Athwart History (Closed)

It was like no time had passed at all-the years just melted away, the bitterness and the feelings of rejection, of otherness.

It rocks her a little. She trails in behind him, her luminous yellow eyes taking in the familiar, nostalgia filled living space he’d always so generously shared with an open door policy.

He dances away in the ridiculous apron, happy and cooking, home.

Elias, alive.

“Well.” She begins. “You’re looking at an official ambassador from my people to yours.” Not a runaway this time, an errant princess of Atlantis. “Laurent is King now, and he sends his regards.”

Their father had passed in the Trench wars, but she only wishes to focus on the good, right now. She realizes she’s staring at him. She’s just so glad he’s among the living. Before she'd gone dark she had learned he was, but not when she had left. And knowing a thing, hearing a voice was a very different thing than seeing them in the flesh.

Lana smiles and casts a glance around. “It looks the same, here.” She says with a content sigh. Happy memories. A lot of them. “Like stepping back in time.”

"Oh, shit, so you're not Teenage Runaway Fishwoman anymore," Elias says, amused. "I've got no more ground to hide my Creature of the Black Lagoon DVDs from you anymore; you're a grown woman and can look at anybody's fins you want. I'm proud of you."

There's the familiar wry humor, except for the last bit, where he turns and makes eye contact for a moment. Then he's back to checking on the muffins, and going into his freezer where he pulls out some Alaskan tuna and starts preparing it for the sashimi process, setting out the various sauces and selecting a massive, intimidating cleaver from the knife block.

"I figured out what I wanted to be real early on," Elias says with a shrug. "Just because everyone else was gone, didn't mean that changed. Less people around, but that doesn't mean it's not still worthwhile. I floated for - a long time, suffice to say. You saw how quick that changed."

Sashimi's a simple dish. The tuna is fine-sliced easily under his prodigious strength, and daikon spread across it. He points a finger at Lana and crooks it. "C'mon up here, grate the garlic and ginger for me. No slackers allowed!"

Elias liked to start fights for preparing food, having five or six people elbowing each other to set out the forks and plates, get the salt, or salt the potatoes. All the dinnerware was break-proof, and it had fostered an unmatched sense of closeness - it's hard to hold a grudge when somebody just accidentally poured radish all over your sleeve and there's wet lettuce in your ear.

A shake of her head is all he gets in response for that one.

Lana sheds the trenchcoat disguise and slings it over the couch, a band of gold curled around her upper right arm in the shape of an eel, it’s eyes glinting blue. Another glance around, particularly the mantle as he speaks. “I did see.” Lana agrees, a nod. “It looked like a nasty fight.”

She steps into the kitchen space and again-it’s like the passage of time had never happened. It’s comforting but also uncanny. “Who else is there? You, Marie, this Jenna Paige?” She washes her hands and sets to the garlic first. It’s been a very long time since she’s done any sort of meal preparation. “...how is Marie?” Maybe not the right question. "No, how are you?" Their last communication, the one that made her feel downright ashamed as much as wanted-where she'd ended with a bid for more time, when in fact she knew exactly what she would be doing, just not quite how she'd do it.

Elias's smile fades a little. "Yeah, that's it. Look, you may want to sit down."

The big man sighs and stops cutting sushi, glaring down at the chopping block before he leaves the knife aside. "I didn't want to start with this, but - when we were checking all the old numbers, we found out some techno whiz had been redirecting mail, covering paper trails, so on and so forth. He'd been covering for Marrane, God knows how many others, running around picking us off. There -"

Elias swallows, goes a little pale. He's tasted this bitter pill before, but it never gets any easier to say. "There's - not counting you and me, there's nine of us. Older heroes, total. You, me, Marie, and eight others. The big territory players: Amarok, Vivid, Malachite, people like them. The rest are dead. It's just us now."

His fingers rattle on the countertop. "Marie was listed dead by Invincibelle after her crash, that probably saved her. You're in Atlantis, of course, you were fine. And Cid's Tower is totally untouched for whatever reason. But all of my -"

Elias chokes on the word 'family'. Backs up, starts over.

