Bracelets for the soul

    Alti focused on the diminishing slice of fruit and cake instead of the former spy as she spoke, a shrug accompanied by an involuntary shudder plaguing his frame at her heartfelt recollection. "Yeah. Great." he said flatly in dismissal of her boring story, his eyes lifting their gaze from his treat up to the girl's phone a few seconds after she placed it down on the table. He pursed his lips at the trouble the small gadget seemed to create with its indirect link to his partner, the 'man-handling' comment from earlier still not losing its light sting. While getting her to cry was fun, he thought, that was a little too close.... With that in mind, Alti reached over the table and grabbed it, placing it onto his lap in case its owner had the bright idea of procuring it 'secret agent'- style again. His head still felt a bit cloudy from all the transporting, so this would have to do for now.

    "Just so you know, this is mine for the rest of the day, got it?" he declared with narrow eyes as he pointed a fork at her accusingly. "I don't have the energy to deal with your 'heroes' a second time, and something tells me neither do you, so don't cross me on this. You'll get this back after this trainwreck of a 'date'."

    Cyrus's look of bored contentment melted into a scowl as he heard the voice of the annoying babysitter ring out from across the cafe. Well that didn't last long. "Hold on bitch, lemme at least get some caffeine in my system before you open your mouth--" he scoffed, taking a sip of his coffee before the absolute unexpected happened. With a leap of excitement and arms outstretched, Piami flat out punched the obnoxious interloper in the face, eliciting what was basically an involuntary burst of glee from the scientist's chest. "PBBB--" He immediately felt that coffee that had been sitting in his mouth threatening to come bursting out, the man quickly stifling the stream with a hasty napkin to the face before his body-wracking cackles rang out across the cafe.

    "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FINALLY! YA DID GOOD KID!" he nearly choked on his howls of laughter, cheeks flushed and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Once the full on hysterics tapered into a chuckle, he watched the now hyperactive child spinning around the cafe, screaming about a quiz and attracting the annoyance of the surrounding patrons. A smirk grew across his face, but regardless of his amusement he confiscated her drink and stood up with his own. Despite the temptation to just pump her full of more caffeine and dump her back on the bodyguard and her crabby soldier soulmate at the end of the day, he didn't know just for how long he could entertain a hyperactive child. "You want a quiz, kid? Well I heard there's a bunch of quizzes at the park! Come on come on let's get our asses in gear!" he waved towards the door.

    If she was going to be off the wall, he'd much prefer they be in an outdoors location where she could roll around and do whatever the hell it was hyperactive brats did without being confined to a tiny cafe.

Aberdeen's slammed their fists down on the table, causing silverware to shake slightly as their head darted up towards Galystris. "COULD YOU JUST-" They stopped themself, as heads had already turned their way from the sudden outburst. Eyes on them again...Judging.. Aberdeen shook uncomfortably as they did everything in their power to keep their aura from changing colors again.

They pulled their drink over to them and began sipping, finishing off the second half in one go. They pushed the empty cup off to the side and leaned forward, gripping at their hair and averting their gaze off to the side. "Just.... fucking read your book, Ice Queen." They muttered quietly as they removed their phone from their pocket with their other hand. They started rapidly texting.



They placed their phone back in their pocket and began drumming their fingers on the table top.

Aberdeen simply glared at Galystris and stood up from their seat, the chair screeching across the tiled floor. "I'll get you when we're leaving." They spat as they shoved their hands in their pockets and made their way out of the cafe. The fighter exited through the front door and leaned up against the wall next to it, removing the lighter and cigarettes they'd been gripping at within the confines of their pockets. 

Aberdeen pulled a stick out of the pack and quickly lit it, placing the lighter and box back into their jeans and breathing out a long sigh, allowing blue smoke to escape with it. The light-tinged smoke mixed with the tobacco, the combination calming the nerves of the fidgety fighter. They didn't do this often, as they weren't sure what the repercussions were (if there were any), but it sure did the job.

The fighter glanced down at their bracelet, silently contemplating how much force it would truly take to break it. Its not like they needed it anymore. They already knew who their determined soulmate was. What was the point? It was basically a shackle at this point, keeping them bound to the god forsaken experiment taking place as well as the icy bitch still inside the cafe. 

"Elenara said if I try and break this, it'll shock me... I wonder how bad that'd be.." They muttered quietly. "Couldn't be worse than having to spend another second with Galystris... Hm..." They let the cinders slowly creep down the cigarette as they debated whether or not breaking the bracelet was worth it.

"You're only enticing me to do it!!" They bluffed, now with the knowledge of how grave the situation would truly be if they had attempted to break it. "You're making US suffer, its only fair one of us would make your relationship suffer too, right? Oooooor you can disconnect it from my aura so I can bounce out of here." They shouted towards their bracelet, letting out another puff of blue smoke escape the hole in their neck and mix with the tobacco.



