Rvela tapped her pen on the test paper in front of her. She had been done with the questions for some time, but her inner restlessness had her sit in the test room.
Monday had started with noticeably less severe bruising on the back of her head. She had kept her hat on throughout the day, and for class, she had, in contrast to her usual spot, sat in the last row so that nobody would see the massive hematoma where Agent Buster had sucker punched her.
Now, she sat back in her spot, unable to hand in her test early because that would bring her to everybody's attention. No, instead, she had to wait till the test was over to put her hat back on while handing in her test as one of the last students. It wasn’t so much that it mattered or would change the outcome of the test that bothered her. Ravela would have much rather handed in her test early to eat an early lunch while the rest of her fellow recruits were stuck struggling with this test.
She felt a slight resentment toward Agent Buster grow in her. To her surprise, the passenger in her mind reciprocated her feelings.
‘We could be doing something useful, entertaining, or at the very least sustaining was it not for that blockheaded human attacking us from behind. If I get control of my body, I shall enact bloody revenge upon this fool. This is pure torture! WILL YOU STOP TAPPING THAT PEN, DAMN YOU!?’ The voice within yelled.
Ravela kept tapping her pen in a slow, uneven rhythm on the stack of test paper she had long since solved. A smirk snuck on her face. Others could only dream of being this entertained while sitting completely motionless. ‘You didn’t say please.’ She goaded the voice with smug glee.
Her mood swayed from somewhat content to bored, but her companion was unwillingly doing her best to make this wait bearable.
‘I won’t suffer such indignity.’ There was a wave of contempt and frustration coming along with that declaration.
Ravela rolled her eyes. ‘You’re such a diva. How is having some manners suffering an indignity?’
She put the pen down and looked out of the window at the sky. The small fluffy clouds and the sunshine all promised a wonderful day anywhere but inside. Ravela sighed quietly. ‘So, what kind of bed should we get for the basement bedroom?’
‘Why are you asking me such trivial things?’ The voice was immediately distracted from her revenge plans.
‘Since we are sharing a brain, I thought it would be nice if you didn’t absolutely hate the home the two of us are building, but if you don’t want to state your preferences, don’t blame me if the colors grate your sensibilities and you can’t feel comfortable because: “Oh, these colors are horrid!”, or “These pillows are just awful!”. Chip in or lose your right to complain because I chose to my liking alone.’ Ravela grinned.
An unwilling acceptance followed a long, grouchy pause, ‘I see. It can’t be helped then; I will at least attempt to convince you to make proper choices, lest I fear we might end up sleeping in a hammock.’
‘Uhh, I should get a hammock for the two trees outside the house toward the gate. They have just the right distance.’ Ravela coughed and cleared her throat. ‘For the occasional recreational nap, of course. Not as an actual bed,’ She added, trying to mask her excitement about the idea of getting a hammock.
‘Tsk,’ Was the only response she got from her companion, and then she was left alone in contempt and protest, Ravela assumed.
‘Alone again.’ Ravela shrugged mentally. She glanced at the big clock hanging on the wall at the front of the room. Only fifteen more minutes before she would get on to the next class and yet another test.
A day has 24 hours, but when you spend a day waiting, it suddenly has way more than that. Ravela stretched her back with her arms above her head. She felt like having a full-day fitness test instead but knew full well that life wasn’t about one's whims most of the time. There had to be times when you had to go with life like a good subject.
That earned her a scornful and mocking snicker from her companion. Though she had excluded herself from the conversation, it appeared that she had nothing better to do than to observe Ravela in her boredom. Now, wasn’t that way more pitiful?
‘You wish,’ something in her snickered.
_________________________________________________________
Safora strolled over the empty campus with Laena. Her friend was basically skipping. “You really enjoyed an entire day of getting tossed through the forest more than any of the other stuff Ramiel showed us so far, don’t you?”
Her friend grinned. “Oh, you look at it all wrong. It was sooo much fun! I really tried to punch Ramiel hard, and his armor didn’t even budge. IT’S SO COOL! I got to cut loose a little bit. No walking on eggshells. Just really move and do! Hell yeah, I enjoyed it more than the carpentry stuff and practice in easy hand-to-hand combat with kid gloves on.” Safora declared unashamed.