"All of our generation are pretty much gone. We found this out just a couple days ago. Been chasing shadows since, trying to figure out where to go now."

He shrugs helplessly. "Far as how I'm doing? Knowing that? Not great. Marie's not much better."

Lana stared at him. This was terrible news. War losses she understood. But nine? Down to nine besides them in eight years? Paul had been that busy, that effective?

He was right. She should have been sitting down.

She reached to rest her hand on his upper arm and for a moment, she said nothing. She had nothing to say.

Marie...Protagonist was probably angry to be fooled. She wouldn’t suffer that easily, Lana knew. But in all this time, she had remained ‘dead’? That didn’t sound like her. Then again, what did she know? "I'm sure she's annoyed by the loss of resources." She said flatly.

“And Daybreak? Still nothing there either?” The shock was there, but anger was coming in over it. It was good she had come up. There was no Rahab to wreak revenge on, but Paul yet lived, and she’d get a piece of him.

All of their generation...

Laura first, then so many at Immolation, and now...down to eleven, maybe thirteen if Sarah and Cid-Cid-were not counted in that number.

Elias turns and looks at Lana. "Whatever your arguments were before," he says, quiet, "Too many of us are dead now for petty grudges."

He shakes his head, and changes the subject. "Everyone associated with the Tower is fine so far as I can tell. Jenna's been in contact with Sarah - I'd know in short order if one of the Wards went down. But if you mean whether she's reached out?"

The big man raises both hands, and begins to speak - then stops. "Nothing from her," he says quietly. "But I haven't tried either."

He is silent for a long moment, and then looks at Lana, troubled. "I don't - know if I, personally, am welcome there. I sent word through Jenna, of course, and through the communicators, but as for contacting them personally, I haven't. Not since the last."

Elias chews on his lip, his fingers drumming on the counter. "I suppose it's cowardice," he says quietly. "I don't want to have it reaffirmed that even now, with the sky falling, that I'm not welcome. Fuck Cid, of course, but - I really don't know what I'd do if Sarah turned away again. It doesn't hurt like it used to, but the thought of trying to talk to her still makes me cringe even now."

Sarah is - was - his oldest friend. Her tearful acceptance of Cid's ultimatum - and her silence in the years since - had hurt him more than anything except Grace's death.

And this now, the massacre of his family, he supposes. He still hasn't faced that head-on, yet. What it really means. He keeps slipping around the edges, dealing with the consequences, staying active and on the move. He has a dreadful certainty that if he ever sits down and actually thinks about what it means he'd

Elias shrugs again and starts grating the garlic. "The - remainder - we're starting to organize trips to go find them, try to bring them in if we can. The only one that's guaranteed safe no matter what is Tweedledee, and he pays for that tradeoff already."

He should try telling Protagonist that.

But...he was right. There were too few of them left for infighting...she had come to help, not hinder. She’d just have to take the high road wherever she could.

The hand on his arm gives a reassuring squeeze as he speaks so openly about his fear of rejection, of denial. “...Sarah loves you, Elias. The three of you couldn’t be parted...don’t give up on her.” So many were gone, and with the living scattered… He was right, about grudges. He was right.

“There’s also too few of us to go on in silence.” She thinks about how she had nearly deleted the message without looking at it. She thinks about her hesitation in contacting Protagonist. “We are all still bound together, no matter the distance of space or time.”

She lets him go as he returns to the grating of the garlic. Nods. Forward. They could only move forward.

“And this...new Velocity? Jenna Paige? I was told she shot up in Laura’s city, then joined the Tower. Now she’s with you?” The other reason she was here. Laura had been her best friend. If someone had taken up the mantle, Lana thought she might be able to help them in Laura’s stead.

"I haven't," Elias says, simply. "I'm just not sure if having me in her life will improve it, at this point."

Like the only value anyone derives from him is how useful he is.

