Earlier that Same Day
Theodore awoke to the sun beating down on his back and a crick in his neck from the awkward position in which he had slept. Mercifully the room was empty when he awoke, no more pillows to the face nor buzzing in his ears. The scent of booze and smoke lingered on the wind, but that may have just been a permanent fixture of the place. Getting to his feet with a yawn and stretching his back with a satisfying pop and crack, the young Garde ran a hand through messy locks before deciding to take a wander through the expansive gardens that ran the length of the back half of the property. "How the hell did Uncle Klaus manage to afford this?" Theodore mused as he stood in the open doorway leading out to the patio.
"Don't ask me, monkey" Loren grunted, his tone still slurred from their shared sleep. "I'm surprised he even knows what day it is"
"Yeah…" Theodore sighed deeply as he began to wander through the extravagant gardens. Did their family ever do things by halves? "But that's not exactly any different from before, remember?"
"How should I know? We barely know your aunt & uncles!"
"And yet here we are"
"And here we are"
"We're pretty fucked, aren't we?"
"More than normal?"
"Oh ha-ha!" Theodore deadpanned as his eyes brightened at the reclusive pond he'd found at the back of the orchard-lined gardens. He didn't even have to think it through as his clothes fell to the wayside, didn't even blink as scales overtook flesh and he shed one skin for another before he slipped beneath the water's edge, relinquishing control over to Loren.
Roiling coils of muscle intertwined as the Garde snake happily twisted beneath the water much as they had done before Grandfather had found him. Loren wasn't sure how much time had passed beneath the water as they contented themselves with languidly chasing webbed feet of the startled geese above them and the glittering scales of the koi around them. It wasn't until they felt something stroke the scales that had breached the water's speckled surface that they were pulled from their simple musings. Straight away they knew that it wasn't the constant brushing against the reeds that lined the pond; the motion was far too small and gentle for that. So with interest piqued, Loren rolled over once more before beady eyes were able to blink up at the blurred figures standing over them.
From the colour of their clothes, they were able to ascertain that they were in fact members of Destiny's Children—that particular colour was hard to miss even beneath the murky water as they were. Creeping closer until only a slim film of water separated them, Loren was able to see that the figures were in fact two young boys—teens, if they'd had to guess (although the strangers seemed to act more like young children; likely a byproduct of the cult)—who appeared rather familiar in a way he couldn't quite describe. The loralite knew that as a human, Theodore was much less receptive to holding onto information—something which irked them to no end—but even they seemed to be having difficulty recounting why these two children rang a bell.
Much like when Theodore had reencountered both of his Uncles Diego and Five earlier in the week, Loren just knew they knew these two boys, but they still didn't know how, just that they did and it irked them. Rising further out of the water, Loren rose far enough that they were able to stuff their large muzzle between the two boys in an effort find out more about them. In front sat the younger of the two; a happy blonde with elvish-like features that could almost have been considered Mogadorian if not for the lack of gills and shiny loralite pendant hanging from his neck. He appeared to have been the one who had been petting him.
In turn, the elder child (likely closer to his mid-teens than his friend) bore curly ginger ringlets much like Theodore, but with sharp eyes that seemed to pierce his soul. "See, Yugi?" The blonde exclaimed happily as water droplets were snorted onto the two. "I told you it was him!"
"This doesn't prove anything, Kiran" Yugi replied stubbornly, crossing his arms in defiance as his eyes roved over the blue serpent before them.
"I'm telling you! He's Garde! He's gotta be! That's loralite! I'd know it anywhere!"
"So what if it's loralite? That doesn't mean it's the brat—or any of the others for that matter. We're stuck here remember? Alone"
"It's him" Kiran replied determinedly, "I know it is"
"That's what you said about the milkman and the nanny" Yugi sighed, shifting in place as Loren's head flopped onto the bank, content for Kiran to continue to scratch at their scales.
"Well, that was different!"
"Oh yeah? How?"
"Because—they—this—look! These scales are loralite! Which means that he's Garde, which means he's one of us!"
