“Love!” Jae whispers, “are you all right?”
Diana nods dazedly, and looks around with confusion in her eyes. “Wh…where are we? How did we get here? Is everyone alright?” She looks over when Raph snorts in his sleep and rolls over. “Well, it’s good to see Raph’s all right,” she comments sardonically.
Wolvie kneels down by the couple. “We’re in a cave, we ran an’ Jae carried ya. No one was hurt. Have a nice nap?”
Diana massages a temple, “I dunno…my head is killing me.” Her eyes widen. “Where’s Ed?!”
“Wandering around somewhere, mindless. Nice trick, love,” Jae answers.
“Good, I got ‘im…when everyone wakes up, why don’t we try getting everyone to their respective homes?”
Suddenly there's a loud roaring outside their cave.
“Sounds like,” HLM speaks up, “ol’ one-eye is here.”
Wolvie smirks. “Yeah, that does sound like Cyc when he’s havin’ a bad day.”
Raph snickers, “Leo, too.”
“Oh will you two put a cork in i…” Jae’s words are cut off as Diana slices into the fabric of reality and wind comes rushing through the cave. As the elements roar at this indignity set upon them, the group hurries through the tear before it heals itself.
The first thing that Diana notices as she gets up off the floor is an idiotic yellow smiley face on a sign that proudly proclaims that there’s a sale on bleach. The second is the background hip-hop music so annoying that it just has to be popular. The third and fourth are two people; an impossibly large woman looking as if she’s about to start screaming at this indignity, wearing an ugly, flowered mumu, and a nerdy looking girl in huge glasses who probably thinks a lot more of herself than what she’s really worth. Her name tag reads “JoJo”.
“What are you people doing? You scared us…” she’s about to say more, when Wolvie snorts disgustedly in her face and leaves.
“We were just leaving,” Storm tells the officious girl.
“Now wait just a second! There’s no reason to be mean!” She grabs HLM’s arm as she starts to leave.
“Hands off,” HLM growls coldly, shrugging the girl’s hand off like it’s a diseased piece of meat.
“You’re a mean, spiteful girl!”
Diana just shakes her head and leaves with her friends, ignoring the impotent attempts at giving them all a guilt trip.
“Sorry about that,” Diana apologizes as they leave the store.
“That’s ok, love, wanna try again?” Jae asks.
Diana nods, and as soon as they’re behind the building, wind and thunder suddenly erupts, surprising everyone in the area.
When they land this time, it’s on carpet, and the air is cold and dry. They stand bewildered, looking around.
“Uh,” rises an uncertain female voice, “do you need a tutor?”
They all turn to see a girl with long curls of strawberry blond hair. Her build is slight, and she’s wearing a leather jacket. She stands by a row of computers, gray eyes surprised.
“We’re just passin’ through, darlin’,” Wolvie tells her with a grin.
“Um…ok…” she looks like she has no idea of what to do about this situation.
“Ok, sword,” Diana says, ignoring the girl’s stunned stare, “can you take us to one of the realities our group is from, please?”
With that, Diana slices down, the sudden wind and thunder causing the befuddled girl to throw herself to the ground instinctively. When she looks up again, she sees a huge mess to clean up, but the strange intruders are gone.
Reunions Index
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven