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It's not easy for a man as big as him to move undetected through a street. But, unless you were paying attention, you wouldn't recognise him. He blended in exceptionally well...his hands in his pockets, his handsome face twisted in deep thought as he moved through the crowds...

...Thats what you get for being away for so long. Something drastic happens, and people might get hurt. Sure, you cant be there all the damn time, but you could have made a difference. Some help is better then no help.

This train of thought kept running through the railway of his mind, chugging around and around only to pause breifly to allow some new considerations on and others to disembark and file off into the memory banks.

Despite what some people may say about the big Tomorrow, he does think a lot...wether he gets anywhere with it all, however, is another matter...

Walking over to a small stand, he reached into his pocket to fish out a gold coin. The icy-pole in the vendor's fridge was looking mighty tasty at the moment, and you never know...perhaps sucking on the frozen liquid might charge his brain...

The fluttering on the back of his neck caught him completely by surprise. His reaction was one of slight amused contentment - his toes within his boots curled from the feeling.

"...If you want me to buy something, you've piqued my interest..." He said in that deep Tribal accent. "...Feels like something my fiancee would like..."

Taking his icy-pole and paying, he stood upright, putting the lolly in his mouth.

"I dunno, she's more of a caster type..." John said down to the little lady, cocking an eyebrow over his sunglasses.

Wait a minute...

Reaching out with his free hand, his other hand in his pocket whilst the icy-pole was jammed in his mouth like a half-lit stogey, he placed a finger on the edge of the feathered fan and slowly pushed it down to see it's owner's face...

There was a large smile on the large man's face as he saw who it was.

Raven.

Taking the icy-pole out of his mouth he leaned down to kiss her cheek gently, his smile never missing a beat. "Well, well, well...i come back from a relaxing holiday for one day and already i'm catching up. How have you been, Rave? Keeping out of trouble, i assume?"

The stuff about the stadium could wait...if she wished it. He already knew. She ought to know that.

"Yes...very good...extremely good...good to get away from everything..." He said. It had been a bit sudden...suddenly dissapearing like he had...but then, nobody really needed him anymore. There was no danger.

None that he had been aware of...

"Yeah, Amber asked me a while ago. I should have asked her, but she beat me to it." He smiled down to the woman, watching her as she sipped her juice box. "And children, huh? Are they around, or are they with the man of the house?"

He'd really like to see that. John loved children, and on the whole, they liked him. There was something about the new spark in a child that gave warmth to the fire within him...

"Tell me about it...beats my brain about like a kitten with a ball of string, she does..." He said with a grin, biting into his icy-pole and munching on it for a second, before putting his arm around her shoulders.

"C'mon now, i haven't seen you in a while! Tell me about yourself! What have you been up to...tell me..."

He sighed audibly, his hand stroking her shoulder absently as he looked off into the distance, his voice quiet. "...Tell me about the Stadium. Tell me about...about Maximos..."

John sighed. "The last thing i need is riddles, Rave. A Phoenix saved you? You mean a giant fire-bird that only ever lays two eggs in it's entire existance?"

John walked them over to a fountain, some long-forgotten woman spouting water from some oriface into the pool beneath her as the big demi-god sat down on the stone edge of the fountain and ate his icy-pole.

"...Juuni...Juuni said there was a rain of blood...then everything went 'boom'...whatever happened, it took out the Stadium. Which is a shitload of ground to cover. If i had to guess, it was like someone let off a nuclear bomb within the centre of the fighting arena..."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead as he watched his icy-pole drip onto the sadny ground, the bustling people around him not helping the headache growing as his mind tried to assimilate everything. "I've been hearing about tensions from purist humans about how dangerous meta-humans can be. This is a prime example. If someone did this out of malice, then thats that - but if it was an accident...a meta-human who couldn't control his or her powers...then it's something entirely different."

A timebomb that ticks was workable. You knew how much time you had left.

One that just goes off without warning was many, many times dangerous...