46 Finding a Way to Pass the Time

Jayce woke up groggy. He felt a presence next to him and a panic shot through his head before realizing it was a sleeping Jenira. Last night's events came rushing back into his head and he couldn't control the smile that spread across his face. He tried to gently pull his arm out from underneath her head. It had completely gone to sleep and he felt a tingling sensation spread down to his fingertips as blood began to flow again. He twisted his body and wrapped the other arm over the top of her. As he did so his fingertips happened to brush against the spider tattoo on her shoulder. In a flash, he was in the web world again. "Seriously Neith?" he said with annoyance. He was about to sit down on the webs again before he realized he wasn't the only one here. Jenira was standing next to him with wide eyes. "Is this a dream?" She asked softly. Jayce turned his head to look at her and smiled, "Nah, this is where Neith and Tohil live." Jenira scanned the world and stared into the unending space that extended before them. "Why are we both here?"

Jayce shrugged, "I don't know honestly. I touched your tattoo and here we are." Jenira nodded slowly. "This feels a lot like a dream Jayce." A relaxed laugh escaped his body and he scanned the horizon for any sign of Neith. He didn't see anything but in the next moment, she was standing before them. A mischevious smile on her face she looked at the two of them with prying eyes. "Young love is so cute! She hugged the two of them and laughed with glee. Jayce rolled his eyes, "Neith please tell me you didn't bring us here to tell us that." Neith stepped back as if she had been slapped. "Jayce! I'm hurt, you know I am just trying to tell my new favorite couple in the simulation that they're really cute together!"

Jenira smiled at the overdramatic Neith. She was familiar with her voice and the two had talked before but she had never seen this beautiful elf lady in person before. She could tell that she already liked her though. "I actually came because I forgot to do something important and you touching Jenira's tattoo reminded me..." Neith said innocently. Jayce raised an eyebrow, "and what could you possibly forget to do?" She bounced her shoulders up and down as though she was dancing. "I forgot to... unlock Jenira's powers...hehe" Jayce facepalmed and groaned. "Remember when you asked her in the Coliseum if she had any powers? Well, she was supposed to, whoopsie." Neith playfully shrugged and patted Jayce on the head.

Jenira asked quickly, "So I get superpowers like Jayce?" Neith stopped patting Jayce on the head and turned to face Jenira. "Well not exactly, similar but different. You'll see what I mean." She returned to patting Jayce on the head. "His powers are mostly from Tohil and yours are mostly from me. So you'll be way better than him." Jayce felt if he rolled his eyes any harder they would pop out of his skull. "Actually now that I think about it I did give him some of my powers so you might be about the same. It'll be different..." She stopped patting his head and took a step back to examine Jenira. Neith looked like she was measuring her body with her fingers and making notes to herself.

Jenira leaned over to whisper to Jayce. "What is she doing?" He shrugged, "I barely understand anything she does." Jenira nodded. Neith finally stopped measuring her and walked right up to Jenira and kissed her. A brilliant green aura surrounded both of them. Jayce had opened his eyes wide when Neith kissed Jenira and the bright green light blinded him. When his vision finally returned he saw Jenira clenching her fists as he had done when Tohil had unlocked his own abilities. Neith was laughing delightedly at his face and he scowled at her. "You activate your powers through kissing people?" He asked her. She laughed even harder and pranced around Jayce, "No I don't have to kiss people. I could have just touched her shoulder but I wanted to watch you squirm a little."

Jayce sighed with exasperation. Neith then made a shooing motion with her hands and the two of them awoke in Jayce's bed. Jenira quickly grabbed his face, "I just had the craziest dream. You were in it and that..." he had put a finger to her lips. "It was real. I was there with you." She looked at him with disbelief. "Then I really did kiss an elf goddess?" Jayce coughed once and then started laughing. "I guess so." Jenira touched the spider tattoo on her shoulder. It seemed to be giving off a faint green light and she twisted her head to get a better look at it. "And now I have powers of some sort?" Jayce nodded, "That's what Neith said." Jenira sighed with contentment. She turned her back to him and scooted into the curve of his body. "This turned out to be quite the night." Jayce laughed and draped an arm over her as he pulled the covers over their bodies. "I can honestly say that I don't think we've seen even half of all the crazy stuff that's going to happen yet."

Ralnas yawned and stretched his aching body. He touched the bruise on his chest and shrunk back from the pain. He lifted his head and realized he had fallen asleep on the couch. Stretching again far more slowly this time he pulled himself off the couch. He flipped on the TV to have some news and considered what they were going to do today. He opened the exam schedule and frowned as he saw today's scheduled activity. Today was the guided tour hosted by team Chief. Bemoaning his bad luck he decided to find a different way to distract himself.

