"You tried to bite my throat out!" Lance blurted out by way of explanation before anything else could occur to him. Then, remembering the literal corpse pile in his living room, he belatedly closed the front door to his apartment with a foot, not daring to turn away from the teenager on the floor between him and somewhere comfortable to sit.
Laura continued to glare at him, speechlessly conveying her obvious displeasure at the situation. Her malcontent was so great that she temporarily forgot to continue her sidelong shimmy towards the nameless corpse holding the keys to her freedom. Her eyes were bloodshot, and when Lance looked closely at her, he realized the shirt he had stuffed in her mouth in order to stop her from biting him had somehow been ripped to pieces. Tufts of the green fabric from the shirt hung haphazardly from the sides of the girls mouth and he winced, wondering if she had eaten it.
"It wasn't my fault! They broke in and started carrying you off so I stopped them, but then you started trying to murder me! I just thought it was best to leave you alone until you calmed down. Which you obviously have so -" Lance's mouth clicked shut with the audible sound of teeth hitting each other, his rapid fire explanation of the situation grinding to a halt when the guttural sound of a growl started to emit from Laura as she continued to try murdering him with her eyes.
"So... I'll just..." Lance said carefully, stepping forward and being very careful to skirt the wall of his small hallway to keep as much distance between himself and Laura as possible as he moved towards her intended goal. He quickly bent over, tugging the key ring free from the dead mans waist.
Carefully - as though working with a particularly unwieldy warhorse - Lance edged towards Laura's prone form, which was basically vibrating with what he hoped was just nervous energy. She twisted and turned to keep him in her field of view the entire time, her eyes tracking him across the room and back like a cat watching a mouse. Steeling his will, Lance bent to unlock the manacles binding the girls hands, and after a few seconds of flicking through different keys, was rewarded with a soft click as the metal bindings fell free.
Before he could even think to turn towards the bindings on her legs, Laura lurched upward, metal claws shooting out of her hands and swinging forward to sever the ankle restraints tying her to the metal pole. For a second after she was finally free, Lance was worried that she was going to try and lunge at him, now that nothing was preventing her from venting her frustrations on the nearest available body. Thankfully, after freeing herself, she instead spent several seconds rubbing her wrists to get circulation back in her hands, refusing to look back towards him.
"...Thanks." She said quietly, with an almost begrudging tone as she moved to look more closely at the corpses in the corner of the room. She still refused to look at him, which Lance found odd, but which he chose not to comment on. He wondered if this was what the later half of his career had felt like to his fellow knights. The bitter, world weary version of himself that was too tired of all the many evils he had seen to do much else but keep himself fed and clean. There was always another fight to march to. Always another fire to put it. And it got so very... tiring. He could barely even remember seeing the other knights near the end, let alone conversing with them.
"You killed them?" Laura asked, yanking one of the bodies down and pulling apart his clothes in a quick efficient search that spoke of professional training and expertise.
"Nope. Popped them all in the head once to knock them out, then they all died on their own a few hours later. Do you recognize them?" Lance asked hopefully. He never had much patience for this type of thing. When he fought bandits he preferred to get the location of their camps and leaders from the terrified criminals. It was always best to go to the source.
"Reavers. They work for the people that made me." Laura said absently, glancing down at one of the tattoo's Lance had noticed all the men shared and then away as if it was of no particular consequence. Lance however, thought differently, if the scowl and disgusted quirk of her lips as she worked was anything to go by.
"Harsh parents." Lance muttered.
"They. Are not. My parents." Laura ground out, her body tensing and her hands clenching into fists. The perfect silver blades of her claws were visible just barely against the outline of her knuckles, and they quivered and shook as if only a concerted effort of will held them from fully extending.
"Could you... maybe explain that to me a bit?" Lance asked, ready to shift to his armor at a moments notice if Laura turned out to be less stable than he had originally assumed. He didn't want to hurt her obviously, but that didn't mean he was just going to pretend she wouldn't attack him if provoked. It had basically only been two days since they had met after all.
