Maria sat at the table watching, as Vector seemed to stare her down, study her, almost as to look straight into her. Mighty watched and Charmy grinned at her, Espio just ignored the whole period of silence.
"Can you stop staring at me?"
He didn't, just lowered his eyelids more until they became small slits.
"Vector," Mighty spoke on her behalf as to stop Vector from glaring at her, "This is Maria. You know, the girl from yesterday."
"I know. I'm not stupid, Mighty."
"Wow, had me fooled," Maria spoke quietly to herself then looked back up at Vector and sighed. "Listen, you got something to say, say it."
There was a short pause before he spoke. "You're not dead." He pointed a finger at her.
"Ever so perceptive." She rolled her eyes and looked away again.
"Whoa, I never would've guessed. Good job, Vector." Espio spoke arrogantly. He knew Vector was just taking in the whole situation, but he was still sick of sitting there in a fog of stupidity.
"Hey, purple boy, I--"
"Hey chill, alright. Leave it 'till later." Mighty cut Vector off before he and Espio could drag themselves into another argument. That seemed to come automatically to the two of them.
Maria sat there staring at them. They were all boys, Charmy being the youngest, as she had already been told. Mighty seemed to be the one that was most responsible, she could be wrong, but that's what she saw. He was also very nice, to her anyway. Vector appeared to be the oldest, and the most hotheaded. And Espio, well, he was just a short-tempered jerk to Maria, he hadn't shown anything else telling her different.
They continued to argue for a few minutes while Charmy flew over and sat on the table in front of Maria. She looked at him as he stared at her smiling.
"What're you so smiley about?" She spoke sounding as nice as she felt.
"You're really pretty." His grin grew wider after he said this.
"How sweet, thank you." She spoke with a delighted tone. She was always around little kids before and she knew how to treat them. She looked over to the three guys quarreling on the other end of the table. Then she looked back at Charmy and pointed a finger at them. "Do they do this a lot?"
He took a quick look at them and then shrugged his shoulders. "Oh yeah. All the time, but I'm pretty used to it now."
She looked back at them and watched as they fought over something so pointless. Mighty was doing the least bit of arguing but plenty of the talking. Espio was the one yelling and Vector was standing there pretending to comprehend what the other two were saying. Then, Maria got annoyed and thought up an interesting idea. She looked back at Charmy.
"Hey Charmy, do you think you could get me a glass of water?"
He sat confused for a moment before responding. "How'd you know my name?"
"Mighty told me last night. So what do you think?"
"Yeah, sure." He flew up and over to the sink after grabbing a clean glass and filled it up quickly. He then, with a little trouble, flew it back over to Maria and set it down on the table. It sat between him and Maria.
"Thanks. Now, you might want to scootch over a bit." She pointed a little off to the side and he did has he was directed. He watched interestedly as the gem in her forehead turned white and the glass started to empty, somehow, into the palm of her hand. She was holding her hand above the glass, the top of her hand facing upward, and the water seemed to fall...up...to her hand and form a ball there. It seemed as though it were just floating there. Charmy stared, totally entranced by the phenomenon. She spread her fingers out straight towards Mighty, Espio, and Vector and the water shot out from her hand to their faces. Hitting them directly in the head, they all turned in amazement, besides Espio who was more angered than amazed, and stared. She just stared back and dropped her hand as the gem in her head dimmed to a blue hue again.
"Dude! How'd you do that?" Charmy said excitedly.
"What the hell was that?" Vector said completely confused.
"That would probably be a not-so-secret power now, I'm guessing." Espio said as he wiped the water from his face and sat back down in his seat.
"Ya know if y'all would grow up for a minute, maybe I could explain."
Mighty sat down and wiped his face off. Vector shook his head, stood for a moment longer and then slowly returned to his chair, Charmy still sitting on the table by Maria.
They all stared at her yet again as she sat there quietly. Espio decided to start the conversation.
"So, am I right when I assume that's a power, more so than a talent?"
"Ha, power may not be the word for it...curse maybe. But you could call it a power I guess."
"So what, you shoot water? That's pretty pointless." Vector was not too interested in this because it meant he had to pay attention to, in his opinion, some girl tell him about something that she could do and he couldn't.
"For your information, I can manipulate the water in any form," she paused and held out her hand, palm up, "but I can't create it." She closed her hand into a fist and looked back at them.
"Is that why you've got that sparkly thing in your forehead?" Charmy pointed at the gem placed between her eyes.
"Yeah, that would be why that's there."
"So, that's the reason it changed when you threw some of that at me last night, right?"
"Yeah, but I--," she was cut off by Vector shaking his hands in front of his face.
"Whoa, hold up, wait a minute here. Last night? What happened last night?" He watched them as Mighty, Espio, and Maria all exchanged questionable glances.
Maria decided to finally say something that was at least half true. "Nothing. We were just uh...gettin' to know each other."
"So what...you weren't injured?" Vector was kind of confused. He hadn't caught up to all this yet.
