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 Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 12:18 pm
Not that he had any real concept of time, but Quinn had no idea how long he’d slept when he finally pushed the blankets from over his head. Sunlight was shining through the window, and he could see the trees from the park and the blue sky.
The only reason he got out of bed at all was so he could stumble into the bathroom to relieve himself. He was still wearing the over-large clothing Jack let him borrow, and his hair looked like he should maybe try to tame it, but it was at least no longer dull and caked with dirt.
Cautiously, but not before pulling a blanket off the bed to wrap around his shoulders, Quinn poked his head out of the bedroom he’d been allowed to use. He felt guilty for going to sleep without eating whatever it was that Jack ordered, although he had no idea how that worked beyond his own understanding of food being provided when requested.
Of course, now he was really hungry. He just hoped Roxy wouldn’t decide to attack him or something.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 1:18 pm
Jack wasn’t a great cook. He wasn’t even a good cook. He relied mostly on take out, or easy meals like pasta and sandwiches, things he couldn’t possibly screw up (except once he did cook the pasta way too long). The one thing he could make was breakfast, so long as that breakfast was simple. Some bacon, or sausage. Some eggs (scrambled, because anything fancier than that was impossible for him). Some toast or an english muffin, or a bagel from the shop down the street.
This morning it was sausages, scrambled eggs, some store bought blueberry muffins, and some pre-cut fruit (because he didn’t have the skill or know-how to cut melons himself). Roxy sat nearby, begging for sausage.
She turned and trotted over to Quinn when he emerged, seeking affection.
“Roxy, let him wake up first.”
The kitchen and the living area smelled of sizzling sausages and fresh brewed coffee. Jack hadn’t changed out of the sweatpants and t-shirt he used for lounge clothes when he had company, and his hair was even more disheveled than Quinn’s.
“Are you hungry?” Jack asked. “There’s some soup I ordered last night if any of this is too heavy for you. I can heat it up. I don’t have much to drink except for water and coffee, and some sports drinks. Actually, now that I think about it, the electrolytes might do you some good.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 2:38 pm
Quinn froze when Roxy moved to attack him and-- oh. Oh she didn’t seem to want to hurt him. Just excitement, maybe? He wasn’t sure what Roxy wanted, but as long as it wasn’t to eat him or something.
He pulled the blanket tighter around him as he looked to see what Jack was doing. Something smelled like food at least. And he could hear food being cooked, so of course he was curious and wanted to see what it was.
Oh, but he was kind of stuck there with Roxy. Maybe if he just… carefully… inched by her. He nervously held out his hand to pat her head, and then turned his attention back to Jack.
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t stay up to eat it last night. I was just really overwhelmed,” he admitted, his voice a little rough from sleep, so he tried to clear it, before making a face at Jack’s offer. “I don’t know what that is.” Just water.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 7:03 pm
“Electrolytes are, like, science-y, medical stuff. I don’t know how to explain what they are, I’m not that smart, but they help rehydrate you. Sports drinks are full of ‘em. Sorry, I’m kind of a dumb jock.”
Come to think of it, maybe Quinn didn’t know what a jock was either. Maybe he didn’t know what sports were. Jack knew nothing about Quinn’s culture. His world might be completely different from Earth, despite the fact that his name fit in there well.
“A jock is someone who likes athletics instead of, like, intellectual stuff,” Jack explained. “Physical activity. There are stereotypes around it. They’re not always flattering. Some of us embrace it anyway. I do alright at academics, but I’ve always been athletically motivated. I like the thrill.”
He spared a few moments to open the refrigerator, reaching inside for a gatorade. He picked a yellow one, assuming the lemon-lime flavor would be the least offensive to someone who’d never had one before. Jack twisted the top off and handed it to Quinn on his way back to the stove.
Roxy came back over to stare up expectantly, waiting for the gift of sausage.
