might be nice enough to stop when you're feeling uncomfortable, but I'm not falling for it. I know you, Navi. You're always so quick to rant at someone for doing something wrong, pointing out their every flaw and exploiting it until they're all but crying at how tactless you are. Heaven forbid you ever make a mistake, of course.

"But the moment you do, suddenly you clam up and don't want to talk to anyone." The brunette slammed both hands on either end of the backrest. "So out with it. What did you do?"

Navi lifted her newly exposed eyes to her sister, fire welling up in her violet irises. This was typical Tamara behavior as well. Normally meek and reserved, hiding behind the stronger person until an opportunity presented itself where she could strike the weakest point of whoever she happened to be up against. Only then would she assert the power she had. She couldn't seem to decide whether she was a cowardly antagonist, or an antagonistic coward, and frequently switched between the two. Either way, her words reinforced the idea that she probably didn't deserve such coveted information. "That is not your concern," Navi sharply answered her sister.

"+%%+#%#%!" Tamara shot back. "You always say that, then suddenly one day we come home and find all sorts of Humans for Humanity retards outside our house, picketing as close as they can get, spewing hatred this way and that, and you say it's not our concern?"

The green haired woman could only glare back, heaving a heavy breath to bite several unpleasant words behind her tongue.

Tamara didn't even seem to be trying the same. "And when those people force us to move out of our home into this %@$%@@ little apartment, and Cari has to dye her hair every day to keep her regular color from showing through so nobody thinks she's a powered freak like us, you say that's not our concern either? You find Carson McGregor, who, honestly? Was too much of a flake to really do anything, and you not only find him, but kill him in his own apartment, and when we ask what happened, you told us it wasn't our concern." She straightened up, shrugging. "Isaac recruiting you to fight for powered citizen rights wasn't our concern either, and apparently neither was killing that talent agent! And he didn't even do anything to you! He didn't even know you! Was that not his concern either?"

Navi spun around in her seat. "That was all years ago!" she viciously spat. "What do you want me to say? I understand what I did in the past was wrong, and I am dealing with the repercussions now!"

"And you're reverting back to old habits, telling us that some things aren't our concern," Tamara snapped. "We are a family! I thought you'd have gotten that through your thick skull by now, and these things-" she pressed a hand to her mouth, mocking a gasp, "-actually do matter to us! They not only matter, but sometimes their consequences actually affect us in some way!"

Tamara leaned over the chair, her voice raising to shrill levels. "How many people do you have to kill until you see that-"

"Tamara!" Cari's voice interrupted from the kitchen.

The livid brunette whirled around to her sister. "You know I'm right though! All those people, %#%%%%@ annoying as they were, she hurt or killed in cold blood!" She turned back to face Navi, folding her arms across her body. "And the only one who really deserved death was that bastard you called a boyfriend, and you sure took your time with him, didn't you?"

Those words were all she needed to send Navi's rage above boiling point. The green haired woman stood up, raising her own voice to match. "Stop it!" she cried out, bitter tears burning at the edge of her eyes. "Just stop! I haven't hurt or killed anyone! I do not want to hurt anyone!" Her feet padded against the carpet toward her sister. "But you are certainly not helping to keep that at bay-"

"So what are you gonna do? Attack me and only prove my point?" the brunette glared back, straightening up and opening her arms. "Go ahead! It's nobody's concern but yours, after all!"

"Just stop it!" Navi repeated, feeling her words catching in her throat. Her entire body ached from holding back her anger at Tamara's brutal backlash, and it took all of her strength to keep on her feet. The fact that her sister was right made her sick to her stomach, but that didn't stop her from being completely out of line.

Her world began to sway in her vision as reluctant tears spilled over the edge of her eyelids. "…just… please stop…."

Cari returned to the living room with a small tray holding a teapot and three small cups. "All right, both of you need to just chill for a minute," the black haired sister spoke in a stern voice. "Just sit down and take a cup of tea. We can talk all this out-"

"It's apparently not our concern," Tamara replied in a mocking voice.

"Will you just shut your arrogant little mouth?" Navi shot back, turning away to hide the shameful tears that continued to roll down her cheeks.

"Speak for yourself!"

"I said sit down," Cari raised her voice loud enough to be heard over her sisters' vicious bickering, before lowering it again, "…and take a cup of tea. I promise you both'll feel so much better for it."

Tamara dropped herself in the adjacent armchair with a huff, snatching one of the ceramic cups and filling it to the brim with the teapots pale green liquid. Navi followed suit on the sofa with a bit more grace, withdrawing both arms around her body in a tight personal hug. She could feel her hands shaking from having to rebottle all of that terrible wrath and store it away again.

Cari sat beside her green haired sister and reached for the second cup. "It's a chamomile blend… I know you like those," she offered in a softer voice than before.

Navi swallowed hard and nodded without a word, keeping her eyes averted. She felt pathetic, useless… but she didn't have the heart to deny her sister's motherly kindness, and accepted the small cup with a soft bow of the head.

"So are you gonna tell us what's going on now?" Cari asked quietly.

There really was no reason to keep it from them at this point - after all, what's her situation now when compared to allegations of murder two minutes prior? "…I am home early because I… lost my temper at a guest today," Navi confessed in a hoarse voice. "He upset me to the point where I could not tolerate being in the same place as him - and it would be completely out of line to ask him to leave, as he is a paying customer… so I…."

Tamara opened her mouth to comment, but a sharp glare from Cari kept the words from escaping. She turned back to her smaller sister with a more gentle expression. "So someone upset you today," she clarified. "What did they do?"

"…I could not tolerate his… audacity," the green haired woman continued, feeling the blood rush into her cheeks as she spoke. She knew how childish it sounded in her mind, and voicing such immature thoughts only served to dig the woman deeper in a shameful hole. "…there was a man who came in a few days ago who showed great interest in the history of this city. He did not stay long, as he is only in town for a convention, but… I made the offhand comment for him to return to tell me how it went."

"And he did?"

Navi nodded slowly, sniffling her remaining tears away. "He came back, and one of my regulars followed suit a few minutes later. You may recall me mentioning a man named Logan on more than one occasion." When both sisters nodded, she swallowed, collecting her words before speaking again. "Logan decides to start teasing me in front of my other guest, dragging him into it as well, accusing him of trying to… 'put the moves on me', if you will."

She shook her head. "I could see it as well, but we both understand that is not the point. He is embarrassing my guest and making a mockery of myself in the process. I told him to cease, and he just… kept going…." She pounded her fist into the pillow at her side, feeling that sickening wave of anger bubbling back up to the surface. "He just… would not listen to a word I said and I could not deal with it, so I…."

Cari swallowed, her face paling further than normal. "…Navi, please don't tell me-"

The green haired woman squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head vigorously. "I did not hurt anyone," she moaned, "…I walked out… but it shocks me to know that I allowed the thought cross my mind…."

"…walked out," Cari repeated with a whisper, wrapping an arm around her smaller sister, feeling much more comfortable with the turn of the conversation. "Oh, Navi…."

"Do you at least still have a job?" Tamara finally spoke up, earning a miserable nod in response.

"My manager called to tell me she knows I have a lot going on right now, and wouldn't outright fire me because she respects me as a worker. She will classify it as a suspension, and said when I am able to explain myself, she will allow me to resume working."

"Wait, what d'you mean by that?" Cari asked, raising her eyebrows. "You've got a lot going on?"

Navi turned to face the window, feeling fresh tears roll down her face.

40,000/50,000 - Yes, I totally added like three words to make it this nice even number. Also, I went back and edited a few things in the past few entries that starts to tie up the loose ends of the story, so if by some random chance someone happened to read this post by post, I'd go back and reread it.

---

Navi turned to face the window, feeling fresh moisture roll down her face. The high from joy and liberation she felt from revealing her identity lasted up until that point where the potential ramifications vastly outweighed any positive feelings she may have felt at showing an unrelated person such a small but important detail from the synopsis of her life. Especially when she all but promised the full story later on. This was all completely ignoring her encounter with Ethan King, knowing he has her all but wrapped around his finger with her identity under his control. All of the guilt of knowing she could uproot everyone again came crashing down upon her shoulders and it took all of her strength to only allow shuddering tears to escape her body.

"Navi," Cari repeated, her tone almost pleading for the information her sister's so reluctant to reveal.

She took a moment to collect her words, before finally breathing out, "I… have been offered a new job… of sorts…."

Both Cari and Tamara glanced at each other. "A new job? Like… a manager position or something like that?"

Navi closed her eyes and shook her head. "…it could be classified as a tutoring position," she quietly replied.

"Really now?" Cari's voice brightened. "That'd be a perfect job for you! Certainly better than just being some waitress at a small time diner, that's for sure. What subject are they having you teach?"

Her heart pounded in her pointed ears which flattened against her head. "History and tolerance of powered citizens," the green haired woman all but huffed out. She knew how unpleasant the words would sound to her sisters' ears, and her tone suggested she didn't really care for their judgment.

Tamara stared at Cari, who glanced over with a dumbfounded expression. "…what?" was all she could manage.

"You heard me correctly. I do not need to repeat myself."

"Wait, hold on a second! Who in the hell would ask for something like that? Unless…" Tamara blurted out, waving her hands in front of her face.

"…unless they knew who you were," Cari concluded, raising her fingers to her paling face. "Who was it?"

The words took their time to leave Navi's lips, and she couldn't even look her sisters in the eye anymore. She kept her gaze locked on the window as she wiped the excess moisture from her cheeks with the edge of her sleeve. "…it was one of Ethan King's former employees. He sat in my section and there was no way out of serving him-"

"You couldn't just give the table away?" Tamara interjected, shaking her head at her sister's astounding… stupidity.

"I was the only one on the floor! I could not just abandon a guest for three hours until the next server came on!" the green haired woman balled her hands into fists at her side, manually venting the majority of her frustration to keep it from rising up into her voice.

Tamara seemed to have difficulty attempting the same. "And he recognized you?"

Navi sat rigidly, silently, refusing to acknowledge the question with a voiced answer. This prompted both sisters to read between her lack of response.

"I swear to heaven, Navi, if you just told him-"

"Navi, you really need to be more careful!" Cari added, in an insistent motherly tone.

"What the hell were you thinking? Were you even thinking? "Or have you forgotten there are some people out there who still want your head on a platter?"

"If both of you could just keep quiet and let me explain-!" Navi snapped, squeezing her eyes shut as her voice spiked loud enough to inspire both sisters to sit silently beside her.

"I am tired of lying," she began in a trembling voice. "I am tired of hiding, and it kills me to know I am the reason I am hiding. And when some looks at me and sees me for who I really am… I am given a reprieve for just one moment to be who I truly am, to speak liberally to someone who understands who I am and what I am doing…. And when I do… I feel as if I can actually trust in someone outside of these cramped walls…."

Navi finally turned her violet eyes toward her sisters, using all of her effort to keep her voice at a steady level. "I know you both understand where I am coming from, and you would do well to keep your hypocrisy to a minimum if you wish to keep this conversation going."

"Cari… you have been able to keep your identity in all ways but your hair." She shook her head slowly, brushing her fingertips along the fine black edges. "It used to be so well maintained and beautiful… not that it is not beautiful now, but I look at it and know you are making do with what you have. To think that peoples' ignorance would go so far as to associate hair color with having special abilities… makes me physically ill to even consider…."

"Oh, Navi… hair always grows back," Cari offered a small smile as she pulled her sister closer in a tight hug. "Plus, black is close enough to my natural color that nobody really notices but us when the roots start to show."

"Having hair as rich as the midnight sky should not automatically make you a powered individual!" Navi sharply replied, and Cari could feel the small woman's shoulders shaking with the bottled up emotions fighting desperately against her repression. "…I mean, of course it doesn't change the fact that you are… but-"

"I know what you mean though, but please… you've got more than enough of a burden to carry, please don't let that add to it, it's really not that important," Cari softly spoke, letting her smile widen a bit.

"Even if you ignore your identity issues, it still leaves you," Navi swallowed, turning to face her other sister, who folded her arms across her body. "You are always struggling with trust, and opening up to other people, hiding behind either Cari or your lover in unfamiliar situations, knowing they will be strong enough to support you and protect you if you open up too much."

"Even now," she gestured to Tamara, who proceeded to withdraw further into her chair upon being called out so bluntly. "You understand where I am coming from when I say it feels so beautiful to be able to trust someone in a cold, brutal world. It feels as if everyone and everything is out to hurt you if you tread outside of your protective barrier." Navi paused for a moment, collecting her words. "…Cari is your protective barrier, and so is your lover…" she drew a breath in, lightly closing her eyes and reaching in front of her as if pulling the words from the air. "…Jane Matthews is my protective barrier. It is so difficult, knowing I am basically my own protection for myself. Where other people can shoulder your burden-"

"Okay, stop right there," Tamara interrupted hotly, crimson blossoming across her cheek bones. "I don't want to be a burden, and I do everything I can to keep myself from being one."

"Whether you want to or not changes nothing," Navi calmly replied. "If you will allow me to continue…."

"Please, just let her finish," Cari tenderly whispered to the brunette, who sank down in her seat with a bitter sigh.