"No." She said simply, rising from the man she had been searching and plastering a completely neutral look on her face. With quick deliberate steps she walked to his front door, and began to slip her boots on, thick black shit kickers that must have been the only expensive thing the girl owned. Now that he was actually bothering to look at them, they stood out so starkly against the rest of her cobbled together rags that he wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed them before.
"Okay wait. Are you going somewhere right now? Why?" Lance asked in confusion as he watched her ready herself from his couch.
"Leaving." She answered, her tone dead and cold, like she had simply turned off the part of her that felt... well anything really. She finished tying her boots up, and had just made it to the door when Lance stopped her, leaping from his place on the couch with a touch of prana to land with his hand on her shoulder. Laura tensed at the contact, but then seemed to relax bonelessly into his grip, not moving away from him but not taking her hand off the door knob either.
"Why?" Lance demanded, the most forceful he had been with the clearly desperate girl since meeting her. Instead of answering she simply turned to look over her shoulder at him with that dead eyed stare, then from him to the pile of corpses, and back to him again.
"What these guys? Please." Lance scoffed, rolling his eyes. He found it highly amusing to watch Laura while she was thinking. She was like a very young child, who had no ability to hide or tone down her expressions. Lance gathered that her blank faced, emotionally dead, outward persona was her preferred coping mechanism for the harsh ups and downs of life. But when she let that wall down it was like watching a slideshow of emotions with her. Her gaze flicked back to him, shifting from blank to ecstatic, to angry, to sad, and then back to blank in a manner of seconds.
"Not the end." She said her hand tightening on his door knob and causing the metal beneath her hands to begin to warp and crack.
"I could take a hundred of these guys. You people call guns the great equalizer but I've fought toothless bandits with a higher chance of actually harming me." Lance quipped, a cocky smile spreading across his face at the memory.
"Stronger." She continued doubtfully.
"I have literally fought dragons." Lance shot back.
"...I'm only good at one thing." She said finally, her blank face giving way to a glower that didn't mask the relief in her eyes.
"Great! So am I!" Lance said, injecting a false cheer into his voice that he didn't quite feel. He was familiar with child soldiers. When there were barely two hundred people in a village you armed whoever you could, and by the standards of his time, Laura was basically a fully adult woman. But that didn't mean he thought that was the way things should be. He would never have become a knight if he did.
He also neglected to mention the fact that while he was technically only good at fighting that was only because for the majority of his life it was all he had ever tried to be good at. He was the blessed child of the lake after all - new skills came quite naturally to him. That was the whole point of Eternal Arms mastery. It was the crystallization of his prowess with any weapon.
Bringing that up right now however, just wouldn't be beneficial to the conversation now would it?
"..." Laura glowered at him for several more seconds before her face slackened once more, her hand still on the door.
"You know it's actually good you found me, I had just decided I might need a squire!" Lance continued to push, never taking his eyes off her. He actually didn't know why he cared so much. If she really wanted to leave he doubted he would make a huge effort to stop her. But some deep rooted part of him knew that she didn't want to be alone. She simply felt she had to be alone.
"...can women be squires?" Laura finally asked, allowing her hand to fall away from the door.
"Squires? Hah! Wanna know a secret?" Lance said leaning in conspiratorially. Laura simply tilted her head towards him as if to urge him to continue.
"King Arthur? Woman." He faux whispered, enjoying the temporary break in Lauras mask as her eyes widened imperceptibly and her nostrils flared.
"Liar." She said immediately in response, dismissing him out of hand.
"Nope. Galahad? Woman." Lance continued, finding he was beginning to enjoy messing with this girl. When she wasn't in the throws of a berserker rage at least anyway. This must have been how Merlin felt with the Knights of the Round table. An incomprehensibly old being playing at humanity, deriving his fun from toying with his favourite people. Suddenly he could imagine every prank that had ever been pulled on him, only instead of him it was Laura desperately trying to figure out why 'she' had woke up a 'he'. Laura staring incomprehensible at a bright pink set of armor that no knight would be caught dead in.
