Welcome to Gaia! ::

As weary and bitter as he was, Centisima was surprised when it worked. He had been watching the others around him, the way they used their phone to wink out of existence and so he had simply tried it. It was a bit like Dorothy, he realized, wishing really hard to go home and clicking her heels but instead he was pressing a button and focusing intensely on how fed up he was with being on the moon with blood still dripping down his cheek and the sharp pain in his ribs reminding him of the mess he’d just been part of. He just wanted to be somewhere familiar, hidden away under a blanket and safe.

One second he was there, on the moon and the next he was out on the street in Destiny City, some delightful and seemingly random location that had him turning his weak circles until he flagged someone down for directions.. He didn’t drop Centisima until he had made it closer to home and once he was Jayce again, it was all he could do to drag his tired a** into his building and up the stairs to his apartment. He was ridiculously grateful there was nobody awake to freak out over how he looked and he gratefully stepped into the bathroom, shedding his clothes and stepping under the heat of the shower for at least an hour.

It seemed ridiculous that in the space of a night he had gone into the heart of darkness, nearly died a hundred times, fought some ridiculous super terminator Nega, seen countless die, seen an actual dragon and had been transported to the moon just as death seemed an absolute certainty. If every part of his body still didn’t ache, he might have thought he was going mad.

When his legs started to shake and he crouched at the bottom of the shower, when he started to vomit, dry heaving up the remains of whatever he’d eaten before this whole mess, that was when he knew it had sunk in. This was his future now. This wild, terrifying ride where your life could be ended as swiftly as one wrong decision, where your future was balanced precariously on the edge of a scythe. It could have easily have been him sliced in half, guts dangling. How did anyone actually live with that?

Jayce eventually found the strength to brush his teeth and stagger to his room, not even bothering to dry properly or get changed before he carefully settled onto his bed, curling the blanket around like a protective cocoon. Tomorrow he’d go to the doctor, see how bad the damage was, tomorrow he’d tell Olga every little detail and they would pick it apart, discuss it to death until it felt like a dream. He would get over it, he would go back on patrol and find someone from the Negaverse to punch in the face. This would make him stronger, he knew that.

But tonight, tonight was for being weak. For being terrified as your mortally was laid out in front of you with absolute finality.

And if he was lucky, he would get that hug. Something easy and comforting to fall asleep with other than his tears, fears and the image of Laurelite swinging her weapon with mindless fury burned into his mind.