Laena pursed her lips. “I suppose it was fun. I also learned a lot. For example, Ramiel was holding back so much. He never really punched us or anything. That tells me that we have a long way to go.”
“Or maybe he holds back because we’re wearing these normal clothes. Once we get our very own suits, he will probably fight normally.” Safora said, unwilling to concede that Ramiel held back at all.
Laena sighed. Her friend was in willful yet knowing denial and was expecting her to play along and not be a Debby Downer. “I suppose if we had similar equipment, that training would have been even more fun, yes.”
Safora nodded vehemently. “Oh, yes! I can not wait to get my own suit!”
Laena motioned for her friend to tone it down a bit. “Ramiel also said that he can’t build something like his suit, so it probably won’t be that awesome.”
She got a look from her friend like she was daft. “Oh, sure. It won’t be awesome at all. Not like he built you this awesome marvel of technology that functions as an emergency signal while looking like a to-die-for little bracelet! Which only you getting one is totally unfair, you know!”
That gave Laena pause. She looked down at her bracelet. “That’s true.” Suddenly, she got excited about her suit, too. “That’s totally true!”
They both jumped a bit together in spontaneous giddiness. “Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Oh, they’ll be so cool!”
Laena calmed herself for the moment. “That doesn’t mean we can’t learn a lot of other stuff from him. There’s more to learn here than just punching, you know?”
Safora blew a raspberry at her. “Oh, of course there is, but we get our own suits.” She rummaged through her backpack. “I went to the comic store I got referred to by one of the bookworms the other day and blew two months of my allowance. What to study up a bit? I got like three of Major Buster, too…that basically counts as studying for us, right?” Safora said, waving one of the comics that were not of Major Buster fighting fascism in Asia and Africa. “Aren’t you curious?”
Laena bit her lip. It technically was research. “What do you have?”
Safora grinned from ear to ear. “First, we return to our dorm, and then I show you.” She was off as soon as she finished that sentence. She was skipping even more now that they were on the same page, mood-wise.
_________________________________________________________
Vex sat in the hospital room and stared out of the window. Inwardly, he was boiling.
Levistra sat by his bedside. She had been moody the entire weekend.
“So, once I’m discharged, how about we go have lunch?”
His fiance scoffed and kept studying her file. “You’re not being discharged today, Vex. I don’t care if you walk up these walls out of boredom. You will not discharge yourself earlier than the doctor allows.”
Vex shifted in his bed. “Why are you upset with me? I just got a bit dinged up in that fight. You should have seen the other guys.”
His love threw him a withering glare. “I’ve seen the other guys, Vex. You could have arrested the Bomber and let Michael go. Instead, you decided to fight the man who fought you and the Bomber simultaneously and came out, as far as I could tell, as the winner against both AND either of you.”
That hurt worse than his injuries. “I didn’t lose against Michael. The keepers stopped our fight, and he ran.”
Levistra looked as though she considered throwing her pen at him. “After which Michael gracefully escaped, seizing his hostilities. The Bomber escaped, too. And need I remind you that you basically fell unconscious in the Safehouse minutes after he had left?”
Vex puffed his chest, ignoring the pain. “That was almost an hour after he left because the adrenaline wore off.” He defended his performance.
“Sixty minutes. You got beat up so badly that you couldn’t have helped deliver the Bomber and Michael to prison if you tried, Vex.” Levistra gestured wildly. “You know what’s crazy? After comparing The Bomber’s state and yours, I am almost certain that he took it easy on you.”
Vex took offense to that. “You’re saying he took it easy on me? That’s not. I. You got to be kidding me. He sent me flying out of the seventh floor. Mind you, the building only had five!”
“Yet, somehow, in the short time you were out of the fight and landed on the street, he took down the Bomber on his own, and according to your words, that was after he tanked a punch you threw at the back of his head as you put it ‘with all I had.’.”
“Now, hold on, I wasn’t charged at the time. If I had been, Michael wouldn’t have fought at all anymore.” Vex found himself on the defensive.