The idea was so hilarious and nonsensical that it took him a full second of Laura's blank stare to realize the implications of his thoughts.
'Oh god I'm becoming Merlin.' Lance thought forlornly, even as a wide smile continued to spread across his face at Laura's growing discomfort.
Eventually though, the moment passed, and instead of actually answering his statement, she slid around him and back to the living room, her boots thumping against the floor with each step she took. When she stopped, it was in front of his battered couch, which she sat down in gingerly, as though she wasn't completely certain she was allowed to be there. When Lance made no move to stop her she descended completely, shifting about uncomfortably as though unused to relaxing in any way.
"Sooo..." Lance said, walking back into the living room with a pleasant smile on his face that twitched slightly whenever the errant thought of pranking the skittish girl entered his mind.
"I gotta go to work but uh... do you know-" He started, but paused when the house phone began to ring, causing both of them to wince slightly at the high pitched shrieking tone of the early 90's device.
"Hang on a sec. Hello?" Lance said, scooping the phone up from it's docking bay in front of the television.
"Uh... Lance? That you?" A gruff but hesitant voice came through the landline, slightly distorted by the poor quality of the phone Lance owned.
"Oh, hey boss I was just leaving for work now so-" Lance said.
"No! I mean, uh, you were on the news just a bit ago right? The supermarket thing?" His boss - a relatively friendly man who had been paying Lance under the table to work on his construction sight for a few months now - said cutting Lance off.
"Yeaaaah about that, I uh, might have super powers." Lance replied immediately and honestly. He had never been much for subterfuge, finding it extremely distasteful, and so he didn't even bother trying to hide anything from the man who had been putting food on his table for several months now.
"Oh but don't worry! I can still work! I just-" He continued but stalled when a gruff cough came across the phone.
"I'm really sorry Lance but, I don't think I can let you work here anymore." The older man said with a pained tone.
"Wha- Why!? I didn't do anything wrong!" Lance shouted indignantly. He could handle being fired - it wasn't as though he officially worked for the man after all - but being fired for no reason just rubbed him the wrong way.
"It's a conflict of interests! You spandex types create half the work in this town, if someone finds out you work for me I could start losing contracts!" His foreman answered firmly. Lance paused at that. He hadn't been in the modern age for very long, but he had to admit that even he could see why that might not look very good from an outsiders perspective. That didn't change the fact that this couldn't have occurred at a more inopportune time of course, but it was certainly a much better explanation than he was expecting.
Falling silent for a moment to process this new change in his living situation, Lance began to mentally sort through his finances. He had some money saved up. He had learned fairly quickly that budgeting was the key to not starving to death when you had a superhuman appetite. So he figured that if he was frugal and Laura wasn't a picky eater they could survive for... maybe another month. Less if he had to buy Laura clothes and toiletries, which he did because providing for your squire was a knights responsibility. Still, he had already decided to try to go 'pro' as it were using his powers so...
"Could... could I at least get my pay up to now?" He asked slowly, reaching one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Already mailed it off. Look no hard feelings or anything okay? I got a whole crew of guys to look after here." His foremen said apologetically. Strangely enough Lance really did believe him. He knew that there were a lot of less scrupulous people who would have taken advantage of his legally invisible status to push more and more work on him for less and less pay, but this man just didn't seem to have it in him to be truly malicious like that.
"Yeah. That's... Yeah. Have a good one boss." Lance said his mind already elsewhere.
"You too kid." Was his only response, followed by the sudden click of the receiver as he was hung up on. Lance slowly put his own phone down, staring at it like it might contain the secrets of the universe. It didn't obviously but it was better than looking up at Laura - who had no doubt heard the entire conversation if her blank stare and furrowed eyebrows were anything to go by.
"You need money?" She said plainly to which he could only nod sullenly.
"Yeah but it's not a problem." 'Not right now anyway' He said, thinking the rest to himself.
"I can get money." Laura offered, sitting up and sticking her chest out in what Lance thought was probably the most unsubtle way to imply what she meant by that statement.