He lets the thought roll off his back, like rain, and instead turns to the subject of his new protege with a smile. "You'll like her," Elias says. "Took me all of a day to give her Laura's comm. Walked with me to the docks without a second thought, and took off back home afterwards to take care of 'her town'. She's one of us."

He finishes grating the garlic and forgoes the traditional artistic setting of sashimi, instead just handing the plate of sliced tuna, garnishes, and dippings to Lana entirely. "I dunno how your chefs do cooking, if that's even a thing on the seafloor - kind of hard to cook food underwater, not to mention most garnishes would just dissolve in the water. You even do home cooking or is it all raw?"

"I'm just not sure if having me in her life will improve it, at this point."

He moves on before Lana can touch on that. Elias wasn’t just a front liner of the League-he was the heart. And here he was trying to justify whether his friendship had value or not to the other half of the League’s heart.

It blows her away. Just...utterly.

“She's one of us."

Lana smiles. A bit of good news in all this...murk. “South Bend needs a Velocity, and Velocity needs South Bend.” She says fondly. The little guy. The good fight. She thinks of these echoing words and is happy. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

“What’s ‘fire’?” Lana says in response, accepting the plate with a smile. Atlanteans consumed things raw. She’s eaten human food too, before. She’s particularly fond of peaches...and their pits. Hot things, not so much.

“So far it sounds like a solidly building team. Once we are all working together again, we’ll be established and ready.”

She tilts her head back and swallows a slice of tuna whole. She's thoughtful as she pauses. "It is very good to see you again, Elias."

"Oh, she'll lose her shit when she meets you," Elias says, amused. "She fangirls about all of us. Has a fucking poster of me up in her room, d'ya know. Still not sure how to take that in a teammate. You were always one of the big poster faces, she'll get a kick out of you too, definitely. You're so photogenic."

He gives a sassy smile to his houseguest, and continues. "It's small - at least compared to, y'know. But it's got a good heart. I think we'll be able to get things cleaned up, once everyone's got their feet under them and know where they stand."

"Speaking of which!" Elias says, and ducks back around the kitchen bar, to a series of drawers in a cabinet. He fishes around for a bit, and then tosses something to her - a key, with a little goldfish keychain on it. "I don't have your original, but I had copies made up of everyone's. Just so you know where you stand."

He smiles a little. "I don't know what Atlantis is to you, or what your issues there are about. But you're always welcome back home, hon."

And that's what it was, to him.

“There was a reason I opted for the Front and not the core League.” But there’s no heat, just fond amusement. Lana was largely content. She would process the tragic aftermath later on, but for right now she was enveloped in the good times in the past.

The idea of one of theirs ‘fangirling’ as Elias had called it was mildly amusing. As for the team-a good heart was something you couldn’t buy. A strong foundation, certainly.

She catches the key, yellow eyes looking over the little goldfish keychain with a sharp toothed smile. Without saying anything, she reached to the back of her neck beneath her hair and tugged on a simple rope chain there-a weathered, beaten key hung on the chain, it’s keychain scratched and battered.

“You’re my people, Elias.” She's sorry she had ever doubted it.

Elias casually reaches over and yanks Lana into another hug, hauling her up bodily into his arms. Then he sets her back on her feet, like one would a hat rack - Lana's impressive size and density not even an afterthought to him. "Well then. Your room's upstairs if you want it. Kid should be home soon, though, if you want to meet her - it wasn't supposed to be a long patrol, and the muffins were meant to be ready for her by the time she got back."

He bustles back off into the kitchen and takes out the aforementioned muffins, setting them on the counter to cool. "I always thought you joined the Front because Invincibelle had the biggest cleavage window I've ever heard of, but what do I know?I wore real clothes when I went to punch evil in the face."

There are very few people who are allowed or want to hug her, and Elias had just slipped under the radar for so long it’s second nature to let him. Hell, sometimes she hugs him back.

Lana sort of looks down at herself. She does want to meet this new Velocity, but her things are in her hotel room still, she should gather those up. “I feel like...I might disappoint, out of costume.”

