"How many times do I have to tell them that it's not Magic." Sandra sighed, shutting her laptop so that she didn't have to look at the damned article from the damned reporters about the damned heroes and the damned science she was researching.
"Magic sounds so much cooler though." Robin grinned from where she stood, leaning against the kitchen counter. She had a cup of coffee in her hands that Sandra thought had better be caffeinated otherwise she might murder someone.
"I guess?" Sandra said, taking the coffee from Robin's hands and practically chugging it in one.
"Hey! I wasn't offering, get your own damned coffee."
"Oh c'mon Rob," Shen, the 3rd member of their 4-way friendship, said entering the kitchen from the lounge "you know you make the best coffee."
Robin glared at Shen and turned around to refill her mug. She saw Shen eyeing it up and she glared at him. "I swear I'll poison you with your next cup."
Shen put up his hands in mock surrender and Sandra chuckled.
"Any idea where Greg disappeared to?" She asked.
"Not a clue." Shen answered, grabbing a clean mug from the cupboard and passing it to Robin in a silent ask for a drink. "He's probably sleeping in, I swear that man is nocturnal."
"Would make sense. You've seen how pale he is." Sandra chuckled.
"And how he hates going outside when it's sunny out." Robin said, offering a steaming cup of coffee back to Shen.
"Any chance this is poison?" He asked.
"You'll find out when you drink it."
"Fair enough."
Sandra glanced down at her watch. "We'd better get to work."
"Time?" Robin asked.
"About 9:30."
"Bah, we have another hour." Robin said, leaning against the counter. "You're such a stickler for time, San."
"I'd like to get there before the whole world starts figuring stuff out before we do. You know how important our job is." Sandra countered, pouring coffee into a travel mug and adding a spoon of sugar.
"Yes we know, 'our job is incredibly important to the survival of our world, blah blah blah'." Robin groaned, rolling her eyes. "Doesn't mean we can't at least be there on time rather than early."
Sandra and Robin glared at each other before breaking into mirrored grins.
"God you're awful sometimes you know that Rob?"
"Oi, don't call me that, it's only endearing when Shen calls me that." Robin stuck her tongue out at Sandra. "And you're insufferable with your time-keeping. I swear you need to get checked for OCD or something."
Sandra laughed and both girls left the kitchen, leaving Shen to watch after them and shake his head. "I'll never understand what the hell goes on between those two." He paused and thought for a moment before saying "if i did I'd probably get confused anyway." He shrugged and walked off to his own room to get dressed and ready for work and prod Greg awake.
The four friends met in the early stages of the Heroes Association's creation, with all of them having a shared passionate interest for the reason why Heroes are what they are. And in the 6 years since have become the 4 leading researchers in the field of what has widely been known as Magic (much to Sandra's dismay). The official title for their job is "Researchers of Power Transfer and Other Related Magics", or as Greg and Shen had decided to call them "Fancy Conspiracy Theorists With a Bloody Good Salary."