"My point is, I know you understand where I am coming from, whether you will admit it or not. When someone looked at you and called you by your name… it felt warm, and I am sure you felt appreciated… and when someone followed through with a promise they made to you… it felt unbelievable to trust in them, didn't it?"

Tamara reluctantly nodded, averting her eyes to the carpet.

"So when he walked in and sat at my counter, and he promised me he would not share anything I was about to tell him…" Navi's voice trailed off, and she felt her voice catch in her throat once again. "…I could forgive him for being a dirty, crass individual all those years ago."

Cari's eyes widened. "Wait, you're not talking about-"

"That douchebag tag team that King employed to kidnap powered people?" Tamara finished for her, that burning fire coursing through her body once again. "You seriously trusted them to keep a secret?"

"Not them," Navi quietly replied. "Him. If you remember, his name is Irvine, and his partner Bird passed away of pneumonia two years ago. He has no direction or focus, and certainly no motivation to turn any of us in."

"And how in the hell do you know that?" Tamara all but blew up in her face. "Are you seriously that stupid to trust what someone like that says? How do you know he's not still connected to Ethan King? He could have made hundreds of calls by now to who knows how many authorities!"

"He gave me his word," Navi answered in a flat tone.

"And how much is a word from a backstabber worth? Seriously, Navi! I thought you were supposed to be smarter than that-"

Navi shook her head again. "Once again, I know you understand, and I know it is through your understanding that you are taking your misguided rage out upon me, as the object of your anger is unfortunately not in our presence." Upon earning a glare of absolute loathing from the bitter woman she called her sister, she continued. "You are still in love with someone who all but broke your heart when he and Lee abandoned us. I doubt anything could really sever that love between you. Since he is not with us right now, I have noticed you are more prone to anger, and less motivated to do anything else but sit by the window pining for his return.

"Several years ago, I witnessed that love between the two of them. Since she passed on, he all but told me he has no real motivation or drive to do the things they used to do, not to mention he no longer has anyone to tell any secrets to. Which would make him the perfect, if not only person I can share these things with outside of the two of you."

Navi paused. "He did, however, let Ethan King know of my existence, and to get back to the point of this conversation, I will be tutoring his son in Sega City's recent history regarding powered citizens, and hopefully breeding tolerance and acceptance in that impressionable mind of his."

"So he did tell someone," Tamara muttered. "And he's not as trustworthy as you say he is-"

"I would rather it be him than the police," Navi huffed. "Ethan King may be an opportunistic bastard with more money and power than everyone in the city combined, but you know his loyalty will always be to studying and advancing humanity, as well as supporting the existence of powered people. After all, his company will die with the extinction of powered citizens."

The three of them sat in silence, mulling over the validity and severity of that last comment.

"…you said he has a son?" Cari asked softly in attempt to lighten the subject.

Navi slowly nodded. "His name is Robert King… nine and a half years old and smarter than most children twice his age… if he held more confidence in himself, he would be the spitting image of his father."

"So he's got himself a little protégé. Nice," Tamara bitterly remarked.

Navi breathed a heavy sigh. She dealt with everything she wanted to, and Tamara's running commentary quickly grew fatiguing. Cari's grip around her shoulders loosened and they both watched as the green haired woman rose from her seat and wordlessly padded back to her room, locking the door behind her.

My sisters drive me insane.

I try so hard to respect them, but they make it so difficult. I know the feeling is mutual, but it seems as if I am the only one who is even trying to make a change when I witness a problem in my life.

Both of them are locked in the past, and their mentalities even moreso. They both try so hard to protect me from myself, and I know they're worried I'll snap one day and find myself put back in the terrible incarnations of that Empowered Citizen Facility. They don't seem to realize I've moved on, that I have learned my lesson and just want to get out of this damned city that chokes day after day on its own cynicism and injustice.

The only thing keeping them in the city now is the hope that their lovers will eventually return to this tiny apartment looking for them, to sweep them off their feet with the perfect fairy tale ending they both desire.

Love is such a powerful driving force… it makes people stay in terrible conditions with blind optimism telling them things will get better. It makes people do unspeakable things in pursuit of reciprocated affection. It turns even the most stubborn, hard headed person into a melted puddle jabbering nonsense to anyone who will listen, all but floating on a pink little cloud fabricated from the high that comes with being appreciated… of course, without love as an excuse, that same description of a person would send them with a one way ticket to a padded room in the darkest depths of a mental hospital. Is this conclusive proof that love makes one insane? Probably not, but one cannot deny the similarities the two mental states possess.

Sometimes, the most sane and rational thing you can do for a lover is to let them go. In most cases, this means breaking off a relationship and allowing both people involved some space to breathe. There are, unfortunately, instances where sometimes putting them out of their misery is the best option, where a person suffers so greatly from an affliction that it would be cruel and inhumane - perhaps even unsafe to others to keep them alive.

I speak from experience when I say this is not an option to be taken lightly, and ninety nine out of one hundred people are not physically or mentally equipped to deal with such a heavy decision. Could this be conclusive proof that love makes one insane?

I will leave that up to you to decide.

The following morning came surprisingly peacefully, and Navi woke bright and early to prepare herself for her first day of teaching.

Her closet contained little more than a few work shirts and knee length skirts, so she found herself relying on putting together whatever didn't fit her sisters into an outfit hopefully acceptable for Ethan King's high standards.

Navi gave a small smile as she observed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She settled on a light blue blazer whose sleeves folded at the cuff, and whose lapels cascaded nearly down to her navel. A white blouse peeked its head out from between those lapels, keeping modest with its delicate fabric. Both covered the waistline of a matching twill skirt made of the same fabric as the blazer, and a set of grey oxfords completed the ensemble.

She pulled lightly at her mint green hair, cropped in a freshly washed and blow dried bob that barely met her pointed ears. The soft verdant strands against the baby blue brought a smirk to the corners of her mouth. It is a rare occasion where I get to play with fashion the way my sisters do, she pondered, offering a few poses to the mirror before straightening up and pulling the devil of a wig cap back over her scalp, constricting her mane of colorful hair to be bandaged up once again.

It used to take nearly an hour and a second set of hands to wind the gauze around her head, but after years of winding it up day after day, she seemed to get the process down to an art form. Wind it twice, then pin at the scalp. Wind twice, then pin. Cover the top, behind the ears, around the base, then cover the ears. Continue pinning everywhere pins can reach. Go back over everything with the heavy gauze. Her hands moved without even needing to look at her reflection. The mindless task gave her an opportunity to consider exactly what she would be doing in a few short hours.

Navi frowned as she idly watched her reflection all but move on its own. It is quite frustrating, she huffed. How exactly does he want me to persuade his son to dedicate his life to improving the quality of life for powered citizens, when they've been banned from this city since before he was born? I should have asked him if my sister Cari would be better suited for this task. She is a grade school teacher, after all. Or, why doesn't the man do it himself? After all, he has the most neutral mindset out of any of us, as he witnessed and participated in it all without being majorly affected by the consequences….

After fifteen minutes of making herself presentable to the world outside that bathroom, she still couldn't come up with a lesson plan acceptable for a nine year old to comprehend.

"I suppose I will simply wing it," Navi sighed as she slipped her small feet in the shoes and abandoned the apartment in pursuit of grander buildings.

The morning sun sparkled off of every surface in Sega City, from the glass panels of every high rise building to the lowliest puddle broken up into glittering splashes by commuters' feet. Navi held her bandaged head high as she followed the sea of human traffic, keeping firm in her own stride yet letting them sweep her along with their radiant energy. After the threat of rain from the past few days, the golden glow of a young sun combined with the energy of thanking goodness it was Friday to create an impenetrable optimistic mood that uplifted everyone who came in contact with the wall of human power.

Human power, Navi smirked cynically as the thought crossed her mind. I wonder why they have not banned that yet.

The walk to Kingcorp took less than twenty minutes, and she quickly found herself at the grand doors again, passing the eerily lifelike robot at the entrance and greeting the equally unnatural receptionist at the same post as before.

"Good morning, and welcome to Kingcorp," she pleasantly greeted. Her eyes seemed to bore holes into Navi's forehead, and she had the strange, vulnerable feeling of being scanned. "Please let me know if I can assist you with anything today."

"Ah… good morning," Navi lightly scratched the back of her neck. "I have an appointment with Robert King at eight o'clock this morning."

"And what is your name?" the receptionist asked.

Navi felt her heart leap into her throat. He wouldn't….

"What is your name?" the receptionist repeated in an identical tone. It became painfully obvious that her voice chip was much more limited than most other robots she had come across.

And the woman could only straighten up, crossing her fingers tightly in prayer. "My name is Jane Matthews," she stiffly answered.

"Jane Matthews," said the receptionist, cocking her head to the side. "Override for - confidential information. Good morning. Welcome to Kingcorp. The time is - seven forty two on Friday, November twelfth. Robert King is expecting you at - eight o'clock AM. He will be expecting you on the - fiftieth floor, Robert King's private lesson studio. Thank you for your patronage and have a wonderful day."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Navi smiled beside herself and clasped her hands in front of her body, gratefully bowing in the robot's direction. "Thank you so much," she replied before hurrying past the desk to the elevators down the luxurious hall.

As she stood on the elevator, she toyed with the edge of the gauze tightly wrapped around her head. Everything in her itched to remove it now that she was in safe territory.

"But it might be more of an impact to leave it on," she mused, lightly tapping the heel of her oxford against the rich mahogany interior of the elevator. "To show him how oppressed we are… I am sure I can remain patient for five more minutes…."

The elevator ride was considerably shorter than her estimate and she found herself stepping out into a long hall lined with glass doors. As she passed each door, she craned her neck to peer inside. Each room resembled a highly functional college classroom, with dry erase white boards lining each interior wall, with floor to ceiling windows gracing each outer wall. Each seemed equipped for a different purpose - one had a bookshelf crammed with every book on mathematics one could imagine (Navi smirked to herself, recognizing over three quarters of the collection as books she read at one point in her life). Another room held various musical instruments, including and featuring a full size grand piano that all but sparkled in the morning light. She raised her eyebrows as she passed three fully stocked laboratories with shelves of strange chemicals whose names she couldn't read from that distance. Bright red and yellow biohazard signs emblazoned across most of the vials piqued her curiosity, and she made a mental note to ask either King when she had the opportunity.

Navi paused at one of the farthest rooms on the left, noticing Robert King by himself in a spotless navy blue uniform sitting at one of the desks. The room itself seemed relatively neutral compared to the rest - a bookshelf against the wall held some history books, and the dry erase board showed no signs of use.

She knocked on the door to grab the child's attention before twisting the metal handle and entering with a small smile. "Good morning, Robert."

Robert gave the woman a strange look. "-Miss Navi?" he asked quietly.

"That would be me," she replied, feeling her smile growing wider as her head's shock value seemed to be doing its job well. She shut the door behind her and took a seat on the surface of one of the desks, perching herself comfortably a few feet away from Robert. "How are you doing this morning?"

"I-I'm doing fine," he stammered, keeping his eyes locked on her bandages. "How… are you?"

"Oh, I am doing quite well, thank you." She kept her smirk restrained as best she could, tilting her head to the side. "Your studies have been going well?"

"Ah… yeah. Yeah, they're going really well…."

"If I may ask, what time is your next lesson? I certainly do not want to run too late and have you miss your next class. Your education is very important, after all."

Robert lowered his eyes to hers, staring at her with a completely dumbfounded expression. "I have… chemistry at nine o'clock," he cautiously replied.

She raised her eyebrows at his strange behavior, feigning ignorance. "You seem tense. Is something the matter?"

The child clammed up, straightening up and shaking his head vigorously. "I-I'm sorry for staring, Miss Navi!" he exclaimed. "I won't do it again, I promise!"

Navi chuckled. She may not be fond of kids, but his awkward embarrassment was kind of cute. "First off, you do not have to call me Miss Navi. My name is fine on its own. Second, you do not need to apologize for staring. You are not the first and you will not be the last." She reached up, brushing her fingertips against the gauze. "I suppose you are curious about this. Well, let me test your knowledge and skill with guessing. What do you believe this is?"

Now that he had permission, Robert squinted at the bandages. She could almost see the gears turning in his head as he slowly spoke through his thought train. "Bandages are necessary for keeping pressure on a wound and stopping bleeding… but that amount would probably only be used after… surgery? Did you have surgery on your head yesterday?"

She folded her arms across her body. "First off, you are correct and well taught in first aid. However, I did not have surgery." Navi tugged at the edge of the gauze, letting the bandages unravel themselves with gravity as their guide to the carpet below. A minute or so of pulling pins from the thin white fabric revealed the wig cap to the confused child, whose expression only grew more puzzled as she let her matted mint hair tumble back down around her newly liberated pointed ears.

"…then what's the bandages for, if there's nothing wrong with your head?" Robert asked quietly.

Navi's expression hardened. "My own protection," she simply stated.

This didn't seem to appease the child's curiosity. "…from what?"

"Everything," she replied in the same tone. "You must understand, you are one of approximately ten people who know of my existence in this city. In fact, let me count for you." She held up her fingers as she tallied them off. "Both of my sisters, you and your father, presumably your mother too. A former employee of your father's, and my sisters' lovers. That makes… eight people. Nine including myself. That would be nine people out of a city and its metropolitan area of ten million people who know of my existence."

