More Meteor Showers Bring Even Stranger Powers. (O/A)

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Clara had been taken aback by the tone Theonis' used. She felt both vexed and impressed.

Theresa's antics while ordering brought levity back to the morning.

Joel chuckled, "An apple juice for the lady, and an order of children's waffles."

Leonard grunted to get Joel's attention and shook his head. He made a hand motion to suggest that Theresa would need a lot more than a few small waffles.

"A ginger ale for me." said Leonard.

"I would like to change my drink order to a club soda, if you please." Clara requested after

Joel looked to Theonis with appreciation and made his way toward the kitchen to fulfill the drink orders.

Clara looked to Theonis sternly. After a few seconds she could not help but smile with pride. "Good for you." she complimented.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everett nodded and confirmed, "I swear, this is the first and only time. I'm ******** done after this."

Heather released the boy and spun him around by the shoulders so they faced each other. "Try anything like this again and you sure as Hell will be. Now, go over there and clean Mr. Bojangles' litterbox while I chat with my girlfriend."

Everett slouched and made his way to comply with his punishment. Heather crossed her arms beneath her breasts and looked to Liv. "Any ideas that don't involve me eating someone. I'd rather not go back to lockup, but I'm really tempted."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Freya crossed her arms in front of her chest, looked away from Liam, and huffed. "Dumbass. We drank together didn't we?"

"That is her way of saying yes. The two of you are friends now." Lokelonni added with a grin.

Freya's eyes went wide and her face turned red. She turned toward Lokelonni, straightened her arms at her sides and shouted, "Mother!"

Okami gasped and hopped off of Liam. "You're a chef?! That's so cool! I've never been friends with a chef before! What do you cook? Is it meat? I love meat! I love chicken, pork, bacon, steak, beef, alligator, venison, rabbit, steak, racoon, squirrel, duck, steak, turkey, quail...did I already say steak?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alec was present and loving every second of that moment with Kerana. All of his anxieties and angst melted away as the world shrunk down to just the two of them. His left had was between her shoulder blades, and his right was around the small of her back. His fingertips brushed the hem of her top. For a moment he felt the warmth of her bare skin. He was just about to say something to her when there came a knock at Kerana's door.

Raina Carter called from the hallway, "Mijita, are you awake? I made conchas."  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Raina smiled and walked to the table. "Si. Last night, I finally felt like baking again. I thought that you'd like something sweet after your mission last night."

She placed the container on the table and removed the top. In it were six treats that had frosting in the shape of shells. Raina had gone the extra mile and made each frosting a different color. One was special, though. It had white frosting that blended into a red center. She picked that one up and offered it to Kerana.

"How did it go last night? Were you able to help, erm? ¿Aye, Cómo se llamaba ella? The crazy wolf lady."

Alec hopped out of a tear around the corner from Kerana's dorm. He'd changed into an outfit that could be described as Goth casual. Nothing too extravagant, though his hair hung loose, He could have had someone at work braid it for him, but he only wanted Kerana's hands on his head.

He took a deep breath and knocked on Kerana's door.

Raina looked from the door to Kerana. "Is that Alec? Do you think he'd like a concha?"  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Alec blushed and grinned. Sunshine. It always tickled him when she called him that considering his dark disposition. He happily sat down and accepted a concha.

"This looks good. Did you make these, Misses Carter" Alec asked.

Raina nodded and replied, "Si, but these aren't like the conchas you get at a supermercado. My abuela's recipe is without equal. And please, call me Raina."

Alec looked to Kerana and smiled. Being able to refer to her mother on a first name basis filled him with joy. He took a bite of the pastry and lifted his left hand to catch the crumbs. "Oh wow! This is really good. Kerana, I see where you get it from."

Raina smiled and took her place at the table. "Gracias, Alec. It feels good to treat my Kerana with a taste from home. Does your mother bake, Alec?"

Alec's stomach sank. The mere mention of his family drained the taste from the pastry in his mouth. He refused to bring the mood down after Raina had brightened his and Kerana's morning. Better to change the subject.

"You should've seen Kerana last night. While the rest of us fought it, she walked up to a twenty foot wolf monster and calmed it down. She even healed it's wounds. Without her, I don't know how we would've succeeded."

