Growing Worries
Tawny
We ended up hiking towards a mountain. The fog was thick around us, and a strange call was blowing in the wind.
I was trying not to be nervous. It didn't help when Train thought he saw Saya in the canyon we were maneuvering in and started running after her.
I scampered to keep up. He ended up passing out in front of a girl's doorstep. She and I got him inside her house.
I stayed awake until Train woke up. I just didn't feel that comfortable.
The girl finally introduced herself as Saki. Train and I both introduced ourselves.
In the morning, Train nearly got killed about three times by random traps near her house.
"Sheesh!" I protested. "Even I don't worry that much about people coming to find me!"
She just laughed.
Train had a hard time keeping from staring at Saki. "What's up?" I asked while she gave us a tour.
"It's nothing."
"We're partners, Train. You can tell me."
He was quiet for a minute. Then he answered me in a low voice. "She looks almost exactly like Saya."
"Oh."
Oh. How can I compete with a memory come to life?
He ended up with fruit juice all over his head and shirt, so she let him borrow one of hers. Later, we heard her singing.
He asked where her song was from. She didn't know, but said she should look it up in the library.
I was still feeling a tad depressed. Here was a girl who looked like his old girlfriend, and evidently had a lot of the same habits and likings. What did I have?
That night, she told us about having powers to see into the future.
And the next morning, not only was Train's shirt still wet on the line, but the surroundings were a mess!
Saki seemed…suspicious to me. Not that she was suspicious: I was suspicious of her. She seemed to be hiding something from us.
But how was I supposed to tell Train?
She wanted us to leave. He decided to leave once his clothes were dry.
Later, I went to talk to him. "Some people just don't think they need help. You can't save everyone."
After she dropped off some tea for the two of us, she went out. Later, we heard gunshots.
"Stupid girl," Train remarked to the air, "there's way too many of them for her to take on by herself."
He went out to help, and I stayed put. I just stayed there, not really willing to chase after him.
When he came back, he brought me back to the others.
Where he abruptly got punched in the face by Sven. That seems to happen a lot.
Then Train joked, "How about we have a race? Man versus machine!" and took off.
I ran after him laughing. "Hey, can I be on your team?"
A couple days later – a day I was wearing my lucky costume – we and a bunch of sweepers got together. Some cute guy gave us a pep talk about a battle we were going into.
Then Train walked over to the guy and fired his gun.
Boy, he sure knows how to call it: the guy was a Chronos number and deflected the bullet!
I seem to disregard words a lot. But the end result was, the sweepers decided not to work for the Chronos guy.
And…then…did they change their minds? I hate trying to watch political changes.
Nope. River told us while we were trying to find a boat that the group had disbanded. Well, we found a boat; the fisherman just walked away from it, leaving us with a little girl who wanted to get to the island Kraken.
Then the girl asked, "Can you sail a boat?"
That was met with silence.
While they thought about that, I ran to find Train. I found him talking to that Number with the impossible name.
The kid suddenly called himself a fan of Train's and started trying to talk him back into Chronos!
While Train calmly told the kid off, he absently set his hand on my shoulder. I didn't move; I was wearing a cat costume, after all, and wasn't overly worried about his invading my personal space.
The two of them almost started fighting, but then we suddenly ended up all back-to-back surrounded by monsters!
We ran about the burning city, blasting and hitting every monster that got in our way. A random sweeper saved the kid from getting attacked from behind.
"Now do you get it?" Train asked.
"What do you mean? Now do I get what?"
"Sweepers. We're not so bad after all!"
Train, bad time to make a joke. Or are you not joking?
"The only thing I get now is that sweepers are fools. You aren't being paid for this. You're fighting for strangers!"
Train ran past him, with me running past the kid's other side. So I heard Train's reply: "Aren't you one of those fools yourself?"
I stalled back just enough to hear if the kid said anything.
Well, he did: "Well yes, perhaps I am."
So I suppose there came to be an understanding of people right there.
By morning, I was wearing my black uniform and we were all standing there looking at the kid and his boat. All of us sweepers who would have been there before had come back, willing to be possibly used as a decoy.
River got asked by that little girl from yesterday to try to save her parents. After what had to be a hard moment for him, he basically said okay and took one shell from the kid's treasure stash as payment.
We set off on the boat to the little girl's good-luck wish.
I settled back. "It's a nice life, being a sweeper, isn't it, Train?"
Then some woman tried to shoot Train and he redirected her gun! It was an apostle with a message - "Whoever tries to hurt Creed will die" - and a bomb!
A/N: Episodes 17-18 take credit.