And then he speaks again and Lana raises an eyebrow.

“...not to me she didn’t. Sam’s appearance was catered to the viewer. It’s half of why she was able to get through to me that I wasn’t in physical danger, that first time I surfaced.” She considers. Sam didn’t just tap into minds-she practically melded into them, a two way street that allowed one to feel her mind and emotional state as much as she could theirs.

“So either that’s what she thought you wanted to see, or that’s what YOU wanted to see.” And a sharp toothed grin before she swallowed another slice of tuna, this time pressed into the ginger and garlic, first. It sets her tongue on fire, it half felt like.

She misses Samantha. She misses all of them.

Mostly.

“You know, she never did say what Protagonist saw her as.” A pause. "And whatever Gideon saw, she was disturbed by it."

Elias shrugs, shameless. "Hey, at the time, I was living with Grace and Sarah, and had to see them in their costumes every day. Up to that point, I hadn't seen a heroine without the boob window. It would've been weird to not have it. Laura was the first one to break that trend."

He pauses and thinks about her other statement. "I think that's something in between the two of them, especially now," he says finally. "As for Gideon - I could never make him talk to me. Too many conspiracy theories about me, too suspicious of me. If I had to guess, though, given his view of humanity in general? Something nasty. He can't stand people."

"Anyways, you're a fish person, and to everyone that doesn't wear spandex on a regular basis, that's already amazing enough."

“Laura always did think Rush’s costume was a travesty.” Lana considers, thinking of the aerodynamic design of the suit and then Rush’s v cut paint that left her exposed to her navel. Having to paint glue on the edges of your costume so it didn’t blow up and away sounded inconvenient. “Besides, when she really got going, she needed that suit to keep from getting little electrical burns all over the place.

“No, he cannot.” Lana agrees, bemused. Gideon was the most hateful little creature she’s ever come across. She’s still not sure Protagonist hasn’t summoned him out of the nether somewhere.

“Well depending on who all she’s seen-”

Someone was at the door. Lana glanced to it, the sound of something pressed against and sliding a little-before it swung open, in walking a very petite, athletically streamlined young woman in a familiar light blue, shimmering costume with all the silver accessories. Instead of Laura’s mask however, she was sporting oversized, mirrored silver goggles.

She holding two boxes of something just about wider than she was, pausing mid step as she enters the comfortable, homey dwelling. Lana thinks she hears a gasp.

“You’reDeepBlue!” The stack of donut boxes appears on the counter and suddenly the girl is in front of her, the goggles now a headband on the top of her head and a silver glove extended in a hand shake. She’s beaming up at her. “I’m Jenna Paige, ma’am.”

Lana likes her immediately. She was just this little thing, nowhere close to Laura’s height or build, but possessing a similar-if not more exaggerated-energy.

“Lana of Atlantis. Well met, Jenna Paige.” She shakes her hand. A pixie-ish, full grin curves the junior heroine’s lips.

“You were Miss Laura’s best friend!”

“I was Laura’s best friend.” A fond nod of confirmation. There’s a quiet moment of an over the moon Jenna just beaming, and an amused Lana glancing over to Elias.

Elias is - radiant. Sitting there, smiling, watching his family knit together before his eyes. Normally he's truculent and good-natured, but this is something past that, a serene happiness genuine in its quietness. "Welcome home, Jenna," he says, ambling out of the kitchen to give her a side-armed hug and a muffin. "One of mine made her way back."

And that's all he needs for a good day. Humming, he heads for the donuts and steals one and licks it to claim it as his. "Clearly, introductions are already done, but this is Lana, from the Front. One of Marie's old teammates, and as good a woman I've known in my time. She and I generally ran in front of nasty things and got knocked around a lot while other people got things done."

Realistically that'd been mostly him.

"Lana'll be hanging around a lot from here on out, she's got some fancy ambassador title now instead of 100% being the 'princess of an ancient, forgotten magical nation' trope. Make sure to congratulate her on not being a cliche anymore, mmkay?"

