Phoning it in 7

"Everything's clear on the cameras," Eric reported as he and Bebe returned, wearing security guard outfits complete with weapons and radios, that they'd found in the security office. They were a little large on the pair, but the additional holsters for their personal weapons helped them fit.

"Dude, pizza!" Bebe said happily.

Leo held out a hand and concentrated on a grey mist forming above his hand that quickly turned into another pizza that he handed to her. "Meat lovers," he said with a grin as he showed off his new talent, "extra spicy."

"I thought it was going to take months for you to learn that," Eric said as Bebe mumbled her thanks through a slice of pizza and slapped away his questing hand.

"I figured out a way to cheat," I told him. "I can get you all squared away by the end of the week."

"That is so cool," Bebe said, as she came up for air and Leo summoned a pizza for Eric.

"Ahem," the curvy blonde in the tiny bikini tried to get their attention.

"Hey, Kenny," the pair chorused easily.

"What? How?!" Kenny demanded, upset they weren't surprised.

"How what?" Eric asked innocently.

"I think he did something different with his hair," Bebe staged whispers to him.

"It looks good on you, Dude," Eric tells Kenny.

"You saw us on the cameras," Kenny realizes, shaking his head.

"Yep," the pair reply with a grin as everyone laughs.

"We've got stupid amount of purses and jewelry," Shelly announces as she arrives, pushing a laundry cart filled with everything they'd collected.

"There is jewelry everywhere," Karen agrees decked out with enough gold and jewels to make an LA rapper jealous.

"It took longer to find the carts than it did to fill them," Jimmy agrees pushing a second cart.

"Any radios?" Eric asked.

"A dozen of them, but the batteries are dead," Shelly replies, brushing her hair out of her face.

"There are charging stations for them in the security office," Eric points out, "We can run them over there while you guys eat."

"Here," Jimmy says pulling a backpack out of his cart. "I stuffed all the security stuff we found in here."

"Excellent," Eric said. "Bebe, care to help me?"

Bebe turned to Leo a questioning look on her face.

"Go ahead, just keep a weapon handy," Leo tells the pair.

Bebe and Eric grab some sodas and their pizzas. "Call us if you need us," Eric says handing his radio to Leo. "Bebe's is charged."

"Soon as Craig and Red return, we'll head up to the penthouse," Leo tells everyone while Kenny summons more food, taking her time and looking a little winded from her efforts.

"Do we really need to keep carrying weapons?" Shelly asks suddenly, locking eyes with Leo.

"Not at all," Leo says pleasantly, completely unfazed by her behavior. "Here, hand me yours."

Shelly passes him her pulse rifle and a brace of grenades, but she starts moving slower as she removes her belt holster for her .45. Her eyes dart around and her grip on it tightens. "I... you made your point, sir," she says, quickly putting her holster back on her belt and accepting her weapons back, her shoulders slumping. "I won't challenge you on this."

"Now Shelly," he says kindly, "don't go getting the wrong idea. I wasn't making a point and there's nothing wrong with challenging me if you think you know better."

"Looked that way," Jimmy points out, quick to back up Shelly.

Leo sighs. "Any commands you want to give you have to be willing to follow yourself. I didn't know that you'd feel naked without any weapons."

"But you suspected it," Jimmy said.

"Yeah, but Shelly's also the one that could probably put them aside the quickest," Leo points out. "So if she could, maybe some of the rest of us could too."

Shelly sighs. "Every time I think you're doing something unnecessarily warlike and aggressive, you pull something like this and I realize I'm the one being confrontational."

"Yeah, but I get you Shelly," Leo tells her gently. "All you've ever wanted is for things to go well for everyone. You want it all quiet and peaceful, orderly even."

"Yeah," she agrees softly.

"But war ain't orderly," he says with a shrug, "and I am the very Son of Chaos when I feel the need to be," he says intently.

That line should have sounded a lot cheesier than it did. I mean, I am literally the Son of Chaos and I probably couldn't pull off that line.

Shelly nodded, eyes locked on his as she licks her lips.

The group begins to leave, pulling me and Murphy along with them.

"Is there a reason we are leaving those two alone?" I ask.

"You'll understand when you're older," Stan tells me.

"Should have grabbed a pizza on the way out," Karen says, picking up another gold necklace off the floor and putting it on, almost overbalancing and falling over.

"Let's hit the blackjack table," Kenny says. "I'll summon up some more food and we can play cards."

"I doubt they'll take that long," I say, realizing what was going on.

"You'd be surprised," Jimmy says with a sigh.

They leave the carts in the aisle and take seats around the black jack table, brushing red sand off the stools.

"Chinese food," Kenny says, as she takes the dealer's spot and slowly summons a number of small food containers one at a time.

"Pretty sure this one's in Russian," Jimmy says as the little red wagon squeaks up to the table, telekinetically pulled by a number of astral fish. Apparently he didn't feel like sticking around to watch the pair either.