Raina almost dropped the concha and looked to Kerana with a mix of horror and pride. "Hija! Is this true?! Did you sooth a savage monster with just kindness?"  

[Nova Blancke]

Even if it has been a few weeks, Crystallion still had trouble sleeping. The slightest sound or movements woke her up. It also didn't help that she had been in a constant state of Fight for months to keep the monsters away from the group. Her bedroom had a few scorch marks where she instinctively fired when her sleep was disrupted. It didn't show on her face. Her regeneration took care of that. But she was tired. She got the text from Trinity. They bonded over the last few weeks. It was nice talking to her.She was...different and yet the same in other aspects. She had some...news to share?

Listening to the entire thing, it made sense Trinity needed a drink. It was indeed...a lot.

"No wonder Leo was...a little out of it after that." She responded.

Legio couldn't help but smile warmly at the exchange. At her reaction. But the smile soon faded. Back to his normal neutral expression.

"You have and I am not a professional chef. It is just a hobby. But meat is a favorite of mine as well."

He met his mother's gaze before she turned to a smile. He returned one with a wink. "You have no idea how many times I need to put my foot down on certain things."

"Good."

"Fire works too." She responded. "Well....security can handle it I suppose. We've got the names. We know who put him up to it. Even if they can put mental blockers on people, it's not like they are the strongest psychics here. If they try anything funny it's over for them."

"That or I make em dissapear"  

[PixelMuse]

Nova Blancke

Even if it has been a few weeks, Crystallion still had trouble sleeping. The slightest sound or movements woke her up. It also didn't help that she had been in a constant state of Fight for months to keep the monsters away from the group. Her bedroom had a few scorch marks where she instinctively fired when her sleep was disrupted. It didn't show on her face. Her regeneration took care of that. But she was tired. She got the text from Trinity. They bonded over the last few weeks. It was nice talking to her.She was...different and yet the same in other aspects. She had some...news to share?

Listening to the entire thing, it made sense Trinity needed a drink. It was indeed...a lot.

"No wonder Leo was...a little out of it after that." She responded.

"Yeah… there was more that happened in a recent shadow training session…" She poured herself half a glass to pace herself.

flashback

Trinity was in the middle of a training session with her son when she noticed he was having trouble concentrating on his shadow manipulation.

“Leo? You okay? You seem to be having trouble focusing on forming a sphere.”

Leo put his hands down in frustration and
grumbled, "I'm fine. I'm just not any
good at this."

“Have patience with yourself. It takes time to learn an ability.” She reached out and touched his shoulder and looked into his green eyes, she could tell that it was something else. “Something tells me there is something else. Perhaps it will become easier if we talk about it?”

Leo fidgeted a bit when she touched his
shoulder. "It's nothing important.
Talking about it will just make
things weird."

Noticing he seemed uncomfortable with her touch she let go, her eyes lowered, “You haven’t gotten over it … have you?”

He immediately felt guilty for hurting her
feelings. "It's not like that. I don't think.
It's that I don't even really know how to
feel about it. I mean, you're not my
mom, but at the same time you are. It
was strange, but kind of nice. I'm not
used to thinking about things this much."

Internally she smiled to herself he liked it? even though this did not come across her face. “Well now you have time to think so let yourself wonder about these things. To be honest, I’m conflicted about this whole thing myself. On the one hand I haven’t had a kid in this timeline but I did have you in the other. I feel like I have to somewhat take her place and make up for her failures. Even though I’m not the one who messed things up in your timeline yet I feel like I have failed you because she couldn’t keep you safe.” She sighed, finding she was getting off-topic, “That kiss was a mistake, for a brief moment of weakness I thought I was safe in bed with Theo only to find I wasn’t. I felt bad for doing that to you, I had no intention to do that to you while you’re getting adjusted.”

Leo glared at Trinity and snapped, "She
didn't fail! She sacrificed herself to save us!
We'd all be dead if she hadn't done what
she did!"

She snapped back “Yet Gidget had to find you another timeline to save you! Guess what timeline this is it?! The one I’m in! No bio-beasts here, right!?”