"Wha- No! Jesus what would make you- Look I'm gonna figure it out okay?" Lance blurted out, heedless of Laura's slowly increasing frown.
"Then what should I do?" She asked pointedly, one of her hands opening and closing unconsciously in her lap.
Lance was taken aback by that. Objectively his plan was basically just to get Laura off the streets and into a school or something so she could get an education and be a normal girl. Of course, that was an objective he had crafted mostly while under the impression that she was just a slightly dangerous street urchin and not run away being hunted by an organization that Lance had no knowledge of... What did Arturia do when she had no idea how to proceed?
Ask Merlin? Well obviously that was out. The old man might still be around today - the possibility was definitely there -but Lance highly doubted it. There was no way the prankster would be able to avoid getting himself embroiled in all of this caped hero nonsense. It would simply be too much of a tug on his instincts.
Convene the round table? Equally impossible. He was pretty much positive that all of his former comrades had passed on from this world. The Battle of Camlann had not been kind to them.
Having mostly run out of ideas Lance simply stared at Laura, who was patiently awaiting his response. He would have probably considered said response for a lot longer still, except the girl started growling again.
"Clothes! You need clothes!" He blurted, leaning slightly away from his dark haired protege.
"...Why?" She asked, the growling noise she had been affecting abruptly stopping as she went completely still.
"Because you're wearing rags?" Lance asked, confused by the reluctance.
"They work." She retorted quickly, face still mostly blank except... was that...
"Are you... are you sulking right now?" Lance asked incredulously.
"I am not." She instantly replied.
"You are! Why-" Lance stopped when Laura began growling again. He made a mental note to try and break her of the habit. On the one hand, from his experience having an obvious and easy to recognize warning sign like that could be pretty helpful to any poor sucker who decided he wanted to court her. On the other hand, it was just a bit off putting.
"Ehem. Anyway. Tell you what - just go with it and I'll answer any questions you have about King Arthur and the other Knights." He offered, appealing to the one topic that the girl seemed to be genuinely interested in. Oh she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders - she certainly showed enough initiative breaking into his damn apartment - but she was also deeply utilitarian. That much was obvious from her clothes. Unbidden, memories of my own childhood came to mind.
"Lancelot! Cover yourself!" Arthur screeched as he emerged from the the nearby foliage. He had no idea why - Lady Vivian never wore clothes. They had always seemed like a waste of time to him. Not that he would say that. Arthur always got mad when he said stuff like that, and Merlin would always start asking him weird questions about Lady Vivians body.
"I am covered though..." he stated flatly. It was true too. Lady Vivian had found him this frock to wear a long time ago. He didn't like, it but she appeared to be correct in her assumption that humans wore clothes so...
"You are wearing rags that you found on a corpse in the forest." Arthur bit out indignantly.
"So?" He asked in confusion. Lady Vivian said it was ok so it was ok. It was just that simple.
"It's covered in holes! I can see through it! I demand you change at once!" Arthur barked, pointing at a pile of clothes neatly folded on the ground by the campfire. Clothes that had no doubt come from one of the bandits that had been plaguing them since leaving the forest.
How hypocritical.
"No." He said petulantly, turning away from Arthur to signal he was done with the conversation.
"Are you... are you pouting?" Arthur asked incredulously.
"...No." he answered quickly, his eyes darting over Arthur's shoulder to what he really wanted to get his hands on. The bandits weapons. He didn't leave Lady Vivian's side and his home by the lake for no reason. He had a goal. A goal that had been eating away at him from the minute he saw Arturia's peerless swordsmanship.
He was going to be a knight. The thought caused him to turn slightly so he could capture Arthurs visage in the corner of his eye. The boy was always dressed. Not once in their travels had Lancelot seen him strip to wash in the river, or even to sleep. Arthur basically lived in his armor.
Did... do Knights have to wear fancy clothes?