Robert straightened up a bit with context on the table - his expression told Navi that he was honored to have that kind of privileged knowledge.

"So… why don't that many people know?" he ventured softly, his tone all but dripping with curiosity.

"Because if the wrong people knew, I would be thrown in prison," the woman flatly responded.

Robert's face paled a bit as he thought back to the last time they met. "…because you killed someone," he breathed with an apprehensive edge to his voice.

Navi bit her lip. He was right, of course, but to admit to that would send the conversation in the wrong direction, and she simply did not have the patience to deal with that argument for the third time in forty eight hours. "I… already served my time," she responded in a decisive enough tone to satisfy (and confuse) the child sitting across from her. It wasn't exactly a lie, as she did serve time for a murder in the past. To pick and choose which murder that punishment applied to, however, made her quite uncomfortable, and she quickly changed the subject. "I would actually be thrown in prison because I am a powered citizen, and nothing more."

Robert shook his head. "Nuh-uh," he protested. "People who have powers get the cure-"

"And those who are unaffected by the 'cure' are thrown in prison," Navi sternly finished his sentence, prompting the child to sit quietly and listen. "You must understand, the laws changed a couple of years before you were born, therefore you would not remember how colorful this world was when powered citizens were allowed to freely walk the streets of the city. People have taken these laws to the illogical extreme, banning anything that does not remotely resemble the average human. How many green haired women do you see walking down the streets of Sega City?"

Robert shook his head. "You're the first person I've seen that's not in pictures," he admitted.

Navi folded her arms, glancing toward the window in thought. "And what would you say to a person you encountered on the street with green hair, or something similar?"

The child shrugged, lowering his eyes to the blank notebook on his desk; he didn't seem to grasp the concept of her questions, and nothing she said seemed to be noteworthy.

She sighed out and sank down a bit. "Perhaps I am following a difficult line of questioning," she finally stated. "What are your thoughts on powered citizens in general?"

"I… think they're cool," Robert cautiously answered, shuffling a bit in his seat. "I know my dad really likes them, I hear him talking about them all the time, and he used to have a lot of newspapers with them in it. But they sound dangerous…. Some of the things they do are… kind of scary, actually."

It was an acceptable answer and Navi nodded in response. "We can work with that," she concluded, gripping either side of the desk she sat upon and reworking her persuasive argument from there.

42,124/50,000 - Yes, I totally added like three words to make this a nice even....palindrome. XD

---

"My dad says they can do some really bad things," Robert continued, lightly tapping his heels against the aluminum supports on the desk. "He said one time a girl made her friends and classmates stop breathing in the middle of class with her mind."

She shook her head slowly. "It is the same argument that many people use to advertise the dangers of firearms and other weapons. Let me make this very clear to you, Robert. Powers do not hurt people."

The child stared at Navi as if she had grown a second head.

"Powers do not hurt people. People hurt people," Navi clarified, sitting up a bit straighter on her perch on the desk. "People make dangerous decisions and use their abilities as a weapon to follow through on their terrible acts, just as one would hide behind a gun or a knife to emphasize their point. Let me reassure you, these people are the ones that need to be sent to prison."

Robert recoiled a bit in his chair. "…but that makes them bad people, doesn't it?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Under that logic, policemen would be considered bad people for carrying guns for the city's protection."

He didn't seem to have an argument for that - Navi took that as a sign to keep going. "There are many people who possess firearms and other weapons, but they have been trained in how to use them, and they their own judgment in using them effectively for their protection.

"Powers and special abilities work in the same way," she adjusted in her seat, toying with a stray piece of gauze that lay a few inches away from her hand. "Thanks to your father's research, we understand the hereditary aspect of power manifestation, however there are always exceptions and what he calls 'wild card abilities'. For example, the superhero Electrawoman was an ordinary girl walking home from school in a thunderstorm. Lightning struck a power line as she passed underneath, and the resulting charge in the air permanently affected her body. She became her own superconductor, and used her abilities for the greater good. Due to the ban of powered citizens, she moved out of Sega City to work on the Empowered Citizen Division of another city's police force, active in powered citizen rights."

Robert scribbled down word after word of her story, and the look in his eyes told Navi she was on the right track working with the kid.

"The point I am trying to make is that not all powers are hereditary, but those people learn to adapt and most use them for the benefit of others," the green haired woman added, letting the gauze fall from her hands down to the pile where the rest of the white bandages and their bobby pin spouses lay. "In fact, that is a good way to move to my next point. What would you do with your abilities, if you manifest one day?"

The child pressed the head of the pencil to his lower lip, turning his face toward the ceiling in thought. "I'd want to help people, like dad does," he decided with a smile.

"What kind of power do you believe you would have?" Navi smiled - she found the child's imagination to be intriguing enough to indulge, and if nothing else, it passed time to his next lesson in case she ran out of ad libbing material.

"I dunno," Robert tilted his head, letting his pencil wander on the paper in light, swirling lines at the margin. "I think it'd be kind of cool to fly…."

"You would find that over two thirds of people asked that same question gave that same answer," Navi replied. "It is one of the most common abilities people fantasize about, to the point where there is an entire subsection of psychology and dreams dedicated to the concept of flying and falling through the human subconscious."

When she earned nothing more than a blank stare in response, she shook her head. "But I am drifting onto unimportant topics. What is most important here is you said you would choose a relatively harmless ability and even with that, you still believe you would do great things to benefit humankind. If you go out of your way to make the world a better place through your actions with your power at your side, would that make you a bad person?"

"…not really," Robert admitted, turning his eyes to the window.

"Then why would other people having abilities and making the world a better place turn them into bad, dangerous people?"

This time, Robert had no answer at all and fell into a meek silence, completely averting his eyes from the green haired woman beside him. Navi couldn't help feeling a bit of pity for the child, having to deal with such heavy topics well beyond his years. Still, she mused, they are never too young to learn the truth.

"There are many people who share our mentality," she finally broke the silence, speaking in a more gentle tone than before. "Who genuinely want to do well with the tools they are given. But it becomes unpredictable and frightening when people who don't mean well are given the tools to do destructive things for no other reason than to prove a point, or perhaps exact revenge on people who crossed them in the past. They are the people who would go to prison, just as a person without abilities would.

"Your father falls in an interesting category, where he meant well in his studies and wanted to further research in untapped territory, though many would see his involvement as… inhumane."

The child's head perked up a bit at the mention of Ethan. "What do you mean?"

Navi raised her eyebrows at the child. "I beg your pardon?" she repeated. "Your father never told you about his involvement?"

"I know my dad studies powered citizens all the time," Robert quietly answered. "But he's always so benevolent about it."

She had to admit a nine year old's proper usage of the word benevolent was pretty awesome. But even that couldn't overlook his ignorance on the subject at hand, and she could feel frustration nipping at her heels again. "Your father was not always benevolent, Robert," she began. "He may be doing good things now, but to say he was always so kind and generous would be an outright lie, and to say he never hurt anyone in the process even moreso-"

"Don't say things like that about my dad!" Robert blurted out, startling Navi nearly off of her perch on the desk. "He's a good person! He never hurt anyone!"

The frustration built upon the kindling of denial stoked the fire whose smoke burned her eyes, coursing through her very soul. Ethan never told him, and he expects me to educate this child while simply glossing over his father's involvement to preserve that patron saint mirage he planted in his son's mind? She pinched the bridge of her nose, speaking in a low, controlled tone, "If you wish to learn about powered citizens and their history, you must understand your father involved himself in very morally grey territory in order to gather the information we have today."

"But that doesn't make him inhumane," Robert continued to protest, interrupted only by Navi's fist slamming against the solid plastic surface of the desk she sat upon.

"You will not get anywhere if you continue to ignore the facts presented to you," the green haired woman huffed as her inner thoughts desperately fought the fire building in her body. "Will you open your mind and consider the idea that perhaps your father is not as saintly as you believe he is?"

Robert tugged on his sleeve, glancing back toward the notebook with a reluctant expression.

She sighed heavily. It was no use - she officially lost the attention of the child across from her. With one swift move, she scooped up the pile of pins and bandages from the ground and shook her head slowly. "You will proceed to your next lesson, I… I am finished for today."

With that, she spun on her heel and abandoned the room in pursuit of the elevator at the end of the hall. She could feel the short leash on her temper weakening with each step, and it took all of her strength to keep it under control while she waited for the suspended car to make its way to the fiftieth floor. It didn't take long at all, and she soon found herself staring at the panel of standard buttons found on any elevator.

Navi frowned. There seemed to be only one destination button, and that led straight to the bottom floor, where Ethan was almost guaranteed not to be. A quick scan had her pressing the intercom button reserved "for emergencies only".

The tiny LED light beside it blinked red, and a small crackling from the overhead speakers had Navi's ears perking up. "Emergency service," came a pleasant female voice not unlike the one she heard in the front lobby. "Please explain the situation."

Navi leaned in toward the receiver, speaking in a loud and clear tone. "I wish to speak with Ethan King."

"What is the issue?" the friendly voice chirped.

"It is regarding his son, Robert King. He is fine," the woman quickly added. "He is safe and headed to his next lesson. However, I wish to speak with King regarding his… progress."

There was a slight pause on the other end as the person processed the information Navi fed to her. "Ethan King is in an appointment right now, and will be not be available until one o'clock-"

"Is his business really more important than his son and his education?" Navi snapped, rapidly losing patience for what she assumed was artificial intelligence on the other end of the line. "If you wish to tell me that, then I will leave this place, taking Robert with me in order to get him the education and care he deserves."

Another slight pause brought goosebumps to the back of Navi's neck. "One moment please," the voice answered in a more human tone than the woman expected. The crackling faded, and Navi found herself shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, hoping her threat wasn't taken too seriously. After all, the elevator music could easily mask the sound of a call to the police.

She felt her stomach tighten in an icy knot as memories flooded through her mind of being arrested nearly twenty years ago. Standing in the middle of the hall of the minimum security wing at the Empowered Citizen Facility, visibly upset upon seeing how the facility treated the prisoners. Watching drip after drip from a bag of clear liquid on an IV attached to the shell of a person contained in a full body straitjacket, curled up on their side on the floor of their cell. She couldn't even tell if they were sleeping or awake from the way their eyelids hung loosely against their glazed eyes. Feeling the ground shudder beneath her feet, pulling that psychologist chaperone of hers closer as the pristine tile floors cracked under their shoes. Seeing the fear and loathing in his eyes as he watched the dangerous woman who shielded him from her destruction… watching guards and nurses hurry through the halls, shrieking and shouting as they found the epicenter of the unnatural earthquake that threatened the very foundation of the facility. Even through all this, it was her own lack of energy that broke her concentration… feeling that stinging pain of falling to her knees, combined with the sharp stab of no less than five tranquilizer darts from the guards too terrified to approach her…

…feeling the world fade from her sight as she fought uselessly against the four or five pairs of hands that pinned her to the ground… hearing the alarms wailing, ringing, echoing in her flattened ears as the darts quickly stole her consciousness….

Navi swallowed hard, wrapping her arms tightly around her body and letting her panicked eyes dart across the mahogany interior of the elevator. A loud crackling in the speakers had the woman nearly leap out of her skin as she turned back to the receiver. "…hello?" she asked cautiously.

"This is Ethan King," that familiar voice sternly replied from the other end. "I trust this is important?"

She squeezed her eyes shut in relief. "More important than you realize. I insist we meet in your office to speak, as an elevator with who knows how much space between us is not exactly the best way to hold a conversation about your son's lessons."

45,679/50,000 - My next post will be the last segment to this story, as all the storylines are brought to a close. Any loose ends you may find are probably going to be resolved in Craig's story. Also, many apologies as this part is probably the worst segment I have ever written in terms of grammar and word choice FAILs. Feel free to mock particularly terrible exchanges.

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The elevator hung suspended on that fiftieth floor as he mulled over her words, leaving her only silence to impatiently deal with in the meantime. The paranoia of being dropped to the bottom floor to deal with police, combined with the claustrophobic walls of that mahogany room sent another shiver up her spine, gripping the brass railing with white knuckled hands. After what felt like hours of indecisive silence, the car lurched, beginning its ascent three floors higher, and it took all the woman's strength to keep on her feet in the meantime.

The doors slid open, inviting Navi back into that grand two story office where Ethan King stood with folded arms, watching her with hawk like eyes.

"And this absolutely could not wait?" he spoke, holding his head high above hers.

"My sister Cari is a grade school teacher," Navi began, having composed herself on the elevator car. She took a few assertive steps closer. "While she does not have children herself, she has seen numerous occasions where a child needs to be removed from a classroom due to illness or familial emergency."

"And what does this have to do with our current situation-"

"I say this because she notifies the child's parents, and nine times out of ten, the parent stops everything they are doing to retrieve the child, as they will do anything to protect them. And in that one other instance where a parent is unavailable, there are always other family members or trusted friends the administration will allow the child to return to." Navi shook her head slowly, raising her eyes to Ethan's. "And I am appalled to hear that the great Ethan King, role model of role models, needs to be threatened in order to pull him from business to tend to his child's well being."

He brushed a bit of dust from his lapels and gestured for her to sit, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side at her monologue. "And where did you hear this?" he asked. Was that a tiny smirk at the edge of his mouth?