"I'm not doing this again, Kiran" Yugi shook his head despairingly at the younger teen and made to walk away when he called back over his shoulder one last time. "And even if he is Garde, how do you know he's not from the original Garde? How do you know he's even from School?"
At the mention of the horrid organisation in question, Loren's head snapped up towards the retreating ginger with sudden urgency. They were at the School? Is that how we know them?
"See, Yugi?!" Kiran cheered at the reaction, "See? He reacted to that bit! He is! He is!"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves" Yugi scowled, turning back to face the now tense serpent. "You gonna change back or are we gonna keep talking to a snake?"
"Rude lil' dorvak, innit he?" Loren mused as they turned to watch the teen.
Like you're any better! Theodore replied in the back of their shared mind space as their two front legs came to grip onto the bank in front of him.
"Oh look! Now you scared him!" Kiran scolded the ginger as Loren moved back to reposition themselves.
"Him? Yeah right!" Yugi scoffed with a roll of his eyes as Kiran scrunched up his shirt sleeve to show Loren what was imprinted there.
Just below his wrist sat four little numbers hurriedly printed there on caramel-coloured skin like it was more of an after thought, and a single circular scar sat tucked into the crook of his elbow. A scar, mind you, that matched perfectly with the pendent he wore around his neck. Not only was Kiran of the same House as Theodore, it turned out that he had been at the School as well.
"See?" Kiran nudged the limb closer to Loren. "We're friends—we're Garde too. Yu—Yugi, come show 'im yours!"
"What? No!" Yugi refused, still eyeing up Loren's serpentine form like they would attack at any minute.
"Yu, c'me on! How can he trust us, if we don't show him we trust him?"
"Cause I don't"
"Yu! Pleeeeeeeease?"
"Quit it with the eyes, that won't work"
"Pretty pleeeeeeeeease?"
"Quit whining! You're aren't five anymore!"
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
"—Oh, FINE! Fine! As long as you'll shut up, you hirto!"
"Love you too, Yu!" Kiran replied with a shit-eating grin as Yugi angrily began to haul his shirt over his head, muttering all the while.
Once free of the tent-like t-shirt, Yugi turned to face Loren with a put-upon pout with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Peering close, Loren was able to discern the familiar House mark engraved onto his sternum as Kiran turned on his sulking friend once more. "And you're cattle number, Yu!" Kiran nagged.
"Ugh!" Yugi rolled his eyes as he sulkily unfolded his arms and shoved his left one up towards the ophiomormous Garde. There imprinted upon the wrist, much like Theodore and Kiran was four little numbers hastily burnt onto his almond-coloured flesh. "Happy?" Yugi groused as he turned to pull his shirt back on.
"Yes. Very much" Kiran grinned as he scratched at Loren's muzzle, turning back to their fellow Garde and Student. "See friend? You can trust us! We're just like you!"
Loren paused for a moment, their beady eyes flittered back and forth between the sulking ginger and the grinning blonde. A beat of silence passed between the three as Theodore spoke up in the back on their shared mindscape. We should do it. Theodore suggested. We should show them who we are.
"Those marks could be fake" Loren replied. "Or they could be traitors to the cause!"
To the cause? You sound like some kind of shounen protagonist!
"I do not! I'm merely stating that they could be in league with the Mogadorians!"
Oh, you are, are you?
"I am!"
Well, we won't know if you don't let go! Theodore pushed back against Loren's hold on the reins. They could be the ones that sent that message!
"Or they could be trying to kill us!"
So we'll eat them if they are! You're just being a big baby over nothing!
"That 'nothing' is what has kept us alive!"
Loren. Let go.
"Make me"
…Fine.
The click of scales sliding against each other as Theodore forcefully shoved Loren into the back of their mindscape with a wince were satisfying to watch even as the majority of the loralite was sucked back beneath his skin like quills. Using the neighbouring reeds to haul himself out of the water, Theodore took a moment to shake out the water in his ears and slick back the curls plastered to his forehead before turning to the blushing tween at his feet with a questioning looking his eyes, mindless of his state of dress—or lack thereof.