Lance smiled slightly, remembering the simpler times of his childhood while he watched Laura for a response. It was probably a good thing Arturia had come and whisked him away to be a knight. As much as he loved and revered Lady Vivian as a parent - she was one of the Fae. She wasn't human and she couldn't ever think like one. Thinking back on it, even her more tender interactions with him were no more than the ancient elemental of the lake apeing what it had seen other humans doing. He had no doubt that isolation with such an alien creature for his entire life would have produced a very different Lancelot. Still, Lady Vivian had loved him in her own way, and now it was left to him to pass on that blessing.
"So?" he prompted my face staying calm and placating. Laura's head tilted forward, and her long black hair spilled forward to cover most of her face. She glared at me with her one visible eye, giving off the appearance of a predator watching him from its cave. The stare was unblinking in it's focus, as though the girl were trying to discern Lance's true nature by sight alone.
"...Fine." The girl finally acquiesced, and Lance let loose a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.
"Great! Let's go then." He declared, standing to leave and then stopping with a frown on his face. Laura trailed behind him like a ghost, not bothering to question why he had stopped.
"Actually..." Lance said after a moment, then headed to his bedroom to get a hoodie and a baseball cap. With careful focus he pushed as much of his distinctive purple hair under the baseball cap as he could, then pulled up his hood with a smile. True he wanted to be noticed for his deeds, but that didn't mean he was going to be so stupid as to allow that to interfere with the training of his squire.
Also... he had seen the way people treated Spider-Man.
Laura watched him shuffle about preparing himself with a complete lack of interest in her face, a state of affairs that only changed when she followed him through the front door of his apartment and he began to speak.
"Where to start..." Lance mused, watching Laura out of the corner of his eye. Then he began to speak, his voice and tone changing from the conversational tone he was accustomed to in this modern age to one with gravitas. He tried with every fiber of his being to call upon his memories of Sir Kay, who hated listening to stories of others, but held surprising skill in the telling of such stories. Whether the stories Kay had told them all as children were true or not was irrelevant, because the man - for all his faults - made them truly believe in the tales he told.
"Shall I start with the exploits of Arthur herself? Or Perhaps of the Wizard Merlin who's machinations led her down the path to kinghood? What of Tristan's lament? Or Mordred's betrayal? Hear and be heard child - and you will know the Knights of the Round." He spoke as he moved, his voice deep and resonant. He realized that he sounded pretentious, but well... it was a pretty good story. And since he had been around for most of the really terrible parts, he was more than comfortable embellishing the good times.
So he and his charge marched out into the streets of the city, and with every word Lance spoke the girls eyes would widen a fraction. Her posture would relax a touch. Her expression would almost - almost - twitch into a smile.
It wasn't long before they made it to the second hand clothing store Lance frequented to procure most of his own wardrobe. It was a quaint, quiet little building, wedged between a grocery store and a furniture store. The owner of the store - who Lance was passingly familiar with - greeted them with a hesitant wave as they entered. The man shot Laura a curious look that quickly flicked away when Lance interposed himself between them. The change in focus wasn't because the proprietor felt threatened by Lance of course. No, word spread fast in communities like this, and the word was - Lance was a metahuman.
He could actually see the older (physically anyway) man watching him. There was a new fear in his eyes, a new worry. It was one that Lance was unfamiliar seeing. Because it wasn't the wide eyed awe a serf has of a knight that has come to their rescue. It was the worried look of a man who was unsure of whether or not he was going to be robbed.
"Go on ahead and pick out some clothes for yourself Laura." Lance said, waving her towards the racks of the clothing but himself choosing to remain near the entrance. She seemed completely oblivious to the shopkeepers obvious distress. Or maybe oblivious was not the word. In many ways Laura was nearly more perceptive than he himself was. So rather than saying she was oblivious it was more... disinterest. She had judged the man was no threat and then promptly put him out of mind. It was a terrifyingly efficient way to function, but it very much reminded Lance of his King - and not in a good way.
Arturia had been many things, but the one that stuck out the most - even to someone like Lance who had been raised by a being that wasn't even human - was her complete lack of humanity.