Elias is laughing under his breath and with his eyes, actually bouncing on the balls of his feet; weird, doggy apron dancing with him. It's adorable.

This was the best day of Jenna's life-again. She beams as she’s hugged, slipping a glove off to properly hold what was a very warm muffin. She’s eaten an entire box of donuts by herself already, but that doesn’t even slow her down.

Every once in a while, her ravenous appetite almost shames her-and then she’s too busy happily snacking down so her metabolism didn’t waste her away. It helped Elias only made good natured jokes about it-while baking her muffins.

“I also skewered a lot more things.” Lana’s sharp toothed grin. “Or bit them. But yes, I was the ‘muscle’ for The Front, but not the impenetrable shield or unstoppable force Adamant is, here.”

“You beat up Ragnorok.” Jenna pipes up, her muffin half gone. “With his own hammer.”

“I think even Protagonist appreciated the irony of that one.” Lana confirms. She levels Elias with a harmless look, a quirked brow muscle. “Says the man with galaxies swirling in his chest.”

“So you’re an ambassador?” Jenna’s all kinds of curious. Like with most things hero related, she thought everything was super freaking cool, wish fulfillment. “Like, officially?”

“My brother Laurent ascended the throne last year.” Lana provides. “He thought I was too old to be a ‘runaway explorer’.” To be honest, so did she. “When I first surfaced and met humans, I took on the goal of...maybe bridging that gap. I tried to be a good example.”

“You were an awesome example.” Jenna says, then blinks-feeling a little silly. “I mean-um-” More muffin nomming. If her mouth was full, she couldn’t embarrass herself TOO badly. But this, this was awesome. This was what she thought the Tower would be like, when she accepted that invitation to join the Association. This was what she'd always thought allying up with fellow heroes would be like.

Lana, for her part, looks just as happy as Elias. To see someone taking up Laura’s mantle, the legacy living on-it mattered to her. She had a lot of questions, but she was pleased, and here in this warm comfortable house with her old friend and the successor of another old friend-she was happy.

And so was Elias. She could not have felt any more validated in her decision to resurface and come to his aid than she did right now.

"Yeah, what'd you do with that pig-sticker, anyways?" Elias says, curiously. "Fish-sticker, I suppose. I won't lie, that thing intimidated me. You had great aim and all, but I was waiting for the day you'd sneeze mid-throw and stick me to a wall."

Meanwhile, he hangs up the apron - cooking momentarily complete - and drops himself into the fattest armchair in the living room, comfortable and lazy. "Hey, just because my skin comes with its own screensaver doesn't mean you can talk shit to me. I can go star- and navel-gazing at the same time. Top that, yeah?"

He rolls his neck back and stares upward. "I recall you and Laura used to do some evil-looking tag team moves. After Jenna finishes absorbing my muffins, dust those off. She does good work on her own, but knowing how to set us up for the haymaker is what made the teamwork immaculate."

That had been how it worked; Elias and Lana had tanked, drawing enemy attention, while Laura zipped through, removed noncombatants and regular mooks faster than the rest could even notice them, and then started running harassment. She'd sling bolas at their feet, throw flashbangs in their face, snatch their gadgets and guns from their belts; Velocity had been everything wrong for the enemy team, every time they tried to get anything done, and then one of the heavy hitters would come in for the goodnight blow.

Honestly, Laura had done more work than any of them, and done it with a smile.

“My costume and related paraphernalia are in my motel room. Most anything else I need is in The Front’s old base.” She considers. “Assuming it’s still there.”

The base in question was really just a nice flat with stronger than usual security, serving as a home for some of the members as well as a ‘war room’ of sorts.

“...I still remember the time Livewire referred to it as my ‘big fork’.”

"I recall you and Laura used to do some evil-looking tag team moves. After Jenna finishes absorbing my muffins, dust those off. She does good work on her own, but knowing how to set us up for the haymaker is what made the teamwork immaculate."