Navi didn't seem amused, and she certainly wouldn't sit down, putting herself further below him. "I heard it from your emergency services contact in the elevator who, when I asked to speak with you about your son, said you would be unavailable for four hours. What if he found himself injured?" She felt her voice raising beyond her control, surprising even herself with how upset she was becoming. "Would you still be unavailable then?"

"Now let's just sit and calmly talk through this," Ethan sternly interrupted, clearly ruffled by her out of the blue criticism. Seeing as she would not take the initiative, he lowered himself to the edge of the round sofa.

Navi reluctantly obliged, ears flattened against her head.

"First off, I want to know who the hell you think you are," he spoke, leaning forward and resting his elbows against his knees, "coming in here and criticizing the way I raise my son."

"Perhaps it would be in your best interest to inquire about your son instead my opinion of you raising him," Navi snapped in return.

He straightened up, narrowing his eyebrows. "Very well," he huffed out. "How did your first tutoring session go?"

"It went well enough to a point," she admitted, lightly bobbing her head to the side. "However, your son's ignorance on the subject shone bright as day, and his closed mind did not help at all. I also noticed a glaring omission in what you may or may not have been teaching him regarding powered citizen history in this city."

"And that would be?" Ethan asked curiously.

Navi stared at him. "Your involvement."

Ethan raised his eyebrows, sitting back a bit in his seat. When he had nothing to say, the green haired woman continued, "Your son refused to listen when I attempted to explain how you are not as saintly and benevolent as he seems to think you are. When I tried to tell him of your exploitation of powered citizens for the greater good, he insisted that you would never do anything of the sort, arguing until he was blue in the face. I could not tolerate his closed minded ignorance, which is why we are here, and he is still three stories below, waiting for his next lesson and trying not to imagine that his father is anything but a savior to humanity.

"And so I ask, Ethan King," Navi folded her arms across her body, staring at him with accusing violet eyes. "What have you been hiding from your own flesh and blood?"

"…I have not been hiding anything," Ethan finally spoke in a low tone. "I… it never came up, and even if it did, I don't believe he is old enough to handle the truth just yet."

"And when will he be old enough?" Navi insisted, shaking the hair out of her face. "You seem to believe he is old enough to learn of the deaths and murders that have occurred because of your involvement, yet you keep it so cleverly veiled from his sights. I believe he is not only old enough, but as the heir to the Kingcorp throne that you insist on teaching at his tender age? He deserves to know the truth behind your involvement. In fact, I might go so far as to say you started the conflict in your desire to understand powered citizens!" She tapped her fingers against her opposite palm, as if emphasizing her point.

"And so I ask again, who the hell are you to say when my son is mature enough to learn what you think is best?" Ethan scowled, his kind demeanor and professional tone rapidly fading from his posture and voice.

"I don't know, you were the one who pulled me off the street asking me to teach him these things for your benefit!" Navi bitterly retorted.

Ethan glared at the woman. "I believe this meeting's over," he spoke quietly. Each word carried with it a vague, looming threat of one who had been backed into a corner with few defenses left.

"This meeting has barely begun, and I will not allow you to simply cast me aside after I have gone out of my way, risking my identity and life, and consequently the lives of my sisters, all for you and your son!"

"And I'm not going to sit here and listen to you lecture me on how to raise my son-"

"How can I lecture you on how you raise your son when you do not even take your own initiative and raise him yourself?" Navi all but shouted, gripping either side of the sofa cushion to keep her from literally flying at him with hands balled into fists. "He has private tutors cram information in his head and keep him occupied for the greater portion of every day, a private chef feeding him, and who knows how many other unrelated people pampering and nurturing him day in and day out!

"And what does his father do all day?" she continued on her rant in an icy tone. "Go to conventions and hold panels on how to advance in the business world? Spend hours at a time in otherwise uninterrupted meetings? Only stepping out of his luxurious office to sign the checks to Robert's tutors?"

The man sat back in his chair, narrowing his dark eyes at her. A lack of argument seemed to shut his mouth for the time being, and without a decent retort, all he could do was glare at her in contempt for her nerve.

"If you respect him," the woman offered in a quieter voice, "you will tell him everything you did all those years ago."

"That's an excellent way to break the trust between us," Ethan sneered in response.

"Better to break it yourself than to have it happen through the mouth of someone else," Navi replied, rising to her feet. "If you will excuse me, I need to speak with your son, and since the elevator will not allow me to make the fiftieth floor my destination, I will take the stairs. There are stairs here, aren't there? I would imagine even you could not work around fire codes and safety hazards-"

Ethan breathed a heavy, aggravated sigh. "-wait," he called out to her. "Navi… come over here…."

Navi stood facing the opposite wall, gripping the tangle of bandages and pins in her hands. Her heels firmly rooted into the ground and her flicking ear was the only sign he saw that she actually considered his reply.

"Please," he added, controlling the exasperation in his voice.

"Will we be able to engage in civilized, intelligent conversation?" Navi asked without even glancing over.

The man glanced down at the knees of his expensive pants and shook his head slowly. "I suppose if that's the way we must do things."

"…as you wish."

The green haired woman spun on her heel and paced back to the sofa, a slight bounce in her step at having succeeded in turning a King to her way of thinking.

Ethan sighed, his head limply hanging from his shoulders. "I can't tell him," he sheepishly admitted, clenching his fists at his sides. "I wouldn't even know where to begin, and if he lost respect…."

"Perhaps you should start from the beginning. I find that is where the most intelligent discussions begin."

The look of pained discomfort in Ethan's face prompted Navi to straighten up in her seat. "Wherever you begin, be sure to explain your motivations behind your actions. If your actions are justified in your mind, then he will likely have an easier time digesting the information, no matter how terrible it is to initially swallow."

"Also," she continued, leaning forward with a more tender expression, "keep in mind that your actions gave us all important knowledge, such as where and how abilities develop, no matter how many people you hurt to get to that knowledge. One must break a few eggs to make an omelette, of course."

He gave a fatigued sigh. He knew she was right in both accounts, but that didn't necessarily make it right… and coming from her, he kept his eyes averted to the coffee table between them.

"You are a great man," Navi softly added with a smile. "You have done so many great things for the city, you have helped so many people and inspired countless others, provided funding for research, development, manufacturing, and… justice. If you wish to condense it down to two examples, I insist you first tell him about Amberleigh Andersen, as she not only used her abilities for the benefit of all, but provided inspiration when everyone had all but given up hope… and continued working under a different guise once the new laws passed. Her death will not have been in vain if her legacy lives on in that respect… however, you must understand, this war is not made up of only positive individuals, and I… I insist you tell him… about…."

Her voice broke off, and she lowered her own eyes to the floor. Her fingers teased the edges of the gauze once again, fidgeting to fill the blank space her silence created.

Ethan nodded in understanding, raising his eyes to gauge her expression. "Matthew?" he suggested.

One quick glance of her violet eyes before returning them to the hard carpet beneath them told him his assumption was correct, and he shook his head slowly. Neither seemed willing to break the silence, yet both of them knew there were many words they needed to get off their chests.

Ethan decided to take the initiative. "…I'm sorry," was all he could manage. It wasn't much, but it was better than leaving her to only guess his thoughts.

"He did many terrible things," Navi mumbled. "Your apologies are not necessary."

The two of them sat in awkward silence once again as both fumbled for something appropriate to say, keeping the words in a constant revision phase yet never making their way out of their mouths.

Navi shook her head after several moments of staring at her hands. "You and I both know his death was for the best. He would have hurt so many more people if I allowed him to live."

"…but you loved him," Ethan folded his arms across his body.

Navi's face blanched, and she drew her arms in close. "…I did."

"Let me ask you something," the man inquired, lowering his eyes to the golden band around his finger. "Knowing how dangerous he was, how many people he hurt… how could you find it in yourself to love him?"

"The same way you know how dangerous I am and how many people I hurt, yet you still find it in yourself to have conversations with me in your office, maintaining enough respect for me to keep your hands from dialing for the police, knowing full well they still want me imprisoned."

He couldn't argue with that, and he sank back in his seat.

Navi finally raised her eyes to the man sitting across from her, her glare darkening. "Just as I can find it in myself to respect you and consider you a friend after you tested on innocent, well meaning people, driving them to the brink of insanity if they did not die during your tests."

Ethan huffed, avoiding her piercing, accusing gaze. "You've been bottling this up for years, haven't you."

Navi felt a lump hardening in her throat, but even it could not censor the words that began freely flowing from her mouth. "You kidnapped them… you pulled them from the streets and injected them with who knows what… and your one success had even more adverse effects than you probably imagined."

"I had no idea his body and mind would react like that," the man admitted, feeling his own voice catch in his throat.

"Because instead of holding voluntary testing where people would submit waivers and fill out forms detailing what medical problems they may or may not have, you kidnapped them, capturing them and locking them up in an underground facility!"

Navi felt her voice rising beyond her control, and Ethan made no attempt to silence her. "And when he tried to kill himself not once, but twice after your tests which drove him to the edge of insanity, you deemed him a failure and went to furthering your experiments on innocent children, kidnapping them from schools just to see how their abilities affected their health!"

Tears stung the edges of her eyes and she had to shut them tightly to prevent any from escaping. "And then he discovered you had given him the ability to absorb abilities through the bloodstream… and that really drove him over the edge… stealing blood from anyone he could get his hands on to absorb their memories and abilities because of the injection you gave him, killing over a third of the Sega City police force simply because they stood in his way…."

"…and you still loved him…."

"He was still a man underneath it all," Navi sniffled, feeling her shoulders trembling under the weight of their words. "He still had a heart and a soul, no matter how many people he hurt and killed… he provided me with a listening ear when nobody else was there, and he loved me when my heart was aching from constant rejection…."

Navi bit her lip, sinking down in her seat. "…but even his love for me was not enough to pull him from his addiction…."

Ethan scratched the back of his neck, averting his eyes once again. Even the threat of death would not be able to bring them back up to the woman across from him.

"…please, Ethan. I beg of you. You must educate your son. You must not allow history to repeat itself when you are gone and cannot guide him in the right direction." She wrung her hands together, as if the pressure put on her fingers would alleviate the pressure built up for years. "And when you have taught him everything you know, I want you to give me a call. I will then come back… and finish my part in this. This generation has done too much damage. Promise me you will think of the future."

He took a deep breath and let it out in a hissing sigh.

"I promise."

Nearly eighteen years have passed since the day I freed Matthew's spirit from this world.

Underneath the addiction that seized his mind, and the violent abilities that wrote themselves into his muscle memory, a sensitive man with a brilliant mind fell in love with me. He opened his soul to me and I did everything I could to soothe it. I knew his guilt and remorse, and he knew my desire for attention and reciprocated affection. We nurtured each other as two fractured souls that somehow fit together, like missing pieces from two separate puzzles.

And I loved him, in a way I never imagined I would ever love another person.

There was a warmth, a tenderness about him that only I could apparently see. Even now, I can still clearly remember the way his arms held me when my heart ached. He was not the type of man who would stroke your hair and whisper kind words in your ear when you were feeling upset. He would go through everything logically with firm words and even more stern tone, and he would not hesitate to call you out and ignore you if pity was all you wanted out of him. He would never indulge a pity party. But he would always hold me close, to the point where I could put myself in his hands at any time and trust him to take care of me like one would take care of a baby bird.

And I loved him.

Underneath that tenderness and warmth lay a temper that burned hotter than my own. Interspersed with my memories of his gentle arms, I can also clearly remember many long, unendurable nights of violent passion, where his rage roughly translated to love, and creating it usually ended in more tears than he or I cared to count. That is not to say he ever assaulted me, or abused me, certainly not. I would never have stood for that. But he did have a tendency to let his frustration fuel his actions and used our love as an outlet for his irrational rage toward the people who wronged him.

And I loved him.

His love for me was apparently not enough to quell the hatred for the man who drove him to the edge of insanity. And when he showed no signs of improving his condition, I took matters into my own hands.

It was my first murder. It would not be the last.

His death is noteworthy, however, in that it was the only selfless murder I committed, and I cannot see myself putting myself in that position again. That would require me to fall in love, and at this point in time, you and I both understand that is completely out of the question.

51,573. @_____@ I CAN HAVE MY LIFE BACK.

---

The morning air was deceptively cold as the sun brilliantly sparkled off of every surface in the city. Not a single cloud traversed the bright blue sky, and even the early winter shadows hanging low at peoples' feet didn't seem quite so long or dark. Navi felt the remains of bitter tears freezing at the edges of her eyes as she paced out of the grand front doors at the entrance to Kingcorp. Even the brightness of the atmosphere couldn't lift the heavy thoughts that weighed across her tired shoulders.

"I made him promise," she whispered under her breath, which fogged in front of her and trailed behind in a light cloud as she continued walking. "I made him promise to tell his son… and he should follow through, shouldn't he? I mean, he is a King, after all. He should know better than to make promises he knows he cannot fulfill. And I could trust him in the past, I trusted him today. I should be able to trust him in the future."

A sinking feeling hung in the pit of her stomach as her mind continued wandering as she did aimlessly down the streets of Sega City. "That's right… I made a promise, too…" she mumbled, her fingers brushing against the phone that rested peacefully in the pocket of her blazer. "Amanda is expecting me to tell her everything…."