Thinking he was the only one awake he decided to make breakfast. This was the nicest kitchen he had seen. Even nicer than the one Micu had at his house in the safe zone. He flicked on the chef robots and looked through the settings before settling on "cooperative" and pushing it. The chef robot sprung to life and waved its thick claw at him. "Ah hello, master Ralnas! What delicious treats are we going to be making together?" Ralnas smiled to himself and pressed the cookbook tab on the robots apron. A never-ending list of available recipes appeared before him. "Wow! We can make all of these?"

Ralnas was used to the options of the safe zone, so the increased number of ingredients greatly exceeded his experience. The chef robot tipped its chef toque to him. "We can and we will! Where would you like to begin?" Ralnas started skimming the breakfast section and humming a tune he had heard on a cereal commercial. He finally settled on pancakes and smiled at the chef robot. "We start with the best food known to man."

Micu finished brushing his teeth before smiling to himself, "I can't wait to see how Ralnas reacts today. Maybe I should record it..." he absent-mindedly got dressed as he skimmed through the day's headlines. Most of the headlines were still written about Jayce and trying to determine how he had killed the bug monster. Micu closed the news section and opened his door. Delightful smells of cooking food infiltrated his nostrils and he quickly descended the stairs to see Ralnas and the chef robot cooking up a storm. "What's on the menu master chef?" He asked as he tried to peek into the messy kitchen. Ralnas held up a finger, "I'm sorry a master can not share his secrets." Micu rolled his eyes, "but I'm going to eat your secrets." Ralnas laughed but continued to ignore Micu's question.

Sighing Micu sat on the couch and began channel surfing looking for something interesting. Ralnas called over the sound of sizzling meat, "are Jayce and Jenira up yet?" Micu had to repress a smile and tried to answer as normally as possible. "I don't think so, I haven't seen either of them yet." He didn't hear any response from Ralnas and went back to flipping through the channels. "What was scheduled for us to do today with the exam?" Micu asked as he continued flipping past talk shows, cartoons, and documentaries. There was a short pause before Ralnas answered, "We were supposed to go see team Chief's base..." Micu nodded, "bummer." "Yeah I know, would have been cool." Ralnas then made a pained "ahh" as he burned his finger on a hot pan.

Micu heard a door open upstairs and quickly got his watch set to record mode. He tried to point it at the stairs as discretely as possible. He could hardly contain himself and struggled to remain semi-focused on finding something to watch. Two pairs of footsteps descended the stairs and Micu twisted his head around, "Hey you two how did you sleep?" He was about to continue but stopped dead in his tracks. Jenira was wearing one of Jayce's sweatshirts and holding his hand comfortably. Jayce had obviously just woken up but seemed to be in high spirits as he walked next to her. "Did I miss something?" He asked shaken. In his mind, he was panicking, "you can't make it that obvious! Ralnas is going to throw Jayce out the window!" He quickly activated his watch and had all the windows locked and after a second of thinking about it locked the doors too.

The two of them finally entered into the living room and stopped near the kitchen. Jenira released Jayce's hand and leaned in to smell breakfast. "Ral it looks great! I can't wait!" Ralnas was busy trying to remake a burned pancake but managed to reply, "thanks Jen, it is going to taste great too." Jenira smiled and then glanced at Jayce. "Ral I wanted to tell you something." Micu tensed and stared at Jayce. He was just standing there carelessly. Micu groaned internally. "You two are idiots. Absolute idiots." Ralnas looked up from his stovetop and wiped his greasy hands on his pants, "yeah?" Jenira blushed slightly before answering. "Last night Jayce and I, well, we... kissed."

...

Team Chief's leader sat slumped at their war table with his head supported by a fist. "You okay Baneberry?" Baneberry nodded glumly but didn't speak. Baneberry was an average height for a human but his body was formed entirely out of thick roots. His hair was thin and spiky in the same shape as pine needles. Deep brown spots decorated areas where he had taken serious damage. His barky fist supported a frowning face and a few of his subordinates gave each other worried glances. His earthy voice slowly escaped from his mouth. "He won't even get to meet us. How are we ever going to convince him to join if he doesn't come to see our beautiful base?" His sadness had made the color of his bark turn white and the pine needles on his head a yellowed hue. "Boss it's okay! We'll find another way!" one said. "Yeah don't worry boss! He'll see us in our full glory!" Baneberry managed a half-hearted smiled but continued to stew in his depression.