“Do you want me to heat up the soup, or do you think you could stomach some of this? It’s just sausage and eggs. There’s some muffins and fruit, too. The soup was chicken and rice.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 7:21 pm
He wasn’t sure if it was a quirk of people from Earth (Jack was from Earth, right?) or if he really just didn’t understand how social interactions worked. He wouldn’t be surprised. He was used to things being a certain way, and Jack was already turning that upside down.
“So you like physical activity for the thrill?” he tipped his head curiously to the side, but didn’t say anything more about it, nor did he go into detail about what he meant.
“I can try. We had eggs on my world, and I’ve had sausage before but we mostly had seafood. Shellfish,” he said as he slowly made his way over to where Jack was so he could peer around him. He took the bottle from him with a word of thanks, and then gave it a suspicious look for its color. It seemed too bright. However, Jack was the one looking out for him. At least until he figured out a way to be self sustaining.
“But I like fruit… what’s a muffin?” he asked as he sniffed the liquid and then took a drink. He made a face, prepared to be disappointed or disgusted, but it wasn’t so bad. He took another sip.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:04 am
If Quinn meant anything suggestive with his first question, Jack didn’t pick up on it. Maybe if Quinn wasn’t an alien and their personalities and circumstances weren’t so mismatched, it would have registered differently. For now, Jack’s only response was a brief, accepting shrug. He was a jock. There was no way around it.
“A muffin is a baked good. Sort of like cake. I don’t know if your people had cake. Uhh… pastries? In the realm of all that. You can make ‘em in a lot of different ways, like, with pieces of chocolate inside, or fruit, or both, or you can mess with the flavors of the batter and stuff. I’ve got some blueberry ones, so they’ve got little round berries baked into them.”
Jack turned to one of the cabinets to pull out a couple of plates. He filled one for Quinn first, going a little easier on the portion sizes — both because he was worried that Quinn’s stomach might be a little unsettled, and because he assumed, perhaps wrongly, that based on Quinn’s stature, he might not eat as much. The muffins sat in their plastic packaging on the counter. Jack opened them and motioned for Quinn to pick whichever one he thought looked appealing.
He let Roxy have a small piece of sausage for her patience, then took a seat at the counter bar. Without frequent company, he hadn’t invested in a dining table.
“So… I don’t want to overwhelm you with a lot of information again,” Jack said, “so you can tell me to shut up if you ever think I’m talking too much. I won’t be offended. It’s true, anyway. Sometimes I talk too much.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:19 am
Quinn was trying to decide if he minded Jack talking or not. At the moment he didn’t seem to mind it. It was almost nice to have someone else filling the void and not expecting him to say anything in return. Most of what Jack said he didn’t really understand, but he figured he would learn eventually or would be corrected. Or would just remain ignorant.
At least now he sort of knew what muffins were.
He followed Jack over to the counter bar, pulling the blankets along with him as he went. He was still shivering a little, despite the relative warmth of the place. It took a little bit of negotiating with the blankets and stool to get comfortable, but he eventually settled at the counter next to Jack.
“I’ll tell you to shut up if you’re talking too much,” Quinn assured him, and reached over to take the closest muffin to inspect.
“Why is there still Chaos on Earth if knights and senshi are living here? That is really strange to think about, though. I didn’t think Senshi could be born anywhere but their World. It’s where they draw their strength. And their World needs them to survive.”
Maybe he was just rambling about things, but he assumed if he was talking too much, Jack would tell him to shut up too.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:40 am
“So it’s been a thousand years, right?” Jack wasn’t looking for clarification, just adding words to fill up space. “Supposedly most people died out back then and had to be reborn here on Earth because it’s the only place that isn’t—...”
He still didn’t want to say dead. That seemed harsh, even if it was accurate. Jack figured, for most people, the magical war was a lot to take in even without Quinn’s circumstances. Just because Jack settled right in didn’t mean it would be so easy for anyone else.
“Uhh, well…” He struggled to find an appropriate way to word it. Usually he just ran his mouth without putting much thought into it. “It’s the only place that isn’t like your world, I guess. It’s still habitable here. It’s the only place for our starseeds to go.