“That’s part of why I’m here.” Lana says, powerful strides to take her to the couch, sit back a bit. It’d been a long swim, after all. “I was there for some of her training, so while I’m no speedster, maybe I can offer insight there, in her stead. And of course-the team maneuvers. You’re one of us, after all.”

Jenna has an expression that could only be described as ‘daydreaming Christmas’.

“That’d be so cool…” Jenna blurs and is back, plopping down onto the other side of the couch. The trash can lid was still swinging in the kitchen, and she’s holding yet another muffin.

“I’ll have to gauge where you currently are of course.” Lana muses. Training warriors is something she knows a lot about-it had been a large part of the previous eight years. “Speaking of...how did you come by your abilities? Laura had an accident in her uncle’s lab when she was young, and she came to realize the results over time. Did something like that happen to you?”

“Well uh, no, nothing like that.” Jenna shifts in her seat. Hers really wasn’t the most glamorous of stories. “I just sorta had ‘em, one day.”

“And one of us helped you get your start after?”

“I mean, Miss Laura told me where her base was, how to get in.”

Lana blinks, leaning back slightly to look Jenna over again. She glances at Elias, then returned her yellow gaze to Jenna, very, very attentive all of a sudden.

"I want to hear this story. You should start at the beginning."

Elias waves a hand, not really worried about it. "She said she promised Laura, so I presume there's some kind of communication. It sounds really inexact and rare, though. So she's basically Obi-Wan and merged with the Force or something. It sounds pretty cool."

Well, it would make sense that Elias, at least, would be accepting of nebulous forms of immortality.

He comes over to the table and pulls up his own chair, then loops an arm around Jenna's shoulders casually. "She had access to Laura's secret pad down in South Bend. Some assholes tried to collapse it, and I cleaned out the rubble then helped her loot it. Most of the stuff's downstairs now for whatever that's worth."

Elias shrugs and smiles. "But yeah, Jenna's mostly home-grown. She's done a damn fine job of it, though. I don't think Laura had to tell her to do all that much but what she was already doing."

He's still unnaturally cheerful (as much as such a thing can even apply to the optimistic juggernaut) but they're just going to have to live with it.

Jenna has an appreciative smile for Elias, but that wasn’t quite right.

“You can talk to Laura?” Lana asks. She keeps her voice carefully neutral.

“No, I only saw her the one time.”

“How? When? I would like to hear this story.” Lana’s not really asking, but she remains polite, if insistent. “From the very beginning.”

Jenna takes another bite of her muffin and then sets it down, thinking on ‘the beginning’. She hasn’t really told anyone the full story, and she’s not sure she wants to given how dumb it kind of was, but the part with Miss Laura-well, Lana deserved to know. They both did. So she’d just start at the beginning.

“Well-a year and a half ago, I missed my bus stop.” Lana doesn’t blink. Just remains watching her intently, poised, still in her chair. “So I get off at the next one, and I know it’s a bad part of town so I put my hands in my pockets just to walk back to where I should have gotten off. And then-well, I heard a woman scream.”

Jenna spins the smart watch on her wrist, remembering. “And I get walking a little faster, hearing some kind of commotion, and down this side alley a group of men were harassing this woman-trying something, and well-I just wasn’t having that.”

Color comes to her russet bronze face. “So I yelled at them to leave her alone, and charged down into the alley like an idiot. Everybody’s surprised. They’re paying attention to me and she thankfully gets away, but then it’s juuuust me down this alley. After dark. With five mean looking dudes pissed off I’d interrupted.” Jenna spreads her hands, having somewhat slid down in the chair as she’s talking. “So yeah, yikes.”

Lana nods.

“I tell one of them to back off and give him a shove but there’s just too many. I’m realizing how much of a colossal bad idea this was turning out to be. I gotta get out of there. They’re going to catch me, but I’m scared and I just...bolt. I duck an arm and then-I don’t know what happened. I ran and everything dropped away everywhere, suddenly I was racing through nothing but dark and blue lightning in a place that didn’t make any sense and didn’t seem to have anything in it. I think to myself, oh no, they must have hit me in the head, I’m probably being curbstomped or worse-you know, uplifting thoughts like that.”