Or, perhaps not expecting - the conditions of the promise only said to take care of all of her own personal problems before calling to returning to work. Navi groaned, pressing her palm against her once again bandaged head. But I would be a terrible friend if I were to continue to deny her at this point….

Her gaze traveled to the cars that slowed to a halt at a traffic light. But am I really ready to reveal to the world that Jane Matthews is actually a powered refugee trying to make a living in that world that no longer accepts anything different from the norm? She huffed out as she pressed forward, following the crowd across a busy intersection. It was a difficult decision - after all, Ethan King and Irvine both met and knew Navi, and Jane Matthews was her way of dealing with the new laws. Everyone else, including Amanda, only knew the skilled waitress of a woman recovering from head trauma. Revealing her true identity to them would basically be admitting to lying on her application, then to the face of her manager and all of the patrons that come through the diner day after day.

She shook her head slowly. It wasn't even possible to decide whether Navi or Jane was easier to maintain.

Jane came with her own set of problems. Knowing you're lying day in and day out, where one tiny slip up could unravel your entire life… that knowledge is more than a little stressful to handle. But there was still something delicate and simple about going to work, making conversation, doing your job for your pay, then going back home. It wasn't exciting, certainly not life changing, but it was rewarding in its own right. Getting a great tip was an achievement, and a compliment to the manager worth more than money could buy.

But knowing that it's all just a persona, a façade masking the Goddess of Courage underneath… She had to admit, being a Goddess was a rough job in a world full of normal people who didn't seem to understand the amount of personal sacrifice involved in making sure they remained safe in their normal lives. It was like being a member of a tech crew in the theater of life, where if they're doing their job effectively, nobody even notices they're there. There are few rewards when you're the highest in the hierarchy… and when there are few rewards, there's little motivation to do a good job…

She glanced up after a few minutes of walking. Years of traversing the same path day after day unconsciously had her standing in front of that hole in the wall diner.

A small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. Jane was never that exciting. She always walked to work, worked, then walked straight home. Jane would never indulge in personal conversation regarding herself. Jane was always so… artificial. So perfect. So fake. It might have been necessary, but that didn't stop it from feeling so… unsatisfying.

Her smile widened as she straightened up. There was something warm in the knowledge that not even Goddesses are perfect. And there was certainly something rewarding in walking out of the house, knowing who you are, what you are, and feeling proud of that fact.

And when you are honest with yourself, and proud to be who you are… being somebody else will never feel satisfying.

With that resolve, Navi pushed her way through the double doors of the establishment, stepping up to the nearest server on duty and bowing politely. "Good afternoon. I wish to speak with Amanda."

"You what?!"

The blonde haired manager gaped at the woman who perched on the filing cabinet as she always did when speaking in the office.

"I do not feel as if I need to repeat myself, as I know you heard me the first time. However, if you insist… I quit."

"Quit?! But… but why?!" Amanda spluttered, shaking her head in disbelief.

"You must understand it was not an easy decision for me, however I believe it is for the best, for my sake and for yours."

"Are you sure this isn't just stress doing the talking for you? Oh, Jane-" the manager all but wailed. "Is this about the suspension I gave you? You know I'm not mad about what happened! And I told you you can come back when everything's all right-"

"Everything is all right." She offered a smile. "And I am speaking with a clear head. I am not quite sure what the future holds, however I am absolutely certain my future has nothing to do with this diner. That is not to say I dislike this place… as I just said, this was not an easy decision to make. I enjoyed my time here and I made several friends, two of which I can consider close. One of which would be yourself."

"Jane…" Amanda breathed a sigh. Was that her voice cracking a bit? "Are you absolutely sure? Do you have another job lined up or something?"

"You could say that," she replied. "I ask that you please do not feel upset with me for this-"

"But you're one of my best friends!" the blonde haired woman whined.

It was hardly a professional display, and certainly not behavior one would expect from a manager. At the same time, she couldn't exactly blame Amanda for her reaction to the sudden news. She took the woman's hands in her own and gave them a gentle squeeze. "I do this because I… made a promise to you that I am afraid I cannot keep."

"What promise was that?" Amanda sniffled.

"A few days ago, I promised I would explain my injury, and why I wear these bandages even though my injury occurred years ago." She averted her eyes, taking a deep breath in. "…however, to do that would compromise everything I have worked toward for the past several years. I hate to break that promise, however I made a similar promise to my family… and as much as it hurts to say this, I would rather compromise this friendship than put my family in danger."

"Jane, you're not making any sense- …are you absolutely sure you're all right?"

"My life makes more sense now than it ever has before," the woman interrupted with a stern tone. "I am sorry things had to end this way. However, I am also grateful for all of the times we have shared and the opportunities you have given to me. You helped make these past several years worthwhile. I will never forget your kindness.

"I must also apologize…" she continued, lightly tugging on the sleeve of her blazer. "If you would prefer to fire me instead of me quitting, I will tell you outright that I lied on my application. I cannot tell you where I lied, or what it is I lied about. However there are several glaring errors that cannot be overlooked."

"…lied…?" the manager breathed out, her shrinkwrapped eyes widening as her muted shock switched to horrified confusion.

She nodded solemnly. "I despise liars, and it is hypocritical of me to continue lying day after day to you and everyone else."

"But- Jane, I don't understand! You're not making any sense and you're not telling me anything, except that you're quitting and everything's making sense to you!" Amanda felt her voice raise beyond her control, and her peppy attitude slowly shifted to reluctant anger. "But what about me? I thought we were friends! Are you really just gonna throw that away for everything that makes sense to you? Never mind throwing away your job and all the respect you've earned here over the years!"

The words had the waitress sink back a bit as she clutched her sleeve tighter than before. "…I already said I am sorry…."

"Jane, that's not the point! I care about you, and honestly, I risk losing my own job by sitting here talking to you like this! My boss considers this 'fraternizing', never mind the fact we were friends before my promotion… and you're just throwing this away for some personal issues you're not even gonna share with a friend?"

Those words had her completely recoil back, shaking her head slowly. Amanda was right - she was taking a big risk, willing to compromise her job for the sake of her bandaged friend.

"…I suppose…" she began in a low tone, "…it would be cruel to leave you completely in the dark…. If you would be so kind as to make sure absolutely nobody has access to this room for the next fifteen minutes while I explain?"

"If you can promise me you'll start making some sense!" Amanda replied, a hint of exasperation teasing the edge of her voice.

"As long as you can promise me anything you hear or see will not be repeated to anyone."

"I promise," Amanda firmly nodded as she carefully made her way to the office door, securing the lock and pulling the shade down over the window into the room.

Time seemed to slow to a halt in that cramped little room as Navi carefully took down layer after layer of gauze wrapped tightly around her head for the second time that day. Each reveal felt like a larger burden off of her chest, and the liberation that followed each time seemed a little sweeter. There was no need for words. And with the few minutes of context, Amanda understood. She nodded slowly, taking a deep breath in and letting it out in a heavy exhale, breaking the silence that seemed to permeate the room.

"You're fired," was all she could say, patting her friend's hand with a gentle smile.

And Navi could only return the smile with a bigger one of her own. "Thank you for everything."

"You're welcome," Amanda replied, nodding down to the pile of bandages in her friend's lap. "Need any help putting that back on?"

A hint of pink teased her cheek bones and she shyly glanced away. "If you'd like. I have not had assistance for years…."

"Just tell me what to do. I'd be more than happy to help."

The green haired woman smiled brightly. "As you wish," were her only words.

The ex-waitress made her way out of the office and kitchen, giving a last nostalgic look around the place, breathing a heavy sigh. She would certainly miss working behind that counter, that stale smell of dried coffee filling her nostrils, replaced once or twice an hour by a freshly brewed pot… the familiar clattering of plate after plate in the window immediately behind her work space, hearing the shouting of the kitchen staff as they sang to keep their spirits up… watching patrons' eyebrows raise as the sounds often escaped the confines of the kitchen…. She had gotten the art of multitasking down to a science, watching over every section with a keen eye, accurately predicting refills and assisting her not so observant coworkers when they fell behind (and they did so very often). She would even miss their whining about this and that… how unprepared the drink area was, how nothing was ever completely stocked to their liking… how the guests would never give them enough money for their spectacular service….

She smiled as she leaned against the counter, lightly kicking the heel of her oxford against the adjacent barstool. More than anything else, she knew she would miss the guests… each familiar face who came in asking "where Jane is working today" and "can we sit in her section". She knew she would miss those smiles of the people she knew so well, she could get drinks down at their seats before they even sat down. She would miss the idle conversation, catching up with how their children were, how their own jobs were, how they fared in their personal projects, keeping up with so many other lives and maintaining the pretense of interest to earn their gratitude and, subsequently, their money. She wasn't sure if they would miss her because they actually cared, or because they knew she would provide them with the excellent service they came to expect.

As she raised her eyes from her thoughts, she gasped in.

She found herself looking straight at Logan, who stared back with a lopsided smile.

"Hey, Miss Waitress," he chirped, waving as best as he could with a crutch under his arm.

"-ah, good morning," she swallowed awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck. "How… are you doing today?"

"Oh, same old, same old." He made his way over, pulling himself up onto one of the bar stools next to her. "You?"

"I… am doing well enough," she admitted. Her face certainly didn't reflect her words, and the reality of actually leaving the establishment began to sink in.

"Hey, don't be like that," Logan spoke up. "You're not in uniform, and you always work Fridays. Something's up. Wanna talk about it? …I mean, I understand if you don't want to," he quickly added, running a hand through his mess of dishwater blonde hair. "I was kind of an ass the other day…."

"Kind of?" she couldn't help chuckling a bit. "You completely overstepped your boundaries and if my mind operated under any logic whatsoever, I would not hesitate to slap you across the face here and now."

"Eh, I'd deserve it," he shrugged, casting his eyes across the restaurant for a server on duty. "That Adam guy? Totally embarrassed by both of us. I swear to you his eyes didn't leave his coffee the entire time he was here after you left."

Her heart leaped into her throat. She'd completely forgotten about Adam. "…did he say anything? Please tell me someone took care of him after I left…."

"Oh yeah," Logan waved his hand casually. "One of your other server buddies jumped in and picked up your tables." He huffed impatiently as he sank back in his seat. "Come on, it doesn't take this long to get a drink when you're working. What the heck are the others doing?"

"Wasting time," the woman smirked. "Will you be having the same as usual?"

"You've got it," he grinned in return. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

"It's almost fitting that I get to do this one last time." Despite the lack of uniform, she made her way behind the counter and pulled out the tomato juice, whipping a glass out from behind her and setting it in front of him, pouring it before his eyes. "I was fired about fifteen minutes ago."

Logan brought his stool back down to all fours, the following clatter turning several heads. "Wait, what?!" he gaped. "They're seriously firing you for yesterday? I swear, if I need to bust some heads in and tell them it was all my fault-"

"Relax, it was a mutual decision!" she replied, filling a second glass with water.

Logan waved his arms frantically as he spluttered out, "That doesn't make it any better! Why… why are you leaving me here all by myself? You can't do this to me, Jane! If I knew this'd happen, I wouldn't have been such an ass!" And it was as if a light clicked on in his head, when he processed the words mutual decision… and he lowered his voice. "…wait… you don't mean… you were going to quit anyway?"

"It was a long and difficult decision." She stretched her arms up above her head as she leaned back in her own chair. "I have been offered a new job that allows me a bit more… freedom, if you will. You must understand that I was not happy working here… it is a very restricting position, and it is so difficult to maintain this demeanor day after day, putting on the same uniform in the same schedule with the same people…."

"…you mean, you didn't like me?" Logan's lip quivered, and she had a hard time telling whether it was forced or not.

"Oh, Logan… you've brought a smile to my face on so many occasions. There have been many days where I came to work solely to hear from you and your musical antics." She could feel the threat of tears stinging her eyes again, and she mustered up all of her strength keeping them restrained. "I will certainly miss you when I leave."

"Aw, come on! Don't give me that crap!" he pounded his fist against the counter. "How much do I have to apologize- …no, how much do I have to pay to keep you here? I swear, I'll pay it!" He dug his hand into his pocket. "It's not much, but I can earn more!"

She couldn't help laughing a bit. "Always the drama queen," she chuckled, shaking her bandaged head. "We may keep in touch, perhaps as friends instead of a regular patron at my place of work."

He grumbled, bringing his hand back to his tomato juice. "I guess we could do that…."

"Or perhaps I can make more of an effort to visit you at the Roundhouse," she mused, lightly kicking her heels against the stool. "I am not the only one with a job, after all."

"That sounds kind of nice, actually…" Logan's features brightened a bit. "Maybe you'll get to catch a glimpse of your blonde babe while you're there."

"Perhaps," she grinned, feeling much better for the way the conversation turned. "I may even get his autograph if he returns."

"I might be able to persuade you to get a kiss-"

"Now that would be going too far!" the woman laughed, a scarlet blush brightening across her face again, bringing a smile to the other man's face.

"Oh! Speaking of which," Logan thrust his hand into his pocket once again, earning the curiosity of the woman beside him. "That Adam guy told me to give you this before he left. He said he had to catch a train back home and couldn't hang around to see if you came back."