"And how much property damage are you planning to pay this time, once these dates inevitably go further south than I'm sure they already have? You DID pair Amil and Vale together, right? The guys who almost killed each other at comic con? You didn't see any flaws in the plan? Any logic you might have skimmed over?" They chuckled. "I shouldn't be the one you're worrying about getting killed."



Aberdeen went silent for a few moments, the fighter figuring they were probably just talking to themself at this point, given Elenara was probably just covering her own ass. "This whole experiment is a fucking joke." They huffed, their cigarette reaching its halfway point.

"Stop acting like we're just having a fucking chat! I'm doing my best to calm down and that smug face of yours trying to be friendly is giving me a goddamn headache! I don't WANT to get to know you! I don't WANT to be on this fucking date with you! I can't even remove myself from the situation to de-stress because if I do I'll get zapped to next week. Your demonic ass dragged me into a fight I hadn't experienced to that level in years and now I can't turn it back off!" The cracks in the glass seemed to spread farther with his every word.

The employee rushed towards them, worry clear on her features. “I’m serious you two, you need to leave now! I can’t exit the premises until all guests have evacuated first and I don’t have my walkie on me to call for backup. So leave! PLEASE!”

“WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING!”

The woman started a bit as Vale turned his anger towards her, before furrowing her brow in determination and taking a strong hold of his arm. “That is the second time you’ve yelled at me and it is not appreciated in this situation! It’s time to leave sir, it’s for your own good!” She attempted to drag him in the direction of the exit.

Vale pulled his arm so sharply that she yelped, but continued to cling to him like a frightened child. “Why does everyone think it’s okay to fucking touch me?!” He yelled, before jerking his shoulder and sending her flying. She screamed as she whizzed through the air unnaturally high, her body slamming into the top of the tank. Her instinct for survival had her hooking her forearms over the side as she crawled up onto the edge, the height of the tank making it too dangerous to try and jump back down.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” She screamed down at the two. Blood dripped from her forearm that she’d sliced on the edge upon impact. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!” She noticed that the ladder was still a few feet away from where she was and quickly did her best to scoot towards it in her shaken state, half of her body in the water to prevent her from slipping one way or the other.

“W-Wait!” Vale shouted up at her. “Don’t move, I can help!”

“DON’T YOU DARE!” She yelled back, almost slipping from fear. “Don’t you come near me!!”

Vale started to raise up a single hand towards her. “No, really I--.”

---

"It's ridiculous and wrong," Nace concluded, showing a surprising amount of sympathy for someone who wanted a good amount of humans dead. "Pisses me off." He moved towards the entrance of the cage, ignoring the large sign blocking the path that said 'DO NOT TRESPASS'. He eyed the bars with a raised eyebrow. "Wow, are these people fucking morons?" He reached up and seemed to flip up some sort of device, a definite 'click' coming from it. "That's all the security they had? This place I swear..." He turned back to Alraada, a strange grin creeping over his face. "Hey, dare me to open this?" He said, starting to press against the gate.  The slight creek alerted one of the lions nearby, her head perking up in curiosity as to what the human's were doing.

Zadinya's smile failed to waver as Vale continued his temper tantrum, the demon simply yawning and pretending to check the time on his phone. He let out a light giggle at the mention of their comic con fight, flashbacks of throwing chunks of cements and fountains at one another playing in his mind. As he was about to interject with more nonchalant commentary, the two were interrupted.

Zadinya watched excitedly as things began to take a grim turn, the wrestler's emotions clearly getting the better of him as the woman rocketed up towards the top of the tank. And then, a thought crossed the demon's mind that made him grin with sadistic pleasure. The amalgamate shark that had once been swimming inside the tank shrunk away to its initial size, the Great White losing sight of the ooze completely and deciding to go after a new target instead. The small amount of goo crawled its way out of the tank while Zadinya applauded as the woman's bottom half was devoured.

The amalgamate crawled up Zadinya's back as he began to approach Vale once more, grinning from ear to ear. "Weeeeell, you're on a roll today, aren't you~? You keep acting out for no reason, Vale! I've done nothing to elicit this reaction from you today. I've been nothing but kind and sincere~! And yet, you still insist with these childish tantrums. You lash out and innocent people begin to die! And what's worse, you don't even care~" His voice turned sinister with the last remark, a demonic laughter bubbling up within him.

"That woman was only trying to help you and you killed her! You're a five year old trapped inside a weapon of mass destruction! All you do is kill and destroy, even to those who have your best interest at heart, or people who want to help you!! If I didn't know any better...." The amalgamate shirt began to bubble, several eyes locking on to Vale.

"....I'd say you're getting off to this, you sick freak~!"