Maria was about to answer before Espio cut in explaining.
"No. She was injured, badly," he paused and glared in Maria's direction. She just rolled his eyes as he continued. "And she still is. She just decided to leave in the middle of the night last night so she could be alone."
"And no one noticed you left?"
"Well, if Mighty hadn't of been there, yeah, I would've been unnoticed. Espio just seemed to follow me and then treat me like a convict."
"You went ninja on her didn't you?" Vector was starting to become a little more intrigued by the story.
"Yes, but only because she didn't give me much of a choice."
"Hey, I'm not your ordinary girl. I ain't gonna just let you come to me and go like you own me. I'm not like that believe it or not."
"Well, definitely not ordinarily weak, that's for sure." Mighty said talking about when she had grabbed his arm so tight that he felt the pain.
"Hey! I said I was sorry. I'm defensive, comes from who I grew up with."
"So what? You get picked on in school or something?"
"No. Far from it." They all looked at her, their eyes saying 'go on, a little lost.' "I'm trained in martial arts, know how to handle almost every single weapon known to every single race. I'm agile, strong, focused, cunning, and just about everything a normal guy should be."
"Martial arts?" Espio realized that's how she was able to fight him like that.
"Weapons?" Mighty was slightly shocked at the weapons part of the explanation.
"Normal guy...how's that work?"
"I'm a major tomboy alright. I've never been a prissy little girl. Never wore pink, never wore make-up, never did my nails, never wore a skirt. I'm not your average 'look at me, I'm so girly' girl. I didn't grow up like that."
"So, where did you pick up all these not so girly habits?"
She paused and looked away. She should've stopped this conversation before it began. Her past was not something she wanted to remember.
"An old friend of mine. Spent most of my life with him." She spoke much more quietly now.
They sat there nodding their heads, and then there was a short period of quiet. This was a pretty big situation for all of them. Even Maria was still trying to put it all together.
"Where are you from?" Mighty decided to ask something that she could answer and that Vector and Espio would probably wonder as well.
"Cyrzadii." She kept her glance down, not looking at any of the others.
"Cyrzadii? That planet's halfway across the galaxy."
"Yeah. It is."
"So how'd you get here?" Only after Vector had asked had he known how stupid his question was. She glanced up at him with confused eyes. "Right, stupid question."
"You know if we hadn't shown up...you could've been dead by now." Espio was sounding pretty proud of himself for some reason. Maria didn't respond. She just kept her gaze downward.
"That's your thoughts, not a fact."
"So, you don't think you'd have died from a crash like that?" Espio said feeling pretty confident in himself.
"No. I would've lived...whether or not you showed up."
"Somehow, I find that pretty hard to believe, Maria." Mighty spoke interjected the conversation between mainly Espio and her.
"Yeah well, you don't know me. And I'll say truthfully that you probably never will." She stood up and looked at them. They stared back as she started to walk away.
"Where the hell are you going?" Vector cried after her as she was about to open the door to exit to outside.
"Out," was all she said in reply as she closed the door behind her and was off on her own...again.
The three older guys exchanged glances and Charmy just sat, still confused. Vector bowed his head and closed his eyes.
"That girl's got some attitude," he paused and looked at Espio, "and I don't like it."
"So what do you want us to do about it?" Mighty spoke strongly. He knew Vector wanted her gone, but she couldn't leave. Not with the injuries she had endured and then after not even one day, saying she was all right? No, not with Mighty there, it wouldn't happen.
"Keep her under control. If she slips, cocks a fit at me, one way or another, she's out."
"Vector, we have no idea who she is or how well she really is. She may slip, in your plain speaking, within the next couple hours. What happens then?"
"She goes."
"You can't do that!" Mighty stood from the table violently and put his hands in fists, setting them knuckles down on the tabletop.
"She is in no way healed. There is no possible way. I know for a fact that if she goes off, like she constantly does, and we don't bring her back, she may end up dead."
Vector sat silently for a moment. He lost contact with the two of them and thought for that moment in silence.
"Three days," he held up three long fingers at Mighty and Espio, then looked up at them both. "I'll give it three days. After that, she's outta here."
"Vector, three days doesn't give her enough time to fully recover from those injuries. You know that."
"Then speed it up Espio, you should be able to do something like that."
"Vector! You can't say she's gon--" Mighty stopped when Vector spoke powerfully.
"Three days! Mighty, that's it. Deal with it," he paused and looked at Mighty directly, "or maybe you wanna leave with her." Mighty stared at him for what seemed like forever before violently pushing away from the table and rushing past Vector. He headed outside in search for Maria. He was done with the conversation, finished.
Espio looked at Vector and he glared back silently. There was no speaking between them, there needn't been. All they needed to say to each other was thrown at each other through their eyes.
After a couple eternity lasting minutes in silence, Espio stood and also headed outside. Charmy followed, not knowing exactly what everyone was arguing about. Most of them had forgotten that he was still there.