He pulled his hand back out, revealing a crumpled business card. The name "Adam Schroeder" stood out in bold letters from behind the unsightly wrinkles, and a hand penned phone number all but glowed underneath the name.

"He… gave me his phone number?" the woman stared at the card, gingerly taking it into her tiny hands.

"I told you he was totally into you," Logan grinned, seeming quite proud of himself for being the middle man passing on the message. "So when are you gonna give him a call?"

"…I think I will right now…."

"Well hey, you're not leaving here without a hug for your favorite guest," he chirped, opening his arms toward the woman, letting the crutches fall to the tiled ground, loudly clattering as they tumbled down.

She smirked as she wrapped her arms tightly around the man in a brief, but friendly embrace. "I suppose I can't."

"And hey, I'll be seeing you at the Roundhouse this weekend, right?"

"I will certainly make an effort to be there."

"Then I guess I can let you go make that call now." Logan released the petite woman with a salute. "Take care, Miss Waitress!"

A wide smile permeated itself across her face. "Have a good afternoon, Logan Stokes," she responded with a polite bow before pulling out her phone and hurrying out of the diner for the last time in a very long time.

Navi's fingers trembled as they fumbled for the buttons that matched the numbers scrawled across the business card - perhaps because of the blast of cold that greeted her out the door, but more likely out of uncharacteristic anxiety at actually calling someone other than her apartment or work, for personal reasons…. She took a deep, calming breath of air, trying to relax as she brought the speaker of her cell phone up to her mostly covered ear. Each buzzing ring that followed brought her nerves more discomfort. For being the Goddess of Courage, you are certainly getting yourself quite worked up over a silly phone call, she mentally slapped herself.

Even that mantra couldn't keep herself from lightly gasping in when that a male voice responded, "Adam Schroeder speaking."

"-Adam?" she choked out, before clearing her throat and reaffirming her tone in a more assertive manner. "This is… this is Jane, the waitress in Sega City."

"Oh!" the voice replied. It seemed he was also caught off guard. "I… wow, I didn't expect you to call back so soon… I take it you got my number from that-"

"My friend? Oh… yes… he said he apologizes for his actions, and I… I wanted to apologize for mine too."

"It's fine… say, are you… busy tomorrow?" She could tell he was fumbling for the right words to say based on his hesitation. "I mean, I wouldn't want that to be the last impression we leave on one another… er… right?"

"Oh, ah… certainly not. I am actually available… well, anytime you wish to meet up." She cleared her throat again and straightened up as she continued walking through the mass of human traffic. "Just tell me where and when. I will be there. In fact, if you are available this afternoon-"

"This afternoon would be perfect, actually!" he replied, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "I mean, if you can come out here, anyway… I have the afternoon off, but I won't be able to get to the city-"

"What train do I need to take?" she inquired, finding resolve easier to come across when he was the one floundering.

"-really? Oh… wow… um… if you're leaving Altair Station, five stops into the Rigel Line will take you to Northwood. There's a coffee shop right outside that station… I'll see you at… say, three o'clock or so?"

"Three o'clock will work perfectly." She turned her head toward the direction of the station, her heart pounding nearly out of her chest - she wondered if he might be able to hear it through the phone.

"Oh… okay, well I guess… I'll see you then."

"We will speak soon. Take care."

Navi snapped her phone shut and took off running toward the station. She couldn't even feel the biting cold air against her exposed ankles or her flushed cheeks. The mass of people around her didn't even matter. In fact, she couldn't even tell why she was so excited for this meeting. All I want to do is apologize in person… perhaps even shake his hand and wish him good luck. I do not want to lead him on or anything… but… the exhilaration is kind of nice. Perhaps this is what a first date feels like. She smirked at the idea. Even if I am not interested in that way….

Even at a sprint, the journey to the train station took a good half hour, and the wait for the Rigel Line gave her plenty of time to catch her breath and consider exactly what she would say to this man who seemed to expect a lot more from the meeting than she did. It did a good job of passing the two and a half hours which she was more than patient enough to sit through, with the thrill of the change of pace fueling her mood.

I am sure Lee would be proud of me, she mused as she boarded the train. Expanding my horizons and breaking routine for the sake of pursuing something wild and exciting.

The journey out of the city seemed less than eventful, watching the skyscrapers turn to smaller apartments, and watching the smaller apartments turn to blocks of bungalows in rows of neighborhoods. The quality of each area rose at each train station, and by the time she reached the Northwood Station, the tiny bungalows became modest two story houses in a middle class environment. It was a quaint area, pleasant to the eye and safe enough for children.

Perfect for raising a family, Navi chuckled as she recalled the apparent purpose of this meeting, stepping off the train in search of the place he spoke of.

It didn't take long at all - Adam stood in a business suit in front of a chain coffee shop, offering a small smile and a wave in her direction.

"Hey there," he called toward her, awkwardly lowering his hand from the wave to the back of his neck, lightly scratching as if manually relieving the tension plaguing his body.

"Good afternoon," she responded, lowering herself into a polite bow before drawing her arms around her body and stepping past him. "It is quite cold out. Perhaps we should step inside."

"Huh? Oh… of course," he sheepishly replied, following her lead into the building.

The warm aroma of fresh coffee greeted the two as they entered. At three o'clock on a Friday afternoon, the place was relatively empty, and upon ordering a coffee each ("On my card," Adam insisted. Navi couldn't refuse), they found themselves sitting across from each other at a small booth near the back of the establishment.

"Before either of us say anything else," she began, lightly blowing into the cup to cool her coffee, "please allow me to apologize for my conduct yesterday. It was highly unprofessional of me to lose my temper at a guest, and incredibly embarrassing to lose my temper in front of my other guests. Yourself included."

Adam shook his head. "Don't even worry about it. You looked really stressed out in general. And hey, at the end of the day, we're all human, right?"

"Human…" she dryly laughed. "Of course."

Adam raised his eyebrows at the curious response. "I'm sorry?"

"I-it is nothing, I insist you do not worry," Navi quickly corrected herself, clearing her throat. It became difficult to keep a nervous blush at bay. "Regardless. Thank you for understanding. I just… you know how it is when you feel you must apologize for your actions…."

"Oh, trust me. I know exactly how that goes…" Adam chuckled, taking a small sip of his coffee, letting the taste linger pleasantly on his tongue.

She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as silence fell between the two again. This is not going anywhere fast… this was a terrible idea… an apology was not worth coming out here and dealing with this kind of discomfort. "So, um… did you ever give any of those job offers a call back?" she ventured, hoping anything would break that uncomfortable wall set up between them.

"Huh? Oh! Oh, yeah! I… decided to call the guy back from the can factory. He accepted my resume back at the convention, and he said I can start as early as next Wednesday," he replied, puffing up a bit in what looked like… halfhearted pride? The way his smile plastered itself onto his face brought concern to Navi's eyes.

"You seem disappointed," she quietly spoke.

He stared at her for a moment. "I can't really be disappointed when they're offering me a lot of money for the position… seriously, I'd be able to pay my college debts back within a year and a half with that job, and make my mortgage payments at the same time. How can I be disappointed when I get so much out of it?"

Navi frowned. "You are disappointed because you do not want to make cans for the rest of your life. And quite frankly, I do not blame you. I certainly do not want to serve for the rest of my life."

He lowered his eyes to the steaming liquid swirling around his cup. "Sometimes we gotta do things we don't want to do in life," he shrugged, as if the words would magically make himself feel better.

"While that may be true, you are still young. You should not restrict yourself to something that will only pay the bills." She extended her hand toward him, lightly patting his arm. "Perhaps I only came out here to apologize and preach, but I do not want to see such a kind man limiting himself to a job that will make him money and keep him miserable."

"So, what? You're telling me not to take the job offer, then?" Adam gave her a strange look. "I mean… I'll be honest, that's a little forward of you, considering we've only known each other for… what, a collective two hours?"

"You are telling me I cannot care about the well being of someone I have only known for a collective two hours?" Navi smirked. "All I am saying is you should do what makes you happy. Does supervising a can factory make you happy?"

"…well, I dunno. I haven't done it yet…."

"Perhaps I should rephrase. What would make you happy?"

Adam locked his eyes on the grains of the wooden table between them. "…well… to be honest, I've always… liked writing," he admitted in a guilty tone. "I've always wondered what it'd be like to maybe write for a newspaper or something. But at the same time, I've always liked reading fiction. Never tried writing it before, but… it just sounds like a lot more fun than supervising a can factory." He grinned in a more kidlike way than she'd seen before. "Maybe write about those powered people you talked about in the city."

"…and what is stopping you?" she tilted her head ever so slightly to the side, keeping her eyes trained on the gentleman in front of her.

He chuckled. "My bills."

"Any job will pay your bills."

Navi suddenly snapped her hands out toward him, reaching for either wrist in her small, but firm grip. The sudden action nearly made him spill his coffee.

"-wha?" he choked out.

"I said, any job will pay your bills. Forgive me, but this is probably the last time we will see one another, and if I can ask for only one promise before we leave this coffee shop, I insist you promise me you will do what you enjoy doing, regardless of the money involved."

Adam gaped at her, completely lost for words as he observed the assertive woman in front of him. She stared back at him with those cocoa brown eyes, which narrowed in a hard expression as she waited for a response.

"Please. Promise me you will do what makes you happy," she repeated.

He took a deep breath in, letting his eyes shrink back down to his coffee cup. His words were quiet and took several minutes to finally escape his mouth. "So you're a guidance counselor in addition to being a spectacular waitress… and an expert in trade show psychology… and a walking, talking textbook on the history of Sega City. I swear, is there anything you aren't good at?"

This brought a smile to the woman's face. "Forgive me… but if I were good at everything, I certainly would not be unemployed right now."

"-unemployed? For… what happened yesterday?"

"I actually quit," she admitted, taking a sip of her coffee. "I decided I wanted to pursue what makes me happy, and serving at a restaurant… was not doing that for me."

"…I guess I understand," Adam breathed out, lowering his eyes once again.

Neither spoke for a few long minutes, and both of them took the opportunity to finish the rest of their coffee.

"…I suppose I will not take up more of your time," she broke the silence in a soft voice. "I understand businessmen are… well, busy. I must also return home to my family. They will be worried if I am gone for too long."

It wasn't true, of course, but Adam seemed to buy the excuse. He offered a small nod with a bittersweet smile. "Oh… of course. Your family. Give them my well wishes…."

"As you wish," she replied, standing and smoothing out her skirt. After a moment's consideration, she approached his side of the booth and extended her hand in his direction.

He blinked rapidly at the gesture. "-I thought you said you didn't do handshakes?"

"I believe you have earned it."

Time seemed to slow between the two of them, everything came to a halt as a smile stretched across his lips. With one swift move, he caught her hand in his and gave it a firm shake. In one more bold move, he lightly tugged her closer. The force was enough to sway her balance off toward him, toppling against him, leaning against him. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she could feel his doing the same - it was an awkward, spur of the moment decision and she could hear his voice hesitating for just a moment too long.

"-take care, Navi…" he whispered into her ear, pulling a piece of paper from inside his business suit and sliding it into her blazer pocket.

Those words… that name… leaving his lips…. She yanked her hand away and straightened up, feeling the blood rush up into her face. There were no words… what could she say? Her heart pounded stronger in her ears. What could she do?! The look of simultaneous surprise and horror had him sink back against the bench in embarrassment.

She brought her trembling fingers into her pocket, running them along the edge of the folded piece of paper in her pocket… with one final swallow of resolve, she turned and took off out of the coffee shop back toward the station to wait for the inbound train in terror. She found herself looking over her shoulder more often than was really necessary… but still! How did he know?!

She took a heavy breath in, hoping the fresh oxygen would calm her nerves… maybe bring that paranoia down to a reasonable level… but oh my Lord… if he knew, how many other people knew?! What if someone else-

Her fingers traversed the edge of the paper once more and her eyes widened. Maybe this will explain…. She scrambled to pull it from her blazer pocket, unfolding the memo sized page. It was a note - a terribly penned one, but a note nonetheless:

-

I write this as I wait for you at the coffee shop, and let me say before anything else: your secret is safe with me.

Someone who knows that much about Sega City's history had to be a part of it at some point. Someone who knows that much about the players in that history had to know them personally. Someone who knows that much about life and living it… had to have been living much longer than any of us.

When I spoke with Ethan King, I asked him what he knew about a woman named Navi. The description he gave happened to fit you perfectly - both in description and demeanor. So I took my chance… and I got my answer.

I say again, your secret's safe with me. And I respect what you've been doing with your life. I wish you good luck with everything, and hope that things turn up for you.

Stay out of trouble,

Adam Schroeder.

-

Her eyes traversed the page multiple times, taking in each chicken scratched word and feeling each one bringing a bigger smile to her face. A wave of relief coursed through her body as she folded the page and slipped it back in her pocket, turning her gaze back toward the horizon as she waited for the next train back to the city.

I am grateful for the tiniest glance of acknowledgment, and even more grateful for the kind judgment an otherwise perfect stranger bestows upon me.

Perhaps there are some truly good people in the world.