"The King must always be alone huh?" Lance mused, purposefully taking his eyes off the shopkeeper but making no move to head further into the store. He was confident that Laura would come back when she was ready, and he felt bad for the potbellied proprietor of the place. He didn't like it, but he was more than aware of the sheer number of superhumans in the city who went on thieving, murdering rampages within moments of finding their powers.
Lance spent several more minutes waiting in silence, never once stepping away from his position at the front of the store. He considered his options going forward. He would need to train Laura, if only enough to override the Berserker within her. Then he would need to get her into school which might be difficult given his complete lack of a legal identity. Actually... did Laura have any identification? He doubted it. And he didn't exactly have Merlin around to solve these kinds of problems for him anymore...
It was at about this time that Laura emerged from among the racks, having obviously been to a changing room and carrying a respectable pile of clothing with her that obscured her upper body. Lance nodded approvingly at her, withdrawing his wallet from his pocket but then faltered when she put the clothes down by the register and he actually got to look at her.
"Gurk!" Lance gurgled, making a strangled noise as he looked at her. She was wearing a black crop top that looked one size to small and jeans that looked like they were painted on. Lance fancied himself someone who believed in the freedom of women to do just about whatever the hell they wanted - but this was too much even for him. This... this was hardly better than just being naked.
Laura turned to look at him, her head tilting to one side in question as he paused and then her eyes narrowing when she caught him staring at her.
"Wh...why... these clothes specifically?" Lance asked hesitantly, his eye twitching as he turned to paw through the other clothes the girl had brought forward to purchase. He was unsurprised to find that they were almost all the same as what she was presently wearing - scandalously small.
"Easy to move in." was Laura's perfunctory answer. Her stance became closed, and her elbows shifted ever so slightly backwards to make it easier for her to shove those metal claws of hers into the first person to get within range of her.
"That's- I don't-" Lance paused to take a deep breath. Was he like this when they had pulled him out of the forest? Was this some kind of cosmic balancing of the scales, the universes way of punishing him for past transgressions by putting him through what Arthur once had to in order to get him ready for normal society?
"There's... your showing an awful lot of skin though...?" Lance tried desperately, raising his hands into the air placatingly. He ignored the amused snicker from the shopkeeper who was watching the entire ordeal unfold before him. Lance appreciated that the man was now more comfortable around them, or, at the very least, didn't suspect them of trying to rob him. But that didn't mean he liked being laughed at either.
"Armor is heavy. Inefficient. I heal, so exposed skin is a minimal risk." the girl rattled off, like she was making a report to a superior officer. Which, in a very technical sense, he was but...
"...Do... do you like them?" Lance asked hesitantly. Laura blinked once languidly, then looked down at the black shirt she was wearing, which read in giant blood spattered lettering; Megadeath. She poked at the words once as though considering the question, then looked back up at him, nodding once.
"Then that's what we'll get then..." Lance said, finally acquiescing. What he didn't say aloud was the fact that he planned on coming back later to buy her some baggier god damn clothes. He was sure if he couched it right he could get her to wear it. As long as it was useful to her Laura should have no problem with it...
Interlude: Laura
Quickly handing over the tags for the clothes she was already wearing, Laura watched Lance count out the cash required to pay for all of her clothes with an impassive expression on her face. She was surprised at the ease with which she had gotten her way. She wasn't stupid. She was perfectly aware of the reason Lance was uncomfortable with her present garb. But she had wanted to see what he would do when he disagreed with her. Would he punish her? Yell? Hurt her? So far the answer to all of those questions was a resounding 'maybe'. It could be that Lance had truly given up on arguing with her - which would be a mark in his favor. It could also be that Lance would remain neutral on the topic until they had returned to his home, where he would then put her in her place.
She had to resist the urge to snort in derision. Every iota of the espionage training she had been put through told her that Lance was what her old trainers would call 'An Easy Mark'. He was unbearably nice. Idly, she put a thought towards the offer for protection one of the local pimps had extended towards her. She had, until just recently, been considering accepting that offer. She was under no illusion as to what she would be doing in exchange for such protection, but as Lance had probably just learned, the amount of value Laura placed on her body and its sanctity was nearly non existent.
