Timere

during • impact

Not for the first time, I wonder exactly how fucked I'll be when Ariel finds out about my actual job.

When, not if, because I know she will. She's clever like that.

She may not suspect anything yet - I'm the best at what I do, of course she doesn't -  but she will. I'm honestly not looking forward to it.

"Impact, what's your position? Over."

"Over this bullshit, Shiba. Over."

"You can chew me out for teasing you about your mermaid later, Impact. If we waste any more time we'll have to wait a whole month to get a lead on these assholes again. Over."

I grin, knowing I must look absolutely feral. "I'll take you up on that. Over."

Then I'm repositioning, eyes on the prize. One breath, two, and I push off the tree I've been perched on, most likely cracking the bark, heading down like a bullet and headbutting the nearest minion into the water.

He doesn't even have time to scream before he's drowning.

The earth trembles when I land, it always does. There'll be footprints left behind. My footprints. The cleaning crew will have my head. Probably.

His cohorts are instantly on edge. Can't blame them. Between my combat boots and my silver gauntlets, Ariel would probably be scared too.

The thought makes my grin falter and the remaining nine mindless minions seem to decide that it's time to retreat.

Shiba doesn't give them that option, bursting out of the undergrowth with vines twisting around and past him to tie them all up.

"Impact, what did we say about waiting for a signal or, hell, a freaking plan?"

I ignore him, watching my gauntlets shrink, then melt, then seep back into my skin. Back into my entirely silver skeleton.

"She's going to hate me," I find myself murmuring.

Shiba pauses, looking at me from head to toe like I'm about to explode.

It makes me bristle, and yes. Yes, anger I can do. Anger I've lived with all my life. Anger I can do something about.

But she makes me so happy. So happy. Makes me forget and I-

I don't hear what Shiba says, as I leap back to the tree I'd just left. I don't care to as I take one, then two, then five more leaps, like a freaking frog but, like, a giant frog I guess.

It's 4am when I get to my bike and the string of curses I let out would probably terrify a sailor. I need to leave now if I'm ever going to make it before she wakes up.

It takes an hour. A whole hour to even get back to the apartment building. It'd barely taken a full minute to leave but that's probably because Shiba teleported into our fucking bedroom and threw his poisoned darts to wake me up.

"I'm going to kill that bastard one of these days," I find myself grumbling as I let myself into the apartment. From the living room window of course. Ariel might be a light sleeper but the front door makes noise - intentional, so I know when there are intruders - and I'm really not in the mood to tempt fate.

Putting my clothes in the duffel bag in the very high kitchen cabinet is routine and easy, as is taking a quick cold shower and downing three mugs of coffee because that's the only way I'll survive the day.

The gay bar down the street is playing some jazz song I don't know, but it's calming.

"It's just another day. I can do this. I've been bullshitting people since I could talk," is my weird way of giving myself a pep talk.

'Yeah, but not people you love.'

The sneer is like a physical slap and I wince, hating that the voice is right.

Today is going to be absolute shit.

-
And so it begins, homies.
It's probably Sunday somewhere in the world, I'm safe.
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