"Put some pants on, ya dorvak!" Yugi grumbled, flushing slightly at the sight of Theodore standing on the pond's edge in translucent boxers, wet from transforming in the pond; as he chucked the discarded pants at blinked dumbly at the denim suddenly blocking his vision before pulling the article of clothing from his face and quietly exchanging the wet boxers for the dry denim. "2419?" Yugi read aloud, eyes trailing over the matching handwriting printed on Theodore's wrist as the (physically) older Garde pulled his clothes back on.
"Eh, eh! That's the Frija House! You're in our House!" Kiran cheered, jumping to his feet when he noticed the House mark printed between Theodore's shoulder blades. "I knew it! I knew you were one of us!"
Theodore had barely shoved his arms into the cardigan sleeves before a pair of smaller arms wrapped themselves around his waist and a face was shoved into his back. "I knew it!" Kiran mumbled happily into his back, voice muffled by the scratchy wool the younger Garde had nestled into. "I knew you were one of us!"
"2109?" Theodore muttered as he awkwardly wriggled around in Kiran's grip to face Yugi who still stood across from them; his eyes trailing over the numbers hidden beneath aqua material. "9040?"
"That's right" Yugi grunted in agreement, his narrowed eyes locked on the pair before him as if he was waiting for any signal that Theodore would harm the small boy suddenly attached to him.
"How—how did you get here?" Theodore asked, rolling the question around in his mind before eventually spitting it out.
"6493 brought us here"
"Barbara?" Theodore's brows furrowed in puzzlement as hope pricked at his heart. The Theron girl had been a good friend—or as close to a friend that Theodore had had in that place—who had had the innate ability to rip open slips in time and space. It was rather similar to Uncle Five's power, only Barbara's Legacy bore a lot less fanfare, and a lot more jumping off of high perches. "Where is she? Is she here too?"
"Um…" Yugi resolutely stared at Kiran still locked around Theodore's waist, seemingly unable to keep eye contact with the older boy even as Theodore laid a gentle hand on the boy's head, fiddling with the soft tufts of hair splayed about.
"What—what happened?" Theodore pushed.
"6493…" Yugi shifted on his feet as he tried to put the right words together. "She got…sick"
"Sick?"
"She slept for a loooooong time" Kiran added, his voice muffled reply no longer cheerful and Theodore felt his stomach drop to his feet.
"O-oh?"
"6493…she's—she's—"
"—She's dead, isn't she?" Theodore ended with a heavy heart.
"The jump took too much out of her" Yugi explained, shoving his hands into his pockets as Theodore turned away, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes moreso from the whiplash at the notion that an old friend had since passed without his knowledge than her actual death itself.
"We—we left a message for everyone" Kiran pulled back far enough to peer up at Theodore, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen upon the trio. "Did you see it?"
"Uh, yeah—yeah, I did" Theodore nodded, blinking rapidly against the tears.
"That's how you found us, right?"
"Uh, y-yeah"
"Kir—Kiran, let 'im go" Yugi shuffled forward and quietly tugged on the back of Kiran's shirt, trying to dislodge the young teen from around Theodore's waist to little avail.
"…H-how" Theodore swallowed thickly around the lump in the back of his throat. "How long has it been for you guys? Since the escape, I mean"
"About two or three years. Yourself?"
"Um…" It took Theodore a minute or two to calculate the years since he'd last been in Arizona; something that was admittedly a little difficult with all the time skips and jumps. "About thirteen years, I think?"
"Th-thirteen?!"
"Wow, you're old!" Kiran pulled back to look up at the scaly Garde with wide eyes.
"Thanks" Theodore deadpanned.
"Thirteen years?!" Yugi demanded as if he couldn't quite believe it. "And the Mogs haven't taken you in all that time?!"
"Oh no, they've tried" Theodore refuted, glazed eyes drifting off to the side as he remembered his previous encounters with the aliens in question. "They've certainly tried"
"And you defeated all of them?" Kiran loosened his grip just enough to be able to talk without inhaling wool.