My name is Navi, incarnation of the Goddess of Courage. And from this point forward, I will do my best to emulate those people, whose kindness transcends gender, race, age... and ability.

i finished reading the story so i can read smart people's books! yay!!

it is a very interesting story where you see things from Jane's point of view in full intake it's almost like you are the character when reading, Jane talks a lot to her own self and so you can grasp her logic and philosphy. what i liked the most, is the need for focus in this story cause everything is connected and i found no loose ends.
about jane, in craig's story you don't understand her, she just pisses you off, here she pisses you off at the beginning but then you figure out her nature and root for her all the way. and in no way did it colide with the other fan fictions you two made, it really swiftly swimmings in between as a charming life story.

all the characters that came in contact with Jane were interesting and her reaction with every situation was the main thrill of the story.
i kinda felt like in some situations i went through the same thing and wished i acted more like how the character was in the book, strong and fast responding

oh and tricia your picturing of the places and state of clothes made me wish this was a visual story.

oh yeah one more thing, did you make a fan fiction before this? i want to read how cari and tamara met their lovers and where the three sisters came from? and all the events mentioned here about the war 15 years ago <giving tricia puppy eyes> .

anyways, thank you so much.. i feel kinda confiedent now that i read something i'd usually go blind looking at, as if it was a math book
and thanks for making my day, the story was great and the ending was strong just like the character

First off, thank you for taking the time to read! ^__^ It really makes me smile to know that more than one person took the time to actually finish it, and even better than that, actually comment on certain parts to reply to. (Lord knows I love to hear myself talk 8D)

"about jane, in craig's story you don't understand her, she just pisses you off, here she pisses you off at the beginning but then you figure out her nature and root for her all the way"

You know what, I actually wouldn't fault you if by the end if you decided she still pissed you off.

Okay, okay, I'm only half kidding. She's really not one to be pitied or rooted for, even if the slant of the story totally screams the opposite. I mean, you read about a lot of the crap she did in the story. She really doesn't deserve any of the kindness she's shown by the end. So the fact that you do care about her by the end is a sign of at least decent writing, so yay 😀

"and in no way did it colide with the other fan fictions you two made, it really swiftly swimmings in between as a charming life story."

You can chalk that up to a LOT of collaborating between Craig and myself. I can't help it - I'm a continuity whore, and I need EVERYTHING to fall into the correct timeline, otherwise it'll drive me insane. So for example, Craig's novel begins one month before mine, my novel takes place over three days, and his novel ends two weeks after mine ends. I'm sure that didn't need to be explained, but again, I like hearing myself talk, so yeah. 8D

"oh and tricia your picturing of the places and state of clothes made me wish this was a visual story."

I can't count the number of concept sketches I've made while at work XD If I really wanted to push myself, I could graphic novelitize it. But that would take way more effort than I'm willing to expend for this novel, so maybe while I'm running on (my brand new Christmas present Prismacolor) marker fumes, I'll probably get a few key scenes from the story on paper, just for kicks, y'know?

"oh yeah one more thing, did you make a fan fiction before this? i want to read how cari and tamara met their lovers and where the three sisters came from? and all the events mentioned here about the war 15 years ago"

Actually.... XD That's all in RP format in years and years of chatlogs on my computer. They're really not that interesting and there's SO FREAKING MANY OF THEM, I won't upload them. But if you're interested in some character backstories, feel free to PM me or something. Lord knows I love talking about our characters more than I love hearing myself talk. And if you're interested in listening, well hey! I'd love to oblige. ^^

There are a few stories lurking in the depths of my writing journal (scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the first of them. Look in the older entries for more) regarding both of our main sets of characters. They're not that great, and they're more drabbles than short stories, but if you're interested in the character crack, they're worth at least a look.

"anyways, thank you so much.. i feel kinda confiedent now that i read something i'd usually go blind looking at, as if it was a math book and thanks for making my day, the story was great and the ending was strong just like the character"

Well hey, you're welcome. And thanks for making my own day ^^

~Sailor Spirit Sage

and even better than that, actually comment on certain parts to reply to. (Lord knows I love to hear myself talk 8D)

if i known that i would've said more <hug> cause i love talking too

thank you for taking the time to read! ^__^ It really makes me smile to know that more than one person took the time to actually finish it

but it was good, i'm guessing you have sisters right? why not let them read it, it's a girl thing mostly, i know loads of women who'd enjoy it. it's my best friends type of story, her favorite book is Anne.. the character is as strong as Jane too. btw i loved the whole sisters scene, i got two older sisters myself, although we don't fight as much as before we do toss blame like in your story

I mean, you read about a lot of the crap she did in the story. She really doesn't deserve any of the kindness she's shown by the end.

i think i felt sorry for her because her pride was hurt, she's smart and strong... and yet she cried her heart out in some scenes, and was terrified in others, i don't think she would cry so easy, if she wasn't hurt deep.
as for the kindness she was shown, yeah she doesnt deserve it, but that just shows her how humans are forgiving not so like goddesses and she was talking about how their actions impress her so i think the idea is her being more human by being exposed to the best thing about humans.... well that's how i felt about her

So the fact that you do care about her by the end is a sign of at least decent writing, so yay

yeah it also means i sank into her character and probably for a bit thought myself her thanks to your unique writing.

can't help it - I'm a continuity whore, and I need EVERYTHING to fall into the correct timeline, otherwise it'll drive me insane.

<holds tricia's hands> super girl your so like me! i totally go insane when the story doesn't add up, i was infact worrying for sometime while reading that it'll collide with craig's story and ruin both stories for me (i like to imagine it's all real, and don't want my bubble of happiness to burst) so thank you so much for taking care of that.

Craig's novel begins one month before mine, my novel takes place over three days, and his novel ends two weeks after mine ends. I'm sure that didn't need to be explained, but again, I like hearing myself talk, so yeah. 8D

oh yeah but you don't figure the connection till you realize she's navi, it took sometime before the suspicion started about her identity, i totally didn't see it coming. espacially she's a good liar, i really believed her "accident" excuse. i didn't know she was navi till ethan king said it (btw ethan king mentioned going to the funneral so that was a cool connection to craigs story too).

so maybe while I'm running on (my brand new Christmas present Prismacolor) marker fumes, I'll probably get a few key scenes from the story on paper, just for kicks, y'know?

<poke tricia's cheek> did you peek at your christmas presents?? naughty girl i'm telling santa
but really please do post them sweety, i really wanna see it okay? oh can you draw the main characters if possible? even coblat, lee and tyler
and as for the journal i see it's the hospital scene right? i'll read it in a bit. so thanks, i'll ask you some stuff about the characters after i finish craig's"Normal" story just incase i spoil any surprises, although i have about 5 questions waiting for you

there's also some scenes i'd like to comment about:

- Irvin : navi's sisters seem to know him, and his partner bird... i was hoping to learn more about the kingcorp glory times oh and even if i was angery he lied to jane and told her secret to Ethan king, i forgave him cause he gave her that 1000 bill... so thanks i didn't have to hate him.

- adam: i love this character i wanted him to be with jane, but it was satisfying the way it was cause she's a strong character and didn't need lovey dovey momment. i was just happy he had some scenes.

- Robert: all the kids scenes were interesting, he was a good add. allowed navi to show more feelings and probably helped her to grow.

- the manger confession: i wasn't happy that jane told her everything cause i'm still worried about that .. then again, i don't trust others easily anyway she didn't take the decicion to trust the manger easy, she explained a lot of reasons before doing so. your jane is a hard thinking careful girl that did make only one mistake though (when showing Irvin her identity).

- Fairy scene: that surprised me, your world doesn't seem to have anything that wild, the characters have super powers and such but turning into a fairy was not expected. maybe cause the story resembled regular day life.

- the books she saw in roberts math classroom: i liked that scene when she said she read one third of the collection when she was younger cause even if she never read a book in your story in the first half of craig's "Normal" fiction he mentioned her facination with books. it was cool to feel the connection there too. hey that means when i continue reading "Normal" i'll feel different about navi now

well hope i didn't bore you too much, thanks again super girl

"i'm guessing you have sisters right? why not let them read it, it's a girl thing mostly, i know loads of women who'd enjoy it. it's my best friends type of story, her favorite book is Anne.. the character is as strong as Jane too. btw i loved the whole sisters scene, i got two older sisters myself, although we don't fight as much as before we do toss blame like in your story"

Good guess - I have a younger sister ^^ She might read it if she feels inclined, but I know better than to try to pressure her to do something - she's like me in that she will outright reject anything people throw at her and tell her to read/watch/etc. My mom's in the middle of reading it, though, so that's a plus ^^ I really value her feedback, just as I appreciate yours 😀 Tossing blame sucks, though, and I hope you all eventually resolve yourselves out of that phase.

"i think i felt sorry for her because her pride was hurt, she's smart and strong... and yet she cried her heart out in some scenes, and was terrified in others, i don't think she would cry so easy, if she wasn't hurt deep. as for the kindness she was shown, yeah she doesnt deserve it, but that just shows her how humans are forgiving not so like goddesses and she was talking about how their actions impress her so i think the idea is her being more human by being exposed to the best thing about humans.... well that's how i felt about her"

You know what, this entire paragraph here makes me smile. You went into this novel almost completely cold and came out understanding that theme. Way to go ^__^ You totally just made my day again!

"did you peek at your christmas presents??"

Actually, Craig had to use my Blick Art Store reward coupon to get it, and in order to use it, I had to be there. ^^; That, and I let him use his birthday present two months early, so I only had one condition in order to use the markers, and that was to finish my novel. Now that I have, I can use them 8D

navi's sisters seem to know [Irvine], and his partner bird... i was hoping to learn more about the kingcorp glory times oh and even if i was angery he lied to jane and told her secret to Ethan king, i forgave him cause he gave her that 1000 bill... so thanks i didn't have to hate him.

Oh goodness. The Kingcorp glory times. XD Where in the world would I even begin with those.... hm. Well, I guess I could start where the novel leaves off. Thanks to Irvine, you know that Ethan King had mercenaries who kidnapped powered citizens for him to study. There were six of them, and three of them are mentioned in the novel - therefore they're the only really important ones. 8D Irvine, obviously, was one of the hard hitters. He and Bird were always there as "crowd control" and usually did the actual kidnapping, since both of them could kick ass and take names. There were two people on stealth, neither ended up really developing as characters (though one of them, named "Angelica", makes a quick cameo in Normal). The other two were on tactic and research. If you recall, Robert mentioned his mother's name is "Helena Baker", known on the internet as "Eva"? She was actually one of the strategists. ^^ I never elaborated on it because it wasn't pertinent to the story, but since you showed interest, well hey. I'm all about little character tidbits and easter eggs ^^

Since Bird and Irvine were the only people who really stuck with the plot and developed into the badass bunch they are today, Ethan kept in contact with them over the years and gave them special missions, particularly when the "power suppressor serum" was a new invention. They were sent out on many occasions to covertly "depower" annoying powered people. Noteworthy excursions include attacking and humiliating Electrawoman (to keep her from pursuing them), kidnapping and killing Jesse Thompson (as Irvine describes in his monologue - guess who's the "plant !+@**"?), taking a tour of London and taking the powers from a petitioner for prostitutes' rights (...it's a long story XD)

Also, who's to say that when Adam spoke to Ethan King at the convention, Ethan didn't send Irvine to the diner to investigate and confirm Adam's suspicions?

The world may never know.... 8D

"i love [Adam] i wanted him to be with jane, but it was satisfying the way it was cause she's a strong character and didn't need lovey dovey momment. i was just happy he had some scenes"

You and me both ^^ I actually didn't think he was going to come back after her outburst in the diner, but then both Craig and the NaNoWriMo forums intervened and helped bring him back. I love how NaNoWriMo novels tend to have that happen. I mean, he just seemed too sweet to scare off like that. I'm glad you recognize that their relationship just wouldn't work, though. Without spoiling, I'll simply say that's addressed further in Normal and leave it at that. 8D

"i wasn't happy that jane told [Amanda] everything cause i'm still worried about that .. then again, i don't trust others easily

You know what, I completely agree with you, and all I can say is that this is the same situation as above. In my outline for the last third or so of the novel, she was supposed to just abruptly quit and not explain, because she obviously doesn't want too many people to know she's still around. But somewhere in that last day of writing, I just... didn't have the heart to leave her hanging like that, and when you're writing a NaNoWriMo novel, your hands seriously move without consulting your brain (or your outline, for that matter }:O ) If I go back and rewrite it, this will definitely be one of the first things I change, because it really doesn't sit well with me either.

"Fairy scene: that surprised me, your world doesn't seem to have anything that wild, the characters have super powers and such but turning into a fairy was not expected. maybe cause the story resembled regular day life."

This... XD This is actually a plug/reference to the character Navi is based on. Have you ever played the Zelda game "Ocarina of Time"? You know that fairy who hovers around and shrieks "HEY! LISTEN!" all the time? Always makes the top ten on "most annoying video game characters" lists?

...yeah. I totally stole her. Gave her a personality. Gave her purpose. Made her my own. She grew, flourished, and developed into the person you see in this novel. Turns out? She's still just as annoying! Imagine that! 8D

"i liked that scene when she said she read one third of the collection when she was younger cause even if she never read a book in your story in the first half of craig's "Normal" fiction he mentioned her facination with books. it was cool to feel the connection there too."

