Chapter Eight:
Return
Joan
Lance shook me awake. "Hey, Jo? We're back now."
I groggily sat up. "Eh? What's goin' on?"
"We're back in New Marias," Lance explained quietly. "I'd heard that there were roadblocks, but we got through okay. And no one's been stopping us. We're back at Cole's place."
"Oh." I forced myself into a sitting position and opened the door, stretching my legs. "Let's never go on a cross-country trip, ever again."
"Here, here," Lance agreed readily. "I'll grab the suitcase. You go up. Don't worry about me."
I nodded and headed up. I wondered how Cole was doing against the Militia and Kayce, though I was sure he was doing fine. After all, he defeated the Beast. What could be harder than that?
I opened the door to the roof, but flew back down the stairs as a gigantic fist hit me square in the face. I held my bleeding nose and looked up the stairs, my eyes glowing with rage.
"What the hell was that for?" I shouted angrily.
Cole was dumbstruck as his fist was still in the position he'd used to punch me. "Joan! I-I thought you were Kayce!"
"I thought the fact that were wardrobe was opposite mine would help you distinguish who I was!" I snapped as I slowly climbed up the stairs. "Goddammit! That friggin' hurt!"
As I sat on the couch, Cole handed me a washcloth to stop the bleeding. "I'm really sorry, Jo! Kayce was taunting me while standing in front of the door, and when the door started opening she disappeared, and that was when I punched you. I was already gearing up to hit her when she disappeared!"
"Ah, momentum," I said. "Well, I have to say one thing; for a crazy bitch, she's good with timing."
Cole nodded. "Yeah…"
I held the cloth tightly to my nose. "I don't think it's broken, which is good."
"Sorry."
"No prob." When I stopped the bleeding, I tossed the washcloth onto the T.V. "Hey, how's the fight going'?"
Cole sighed. "Harder than I thought. It's not like when I fought the Beast; he was just one entity, and it was only him on his own side. Well, except for Lucy…" He cleared his throat. "But now, Kayce has the Militia on her side. They think she's the 'Angel of Judgement' or somethin'. She has Bertrand eating out of her hands with all of the lies she's been telling, so now he thinks that by taking 'deviants' to some of his prisons and publicly executing them later, God will reward him."
I shook my head. "That isn't good."
"You find anything about how to destroy her?" Cole asked.
I handed him the piece of paper. "Dana found it. Now we're even."
Cole took a few minutes to read it. "So… she can die like anyone else?"
"Yeah, which takes a load off of my mind. But she's a Conduit, has my powers (with added extras), has an army to back her up that consist of Militia and Corrupted, and she almost controls all of New Marias." I sighed. "Who do we got?"
"We're getting some of Vermaak 88 on our side," Cole explained, handing the paper back to me. "We're in some heavy negotiations with them, so Lucy's taking care of that. The Rebels are getting new recruits almost every day, and now we have you and Lance. Not to mention that Zeke's spying on the Militia. We can usually counter their attacks, but we haven't gotten any of their strongholds yet."
"So, we're not in the best situation," I said. "Well, I'm sure Lucy'll get the Ice People to team-up with us. We can help them; we just need the right technology. And I'm sure that we can find ways to stop them from going insane."
"Yeah, but we need to find out what was done to them to be able to reverse it," Cole pointed out. "I mean, we know what was done, we just need to find out how."
I nodded. "They'll come around. Now, I think we need to talk about what I'll be doing during this fight."
Lucy and Zeke finally came back, exhausted and craving coffee. Lance and I were sitting at the table with them, while Cole was making hot chocolate for me and himself. Lance decided on coffee.
When we were all seated at the table, I said, "I wanna help out."
Cole took a sip of his hot chocolate and put his mug down on the table. "No."
"Why not? I can fight!"
"It's not that," Cole said. "But you need to lie low. If I can barely distinguish you two, then its best if you don't fight, or the Rebels will think you're Kayce."
"Which I kinda am, but still." I sighed. "Well, what exactly can I do then?"
"Go to school and lie low. Don't draw attention to yourself," Cole explained.
"What? They still haven't friggin' destroyed it?" I fumed. "Ugh! I bet they haven't even closed it down!"
Zeke laughed. "Well, even in crisis, they'll never shut those schools down."
"This is friggin' ridiculous…" I sighed. "Do I really have to?"
"I think it'd be for the best," Lucy said. "The area where your school is… well, it hasn't been touched yet."
"Great," I replied sarcastically. "It figures."
Cole finished his hot chocolate (what is it with guys being food/drink vacuums?) and stood up. "Go to school tomorrow and be careful."
"Well," Lance said, "as careful as we can be."
"What d'you mean?" I asked.
"How're we gonna explain our absence casually, when we've been gone the same amount of days?"
I gulped.