Levitra powered on. “Yes, I’ve seen you punch holes into tanks while charged, and when you landed outside in the street, you were, in fact, charged more than I have ever seen before. I even saw the garb revert to the form it had when we found it all those years ago.” She pointed directly at him. “And that part of the fight I saw with my own eyes, Vex. Michael held more than his own in that fight. He matched you throughout.”
Vex became contemplative. “So, I should have let him run to arrest the Bomber?”
His fiance crossed her arms and sighed. “In hindsight, I would say yes.”
Vex leaned back. “But in that moment, you thought the same as me, right? So why are we fighting.”
Levistra got up without answering a question, the answer to which was obvious. “You're still not getting discharged today, so get comfortable. I’ll visit the base and introduce Troy and the new arrivals to each other.”
“Aww, come on, don’t leave me behind here. I am totally fine.”
She stopped at the door. “Oh, like hell you are. Two cracked ribs, a bunch of microfractures in all your hand bones, not even talking about all the bruising on you. Even if that ancient piece of cloth grants you the power of a thousand man and their vitality, you need to rest. I am not losing you to some brawl with these criminals. Now, lay down and take a nap. That’s an order.”
With that, she left him behind. “We do have the same rank, you know,” Vex mumbled while lowering his head onto the pillow and closing his eyes.
_________________________________________________________
Ravela sat on the floor just outside the living room of her house. Slowly guiding the flooring into place and double-checking all the gaps for the heating pipes.
She got up and moved with the floorboard, slowly layering themselves as per her will through the hallway and the dining room where she would have the second hidden entrance to her secret basement bedroom. In truth, that, too, would only be a cover for one of the entrances to her hideout. Secrets within secrets, Ravela thought with a smile.
Ravela planned on putting off butting head with Agent Buster or the Bomber if she could avoid them. If they wanted to be problems for eachother, Ravela was getting comfortable with letting them be just that until she was good and ready. That meant she could focus all her energy and time on training with Safora and Laena and furthering the building of her home.
‘Awwww, does Major Agent scare you?’ Her companion goaded her. ‘You know if you went out in my armor, you’d easily wipe the floor with both of them.’
In her home, she gave herself the luxury of responding to the voice in her head as though she was talking to a person in the room. “I am not scared. I am methodical. I prioritize the long-term benefits of retaining my cover here over the short-term bloodsport of risking it all every damn night with no discernable progress to my own security.”
‘You don’t need these rings. Just be you. Come on, all that hiding and pretending must be soooo stressful.’ Her companion made her next line appear as though it was softly whispered in her ear. ‘You know it would feel good.’
While Ravela kept working, she appreciatively remarked on that new development. “Wow, that felt like you actually whispered in my ear. You’re getting better at this.”
‘I got nothing but time in here.’ The bored reply came back to her. ‘You could save me from this boredom. I remember an adventurous you who went out there and fought some lowlife criminals for the fun of it. Come on, don’t be shy. You know you want to.’
“You really are all about cracking open skulls, aren’t you?” Ravela answered with a noncommittal.
A wave of bemusement washed over her, and she felt a grin creep up her face. ‘As if you don’t enjoy a good fight. Don’t be a hypocrite, for remember, I’ve been watching you for a long, long time in here.’
Ravela nodded. “I can’t lie to you. Right about now, I could go for some superpowered goons to run circles around.”
‘Oh, the low-hanging fruit! I want to fight that Morbolfr guy. He could handle himself, plus you still have his property.’ She felt a devious snicker in her thoughts. ‘I vote we give it back to him tonight.’
Before she let herself talk into a hotheaded, aimless hunt for some elusive fight that may or may not happen, Ravela shot the idea down cold. “I think I’ll pass, thank you.”
‘Bleh.’ Came the response with an emotional wash of exasperation.
Ravela looked at her completed work on the ground floor and moved up the stairs. She would get so much of her house done by just letting Agent Buster take care of the Bomber.
After all, he was the one fighting to have him on the loose.
She pushed aside that nagging bit of her mind, telling her this was a mistake that would come back to bite her.
A hideout and a home didn’t build themselves.