I don't remember if it came up in my novel (if it didn't, it really should have) - but she is an avid reader, to the point where for the hundreds of years that she searched for her sisters to bring them back to the Sacred Realm? She never really stopped reading. Reading was a borderline obsession for her... and since she didn't have the appearance of the adults she associated with, she never had anyone to talk to, therefore no reason to stop. She was too smart to hang out with immature, unpredictable kids, after all. But no scholars ever wanted to talk to someone who looked like a kid. Which is why it was so important that Lee opened up to her, as he was one of the first adults to really treat her with the respect she felt she deserved.

And the rest, as they say, is history ^^

(P.S. You don't bore me at all! 8D)

~Shadowed Spirit Sage

but I know better than to try to pressure her to do something - she's like me in that she will outright reject anything people throw at her and tell her to read/watch/etc.
she's an artist too right?

My mom's in the middle of reading it, though, so that's a plus ^^ I really value her feedback, just as I appreciate yours
thanks for listening to my comments and it's cool you take your mom's opinion in your work, me and bunny also stick with our moms so we totally get you.
i hope your mom likes the story too. i know how important it is to get your best friend (mom) to love your work.

Tossing blame sucks, though, and I hope you all eventually resolve yourselves out of that phase.
oh no they're sweet, we just get into that phase sometimes. wait until your sister gets a little older, you'll struggle too.

Actually, Craig had to use my Blick Art Store reward coupon to get it, and in order to use it, I had to be there. ^^; That, and I let him use his birthday present two months early
ha ha ha ... you two are impatient kids you know perfect match.

If you recall, Robert mentioned his mother's name is "Helena Baker", known on the internet as "Eva"? She was actually one of the strategists. ^^ I never elaborated on it because it wasn't pertinent to the story, but since you showed interest, well hey. I'm all about little character tidbits and easter eggs ^^
now i get it, but doesn't Navi know the 6 from kingcorp? and thanks for explaining all this, i really did want to know more. i like bad guys ... well these types of evil dudes.

Noteworthy excursions include attacking and humiliating Electrawoman (to keep her from pursuing them), kidnapping and killing Jesse Thompson (as Irvine describes in his monologue - guess who's the "plant !+@**"?), taking a tour of London and taking the powers from a petitioner for prostitutes' rights (...it's a long story XD)
the plant ***** is navi, and electrawoman is Tricia in the story (you ).... are you gonna put kingcorp in the next fan fiction? i like them.

Also, who's to say that when Adam spoke to Ethan King at the convention, Ethan didn't send Irvine to the diner to investigate and confirm Adam's suspicions?
i suspected adam working for Ethan and being the one who told on Jane, but when he gave her the message i thought maybe he was a trust worthy guy.. but yeah you kept it an open possiblity. another good idea there.

You and me both ^^ I actually didn't think he was going to come back after her outburst in the diner, but then both Craig and the NaNoWriMo forums intervened and helped bring him back.
yeah i really thought he won't come back.. actually i was even worried at the first scene when he mentioned coming to see her on thursday i think, anyway a lot of events happened so i thought he dropped off from the story or you forgot him. (i had to scroll down looking for his name before continuing.. i'm bad sorry) but good he was there. in your story there's a lot of unexpected events, huh? guess even you were surprised but really that is probably why the surprises worked so well, so give your hubby a big hug for the help.

btw i like "adam"s name cause it's actually my real name, my dad wanted a boy, but when he accepted the fact finally, he reversed my name into mada.

I'm glad you recognize that their relationship just wouldn't work, though. Without spoiling, I'll simply say that's addressed further in Normal and leave it at that. 8D
cool, i havent reached that part so i'll be looking forward for it (Thanks for not spoiling it, but why keep me wondering) i also accepted the doomed relationship cause when tyler and lee return, there was no mention of navi having herself a boyfriend and she seemed as cold as ever (a sign of not being in love).

didn't have the heart to leave her hanging like that, and when you're writing a NaNoWriMo novel, your hands seriously move without consulting your brain (or your outline, for that matter }:O ) If I go back and rewrite it, this will definitely be one of the first things I change, because it really doesn't sit well with me either.
i know you were pushed by a deadline, and didn't have time to edit. and that's what i love about it, very fresh from your head.
i strongly suggest you and craig save your stories, they are very good and both your writing is attractive. as for what to leave and what to edit i can't really say, it's your stories (i didn't tell craig but i only have on thing i keep wondering about in his story, what happened to the killer who murdered Amber?). the reason why i won't push too strongly on my own opinion on these, is cause i know i'm comparing them to stories i already know. in hollywood movies the stories please the viewer, even if its a fake unrealistic ending.
you two are doing something original, it doesn't have to be all perfect, life isn't perfect, your stories talk to regular people without aiming to please them to gain more fans and sales.
so even if i don't agree don't listen to me follow your heart.

btw i just want to say, you and craig have very different styles, i dont want you thinking i mention him as a comparasion cause i dont. it's just you two have stories linked into the same world and i want to put everything together. you're like a set, hard to mention one without the other. but i do see you as different indivisual writers with different thinking.

Have you ever played the Zelda game "Ocarina of Time"?
AHHH !!! i knew i came across that name before!! you devilish girl <pinches tricia's cheeks> had me fooled!
but seriously, that's it, ha ha that's clever but man that was one HUGE surprise. yeah Navi is an annoying stuck up fairy.... and your navi is still the same.
but does that mean even her sisters transform into faries? .. hmm... i would've expected them to trun to faries if you named them "fairy goddesses".

and since she didn't have the appearance of the adults she associated with, she never had anyone to talk to, therefore no reason to stop. She was too smart to hang out with immature, unpredictable kids, after all. But no scholars ever wanted to talk to someone who looked like a kid.
yeah i totally get her, and the being short bit. but this is good, i did feel like she enjoyed talking in the diner as if she hadn't done so in a long time. and about lee, i think i'll read about that in "Normal" but i'm reading silver's story now when i finish i'll get to that.

(P.S. You don't bore me at all! 8D)
oh i hope it's good for this time too

Hi there. Just poking in some context while Trish is in college.

Regarding the 6 Kingcorp Mercanaries: Navi encountered them on a few occassions during that storyline, once to reclaim her boyfriend (Matthew, who was mentioned in the novel) who they had taken to biopsy due to his abilities and the second time was to plan the assassination of a man who had ruined Bird's pre-mercanary life and was getting his claws into Lee through his music career (his guitar playing was mentioned in both novels). Though she did encounter all 6 (plus King and his assistant, Alex) she only ever spoke to Irvine and Bird. Three of the four other characters were rather minor and were dropped from the plot after their "Anti-Lodge" storyline.

The other member, Eva, Navi has encountered during our current storyarch. Incidentally, she and King are enemies at this time--- but that's complicated. To cut a long story short, Tricia acknowledges that Navi should know more about Eva, but her role in the novel was limited to an off-hand reference, so she didn't feel it was important enough to expand on.

The idea of the Kingcorp storyline back in the day was that I had a joke character called Proffessor Bling who was basically a 70's disco loving Eggman, who rode around in a disco ball and used his army of robots to antagonize Electrawoman.

This is before we got all serious about our stories. When we did get serious, and the past involving Electrawoman remained canonical, I decided that a serious version of Proffessor "Lucian King" Bling was in order, hence the existance of Ethan. And to launch his presence, we made a group of "Anti-Lodge" characters, who we fleshed out and played as instead of the main cast of good guys.

Ethan, Bird, Irvine and Eva are the surviving characters of that idea.

---As for the main lodge characters, you'll learn about them in Normal :3

By the way, in regards to my novel, Amberleigh's killer was a minor character called Sandra, who was the leader of the anti-power hate group. I implied that she was arrested on the day of the funeral, as for the guy with her, he was unnamed and I didn't think it was wise to distract from the off-world events to follow up on that.

Though I suppose a mention of it in the return portion would have been good. I'll take it into consideration if I ever edit.

<Though she did encounter all 6 (plus King and his assistant, Alex) she only ever spoke to Irvine and Bird. Three of the four other characters were rather minor and were dropped from the plot after their "Anti-Lodge" storyline>

but then why didn't Navi know irvin when he came in the diner?

<The other member, Eva, Navi has encountered during our current storyarch. Incidentally, she and King are enemies at this time--- but that's complicated. To cut a long story short, Tricia acknowledges that Navi should know more about Eva, but her role in the novel was limited to an off-hand reference, so she didn't feel it was important enough to expand on>

there was a scene when Navi mentioned Roberts mother being an employee of Ethan King. so i guess she really did know her, btw did Ethan king love Navi? he trusts her too much, and she compared his trust of her with her love for her Matthew.

<The idea of the Kingcorp storyline back in the day was that I had a joke character called Proffessor Bling who was basically a 70's disco loving Eggman, who rode around in a disco ball and used his army of robots to antagonize Electrawoman>

wow hold on, is this the same disco dude that kidnapped craig in the beginning of "Normal"? in that story eveyone still had their powers and used it freely... so Tricia's story is after right?

<Though I suppose a mention of it in the return portion would have been good. I'll take it into consideration if I ever edit>

i really liked your story just fine, it's just that part got stuck in my head trying to be solved...i was really touched by the way amber was killed, i wanted to know the murderer was punished.. anyway it's up to you to tell the story, just please PLEASE save your stories. it's not easy making a story just look at movies today, they're so despreat for ideas they're either reviving the old movies or turning anime into movies. you two know how to make it interesting, even though it has a lot of characters and 2 worlds, it's not confusing or loses track.

and craig your good at writing action scenes, hope you make another fiction packed with battle scenes or rewrite the 15 yearold war.. either way it would be cool
but you know i didn't know what tyler looked like until i read some of "Normal" it was a shock, i imagined him differently.
hopefully tricia will draw the whole cast.

The character in the intro to normal is Lucian King, Ethan King's father.

Normal was written during the power ban plot and I intentionally set it a year backwards in chronology to avoid that pitfall and to make sure Ruby's character would be available in the way that she is at present. For context, it would be 16 years before Grief and Combat Waitress.

As for pictures--- well, Tricia has many of those.

So here are some pictures, please keep in mind they are all from the present time and not the 15 years later future of our recent novels:

Amberleigh
Bird/Irvine
Lee/Stressed
Navi
Tamara/Lee/Cari/Stressed
Electrawoman
Ruby/Sapphire
Craig/Cari
Ken/Asia

That's the majority of the cast in various forms of artwork. Art of Ethan King does exist, though I don't think Tricia uploaded it onto dA. She intends to draw scenes and characters from Grief, Combat Waitress and Normal in the near future. I am confident Cobalt will be amongst those drawn.

"but then why didn't Navi know irvine when he came in the diner?"

She did, which is why she freaked out for a moment and couldn't stop staring at him for a good five minutes or so, making the smallest small talk she could until she composed herself to the point where she could remember that she's supposed to be putting on her waitress persona for someone else. I think the second monologue also stated that she gave tables away to other servers if she recognized anyone. At the time, she used the excuse of "I don't want them to see me and show me pity for my injury", though we both know full well she didn't want anyone to spot her and call the police.

At the time, she was the only one in the diner, therefore she couldn't give the table away to anyone else, hence why she freaked out at having to take Irvine's order.

btw did Ethan king love Navi? he trusts her too much, and she compared his trust of her with her love for her Matthew.

Wait, where did this happen? o.O If it's the scene I'm thinking of, the comparison is Irvine's love for Bird, to Tamara's love for Tyler. If not, please let me know 'cause now I'm curious XD

As for King and Navi's relationship, it's purely on a working level. He holds high respect for her when it comes to getting things done. She holds high respect for him when it comes to following through on promises and supporting/funding her sociopathic hobbies.

~Shadowed Spirit Sage

thanks so much for the upload craig and thanks tricia for drawing them.
the funny thing only irvin and Cari came out the same as my imagination i thought lee would have curly blonde hair, and tyler is a shock yet again.
and the most surprise were the twins.

<I am confident Cobalt will be amongst those drawn>
you know what i like also don't forget your daughter Kay.

uh i get the irvin navi thing now, she was out of it and acting weird but i thought it was cause she thought he looked weird... okay now i get it, i was slow on that one.

as for the scene with Ethan king it's this one:

"""" "Let me ask you something," the man inquired, lowering his eyes to the golden band around his finger. "Knowing how dangerous he was, how many people he hurt… how could you find it in yourself to love him?"

"The same way you know how dangerous I am and how many people I hurt, yet you still find it in yourself to have conversations with me in your office, maintaining enough respect for me to keep your hands from dialing for the police, knowing full well they still want me imprisoned."

He couldn't argue with that, and he sank back in his seat. """"

You're welcome? XD I love drawing, and I love drawing our characters even more. I promise Cobalt will eventually be included in these pictures, but for right now I have too many other projects to work on (namely a commission and two gift pictures). As for Kay, I'm pretty sure I've drawn her in the past. Maybe it just wasn't included on my DeviantArt. Hmm.

As for the Ethan King/Navi scene, I get what you mean now, and I can see where a hidden relationship could be mistaken. But I say again, their relationship is strictly a working one, and they each respect the other while recognizing their flaws. In other words, there's nothing romantic about it. And it should probably stay that way, for everyone's safety. 8D

~Shadowed Spirit Sage