“I don’t know why there’s still Chaos here other than that we haven’t been able to do much about it,” he continued. “I know it’s been here a long time, and there’ve been Senshi and Knights fighting it a lot longer than I have. Maybe it was dormant for a while? I don’t know, but it’s definitely causing trouble now. The Chaos is called… uhh… Metallica? No, I don’t think that’s right. Uhh… Metal-something. Metallia? She — I think that’s the right pronoun. Chris and Paris used it. Anyway, she has an army called the Negaverse, and they have pretty widespread influence over the Earth, from what I’ve been told. The youma are theirs. Supposedly Destiny City — that’s where we are now — is the only place safe for us to power up.”
Jack winced. He didn’t know how Chris and Paris talked about this stuff all the time, but it sounded pretty bleak.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:07 am
It definitely sounded bleak. Quinn picked at the muffin but didn’t eat it yet. He was trying to figure out if he would have the stomach for anything, despite being absolutely famished. Eventually he took another sip of his yellow drink, before picking off a piece of the muffin to try.
“So for some unknown reason, Senshi who either were put in stasis when things went bad, or somehow magically survived a thousand years on their Chaos infested planet, are being brought to Destiny City on Earth to ban together and destroy all that exists of Chaos.”
That sounded about right. Quinn definitely wanted to destroy every last bit of Chaos until it wished it never existed in the first place.
“I met one of those Negaverse people. They were pathetic. Just, the absolute worst. Probably even more pathetic than that youma. But he said he was a Captain. Seems like they’re just a bunch of bullies who need to be punched in the throat and have their starseed ripped out and sent to the Cauldron.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:55 am
Jack laughed.
Awkwardly.
“I, uhh, don’t know which Captain you met, but I don’t think they’re all pathetic,” he said. “Some might be less ruthless than others, maybe? Like the youma. The one Val and I fought when I awakened was pretty small and weak, and the one you and I took on was bigger and more vicious than that. I’ve heard they can get pretty lethal.”
Based on what he knew of Quinn’s power level, Jack didn’t want him to underestimate the Negaverse. Not that Jack had much personal experience to speak from. He hadn’t even met an agent yet, pretty much just got rid of youma when he had some spare time in the evenings. But Chris and Paris were very insistent that the Negaverse shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“Ganymede’s been captured by them before, kept in their Dark Kingdom for months, and she’s a whole Princess. They can rip starseeds, but I don’t think they send them back to the Cauldron. They destroy them. Can drain energy, too, so… if you do go out, be careful, yeah? They’ve got a Queen, and General Sovereigns who’re even stronger than Ganymede, considering what they have at their disposal. It’s probably a good thing you haven’t been wandering around as a Senshi. They can sense you. Might try to corrupt you.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:12 am
Bright eyes narrowed as Jack told him about Ganymede being captured and kept for months.
“Ganymede escaped, so they can’t be that horrible,” he snorted and took another bite of muffin. “If they’ve got people stronger than a Princess, and I kicked a Captain’s a**, then Senshi and Knights have all grown weak in the last thousand years.”
It was the only explanation. How else could they have let Earth get this bad?
“So when we have enough people together, we’re going to attack, right? Take them out and get Earth Chaos free before moving on.”
It made the most sense. Otherwise, why was he even still alive?
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:13 am
“Uhhh…”
Jack was very, very bad at this. He might not have the experience to speak with much authority on the subject, but he knew neither Chris nor Paris would talk about this so seriously if it wasn’t… well… serious. Quinn was oversimplifying things and underestimating their enemies, and he was going to get himself in over his head if he wasn’t careful.
But how was Jack supposed to tell him, no, you’re wrong, and actually get through to him?
“I mean, escape is… I don’t think totally accurate? Like, she was freed. By a rogue General. Who then had to purify or they’d be killed. I—… Look, I don’t know what Captain you met, but maybe he was recently promoted or has a different job in the organization or something, and you took him by surprise. I wouldn’t expect all of them to be like him.”