He clenched his fists and sighed, "I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have asked you to hold me that
morning. That wasn't fair. This is all
my fault."

She rubbed her nose and took a deep breath “Kid, you never asked, I read your body language like an open book and gave you what you needed at the time.” she folded her arms. Perhaps this was all a mistake. She remembered how touching that moment was. For a brief moment she was exactly the someone he needed her to be.

A tense silence hung in the air. It wasn't
broken until Leo huffed in a futile attempt to
keep from crying. His shadow began to slowly
advance toward Trinity, only to be intercepted
by Silhouette.

"...Trinity, now may not be the time, but there's
something strange with his shadow on this side
of the rift."

Unaware of what was happening with his shadow,
Leo asked, "Did you, like it? The kiss I mean."

Trinity noticed his shadow, followed by Silhouette’s warning. She was going to drop down until Leo asked the question. She did not focus on his kiss so much just knew it wasn’t Theo and had to pull out immediately. She took a deep breath, she suspected that his feelings had something to do with his shadow’s behavior. She had to answer carefully. “Let’s back up to what happened, you were not expecting that I was going give a passionate kiss that I would give Theo … you were pretty much on the receiving end of that and that was when I pulled back it was because you weren’t returning something. It’s like you’ve never experienced a kiss like that before and you didn’t know how to react. So there’s not much to go on in that instance. If you were to kiss me like you mean it, it would be another story and I would have been able to give proper feedback. Does that make sense?” She looked to him and his shadow.

The shadow retracted as slowly as it
had advanced.

"I didn't know what to do. I've only ever been kissed
once before, by Ravan, the day we got here. I didn't
like the way she did it, though. It was rough, and she
touched me in a way that didn't feel right. But when
you did it, it was better, but I didn't know what to do.
I still don't."

“No wonder you kicked her to the wall, bad first move on her part. Plus it seems intentionally forced. I guess all that experience I had, paid off, eh? Look, it’s okay if you still don’t know what to do.”

”At least one good thing came from all of this, you have something to compare it to. You now have a better sense of what you’re looking for in a kiss. I’m sure when you find the right person you’ll have time to practice and figure things out together.” She wanted to ensure she didn’t make an assumption of his sexual orientation, especially if he hadn’t thought about it before.

"You heard about that, huh? I guess you would,
being head of security and everything."

Leo fidgeted and took a deep, unsteady breath.
"Would...would it be wrong if...no, nevermind.
Forget I said anything. Let's get back to training."

“No, what? C’mon, we’ve hashed it out this far, might as well…”

"Can...can I try this time? To kiss you."

She blushed a little did I really want this? she thought when she nah it’s got to be catching me off guard right? “I’ll allow it, hopefully, it can balance things out, right?” She rubbed her head as she answered.

He approached her nervously. He shuffled his feet,
moved his arms, and craned his neck like he was
trying to figure out a proper stance. After a few
seconds, he huffed in frustration,
"How does this work?"

She demonstrated as she spoke, “First kiss with that person, here’s what I recommend, keep your hand at the waist, look deeply into their eyes and cupping their chin is optional. Go 90% of the way and let the other complete that connection with that 10% giving them a last chance to back out if you’ve misunderstood.” Just when they were going to connect she backed out. “Ok now you try.”

Leo spoke as he executed the directions, "Hand at
the waste. Look into eyes. Cup the chin.
Go...90...percent."

He closed his eyes just as he got little more than a
breath away.

Trinity connected with him she did a little of what she did before to give Leo some ideas.

Leo reciprocated. He breathed heavily as the heat
built up in his face. It felt so new, and nice, but he
also felt that something was...missing. He thought
about trying what Ravan did with her hands, but
then he remembered how that made him feel.
After a few seconds he broke it off. He was flushed,
but with a look of confusion in his eyes.

“Now that is a kiss. Did that help clear something up?”

Leo pondered for a moment. The lingering sensation
on his lips prompted him to touch them. He said,
"One time, Dad told me what it was like to kiss you,
I mean Mom. He said it was like explosions in his
head; that his chest felt warm and heavy, like it
would be crushed by the weight of his love for you."

He looked at her appologetically and said, "I don't
think that's what I felt. Was it something
I did wrong?"

