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Clerise was stuck on pod duty.

It was so boring that she, quite honestly, almost felt like finding some spoons to carve her eyes out. Historians in the future would call it "less intriguing than watching paint dry" or "next on watching grass grow."

It was terrible, but at the same time, it was hard to be worse than a mission that nearly got her head lopped off. And then there was...

There was sound.

Uh. Jesus, one of the pod-people was moving and she had spaced out on the training and--

"Who is that over there!" Clerise asked, hopping over to the row of pods that had some movement.

"RIiiiiseeee and shhhhhhinnneee!~"

Her voice was sickeningly sweet, and she bounded to the pod with excitement, knocking on it with her knuckles.

Clerise beamed down at the newly awakened hunter, oblivious to the fact that she had already done this once before.

"Hi Scarlett!" She grinned down at the girl--

Oh.

Well, isn't...that strange? The gal already had what appeared to be a trainee's coat on, the white trimmed with gold and the clouds along the hem. Blinking owlishly, the acrobat offered both her hands to the girl in the pod, ready to help her up and out of the thing. Wouldn't do to have eating pavement be one of the first memories she had.

Really, Clerise had never met anyone fresh out of the pod. Not in a state like this, literally before anyone else had even seen them. Scarlett looked dazed and confused at best, and absolutely lost at worst.

Conversationally, casually, she asked: "How'd you get a coat already?"

Clerise's grip was strong, easily helping the other girl to her feet. She was nigh amazonian-- in her boots, a few inches above six feet tall and broad.

"Easy there," she crooned, making sure she wouldn't trip. "Don't want you falling out of the pod like I did, do we?" Her tone was teasing but lightly so; no malice at all.

As the new trainee struggled to explain herself, Clerise cocked her head like a baffled puppy. "Well, that's strange." Who had ever heard of a podling being put...back into the pod? Especially after a coat and a division assignment.

"Do you have your weapon?" she asked, red eyes scanning her figure for any sign of an unsummoned form, stopping short only when she blearily asked for the date.

"It's March 2012, sleeping beauty," Clerise replies, tone softer now. "I dunno who Hana or Scott are, but I only popped outta my pod a few months ago."

Releasing the other girl after a quick shoulder squeeze, the redheaded trainee tapped her chin, thoughtful. Who were the oldest hunters around? Intermediates, probably. "Did you know Robert, or Jordan?"

This begged the question: when did the girl wake up the FIRST time?

There was something fishy going on.

"Recruited together?" she echoed, baffled. "Hold on."

Fumbling for her phone, she sent a text:



"Never got your weapon?" Clerise led her steadily to the door, an arm wrapped easily around her waist, guiding her towards the observation area, letting her take the seat there, in front of the rows of monitors watching the other sleepers in their little pods.

"Okay. So." The redhead sucked in a deep breath, trying to piece this together. "Recruited together-- Jordan told me he's been around for a year."

But...

Scarlett had the coat.

She had no weapon.

And had been, apparently, shut back into the pod. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Scarlett's eyes swept over the phone that the redhead fumbled with but she couldn't even begin to wonder what the point was, especially in her shock. She sat gingerly in the seat and let her attention avert to the sleepers. How long had some of them been there?

"That sounds.. right. Almost a year." She echoed it softly, as if she were talking more to herself than Clerise. She was still having trouble wrapping her head around the fact that she'd lost nearly an entire year of her life.

She finally looked away from the pods, forced herself to stop imagining her face inside them, and rubbed at her arms beneath the slipping sleeves of her coat.

"I got assigned my division, then I went to find Hana and Scott after the ceremony and.." her brows furrowed as her brain hit a roadblock. It was just a giant haze of.. nothing. "I remember bits and pieces, stumbling, then.."

She shut her eyes and rubbed at the side of her head, as if something told her she should have had a nasty bruise.

"Then I woke up here." Her eyes rose to meet Clerise's, but shied away after a moment. She felt ashamed to be waking up under the care of someone she should have outranked by now. She felt ashamed to be waking up like this at all.

Scarlett's eyes rolled up comically to stare at the finger Clerise tapped against her forehead, trying not to shy away from the girl touching her uninvited.

"Uhm," she frowned and rolled her eyes up and to the side, concentrating on her surroundings. What did she mean? There wasn't any--

Then she felt it, a pulse, a beckoning. Suddenly Scarlett felt very lacking, as if she were missing something important. That feeling had never been there before.

"Yes," it was soft, barely audible. "Yes, I feel that," with more feeling and confidence, perhaps even excitement. Maybe she wasn't broken after all. She still had no idea why she'd gone back to the pod again but if this oddity was normal, maybe.. it had been for a reason.

She slid out of the chair and stood again, suddenly aware of the height difference between them. There were other things on her mind, though.

"Where.. do I find it?" There was no mistaking her eagerness and the way it set her eyes alight. She had something to do - something that would keep her mind off her shortcoming.

Scarlett was surprised at the extremely girlish gesture from the giant woman. Giddiness and energy were typically a trait of the small and petite. Seeing Clerise do so was a bit like a rottweiler that thought it was a lap dog. But the thought made her smile, just a little.

"It's.. beckoning pretty strongly, yes," she waved in the general direction she knew it had to be before she fell into step at Clerise's side. "But I have kept it waiting." She didn't know how or why the weapon called, or much about it at all past her need to find it.

She eyed each door as they passed them, feeling it out and dismissing them as the right destination. Until a single door in the near distance appeared. The static feeling grew, charged, as if it were excited suddenly.

"That's it.." she said quietly, almost awed, as she and Clerise kept walking towards it. "What's down there?"