“And then I realize there’s someone else there, catching up and running just on the other side of this...constant rushing blue light between us. It’s Velocity. She’s in and out of focus just at the corner of my vision, I can’t quite see her. I’m POSITIVE I’m having some kind of death throes dream now, watching her come into focus. Seeing her see me.”

Jenna still remembers her confusion, but also how sad Miss Laura had looked, sad and surprised. She loses all her light hearted, joking bravado, grows serious and calm, even the spinning of her watch slowing to a standstill.

“She asked me to look out for the little guy, for South Bend. ‘You’ve got to help them.’ Is what she said.” Jenna is quiet. Her fingers trace over the smartwatch, and then the thickened material of the blue costume, looking down at the shimmer that happened when the light hit it just right.

“I told her I’d do what I could, but I didn’t know what that’d be. I’m not sure she got that. She told me where her base was, how to get into it. She told me to take up the torch, to be Velocity. To ‘fight the good fight’. And I...I promised I would.”

Jenna looks between the two veteran heroes. “And then her mirage or echo or...whatever she was went faster and disappeared far ahead of me-and I ended up at the end of the alley, my shoes pretty much melted. The men were startled and literally in the same positions I had just ducked them in. They were freaking out, I was freaking out, we all backed off-and then -I- ran, at normal speed, all the way to my dorm room. I didn’t know what to think. And then...three days later I went to Laura’s base and-well.”

Jenna shrugs, a small smile. “Here I am.”

“Yes.” Lana studies her. “Here you are.” She pushes the muffin the girl had set down, encouraging her to eat-she knew how ravenous Laura could get.

“That was the only time you saw Laura?”

“Yeah...I’ve tried to get back to where ever that was a few times, but it just never happens. I’m not sure if I’m not fast enough or-”

“Don’t push too hard with things you don’t fully understand, Miss Jenna. The Speed Force might be more volatile than anyone thought.” At the same time Laura had been seen in whatever dimension, whatever plane Jenna was describing! She persisted!

Lana’s not quite sure what to make of it.

Elias's grin becomes positively ecstatic. "She's perpetual," he says firmly. "Like me and Rowan. Her Catalysis didn't kill her - her body just couldn't keep up. One day the rest of the universe will catch up with her, and she'll be with us again."

Impulsively, he picks up Jenna and hugs her again wholesale. "Like Lana said - don't push. It's not a fun process, and very few people can survive the process intact. So far it's just me and Rowan; Laura will make a third. Our bodies are not meant to handle the kind of stress powers put them through. Ride the throttle gently, hon."

If he was peppy before, now Elias is literally dancing in his seat, rocking and swaying as he smiles. He's honestly kind of dizzy - to go from eight years of nothing, to two solid allies, to the death of almost all his family, to getting two back -

It's befuddling. He's starting to not catch up with all the twists and turns. He laughs a little, and rises from his seat as he rolls his shoulders. "Let's head to the back yard. Best way to practice is by the seat of your pants - think you can help our rookie out in a little two-on-one spar? Show her how Laura ran business."

He winks back and then both, and whips the apron off to cast it over the back of a chair, before he heads to a door set into the back wall of the living room and pushes it open with a smooth groan of metal. Before them is the rear court of the Coulee - a large open space, a green meadow that extends for the length of a soccer court, with occasional puddles, bullrushes, and small rises. The moonlight filters through the trees about and dances on the waters, setting everything to silvery shine.

Elias turns around and grins at them both from outside.

Elias seemed to take that as the best news he’d ever heard, but Lana still felt...a strange sense of foreboding. What sort of state was Laura in? Eight years running headlong into Neptune only knew what…

But she survived. Some part of her, whatever it was, lived on, and had been able to pass the torch of her own volition to this small woman Elias’ hugs entirely swallow up. Lana was more resolved than ever to help her now.