"With some help"
"Help?" Yugi puzzled.
"Uh, I ran into a Loric Garde"
"A Student?"
"No, just a Garde"
"Huh"
At some point the trio had relocated to one of the main orchards lining the garden, this particular one housing plum trees. Situated in one of said trees happily munching on the violet fruit, juice dripping down their chins and staining their clothes much to Kiran's delight.
"Theo! Nn! Theo!" Uncle Klaus' voice drifted on the breeze as he hurried closer.
"Is that Mr Klaus?" Kiran puzzled, leaning slightly out of the tree to get a better look.
"It sounds like it" Yugi agreed, watching Kiran with eagle eyes, "Wonder what he wants?"
"Uncle Klaus?" Theodore peered out through the violet fruit alongside the other two Garde who turned to face the approaching man. With one hand gripping tight to the branch in which Kiran currently sat perched on, Theodore leant out of the tree to better see. "What's going on?"
"Theo!" Uncle Klaus chirped, throwing his hands up in the air and waving them about as he ran forward like a headless chicken.
"Uncle Klaus? Are you okay?" The Garde shared a puzzled look between them as the hippie man came to a stop at the base of the tree.
"I'm not Klaus!" Uncle Klaus happily chirped in a manner that certainly didn't belong to his necromancer uncle.
"What?"
"It's me! Ben!"
"Uncle…Ben?" His head tilted in question as he noted the buzzing that usually surrounded his Uncle Klaus had muffled slightly. The supposed possession would make sense. Theodore easily scrambled further down the tree until he was sitting in front of the elder man with his legs locked around the thin branch being the only thing keeping him in place. "Aren't you dead?"
"Well, yes—"
"—Maybe he's possessed!" Kiran called out from the canopy above them. "Remember, Nash could something similar!"
"Yeah, but his were more like puppets!" Theodore leant back as he called back up to the other two. "And he never wore people like suits"
"It's less like a suit and more like a Russian nesting doll situation" Yugi mused, pushing aside a stray branch in order to investigate the (not) cult leader further.
"Look! It doesn't matter!" Uncle Bean impatiently cut through their musings. "We have to go! Now! Five found a way back!"
"Really?" Theodore perked up, eyes darting back towards his fellow Garde where gleaming eyes of hope stared back. "We can all go back?"
"Yeah" Uncle Ben nodded, "But we have to—wait! What do you mean 'all?"
"Kiran and Yugi are from our time too" Theodore nodded up towards the two teens whose eyes gleamed down from the canopy almost predatorily. "Or well, they would be if they'd stayed there"
"Wha—?" Uncle Ben blinked up dumbly at them.
"We grew up together" Theodore shrugged half-heartily, "At least before—"
"—Before we escaped" Yugi deadpanned.
"Uh, yeah…"
"Escape?" Uncle Ben's brows knotted in puzzlement.
"We, uh, left about, eh…2014" Kiran shrugged as if it were no big deal, despite clearly being the opposite.
"Tuesday 24th January 2014" Yugi amended in a deadpan, easily recalling the date in which their freedom had finally come.
"Yeah, that" Theodore agreed, trying to hide the wince that accompanied the memory. Kiran and Yugi reacted similarly, in their own way. "Do you think there's room for two more?"
"Uh…" Uncle Ben's gaze roved over the three sitting in the plum tree, eagerly awaiting his response. "We—we—you—I—uh, w-we need to meet up at the alley behind Elliot's in 30 minutes…"
"Cool, we'll meet you there"
"Right…" Uncle Ben nodded before he retracted his steps, sparing only a few glances back at the plum trees in which the three boys remained perched.
"So…" Yugi drawled, pulling Theodore's attention back to him. "That's your uncle? The cult leader?"
"Both of them apparently" Theodore shrugged nonchalantly.
"Ha! It's like a sale at Macy's!" Kiran giggled, before his tone took on a cartoonic salesman tone. "Buy one, get one free!"