Outer Olympus

Outer Olympus: Chapter 40

Viola was an odd creature, Hope thought. She didn't seem to react to anything the way one would expect; she had gone so far as to use being taken hostage as an excuse to be bought unexpectedly delicious and expensive drinks. It would be easy to mistake her for someone who wasn't taking her life seriously, but Hope had the advantage of being able to look into the torrent of emotions running through the girl's head. She understood the severity of the situation perfectly and was in every moment looking for any advantage she could muster. At the same time, every smile, every sympathetic look, every stupid little joke she told, they were all completely genuine. As far as Hope could tell, this little criminal liked talking to her. It was an utterly alien sensation to feel in someone. And she was broadcasting it with all the subtlety of a neutron bomb.

There was a bit of panic in her when Hope mentioned Geode's arrival. For all the fun she was having, Viola couldn't quite hide her calculating mind, planning escape behind every warm emotion, and Geode's arrival had thrown off whatever scheme was in the works. With most people, Hope would have some idea what that scheme was, but Viola so carefully hid exactly what she was thinking about behind loud expressions of joy and compassion. Hope had wondered briefly if Rune had taught her some sort of anti-telepathic technique, but then dismissed the thought; Rune herself couldn't manage something of this magnitude. The woman broadcast her thoughts intensely enough to leave burn marks. Viola had figured this all out on the fly; maybe even to hide herself from Rune? Worth investigating, given the chance. Once the problem at hand was dealt with.

"I didn't know Geode was coming, I swear," Viola piped in, an urge to deescalate in her voice, "they're probably just coming to check in on why I was taking so long. If they haven't seen you yet, they'll just assume I stopped to get drinks despite explicitly promising I wouldn't." It didn't surprise Hope to hear Viola was as much of a troublemaker to her friends as anyone else, but that wasn't the important thing hidden in this explanation. Hope had only trapped Viola maybe ten minutes ago at most, probably much shorter than that. If Geode had already noticed that she was late, and gotten all the way here themselves, it meant their hideout must be close. A few minutes away in any direction. Though she had already ruled out large swatches of the station as possible locations for her adversaries, this dramatically narrowed the scope. Of course, this wouldn't matter if she played her cards right and just forced Viola or Geode to give the location away completely.

"I believe you," Hope said, moving her hand away from her psyblade. This wasn't an operation, and without Rune here it wouldn't be a fight, either. There was no need for anyone to get hurt. "But them being here still complicates things. Get up, we're leaving. Try to avoid them seeing us; this only gets worse for you if I end up with two hostages." Viola nodded, standing up and stretching.

"Understood. Where to, oh captain my captain?" Viola was having way too much fun with this, continuing to make it hard to tell what she was planning. Still, the little salute she gave was cute, enough that Hope didn't bother to point out that wasn't how a formal navy salute she was going for was done.

"Out the back. Follow me. I'll know if you run," Hope instructed, slipping past the guy running the store's counter into the employee section. She ignored his complaints, though Viola fed him a line about looking for a washroom that he seemed to buy, and then continued to follow under the guise of helping Hope find it. It was effortless and slick, and worse, Viola's sense of being on a fun little adventure didn't slip for a moment as she was pulling off the little ruse. Why had Rune had to have found such a delightful nightmare of an accomplice?

"Smoke break?" Viola joked as they made their way into the alley-tunnel out back of the tea shop, and Hope telekinetically guided a sphere of tapioca up Viola's straw to weakly hit her in the face in meagre retribution for the joke. Viola feigned indignation as she popped the boba into her mouth, but she momentarily lost her status as the central object of Hopes attention.