Medkits (unwilling) trip. [PHIGHTING]

The heights

It was night when they departed from the little desert town and Chaos Canyon, but they needed to go quickly, and didn't want to accidentally cross over into days where one of them needed to be somewhere! Medkit, once again, was driving. Running on whatever coffee he had drank right before leaving, while everyone else was groggy or had fallen back asleep... Some peace and quiet is certainly not going to go unappreciated for Medkit, focusing on the road with the assist of the headlights.

Doesn't mean he's not somewhat sleepy. He drank the coffee two hours ago! It's starting to wear off now... No, can't fall asleep now. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep going... Make as much progress as he can. Wait, one second.

Slowing the car to a halt on the side of the road, Medkit gets out of the driver's seat and goes around to Rocket's seat, taking their phone and walking back to the driver's seat... why haven't they set a lock yet? Whatever. Navigating to the GPS app, he... has no idea what the next destination is. They knew about where the last one was, so where would they keep the information? He's not one to sift through another person's privacy just for something so trivial... but all of them are already miles away from Crossroads. No turning back now.

A few minutes later, he had found what he was looking for. Of course Rocket had it in their text messages with Boombox. Navigating to their GPS app, he sets the next destination and starts the car back up, setting the phone back in Rocket's lap. Back to driving, if anyone wakes up from the phone going off, whatever. He can deal with that later.

"Turn right. Follow the road until you reach your destination."

'H...huh? Is... someone speaking?' Opening his eyes, Sword let out a quiet yawn before taking a glance around. His hand was still holding Rocket's while they're sleeping... Medkit's still driving... Boombox is still sleeping... The ground seemed to get farther and farther from them...

Wait, what?

Looking out the window, they seemed to be heading up instead of just purely straight, but where would they need to go that requires driving upwards? The clouds are getting closer and closer, and the car keeps turning along the spiral road up the mountain.

'A-ah, that didn't feel good.' Trying to keep silent to not wake up the other two, Sword did his best to get the discomfort out of his ears. Seemed that Medkit was too focused on driving to do so as well, or maybe he just didn't care enough. Taking out his own phone (that unfortunately still had a slash mark and cracks along the crack from an accident during his training, he'd have to go get that fixed soon.) He searched up for ways to deal with the problem... no, no, don't have that... maybe? Might as well give it a shot.

Holding his nose shut and keeping his mouth closed, he took a few breaths until the problem eventually went away after a good while. 'Ugh... that was even more uncomfortable!' Unfortunately, Sword was too busy fixing that problem that he didn't notice that they had just passed a giant safety net connected to each nearby mountain, and were now in fact above the clouds, and heading towards an empty, yet still cared for battleground.

Night had turned into a sunrise as the group made it to a parking space just under the whole arena, prompting Medkit to smack Boombox awake, "Wake up. We're here," before exiting the car, and for Sword to gently shake Rocket awake... who woke up by being loud.

"Huh?! Who? What? Where?!" They cried out in a panic, forgetting for a moment that they were on a trip still.

"Woah! Calm down there Rocket... It's just me, Sword." He brought their hand up and took hold of it with his other hand as well, looking them in the eyes until they eventually calmed down.

"O-oh... sorry, I- I just..." In... and out... "Sorry Sword."

"It's okay, Rocket. It's okay. Now, come on, we still have a place to explore for next week!" Letting go of Rocket's hand, Sword turned back to the car door to exit, one foot out and follow with the next... foot.

"Rocket! You didn't tell me my dad's old training grounds were on the list!" He exclaimed in surprise, he couldn't believe it! He'd have a chance to do battle here, just like his father and his other family!

"Huh? O-oh yeah! I probably should've told you... sorry!" Rocket awkwardly rubbed the back of their neck before taking Sword's hand once more and walking with them into the training grounds.

The state of the grounds were a little worse for wear, the disappearing platforms lost their magic and the tilting platforms had their mechanism be riddled with rust, locking them in a flat position. Nevertheless, the trampolines still worked, and just like his dad said, they were fun and a little terrifying, to be honest!

However, what shocked him the most was when they got to the middle, there were already two people there, fighting it out! A purple, angelic looking being was gaining ground at a rapid pace over- Is that uncle Darkheart!? Wait, he's gonna fall off-

The purple person's free hand grabbed Darkheart's vest and pulled the tall man back towards the middle before socking him in the face, causing him to let his own sword fly and fall over. Ouch... that must've hurt. The angel being walked up to Darkheart and stomped on his chest, pinning him to the ground while he pointed his own sword directly at Dark's head.

"Checkmate."

"C'mon now... can't you give me a break? Haven't practiced in months, you know."

"That's on you, idiot. Keeping your swordsmanship up is essential for beings like us."

"Yeah, well. Keeping time to yourself is also essential for anyone, yet you're always working 24/7 with Ghostie. Take a break you two."

"Why you..."

It was at this point that Darkheart, in the corner of his sight, noticed the other two standing on the platform, mostly just Sword though.

"Hey there kiddo... you caught me at, uhh, a bad time."

"And you are..?" The purple angel kept his sword and gaze pointed at Darkheart, but the question was clearly pointed towards the others.

"Oh! I'm Sword! You must be Mr. Illumina! Dad and Darkheart told me a bit about you." Rocket also gave a wave towards the others from Sword's side. Hearing this, Illumina slowly moved his sword away from Darkheart's own face, letting the man get up, while opting to stand a bit away from Darkheart, in case he tried anything.

Darkheart immediately decided to take Sword under his arm and gave the Phighter a noogie. Way to somehow dig underneath expectations.

"Wha- hey!" "Hehe, should've said something before deciding to come and visit!" Illumina, meanwhile, was not amused with Darkheart's shenanigans, and instead decided to maintain his sword, taking a seat on the ground in order to do so. Rocket thought it was funny though, as they started laughing at the display.

"Ahahahahaha! Oh my- Hahahahahaha! I- I'm sorry, it's just that I've never seen someone be as happy as Sword is all the time..." After a while, Rocket was able to compose themself again, walking up to the uncle and Sword combo, before Darkheart turned towards Rocket, and asked Sword, with the most serious expression:

"When were you gonna tell us you had a lover?"

This one statement caused Sword to sputter, go red, cover his face, breakdown, and sputter some more. Rocket blushed, but began laughing once more due to Sword's own predicament... Yeah, they'll be here for a while. What's Boombox and Medkit doing?

Extra can of fuel?" "Check!" "Weapons just in case we get attacked?" "Check!" "Spare wheel?" "Uh- umm... oh! Check!"

"Okay, good. I'm going to sleep." Medkit said, after finishing up the checklist before opening one of the doors to the rear seats, and just laying across them... Ah, he was out like a rock already. Oh, well. Shutting the door, Boombox ran back to and opened the trunk to take out their boombox and began playing some tunes for himself. It's been a while since they heard some bangers!