"Are they always like that?" I ask, as I start making a mental list of things I need to make and considering what kind of training I should give the kids in the use of my powers.

"No, it's like some switch flips in their heads," Wendy explained. "Most of the time, Shelly takes care of the injured and keeps camp, leaving Leo to take care of everything else, but at least once a week Shelly challenges him and he proves he knows better than her."

"And then the pair go at it," Stan says with a shrug.

"Usually we'd have someone keep watch while they were distracted, but I believe we can skip it this time," Wendy says.

"Most of the time they aren't even interested in each other," Jimmy says, shaking his head.

I'm not getting involved in the drama of teenage love lives I decide and quickly change the subject, "How do you guys feel about learning psychic abilities?"

"How many powers do you have?!" Kenny demands cutely.

"Lots," I reply cheerfully. "Being of Amber and the Courts gives me a large amount to start and an easy way to get more."

"That walking thing," Stan guesses.

"I can't teach you that, but I can teach you how to talk to each other mentally and how to teleport to one another," I offer.

"I... I think I need this explained from the top," Wendy says slowly and the others nod.

I grin. "OK, everyone has used the morphing cube which allows them to become a perfect copy of anything they touch that has DNA. Copying my DNA gives you the very basic abilities of my people."

"Your people are stupidly overpowered," Kenny says.

"Very much so," I agree cheerfully. "If you were writing a character sheet for one of my people in D&D, all the stats would start out at nineteen."

"Kinda weak and squishy," Murphy says.

I ignore that as I've seen how destructive Murphy can be and the depth of his tracks in the sand says he's incredibly dense physically, so I probably am squishy in comparison.

"We are natural shape shifters, have incredibly long life spans, and a great deal of psionic and magical potential," I finish.

"Is the Shadow stuff psionic or magical?" Kenny asks, as she holds out a hand and summons a small squid that she immediately drops on the table with a frown and wipes her hand on her chest.

"No idea," I reply cheerfully. "It's probably a third thing. I can cheat and teach you shadow shifting to summon small items, but I have no intention of going anywhere near the Courts or Amber, so you guys will never learn shadow walking. Sorry, but they'd kill us all for having royal blood and not actually being related."

"We're royalty?" Kenny asks.

"Princes of the universe," I agree, wondering if I should stop in a Highlander Universe to steal Ramirez's sword at some point.

"Can you teach us magic?" Karen asks excitedly.

"Nope, that takes decades," I tell her. She pouts, but the fact that she is wearing half her body weight in gold and jewels robs it of all effect. "What I am going to do is make each of you a set of trumps, which are sort of magical playing cards that make it easy to contact each other mentally."

"Summon a bowl of water," Stan tells Kenny as the small squid flops around on the table, suffocating in the air.

Kenny manages to summon a respectable sized aquarium that she drops the squid in. "The whole shadow shifting thing rocks, though it's a little tiring." She wipes sweat off her brow.

"It gets easier with practice," I tell her.

"Plenty of food in the kitchens," Red announces as she and Craig show up.

"Yeah, though I'd avoid the buffets, they look like the heat lamps have mummified them," Craig says.

"Then why did you grab those nuggets?" Red asks.

"It's like chicken jerky," Craig says, "I like 'em."

She shakes her head. "Where is everyone?"

"Not even going to ask about Cookie Monster and the blonde?" Wendy teases.

"Probably Murphy, though it could be the fish," she admits. "And that's definitely Kenny."

Kenny just stares at her.

"I know what your ideal woman looks like and I know your eyes," Red tells her.

"I'd totally do you, but I hear I'm gay," Craig deadpans, before eating another mummified chicken nugget.

Kenny grins and summons a banana split, setting it in front of Craig.

"Then again you do have an ass almost as sweet as Leo's," Craig says with a huge smile as he accepts a spoon.

"Sorry, I'm gay," Kenny says cheerfully.

Craig pauses to think about that, a confused look on his face.

"Kenny, stop playing with his head," Wendy orders.

Kenny giggles.

"Shelly challenge Leo?" Red guesses.

"And Eric and Bebe are recharging radios in the security office," Wendy agrees.

"They gave us the all clear," Stan explains.

"Figured that when I didn't see anyone on guard," Red replies.

It's blindingly obvious that these kids need some serious mental help, of course considering what they had been through that really wasn't a surprise. I figure a nice long vacation to relax and unwind would be best before I take them to 'The People'. I'd really like to avoid them shooting anyone, or stabbing them for that matter.

It'd be nice if 'The People' had another name for themselves I could use, as every group calls themselves that in their native language and people generally just use the local language version of it as a new term in their own language to distinguish them. Unfortunately with telepaths you don't get a spoken version you can use, so you can't even do that.

Meh, that's thoughts for later, for now I needed to train these kids in the very basic of mental arts. That should help with their mental stability now and possibly their therapy later.

"So he's... a lesbian?" Craig guesses.

"Just eat your Sunday," Red tells him kindly.

Typing by: Abyssal Angel