"Ready to go Laura?" Lance said, lifting the two shopping bags of clothing and turning to face her with a strained smile on his face. She nodded once at him, seeing no reason to say anything more. It was still... strange. Lance phrased everything as a request, instead of an order. It was a terrible way to make someone do something. What would happen if she just said no? Would he wait? Leave without her? Command her to follow?
Was this what paranoia was? How was she supposed to function like this? She wished he would just tell her what to do and leave it at that instead of treating her like a person. She understood objectively that she was in fact a person, and further grasped that deep in her heart living a normal life with a loving parent was all she actually wanted out of the crap sack that was her existence.
But that didn't change the fact that she had to be wary. It wasn't like this was the first time someone had helped her. It was just the first time someone had helped her and then not immediately tried to get recompense for it. Then again it had only been two days. She... wanted... to trust Lance. But in the back of her head the memory remained. A memory of red glowing eyes, and a haunting animalistic voice.
'We. Are. lanceLoT.'
She tried very hard not to shudder at the thought as they walked up the street. Clearly though, she had failed, because the older man ahead of her stopped and turned a disapproving gaze on her for a second before stripping off the hoodie he had been wearing and throwing it at her.
"I just knew you were going to get cold wearing that." He grumbled, waiting patiently for her to put the sweater on. She merely blinked in surprise at the thing. She had no idea how someone who she knew to be every bit the monster she was could also be the kind of man who would take the shirt off his own back to keep a stranger warm.
But of course, that was the whole reason she had followed him home wasn't it?
She quickly pulled the hoodie over her head, ignoring the way that it came down to her mid thigh, hindering her movement slightly. It smelled of cheap soap and perspiration, with just the slightest tang of concrete hidden beneath the other scents. It wasn't a pleasant smell all things considered, not to enhanced senses like hers, but it was... oddly comforting.
Seeing her once more ready to proceed Lance rolled his eyes at her, and then continued his stride back towards his home. Laura's gaze remained trained on his back the entire way there.
Lance opened the door to his apartment and immediately knew that something was wrong. First and foremost, the dead bodies were gone - which was good, but not, overall, a sign of good things to come. Second, there was a man sitting in his living with his feet up on the table. Again, not the end of the world... except he was still wearing his boots. His grimy, dirt covered boots. On his table. That he ate from. And third...
The ringing sound of metal claws extending behind caused Lance to wince as he mentally drew upon his Prana to enhance his body and clad himself in his armor. With practiced ease he dropped the bags of clothing to either side of him and stepped forward into his living room.
"Wait here." he hissed at Laura, who merely eyed him suspiciously before settling into a crouch with her claws still extended. Lance really didn't want to get into a fight right now. For one thing, he was pretty sure the first scent of blood in the air would send Laura into a frenzy, one that he would have to deal with if he wanted to have any hope of stopping her from killing everyone on this floor of the apartment. For another, he didn't actually know who this person was. For all he knew the man sitting in his living room could kill them both with an errant thought. He doubted that was the case obviously, but stranger things had happened.
"I'll thank you to remove your filthy feet from my table knave." He declared calmly, sensing the silent return of his Saber, his Berserker, and to his great chagrin, Eddie. It had been sort of nice not having a war council constantly running in his head all day. He added figuring out what had silenced them in the first place to his list of things to do, and then turned his attention back to the figure sitting in his living room. He was a balding black man wearing a black turtleneck sweater beneath a black long coat and black slacks. It would have worked well as night camouflage if it wasn't the middle of the afternoon. As it was, coupled with the single eyepatch covering his left eye, it just seemed so very, very pretentious.
"Oh, my apologies. I just wanted to put my feet up after cleaning the mess I found when I got here." The man said with a smirk as his feet dropped to the ground and he turn to regard Lancelot in full.
"And I thank you for their disposal." Lancelot said neutrally, eyeing his new guest expectantly. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, each man trying to assert dominance over the other, until the one eyed man gave up, rolling his singular eye with a chuckle.