“Nah, I just may not be a match for you. That’s something very important a kiss can tell you.” There goes that idea, probably for the best. She looked up thinking of Theo, “The way your dad described it, yeah, that sounds about right. You may experience it differently. Heck this timeline’s Theo may describe it differently. Regardless, one thing is for sure everything is right when you’re with the right one.”

 

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Okami gasped when a wonderful idea struck her. "We could be a team! Since I'm my own me now, I can hunt fresh meat for you and bring it right away!"

Freya turned back toward Okami and gasped almost identically to Okami. "Holy crap, you're right! We can do all sorts of things we couldn't before!"

Okami turned to Freya and wagged her tail happily. "We can also give each other hugs now!"

Freya tried as hard as she could to contain her joy, but she had always wanted to hug a giant wolf. Since Okami was essentially a part of herself, Freya could not feel the wolf even as a shadow summon. It felt more like hugging herself. She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Okami's thick neck. She sighed with delight and turned her head to Liam.

"Dude, you've gotta try this. She's so fluffy and warm." Freya exhaled.

Okami looked to Liam as well and said, "I'm huge now, so there's plenty of room."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No doubt." Clara agreed. "I'd expected a few more years before you built up the gumption to stand up to me. I'm glad to see that you've achieved some personal growth in the time you've been out of contact. Isn't that right, dear?"

Leonard nodded. "I must say that I was surprised, in more ways than one. I thought she was about to bite your head off."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heather put her thumb and forefinger to her chin as she thought of how best to handle the situation. Then her phone's alarm rang. It was a fifteen minute warning for training time.

"Crap! With all this madness I forgot we had training today. Wait, are we still doing that today, what with everything that happened last night?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raina was literally on the edge of her seat as she heard Kerana's re-telling of the previous night's events. "Kerana, that's-" she was about to both admonish and compliment her daughter, but she was cut off by the sound of Kerana's watch. Alec left and Raina was ready to give Kerana her full attention.

She tried her best to keep up with what her only child was saying, It was hard at first. To Raina, Kerana's thoughts seemed to be all over the place, but everything clicked when she saw Kerana's tears. It had been so long since Raina felt that way about her husband, but she completely understood where Kerana was coming from.

She put her hands on Kerana's shoulders and said, "Tranquila, mijita, tranquila. Está bien. If you had asked me a month ago, I would be very upset. Pero, I've had to come to terms with a lot of uncomfortable truths in the last three weeks. Everything I learned from the Bible is either complete fiction or a hazy retelling of events surroundings the Ancients. That means that marriage in the biblical sense is more or less meaningless."

"Part of me wants to say that you're too young to think about these things, but you're also too young to go to the moon and save the world. The last year has forced you to grow up so much faster than I'd hoped, and that breaks my heart. Pero, seeing how you've grown in the face of adversity has brought me greater joy. I am so proud of you, Kerana. You're as smart as you are kind. Do what you think is right, and I'll be right behind you cheering."

She embraced her daughter tightly. Not being able to resist one bit of meddling, she uttered, "Asegúrate de que use protección."  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Alec waved to Raina.

Raina waved with one hand, and motioned that she would be watching him with the other.

Puzzled, Alec walked with Kerana for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. "Is everything okay? She didn't find out, did she?" he asked.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Alec pivoted and put himself in front of Kerana. Without a word, he put his arms around her and held her in silence. After a few seconds, he thought, "We can get married in a church, if you'd like. We can get married by one of our friends after they've spent an hour on the internet. We could ask Theresa to make bands for us, or even forego ceremony altogether. I don't need a piece of paper, a gold ring, or witnesses to know that we're ready to give everything to each other."

His arms still around her, he leaned back a little and put his forehead against hers. "I've been trying not to look too far ahead, and if I do not say anything that can hurt the balance, but we'll be ready for the fight. There's nothing that'll stop us from boarding the Crescent Moon, and we'll have some time to ourselves between now and then."

His breath, sweetened by the spices of the concha, danced across her lips. "We could say we're recovering from last night, y'know. No one ever comes to my room. We can also wait until you've ascended, so that you're more comfortable."