Jack ignored his food in favor of facing Quinn. He wasn’t all that great at maintaining a somber expression, but he did his best.
“I don’t know if doing a large-scale attack would be possible, to be honest. Ganymede and Valhalla made it seem like survival was the best we could hope for, like there aren’t enough people willing to do what needs to be done.”
Jack wasn’t even sure if he was willing. Protecting people, sure, he could do that, wanted to do that, and dusting youma seemed like no big deal, but killing people? That was a bit more than he’d bargained for.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:16 am
“So loyalty is a problem with the Negaverse. Good. Maybe they’ll make things easier by getting rid of the Chaos themselves,” he huffed, although he leveled Jack with a dark look when he suggested that the Captain he’d met had been recently promoted or something that made it seem like he was telling Quinn he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was.
Jack was wrong.
“Don’t underestimate me. I could survive just fine on my own if I wanted to.” He probably couldn’t. “And the Negaverse is nothing compared to what I’ve had to face before.” That was unlikely, but impossible for Jack to prove otherwise. He was just going to ignore the fact that he’d only met a Captain and a youma.
“I don’t want to just survive. What’s the point of surviving if you’re being forced into something horrible? You do know how bad Chaos is, don’t you? It’s destroyed worlds. It destroyed my world. Wiped out millions of people on just one planet. I can only imagine how many billions were killed because of it.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:19 am
“Yeah, no,” Jack said.
To which part? Everything? All of it? Half, maybe? Even he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Quinn had no idea what he was talking about. Jack barely had any idea what he was talking about. Quinn might’ve been a Senshi for longer, but he didn’t know Earth or the Negaverse.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions on very little information. I’m not underestimating you. You’re underestimating the threat.”
Maybe they both were. Jack only knew so much.
He knew enough to realize they’d both be in over their heads if they weren’t careful. He knew his friends had been hurt. He knew they’d almost died. He knew Chris’s dad had died. He knew people had been hunted and tortured and killed, probably were right this very second.
“No offense, but you were asleep for the destruction of your world, weren’t you?” Jack continued, as delicately as he could when he was trying to make a point. “So, yeah, you know what Chaos can do, but you weren’t able to do anything about it, don’t even know if you could’ve. Maybe take the Negaverse just as seriously. Just because Earth hasn’t been destroyed yet doesn’t mean they’re not capable of it. I figure there’s probably some reason they haven’t yet.
“I get what you’re saying, but…” Jack made a bewildered gesture with his hands, at a loss. “Look, I can’t control who wants to do what. If people don’t want to get their hands dirty, I can’t make them. Ganymede can’t make them. Go feral on those people if you want, I won’t hold you back, because you’re right, okay? Just surviving probably isn’t enough, but do me a favor and don’t base your expectations of the Negaverse on one Captain.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:20 am
Quinn visibly bristled. He could tell that Jack wasn’t trying to rile him up, but he was getting riled up regardless. Pointing out there was nothing he could do to protect his world, or about how he was making a lot of assumptions on very little information. Or how he was underestimating the threat--
“What do you even care? Why do you care if I’m underestimating them or if I’m basing my expectations of the Negaverse on one Captain? What does it matter?” he hissed, sliding off the stool so he could awkwardly pace around the room, hopefully without tripping on the blanket or overly large sweatpants that covered his feet if he wanted them to.
“You said you want to help and you want nothing in return. How am I supposed to believe that? People don’t act like that. Should I not base my expectations of people on Earth on you?” he growled, although the act of doing so seemed more like he was trying to keep himself from getting too emotional otherwise. If he acted big and tough, he was less likely to look pathetic.
He wasn’t pathetic. He couldn’t be.
“If I end up getting killed or corrupted by this Negaverse, then why would anyone care? Why shouldn’t I put every ounce of effort I have into getting rid of Chaos to make them pay for what they did to so many?”
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