“That is a very good idea. Assuming you are not worn out from your patrol…?”

“Nah, I almost never get tired on the easy stuff.” Jenna tells her casually, popping the rest of the muffing into her mouth and swallowing without even seeming to chew, Lana thought. “I hope you’re not going to be like...too disappointed with my ‘level’ as is, though.”

“What do you mean? Protagonist said you defeated Rush.”

Jenna adjusted her ponytail, a bit of an embarrassed grin. “I mostly just like...trip people up. Improvise with things in the environment. I tricked Rush-pinned her to the wall with extreme water pressure.”

Lana turns a look on her. “...how…?”

“Fire hydrant!” Jenna cheerfully provided.

“...I wish I had been there to see her face.” Lana grants, amused. “Still. Clever as I am sure you are, you need to be able to rely on your physical self, too. You don’t look like you carry any equipment. Protagonist can probably get you set up with a gadget or two.”

The two vastly mismatched women headed out the door after him, one vaguely unsure and the other at ease, comforted by old memories as she had been the entirety of her visit thus far. “For now though, here is Elias, and maybe you can’t bolt off to go grab anything to use. No round the globe trips for anything clever, this fight.” Lana gave her shoulder a fond pat. “On the other hand, you can hit him as hard as you want, just about.” A sharp toothed grin in his direction.

Jenna frowns. She doesn’t want to go punching Elias at full speed. Besides-“I try not to hit too hard. I’ve broken my hand before.”

“Ah. Well, we can work on your control of your Speed Force aura, expanding it so it cushions your blows, protects those delicate human bones of yours. We’ll just work on being a team player today-fighting with a friend.”

Jenna nodded along, pulling her goggles down over her eyes again. “Man this is so cool.”

Elias ambles out onto the green, shedding his apron and setting it over the railing of a little back courtyard area with chairs and a table, arranged to look out over the wide space before them. Light plays over his skin before he hops about twenty feet out into the open, then wheels to face the other two heroes, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"You must be warned!" he bellows, as his hands begin to wheel and swing in awkward circles. "I am armed with the ancient secrets of Kung-Fu! My fists know no equal!"

He poses in some ridiculous leaning-back stance, one leg thrust forward and low like he's trying to retrieve a dropped pencil with it, and then beckons them forward with one hand.

"Of course, Lana does too, and her ancient Kung-Fu is Atlantiean Kung-Fu, which probably tops, like, Tiger-Mantis style or whatever the hell I'm supposed to be packing," Elias muses. "I mean, shit, imagine if she had like a whale-sensei who taught her to hit like them? Or at the very least, like, an octopus with eight-sword style or something. That'd be dope."

Elias attempts some kind of wiggling maneuver crossed with a high kick that mostly just dumps him on his ass. He flips back up to his feet, laughing, and with faint ripples of light begins bouncing from foot to foot, crossing three or four feet per bounce from side to side. His feet trail along the ground on every burst, ready to redirect him.

"Come, grasshopper," Elias says, and then squints really hard at them.

Lana rolls her eyes while Jenna laughs at the absurdity of his statements, and harder when he takes a fall.

“For the last time-we do not talk to fish.”

“Why, they always rude or something?” Jenna teases, bouncing on her silver boots-not that she needs to warm up really. She’s always rearing to go.

Lana turns a look on her. “You are as bad as he is!” But there’s no heat to it, no malice. Fondness, playfulness-they are friends, here.

“You can borrow one of my gloves if you want.” Jenna continues. “Ya know, the whole...slap and drop thing to start a duel or whatever.”

Lana shakes her head, dropping a little lower as she ‘sizes’ Elias up. “No thanks.” She shoves off her powerful back leg and fires for him, the shimmering light blue flitting forward alongside-and then around her, moving to circle the ‘Kung-fu master’. The princess’ right fist curls tight and pulls back, a running leap for a downward strike.

Jenna, for her part, isn’t sure how this is going down or not. She opts to flit around and behind Elias to tap him on the shoulder in distraction.