He grimaced at his own reflection in the mirror, and the fascinatingly shaped bruise, already turning interesting shades of black and purple, and making his eye look serial-killer-red, and then clapped the zip-lock bag of ice back to the side of his face with a sigh, wandering back to sit on the edge of the bed. The ice had already partially melted in the bag, but the cold water felt almost as good as the ice did on his red, rope burned hands. He couldn't check to see if the spot on his back was also forming a bruise, but if nothing else it was slowly forming into an aching knot, that he was sure he'd be feeling all day tomorrow.
That had been hugely different than the first time he'd fought an Negaverse agent, and he really couldn't say he liked the change. Could have been worse too, he imagined, if the little brat had actually gotten a chance to get the jump rope around his neck. He was already having trouble thinking of a really plausible excuse for the bruises, and oh god, he was going to have to deal with Parker. Would Parker notice that the black eye wasn't really -fist- shaped? Would he or the teachers, Tallulah or anyone else buy the Mosh Pit story? What if the Negaverse brat saw him in civilian form? Could he cover part of it up with... no. That wouldn't work. There wasn't enough visine in the world for the eye, and it would probably be half swelled shut by morning anyway.
This time anyway he didn't feel so bad about slicing them up with "Claws". Well, still a little bad, but it was harder to feel bad about hurting someone who was talking about strangling you with cheap gym equipment.
The girl...or sorry... 'Princess' he kept dreaming about would probably have been overwhelmingly impressed.... by his complete failure to actually hit the little punk with any consistency. Did you get negative brownie points for resorting to something other than magical attacks? How did that work out anyway? It wasn't something that had been covered in "Remedial Senshi Training".
Anyway, it had lent an considerably darker edge to the fun game of getting suited up and zooming around the city.
That was, he realized, pretty much what it had felt like, an nasty sort of game with an edge of bullying, or at least he'd felt like a bully after the girl with the blue hair. That feeling was wearing off after Wolframite.
What a weird name that was too. His was a star, but that one he was pretty sure, definitely wasn't. He hadn't tried punching it into google though. He'd seriously considered it, but then it had hit him that it would probably look weird if he was tracked looking up the names of every Senshi and Negaverse agent he ran into. Busted by Google. THAT would be the worlds most embarrassing and stupid way to be ousted as a Senshi.
He sighed heavily and lifted his free hand, glaring again at the angry red line where the jump rope had been pulled free. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe he should have just tossed Claws again. Stupid jump rope. How could someone actually sound that psycho while wielding a JUMP rope? And why a Jump Rope? Why not a training weight or something?
Hit someone with one of those and... ok well... maybe it was a better idea just to be grateful that it was -just- a jump rope.
"I could have lost an eye if it wasn't." he noted, out loud, realizing this with an uncomfortable sensation, as though a piece of ice had grown little centipede feet and slithered down his spine.
If Astrea hadn't been exaggerating, and Skippy HAD gotten the rope around his neck even... and now he really didn't think she was exaggerating.
He sat up again with a shudder and dropped the bag of ice on the bed. It would leave a cold spot, but he wasn't thinking about that as he walked over to his computer and banged out a message, with a feeling that the shadow of mortality was reading over his shoulder.
To: TallulahSwims@freE-mail.com
From: DenofLions253@budgetnet.web
Tal! It's Jaimie.
You. Me. Huge ..............cups of coffee. Saturday?
((yes that was a really bad 'tracts of land' spoof.))
Let me know!
-J
