Amelia, Ch 189- Theo
I glanced over at the clock. 5:22 in the morning. Well, guess I wake up a little early today.
I took the time to clean up in the shower and shave. It was actually nice having a private shower. Not that I ever had to worry about sharing bathrooms with anyone, considering my family's wealth. But I heard stories from Missy about the nightmare that was only having one bathroom for a family of five. Definitely one of those things I was glad I never had to worry about. Having cleaned up, I got dressed and walked out into the hall. Maybe I could kill a little time with Zach before school.
He wasn't in the lounge area. Strange, he's almost always- I paused as I overheard voices in one of the halls.
"-I let you talk me into that," Emma panted softly, even though her tone of voice said she was happy. "I've been under so much stress lately with my work that I totally forgot about taking care of myself."
"Told you you'd love it," Vicky declared. "Now just accept that I'm always right. Makes things easier that way."
Zach's voice followed the two girls. "It was only meant to be an hour!"
"Quit bitching, you loved it at least as much as she did," Vicky crowed. I blinked. What?
"Yeah, seriously," Emma agreed. "Don't act like it was some kind of chore. You may have been able to argue that if you quit after the hour was up, but the next five hours, you stayed in it like a champ." What?
"With the two of you there to mock me for not being able to keep it up?" Zach accused. "We'd all die of old age before you got done teasing me." I felt a little uncomfortable. Is this something I shouldn't be listening to?
"What's the matter, big boy?" Emma teased. "Did us girls wear you out?"
"The hell are you talking about?" Zach retorted. "You needed my help to deal with her!" he gestured at Victoria.
"Hey, not my fault I didn't get superhuman stamina," Emma defended. "Yeah, maybe I'm tougher than most because I can regenerate. But I'm nothing compared to the two of you. It's not fair to expect me to keep up."
"Don't sell yourself short," Victoia replied. "You have some great moves. You definitely done that before, I don't care what you claimed earlier."
"You don't spend as much time around Sophia as I did without picking up a few tricks," Emma admitted. "But compared to you? Well, you'd have eaten her alive. You took the both of us on like it was nothing."
"The advantage of experience," Vicky argued. "You two make a great team. If we didn't have our powers, I wouldn't be able to walk right now. We should totally do it again tonight. I promise I'll make it worth your while."
"No!" Emma declared. "Not tonight. Please, I'm so sore already."
"I understand," Vicky shrugged. "Give it a few weeks and your body will get accustomed to it. The two of you have lots of potential, though. Maybe you should practice on each other when I'm not able to stay over? Give you something to do in the middle of the night other than video games and lab tests."
"I don't really stay here every night, either," Emma pointed out. "Just... after the Endbringer fight, there's so much new stuff to study."
"Well, how about if I give the two of you pointers, then give you a chance to try it out?" She suggested. "Then, like, on the weekend we can all get together and you can show me how much you've managed to improve. How's that sound?"
Emma glanced at Zach and smiled. Wasn't hard to tell her opinion on the subject. Zach hesitated for a moment before smiling. "You know what?" he finally replied. "That actually sounds really fun."
"I knew you'd like that idea," Vicky bragged. "Now I'm going to hit the shower before school. Let the others know I can take them to school, Zach?"
"Sure," Zach agreed, then he spotted me. He smiled and brushed some of his messy hair out of his face. Maybe I should considered growing out my hair. My father always insisted I keep my hair military regulation short. I should ask Missy what she'd prefer. "Hey, Theo, could you let Riley know we'll be going with Vicky? I know I'm not suppose to get tired. But I'm actually tired. Best bet I've ever lost."
"She crashed in Amy's room," Victoria informed me.
"Fuck," Emma muttered. "She'd been getting so much better about that, too."
I frowned. I didn't know a lot about Riley's nightmares, only pieces from overheard conversations. As much as I liked Riley, I mean I quite literally owed her my life and so did Missy. Of course I considered her my friend, but she was still very much Missy's bestie more than especially close to me. We just didn't have a great deal in common beyond Missy and work. Given her history, maybe I didn't want to know more about them. Still, I worried for her, especially if she was having nightmares again. I'd tell Missy about it first class we had together.
....
Zach and Clarice occupied the back seat of Vicky's sports car, while I rode in the passenger side. I concentrated on not looking back at Clarice. Even with everything out in the open, and Missy's more than understanding stance on the subject, I didn't feel right having the... feelings... that I did toward the construct that Riley piloted. Made me feel like I was a pervert. Then again, if I was, I shared the status with a solid half of the school.
It also made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Unfair to Missy. Not for the first time, I considered asking Riley to go in and manually fixing whatever it was that Dream Girl did to me. Along with my personal promise that if she ever returned, I'd kill her myself.
I pulled my mind away from that line of thought, and looked over at Vicky. She seemed more than a little unnerved for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with what she did with Zach and Emma? I couldn't imagine what else she could have done since then. "Are... are you okay? Did something happen?"
"I... why didn't anyone warn me about the shower in the lab?" Vicky whimpered. Oh. Oh god.
"You used the lab!?" Zach exclaimed. "Why!"
"Because I remembered Riley mentioning it having a shower, and I didn't know where anything else was!" Vicky cried.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Clarice asked happily. "It's like being massaged by thousands of adorable kitty tongues."
"That's because it is being massaged by thousands of kitty tongues!" Vicky exclaimed.
"They're not really," Clarice argued. "They're imitations made from Yggdrasil. I did my best to get everything exactly right, but there's all kinds of flaws. They don't have proper body temperature distribution, for one."
"I couldn't tell the difference," Victoria informed us. "I have superhuman senses, and I couldn't tell the difference between that so-called shower, and being covered in thousands of moving, disembodied, kitten tongues."
"Thank you!" Clarice replied. "I worked really really hard on that."
"She did, too," Zach informed us. "You have to admit she did an incredible job on that thing."
"I have never felt more clean in my life," Victoria whimpered.
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A/N- At first glance, this chapter offers no story substance whatsoever. At second glance, it offers some significant plot points.