"You're a very hard man to find Lancelot. No citizenship, no health card, no legal income. Tell me, what were a bunch of paramilitary goons doing in your living room - and why shouldn't I arrest you for killing them?" He said, a shark like smile spreading across his face.
"Sir. It is 'Sir Lancelot'. And those foolish men invaded my home with the intent to steal away my young charge. I should think seeing to the defense of ones own is something any true man can sympathize with." Lancelot pointed out, summoning Arondight into existence and planting it into the ground tip first just to drive home his point. Obviously he knew that just killing anyone who broke into your home was still murder, just like he knew that he hadn't actually killed any of those men - but the man before him was clearly trying to use their deaths as leverage of some kind. Which meant that the truth meant far less than Lancelot would like.
'So we're not using contractions anymore when the armor is on I see.' Saber pointed out drolly.
'Shut up.' Lance groused.
"...Well 'Sir' Lancelot. My name is Nick Fury, Director of Shield. And I have a proposition for you." The man said narrowing his gaze on the sword in Lancelot's hand and tapping his finger twice fast against the seemingly naked wrist of his other hand.
Lancelot of course, knew better than to trust the sudden motion, mostly because the second the man made it his enhanced hearing allowed him to detect the sound of people rappelling down from his roof.
"If those men break my window I will kill you." Lancelot said flatly. He wasn't sure he actually meant it, but he was definitely beginning to become annoyed with people breaking into his apartment. It had happened three times in as many days now and the last thing he needed was to pay to have the glass fixed.
Nick Fury - dumb name in Lancelot's opinion - looked momentarily surprised by the declaration, but quickly reclaimed his balance grunting once and tapping his fingers in a different pattern on his wrist. The men Lancelot could hear approaching still came... but when they came into sight just outside his window they stopped, hanging in silent vigil just outside of his apartment.
"See? We're all friends here. So, as a friend, I'd like if you could tell me something." Nick Fury said, reaching into his coat and withdrawing several blurry photos. He dropped them on the table to his side, watching Lance all the while for some sign of recognition. Lancelot's eyes widened slightly at the sight before him, because blurry though the pictures may be, they very clearly displayed him. Well... they didn't clearly display him. They displayed an indistinct shape mid stride as it tore through goblin masked goons at the FEAST center. Lancelot blessed the stars above for his Noble Phantasm For Someone's Glory, because he was certain that without it this conversation would go very differently. As it was he couldn't see a reason why this Nick Fury would be showing him this. Unless...
Lancelot's gaze flicked back up to Nick, who's face was twisted once more into that smug grin, and he felt a cold dread in the pit of his stomach.
"See, this thing also claims to be Lancelot. I'd say it's mighty coincidental, but I don't believe in coincidences." Nick said pointedly.
And suddenly, Lancelot felt that he had a whole lot lying to do if he wanted to get out of this without killing everyone present.
-ooo-
What up. So as much as it seems like Laura trusts Lance now I want to illustrate the fact that she's a trained spy and is mostly just going along with Lance because she has basically 0 sense of self preservation. Keep in mind that in the original Nyx storyline she basically gave herself up to a Pimp who didn't even know or ask her name simply because the guy told her to. She was that dead inside. Calling the earliest iteration of x-23 a mostly unthinking doll would not be a completely inaccurate summation of the character. She's still a totally sensible human teenager under all the trauma and shit, but having just come from murdering her way out of a lab where she was basically forced to kill her own mother she's obviously got alot of issues to work out. As a point of fact I'm also snipping out some parts of X-23's timeline in that she hasn't ever been to the X-mansion or met wolverine yet.
Not much else to say but that. In a lot of respects A fully incarnated Servant like Lancelot is pretty far beyond what most of the characters in the Marvel universe could reasonably handle, but their are a fair number of guys who could probably kick the shit out of Lancelot. It's just, Lancelot is unlikely to ever meet those people if he's not a part of one or another super team. I haven't actually decided where he'll end up, so don't assume he's going to be an Avenger just because he's talking to Nick Fury. X-23 is wanted by Shield after all.
Oh and as always.
Thanks for reading.